campaign on its Information Technology Steering Committee, and later served on the Bush Presidential Transition Team in 2001. Pressler attempted a political comeback in 2002 by running for South Dakota's open at-large House seat but he essentially discontinued his campaign when Republican governor Bill Janklow unexpectedly entered the race. Pressler was appointed an official observer of Ukraine's national election in December 2004. On November 10, 2009, President Obama named Pressler to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. He also serves on the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission. In October 2012, based on veterans' issues, Pressler endorsed Obama for a second term with an article in The Huffington Post and on national television networks. Pressler campaigned in a bipartisan team for Obama in the fall of 2012, speaking on behalf of the Obama ticket to certain veteran's groups in Virginia. He taught as a distinguished visiting professor at Sciences Po University, Paris, France, and Reims, France, in the fall of 2012. He chiefly teaches international relations to graduate students. In 2013, Pressler was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case. During the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections he endorsed and voted for Barack Obama. Pressler endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Pressler continued his public lectures including a speech at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland, on June 4, 2018, for the 2018 International Security Forum. 2014 U.S. Senate election The Native American Times reported in November 2013 that Pressler, at the age of 71, was weighing an independent comeback bid for the seat vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Tim Johnson in the 2014 election. After being approached by a group of citizens asking him to run, Pressler assessed his chances of victory by saying, "I think it's possible but unlikely." At the conclusion of an exploratory tour of South Dakota's 66 counties in late 2013, however, Pressler announced his candidacy and stated confidently, "I intend to win." Pressler faced Republican former Governor Mike Rounds, Democratic congressional aide Rick Weiland, and independent conservative state legislator Gordon Howie in a four-way race. Shortly before announcing his intention to run for office, Pressler explained his becoming an independent: "I don't think I've moved, I think the party has moved. I feel