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Christine Todd Whitman

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Christine Todd Whitman
File:Christinetoddwhitman.jpg
50th Governor of New Jersey
In office
January 18, 1994 – January 31, 2001
Preceded byJames J. Florio
Succeeded byDonald DiFrancesco
Personal details
Born (1946-09-26) September 26, 1946 (age 78)
Political partyRepublican
SpouseJohn R. Whitman

Christine Todd "Christie" Whitman (born September 26, 1946) is an American Republican politician and author, who served as the 50th Governor of New Jersey and was the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of President George W. Bush. She is currently nominated to be a director at United Technologies.

Early life

Ms. Whitman was born in New York City. She was raised in Hunterdon County, New Jersey and attended the Chapin School in New York City. She graduated from Wheaton College in 1968, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. After graduating, she worked on Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign.

Whitman is a descendant of two powerful New Jersey political families, the Todds and the Schleys, and related by marriage to the equally formidable political power of the New York Whitman clan. She is married to John R. Whitman, a prominent private equity investor and they have two children who went to private boarding school in Connecticut. She is the granddaughter-in-law of former Governor of New York Charles S. Whitman. Her maternal grandfather, Reeve Schley, was a member of Wolf's Head Society at Yale, as were his son and a grandson. Schley headed the Wolf's Head alumni association for six years. She retains her maiden name of Todd in part to continue the connection with Republican voters. Whitman is related by marriage to the Bush family; her brother, Webster B. Todd, married Sheila O'Keefe, the stepdaughter of James Wear Walker, whose sister Dorothy Walker Bush was the mother of George H.W. Bush and grandmother of George W. Bush.

Career in politics

During the Nixon administration, Whitman worked in the Office of Economic Opportunity under the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld. She also conducted a national outreach tour for the Republican National Committee, was Deputy Director of the New York State Office in Washington, and worked on aging issues for the Nixon campaign and administration.

She became involved in Somerset County politics in the 1980s and was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Somerset County College (now Raritan Valley Community College). Elected to two terms as a member of the Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders, she served as Deputy Director and Director of the Board. Among her accomplishments as freeholder was working to complete construction of a new county courthouse.

From 1988 to 1990 she served as President of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in the cabinet of Gov. Thomas Kean.

In 1990, Whitman ran for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Bill Bradley, losing a close election.[citation needed] She was considered a longshot candidate against the popular Bradley. During her campaign, Whitman criticized the income tax hike proposed by then Gov. James Florio, which Bradley did not take a stance on, citing his role as a federal official.

Whitman ran against Florio for governor in 1993, defeating him by one percentage point plurality to become the first female governor in New Jersey history. She was re-elected in 1997, narrowly defeating Jim McGreevey (again with a one percent plurality), the mayor of Woodbridge Township.

As Governor, Whitman failed to fully fund the state pension system and instead issued bonds (i.e. borrowed) to avoid rasing taxes to pay for them. While she can be faulted for fiscal irresponsibility compare to her predecessors on state pensions, recent governors have also failed to fund pensions. It is arguable that in the late 1990s, many financial commentators assumed (Dow 36,00) that stock returns would simply continue and pension funding would not be a problem. But since the market correction of 2000, those who came after her have no such excuse.

As Governor, Whitman rejected the New Jersey Governor's Advisory Council on AIDS recommendations to permit needle exchange to reduce the incidence of HIV infections. [2]

She also rolled back the 1 cent sales tax increase her predecessor Florio had imposed, instituted education reforms and removed excise taxes on professional wrestling in 1997, which led The World Wrestling Federation to once again hold events in New Jersey. In 1999, Whitman vetoed a bill that outlawed partial birth abortion; the law was enacted when the Republican-controlled legislature overrode Whitman's veto and later declared unconstitutional by the courts. [3]

Under her environmental leadership as governor, the number of days New Jersey violated the federal one-hour air quality standard for ground level ozone dropped from 45 in 1988 to 4 in 2000. Beach closings reached a record low, the state earned recognition by the Natural Resources Defense Council for instituting the most comprehensive beach monitoring system in the nation, and a new watershed management program was instituted which resulted in New Jersey leading the nation in opening shellfish beds for harvesting. Governor Whitman also won voter approval for the state's first stable funding source to preserve one million more acres of open space and farmland in New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the country.

In 1996 during a public relations event in Camden, New Jersey, Whitman rode along in a police patrol car as officers stopped a 16-year-old black male named Sherron Rolax for suspicious activity and proceeded to frisk him. After finding nothing, Whitman also frisked the suspect while a New Jersey State Police officer photographed her. The image of the smiling governor frisking Rolax was later published in newspapers statewide, which drew criticism from civil rights leaders who saw the incident as a violation of Rolax's civil rights and an endorsement by Whitman of racial profiling. Whitman told the press that she regretted the incident and pointed to her 1999 efforts against the New Jersey State Police force's racial profiling practices.

Whitman was co-chair, with Bush, of the 1996 Republican National Convention.

Whitman is currently a board member of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Environmental Protection Agency

Whitman was appointed by Bush as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As head of the EPA, she challenged the validity of a government-commissioned report suggesting a human contribution to global warming.[citation needed] Whitman appeared twice in New York City after the September 11 attacks to inform New Yorkers that the toxins released by the attacks posed no threat to their health.[1] On September 18 the EPA released a report in which Whitman said, "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink."[2] Later, a 2003 report by the EPA's inspector general determined that such assurances were misleading, since when the statements were made the EPA "did not have sufficient data and analyses" to justify them.[3] Further, the report found that the White House had "convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" by having the National Security Council control EPA communications after the September 11 attacks.[4][5] Although according to some sources the air was safe for Manhattan residents,[citation needed] Whitman was careful to note that the air on the actual World Trade Center site was not clean and had elevated chemical levels that would be detrimental to the workers there.[citation needed] As a result, even though they were not required to do so, the EPA itself provided thousands of respirators for workers to wear during their efforts.

On June 27, 2003, after having had several public conflicts with the Bush administration, Whitman officially resigned from her position to spend more time with her family.[4]

On February 2, 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Deborah A. Batts issued a ruling rejecting Whitman's request for immunity in a 2004 class action lawsuit brought by a group who claimed exposure to hazardous debris from the collapse of the World Trade Center. The judge stated that "No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws," and called Whitman's actions "conscience-shocking."[6].

Whitman now has an energy lobbying group called the Whitman Strategy Group, "a consulting firm that specializes in government relations and environmental and energy issues".[7]

Political philosophy

In early 2005, Whitman released a book entitled It's My Party, Too: Taking Back the Republican Party... And Bringing the Country Together Again in which she criticizes the policies of the Bush administration and its electoral strategy, which she views as divisive. Whitman has denied that she intends to run for the presidency in 2008. She has formed a political action committee called It's My Party Too-PAC that she intends to help elect moderate Republicans in 2006 and 2008 at all levels of government. She has allied her PAC with the Republican Main Street Partnership, The Wish List, the Republican Majority for Choice, Republicans for Choice, Republicans for Environmental Protection and The Log Cabin Republicans. Whitman is a leader of the moderate wing of the Republican Party, and is now working on uniting and expanding Rockefeller Republican candidates and ideals.

Electoral history

Quotes

  • "It is time for Republican moderates to assert plainly and forcefully that this is our party too, that we not only have a place, but a voice - and not just a voice, but a vision - a vision that is true to the historic principles of our party and our nation.[5]
  • "The defining feature of the conservative viewpoint is a faith in the ability, and a respect for the right, of individuals to make their own decisions - economic, social, and spiritual - about their lives. The true conservative understands that government's track record in respecting individual rights is poor when it dictates individual choices." From It's My Party Too, p.73

References

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ EPA Response to September 11, "Whitman Details Ongoing Agency Efforts to Monitor Disaster Sites, Contribute to Cleanup Efforts" (September 18,2001). Official statement published on the EPA's website.
  3. ^ EPA Report No. 2003-P-00012, page 7. August 21, 2003. http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2003/WTC_report_20030821.pdf. A report in July 2003 from the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response gave extensive documentation supporting many of the inspector general's conclusions and carrying some of them still further. Comments on the EPA Office of Inspector General’s 1/27/03 interim report titled: "EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Towers Collapse." A Documentary Basis for Litigation. Prepared by Cate Jenkins, Ph.D. July 4, 2003. http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/PDF/Jenkins-7-4-03-documentary-d2.pdf.
  4. ^ EPA Report No. 2003-P-00012, page i.
  5. ^ "White House edited EPA's 9/11 reports" by John Heilprin, Associated Press, August 23, 2003. Found in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, accessed September 26, 2006
  6. ^ Judge Slams Ex-EPA Chief Over Sept. 11, ABC News, February 2, 2006
  7. ^ Website of the Whitman Strategy Group, accessed September 26, 2006
  • Laura Flanders, Bushwomen (ISBN 1-85984-587-8).

See also

Preceded by Governor of New Jersey
1994–2001 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Administrator of the EPA
2001–2003 		Succeeded by
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