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Emily Procter as associate White House counsel Ainsley Hayes -- NBC Photo: Warner Bros.
Position: Associate White House Counsel
Played By: Emily Procter
Query: Why doesn't this character appear more often or why hasn't the character appeared recently (whenever).

Most Frequently Asked Question:
     What has happened to Ainsley Hayes?
She was a recurring character during the second and third seasons of the show (only appearing when Sorkin or other writers put her into their scripts). But during the fourth season, Emily Procter will be doing "CSI, Miami" so it isn't likely Ainsley will appear much (if at all) on "West Wing":.

Family:
Father: A Republican. She was seen calling him. [#28]
Grandfather: Was state Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party
Mother: She doesn't mention her mother even in her list of Republicans in her family.

Religion: Episcopalian (indicated when someone says to her "you people" meaning Republicans and she, knowing what he meant, answers "if you mean Episcopalians...." (This was sent to us by Kenneth Taylor)

Education: Undergraduate degree from Smith College (known as a liberal, feminist campus where Ainsley's conservative Republican views got her into enough conflicts that she claims she was "hated") and Harvard Law School [#28]

Background:
Work History: Clerked for Supreme Court Justice Dreifort. Wrote columns against the Bartlet Administration
Where From: North Carolina [#28]

Personality Traits: When she is nervous, she uses an unusual speech pattern. Her memory is extraordinary!

Food: She likes muffins and Fresca (and drinks ginger ale when she can't get Fresca).

Musical Instruments Played: Trombone

What She Says About Herself:
  • "I have always been a Republican. My father is a Republican. His father was state chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party. . . . When I was young, I was a Young Republican." [#26]
  • "Mr. McGarry, I loathe almost everything you believe in. . . . . I'm standing up which is how one speaks in opposition in a civilized world. . . . I find this administration smug and patronizing and under the impression that those who disagree with them are less than they are and with colder hearts." [#26]

What Others Say About Her:
  • She was Associate White House Counsel, got promoted to Deputy Counsel, and she's just slightly to the right of the Kaiser. --- Sam [#60]
    •

What she says about the Bartlet Administration:
  • "This White House that feels that government is better for children than parents are. That looks at 40 years of degrading and humiliating free lunches handed out in a spectacularly failed effort to level the playing field and says let's try 40 more. This White House that says of anyone that points that out to them that they are cold and mean and racists and then accuses the Republicans of using the politics of fear. This White House that loves the Bill of Rights, all of them, except the second one." [#26]
  • "You don't like people who do like guns. You don't like the people. Think about that the next time you make a joke about the South." [#26]

Additional Information:
  • "C.J. Cregg thinks you kill your pets. You don't do that do you?"
    "No, I don't kill my pets, I don't have any pets. I was thinking about getting a pet, but that doesn't matter. . . ." [#26]
  • "Ainsley, don't you want to work in the White House?"
    "Oh, only since I was two."
    "Okay then."
    "It has to be this White House?" [#26]

Note: NBC had Ms. Procter's name spelled "Proctor" but Kathy A. Cissna, who knows Ms. Procter's cousin, had us check the screen credits and it is spelled with an "e" and not an "o" before the final "r".

For more information on this fascinating character see:

Oh and as for the future, we probably won't be seeing too much of Ainsley on "The West Wing" from now on as on Feb 25, 2002 The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that "Emily Procter is the first cast member to come aboard the CBS spinoff of Jerry Bruckheimer's hit forensic drama 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'."

28 Amendment
Don't miss Neal Rechtman's election thriller The 28th Amendment in which an actor
who portrays a fictional US President on television gets drawn into real-world politics
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