Grover Rees, III

Grover Joseph Rees, III​
United States Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of East Timor​
In office December 2002​ – 2006​
Preceded by	Shari Villarosa​
Succeeded by	W. Gary Gray​
Born	October 11, 1951​ New Orleans, Louisiana​ Reared in Breaux Bridge in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana Resident of Lafayette, Louisiana
Nationality	American​
Political party	Republican ​
Spouse(s)	(1) Divorced ​ (2) Landai Nguyen Rees​
Children	From first marriage Grover J. Reese, IV
Alma mater	Yale University Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert School of Law​
Occupation	Attorney; Diplomat Lawprofessor​
Religion	Roman Catholic

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​ Grover Joseph Rees, III (born October 11, 1951), an attorney from Lafayette, Louisiana, who from 2002 to 2006 was the United States Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, known as Eat Timor. He presented his credentials to East Timorese President Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão in December 2002, following his nomination by then U.S. President George W. Bush and confirmation the previous month by the United States Senate.

East Timor declared its independence from Portugal in 1975. It is located north of Australia, the two countries separated by the Timor Sea.

==Background==​ ​ Rees was born in New Orleans, the first of twelve children to a Roman Catholic couple, Grover Joseph Rees, II (1927-2008), and the former Patricia Byrne (1927-2018). His father was in the military; so the family traveled around a great deal. His paternal grandparents, Grover Rees, I (1891-1994), and the former Consuelo Broussard (1889-2003, both of whom lived past the age of one hundred, made their home in Breaux Bridge in St. Martin Parish, and Rees spent many of his summers there. In 1976, the senior Rees, a graduate of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and the Harvard Law Center, penned A Narrative History of Breaux Bridge, Once Called 'La Pointe.' ​ Rees, III, obtained his undergraduate degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, at which he served in the Yale Political Union. In 1978, Reese graduated from LSU's Paul M. Hebert Law School, at which he was a member of the academic honor society Order of the Coif. From 1978 to 1979, he was a law clerk to then-Associate Justice Albert Tate, Jr., of the Louisiana Supreme Court. He speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Samoan.​ ​ ==Defending human rights==​ ​ Rees was Chief Justice of the High Court of American Samoa from 1986 to 1991, having served under appointment of both Presidents Ronald W. Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush.

He is also a former legislative aide to Representative Christopher H. Smith, a Republican from Trenton, New Jersey, and a leader of anti-abortion forces in the United States House of Representatives. Rees shares Smith's anti-abortion position.​

​ Rees furthermore is a strong defender of human rights in foreign policy. From 1995 to 2001, he was the staff director and chief counsel of the U.S. House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights.​ American Samoa, where Rees was stationed for five years, became a landmark case in the United States' prosecution of human trafficking—the international practice of forcing people into servitude, slavery, peonage, child labor, or the sex industry.​ In that role, Rees warned that anyone who exploits workers would face legal consequences in the United States. "If you're going to traffic women and men to slave-like situations, you better not do it in a place under the American flag," he said. As a congressional aide, Rees helped to draft the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.​ ​ He was general counsel to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, then part of the United States Department of Justice, from 1991 to 1993, in the administration of the first President Bush. He stayed at the INS briefly after the Democrat Bill Clinton assumed the presidency, but when Clinton "turned back a boatload of Chinese refugees in California and sent them back to China, the president had Joseph's resignation on his desk the next day," said his mother, Patricia Rees, who added that "Joseph has always been passionate about standing up for the rights of oppressed peoples.​

==The Elián González affair==​ ​ His view of human rights led Rees to support a full hearing to determine whether Elián González (born 1993) should remain with relatives in Miami, Florida, or be returned to communist Cuba. Rees decried the pre-dawn raid that resulted in Elián's capture by INS agents. The whole case was, he said, a triumph for Cuban President Fidel Castro. "Castro has actually been able to turn the Elián issue to his advantage across a broad field of ways." When asked why the nominally Republican Congress did not rise up against the seizure of Elián, presumably against the boy's wishes, to communist governance, Reese cited public opinion polls: "Had the polls suggested that 70 or 80 percent of the people were appalled by the pre-dawn raid in Miami, you would have seen a different reaction in Congress."​In that the ERA was not added to the Constitution, the United States Supreme Court never ruled on the constitutionality of the extension. often insert their personal legal and political views in the decisions.​

In another law article, Rees argued for traditional constitutional law, rather than judge-made law in which the jurists insert their personal legal and political views into their decisions. ​ Rees was a special counsel to then Attorney General Edwin Meese, III, in 1986. He worked on judicial appointments. He attempted to find conservative judges who would overturn the liberal legacies of the Earl Warren and the Warren E. Burger courts but would do so without their own "activist" agenda. Rees was quoted in a column by the late Joseph Sobran as "bristling" at the use of the word "activist."​ ​ As he was finishing law school, Rees published a short campaign biography of then U.S. Representative David C. Treen, a fellow Republican who was then seeking the Louisiana governorship for a second time. In 1979, Treen was elected Louisiana's first Republican governor since Reconstruction: he served from 1980 to 1984 during the interregnum of Democrat Edwin Edwards. Rees titled his book Dave Treen of Louisiana. Treen had also been Louisiana's first Republican congressman (1973–1980) of the 20th century. Rees was a press assistant to Treen in 1973 and a member of the Young Republicans while he was in college.

In 2016, Reese ran for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district seat in the U.S. House and signed a written commitment to oppose federal tax hikes. He polled only 1 percent of the primary vote. Victory in a runoff went to fellow Republican Clay Higgins, who defeated his remaining rival, Moderate Republican Scott A. Angelle, an unsuccessful gubernatorial the previous year.

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