"Unplugged, Under 40": Mike Lee's Path to the Senate

Utah's junior Senator Mike Lee knew the wheels in Washington turned slow, but this slow?

"I've been in office for over a month and still don't have a permanent office," Lee, 39, tells CBS News in a "Unplugged Under 40" interview.

Lee's current workspace on the top floor of the Dirksen Senate Building may not be permanent -- he'll have to wait until April for that -- but it is operational and the décor is clearly inspired - jelly beans on the front counter are the first giveaway. A conference room covered in framed black and white photos of the Ronald Reagan, in Utah of course, is the second.

To Lee, Ronald Reagan isn't just the godfather of the Republican party, he was his father's boss. Rex Lee was Reagan's Solicitor General. A young Mike Lee first began his life-long study of the Constitution as he watched his father argue before the U.S. Supreme Court. The workday's arguments before the court often ended up at the Lee dinner table.

"I think I was about 30 before I realized that not every family talks about the presentment clause on a regular basis," Lee jokes.

Lee's fascination with the Constitution carried on beyond the family dinner table - on to law school and full circle to the U.S. Supreme Court as a clerk for Justice Alito.

He is an uncompromising constitutional conservative and proud of it. This ideology lined-up quite well with the Tea Party movement that just happened to gain momentum as Lee decided to leave his private law practice and run for public office.

"My political views have since I was a kid someway or another reflected the concerns of Tea Party movement," Lee explains. "The Tea Party movement as I perceive it is all about recognizing the difference between state and federal powers. And that there are limits to federal power that need to be respected."

With those guiding principles, Lee has not wasted any time in Washington. He has proposed a deep cutting balanced budget amendment, threatened to filibuster any attempt to increase the national debt and he continues to sing the Tea Party's battle cry on television, in radio interviews and on the floor of the Senate.