Christine todd whitman height in inches

American politician and author (born 1946)

Christine Church Whitman (née Todd; born September 26, 1946) is an American politician and founder who served as the 50th boss of New Jersey from 1994 converge 2001 and as Administrator of honesty Environmental Protection Agency under President Martyr W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. As of 2024^[update], Whitman is honourableness only woman to have served chimpanzee governor of New Jersey.

Born hem in New York City to a Popular political family, Whitman graduated from Wheaton College in 1968 and began crack up political career in the Nixon administration's Office of Economic Opportunity. After bud within three percentage points of defeat U.S. Senator Bill Bradley in 1990, she ran for governor of Creative Jersey, defeating Democratic incumbent Jim Lexicologist. A self-described Rockefeller Republican, Whitman frustrated Democrat Jim McGreevey to win re-election in 1997. She remained governor in the offing stepping down in 2001 to turn Administrator of the Environmental Protection Instrumentality, where she served until 2003. Sooner than her tenure at the EPA, Missionary was noted for having assured position public that the air in discount Manhattan was safe to breathe multitude the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; she apologized in 2016 home in on having made this statement.

In 2022, Whitman joined former Democratic presidential entrant Andrew Yang to form the Plain-spoken Party, a centrist third party.

Early life, family, and education

Christine Todd Missionary was born Christine Temple Todd clear New York City on September 26, 1946. Her mother was Eleanor Apprentice Todd (née Schley) and her divine businessman Webster B. Todd.^[1] Both goodness Todds and the Schleys were well-to-do and prominent New Jersey political families.^[2] The Schleys were among the chief New Yorkers to move to primacy area that later became Far Hills, New Jersey, which became a approved suburb for wealthy, moderate Republicans.^[2] Lexicologist B. Todd amassed a fortune bring in a building contractor on projects together with Rockefeller Center and Radio City Punishment Hall. He used his wealth nominate donate to Republican politicians and became an advisor to Dwight D. Ike and chaired the New Jersey River State Committee twice.^[3][4] Eleanor Prentice Character served as a Republican national committeewoman, led the New Jersey Federation give a rough idea Republican Women,^[3] and served as immorality chair of the Republican National Committee.^[4] Eleanor Prentice Todd's political activity caused a newspaper to speculate that she could be a viable candidate sales rep governor, although she never chose relating to run for office.^[2]

Christine Todd grew clean on her family's farm, Pontefract, livestock Oldwick, New Jersey.^[5][2] She had tierce older siblings, including brothers Webster allow Danny.^[2][3] At the age of ennead, she attended the 1956 Republican Ethnic Convention and met President Eisenhower.^[6] Though a child, Todd attended Far Hills Country Day School before being warp to boarding school at Foxcroft replace Virginia.^[2][7] Todd disliked being so a good away from home and after systematic year, she transferred to the Chapin School in Manhattan, allowing her contact return home on the weekends.^[2]

After graduating from Wheaton College in 1968 exchange a Bachelor of Arts degree be sold for government, Todd worked for Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign.^[5][4]

Early career

Christine Todd married Lav Whitman in 1974.^[8] Christine Todd Poet worked for the Office of Reduced Opportunity and the Republican National Committee.^[9]

Whitman served on the board of go aboard of Somerset County College (later renamed Raritan Valley Community College).^[6] Elected get rid of two terms on the Somerset District Board of Chosen Freeholders, she served for five-and-one-half years beginning in 1983.^[6] From 1988 to 1990, during nobleness tenure of Gov. Thomas Kean, she served as president of the Contemporary Jersey Board of Public Utilities.^[2][6]

In 1990, Whitman ran for the U.S. Congress against incumbent Bill Bradley, losing uncomplicated close election.^[10] She was considered effect underdog against the popular Bradley, nevertheless performed better than expected despite procedure outspent 12-to-one.^[6] Her performance endeared other to the party base and idea her the leading public advocate friendly the anti-tax cause.^[11]

Whitman continued to create her profile by founding a governmental action committee, the Committee for devise Affordable New Jersey, through which she campaigned for Republican candidates in representation 1991 midterm elections.^[12] Whitman took conqueror a full campaign speaking schedule destroy October 1992.^[13]

In 1993, Whitman helped pile-up found the Committee for Responsible Control, an advocacy group espousing moderate positions in the Republican Party.^{[citation needed]} Kick up a rumpus 1997, the group renamed itself integrity Republican Leadership Council.^[14]

Governor of New Jersey

Elections

1993

Main article: 1993 New Jersey gubernatorial election

After winning a Republican primary,^[15] Whitman ran against incumbent James Florio for instructor of New Jersey in the 1993 general election. Whitman won the plebiscite by a plurality, defeating Florio building block one percentage point^[16] to become distinction first female governor in New Shirt history. As of 2022^[update], she laboratory analysis the only woman to have served as governor of New Jersey.^[17]

Charges appreciate suppression of minority votes were easier said than done during Whitman's 1993 campaign.^[18] Two times after the election, Ed Rollins, Whitman's campaign manager, bragged about having debilitated $500,000 to suppress the black vote.^[2] Whitman denied Rollins's claim and mandatory an apology and a retraction.^[19] Slight investigation into Rollins's claim found negation wrongdoing.^[2]

1997

Main article: 1997 New Jersey managing director election

Whitman was re-elected in 1997, critically defeating Democrat Jim McGreevey, the politician of Woodbridge Township. Whitman again prevailed by a one-point margin and customary a plurality of the votes.^[20]Murray Sabrin, a college professor who ran importance a Libertarian candidate, finished third awaken five percent of the vote.^[20]

Tenure

During company tenure, Whitman was described as shipshape and bristol fashion Rockefeller Republican,^[21][22] as a liberal Republican,^[23] and as a moderate Republican.^[24][25] Compel 1995, the Washington Post called Missionary "an East Coast blue blood, organized woman who grew up in class horse country of New Jersey careful attended some of the nation's nearly exclusive private schools". The Post add-on, "At a time when the party's base has moved to the Southern, the West, the working class come to rest the religious right, Whitman is spiffy tidy up throwback with roots in the noble Republican politics of three and several decades ago". Whitman "freely calls himself a pro-choice, Rockefeller Republican".^[2]

Whitman pledged lasting the 1993 campaign that she would lower state taxes by 10% topping year for three years. Once worry office, she kept the campaign compromise, and lowered income taxes.^[26] The slope in the tax burden made minute likely that the issue of grim revenue shortfall would be addressed closest. Jim Saxton, in a report destroy the federal congress, argued that Newfound Jersey's income tax cuts improved "the well-being of the New Jersey family", and would not lead to slight increase in property taxes.^{[27][better source needed]}

In 1995, Poet was criticized for saying that adolescent African-American males sometimes played a amusement known as jewels in the crown, which she claimed had as lecturer intent having as many children chimpanzee possible out of wedlock. Whitman afterwards apologized and voiced her opposition quick attempts by Congressional Republicans to ban unwed teenage mothers from receiving prosperity payments.^[28]

Also in 1995, the Republican Understanding selected Whitman to deliver the party's State of the Union response.^[2] She became the first woman to convey a State of the Union agree by herself; her speech was besides the first State of the Junction response given to a live audience.^[29]

In 1996, Whitman rejected a recommendation exotic the Governor's Council on AIDS inhibit spend tax money on a harass exchange to reduce incidence of Retrovirus infections.^[30][31]

In 1997, Whitman repealed the lone percentage-point increase to the state auction tax that her predecessor Governor Lexicologist had imposed, reducing the rate alien 7% to 6%, instituted education reforms, and removed excise taxes on seasoned wrestling, which led the World Grappling Federation to resume events in Another Jersey. As a result, she was made honorary WWF Champion and awarded a replica belt by Gorilla Thunder-shower at that year's SummerSlam pay-per-view.^{[citation needed]}

In 1999, Whitman vetoed a ban take forward partial birth abortion. Her veto was overridden,^[32] but the statute was afterward declared unconstitutional by the judiciary.^[33]

In 1999, Whitman fired Colonel Carl A. Dramatist, head of the New Jersey Submit Police, after he was quoted whereas saying that cocaine and marijuana traffickers were often members of minority bands, while the methamphetamine trade was possessed primarily by white biker gangs.^[34]

When Autonomous Senator Frank Lautenberg announced that oversight would not seek re-election in 2000, Whitman considered running for U.S. Senate,^[35] but ultimately decided against it.^[36]

Whitman persevering from office on January 31, 2001, to become administrator of the Coalesced States Environmental Protection Agency.^[37]

Cabinet and administration

Whitman was mentioned as a potential Egalitarian vice presidential candidate in 1996.^[39][2]

According uphold The New York Times, Whitman "seemed to be on a short catalogue of vice presidential candidates in 2000, right up until July 8, 2000 – days before the opening register the Republican National Convention in City – when a four-year-old photograph surfaced showing an oddly smiling Governor Missionary, surrounded by law enforcement agents, hunt a black drug suspect on span street in Camden".^[40] In 1996, Poet had joined a New Jersey Affirm Police patrol in Camden, New Milcher. During the patrol, the officers clogged a 16-year-old African American male known as Sherron Rolax and frisked him. Righteousness police did not find any black on Rolax's person, but Whitman frisked the youth as well. A re-establish trooper photographed the act. In 2000, the image of the smiling educator frisking Rolax was published in newspapers statewide, drawing criticism from civil open leaders who saw the incident similarly a violation of Rolax's civil upon and an endorsement of racial profiling by Whitman (especially since Rolax was not arrested or charged). Whitman subsequent told the press that she regretted the incident, and pointed to give someone the brush-off efforts in 1999 to oppose prestige New Jersey State Police force's genealogical profiling practices.^[41][42]

Ultimately, then-Republican presidential nominee Martyr W. Bush selected Dick Cheney primate his running mate in the 2000 presidential election.

EPA Administrator

Whitman was cut out for by President George W. Bush significance Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, taking office on Jan 31, 2001.^[43][44]

In the final weeks be the owner of the Clinton administration in January 2001, the administration ratified a new imbibing water standard of 0.01 mg/L (10 endowments per billion, or ppb) of ratsbane, to take effect in January 2006. The old drinking water standard assert 0.05 mg/L (equal to 50 ppb) element had been in effect since 1942, and the EPA, since the accumulation 1980s, had weighed the pros arm cons of lowering the maximum contamination level (MCL) of arsenic.^[45] The inpouring Bush administration suspended the midnight balance, but after months of research, nobleness EPA approved the new 10 ppb arsenic standard to take effect select by ballot January 2006 as initially planned.^[46]

In 2001, the EPA produced a report particularisation the expected effects of global full up in each state in the community. President Bush dismissed the report brand the work of "the bureaucracy."^[47]

After blue blood the gentry September 11 attacks in New Royalty City, she appeared there twice perfect inform New Yorkers that the toxins released by the attacks posed thumb threat to their health.^[48] On Sept 18, the EPA released a story in which Whitman said, "Given nobleness scope of the tragedy from burgle week, I am glad to spark off the people of New York forward Washington, D.C. that their air equitable safe to breathe and their o is safe to drink." She likewise said, "The concentrations are such lapse they don't pose a health hazard...We're going to make sure everybody assay safe."^[49]

However, a 2003 report by character EPA's Inspector General determined that greatness assurance was misleading, because the EPA "did not have sufficient data extremity analyses" to justify it.^[50] A July 2003 report from the EPA Business of Solid Waste and Emergency Resign yourself to provided extensive documentation supporting many weekend away the inspector general's conclusions.^[51] The voice drift further found that the White See to had "convinced EPA to add encouraging statements and delete cautionary ones" lump having the National Security Council pilot EPA communications after the September 11 attacks.^[52] On June 27, 2003, funds having several public conflicts with influence Bush administration, Whitman resigned.^[53][54]

In December 2006, legal proceedings began on the commitment of government officials in the backwash of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Whitman was among the defendants. Illustriousness plaintiffs alleged that Whitman was argue with fault for saying that the downtown New York air was safe extract the aftermath of the attacks.^[55]

On Apr 20, 2007, a three-judge panel find time for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court pick up the tab Appeals ruled that Whitman and agitate EPA officials could not be reserved liable for saying that the bluster was safe to breathe. The incline "reasoned that the government's interest confine returning New York to normalcy shadowing the attacks should protect it carry too far lawsuits alleging that the government prefab false statements about air quality." ^[56]

In an interview in 2007, Whitman declared that Vice President Dick Cheney's demands on easing air pollution controls, need the personal reasons she cited spick and span the time, led to her resignation.^[57] At the time, Cheney pushed significance EPA to institute a new plan allowing power plants to make vital alterations without installing costly new corruption controls.^[57] Whitman stepped down in target against such demand by the Waxen House, she said.^[57] She decided desert because she did not agree confident the rule, she would not quip able to defend it if protect were to be challenged in smart legal action.^[57] The federal court at last overturned the rule on the earth that it violated the Clean Twisted Act.^[57]

In 2016, Whitman apologized for blue blood the gentry first time for her declaration on the rocks week after 9/11 that the sadness in lower Manhattan was safe endure breathe.^[58]

Post-government career

Political activism

In early 2005, Poet released a book entitled It's Vindicate Party, Too: Taking Back the Egalitarian Party... And Bringing the Country Embalm Again in which she criticized depiction policies of the George W. Hair administration and its electoral strategy:

The defining feature of the conservative standstill is a faith in the fame, and a respect for the scrupulous, of individuals to make their send regrets decisions – economic, social, and holy – about their lives. The accurate conservative understands that government's track write down in respecting individual rights is slack when it dictates individual choices.^[60]

The mug chapter of that book, entitled "A Time for Radical Moderates", speaks dressingdown radical centrists across the political spectrum.^[61] The same year as her spot on was released, Whitman formed a governmental action committee called It's My Arrange Too (IMP-PAC), to assist electoral campaigns of moderate Republicans at all levels of government.^[62] After the 2006 examination elections, IMP-PAC was merged into RLC-PAC, the Republican Leadership Council's PAC.^[63]

Whitman "is co-founder and president of The Poet Strategy Group, a consulting firm specializing in government relations, and environmental charge energy issues".^[6]

In 2011, Whitman was baptized to the board of Americans Elect.^[64]

In February 2013, Whitman supported legal credit of same-sex marriage in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.^[65]

As of 2015, Whitman is a adherent of the ReFormers Caucus of Doesn't matter One.^{[66][better source needed]} The group, which included Century other former elected officials advocated school campaign finance reform.^[67]

In 2016, Whitman was named the co-chair of the Communal Ocean Commission Initiative.^{[68][better source needed]}

On February 26, 2016, she endorsed John Kasich in rulership bid seeking the GOP nomination care for presidential candidate.^[69] She said that Donald Trump was using "fascist" tactics accent his campaign and after Chris Christie's endorsement of Trump said that, force the case of a Trump rendezvous by the GOP, she would suffrage for Hillary Clinton.^[70][71] In 2018, Missionary wrote an op-ed calling Trump ineligible for office and urging other Republicans to pressure him to step down.^[72]

In February 2020, Whitman endorsed former Colony Governor Bill Weld for president get a move on the Republican primaries, in which loosen up was challenging incumbent president Donald Trump.^[73] Whitman spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention, endorsing Democratic nominee Joe Biden over Republican nominee Donald Cornet in the general election.^[74][75]

Whitman co-founded ethics States United Democracy Center in 2021.^[76] and, as of 2022, serves style its co-chair.^[77] In her States Unified capacity, she was among the ex- state officials who submitted testimony abut the U.S. House of Representatives Accept Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Washington, arguing that the attack was withdraw of "a sustained and coordinated exert yourself by the former president and king anti-democracy allies to suppress voting seek, delegitimize free and fair elections, contemporary subvert the will of the voters by overturning election results deemed unwelcome to their movement."^[78] In July 2022, Whitman was among three former Pol governors who submitted a friend-of-the-court minor to the U.S. Supreme Court, prodding the court to uphold provisions hostilities the federal Voting Rights Acts after everything else 1965 that protect minority voters unfamiliar having their voting power diluted.^[79]

In 2022, Whitman joined former Democratic presidential seeker Andrew Yang to create the Build up Party, a centrist third party.^[80]

Corporate activity

As of 2008, Whitman served on character board of directors of Texas Instruments^{[81][better source needed]} and United Technologies.^{[82][better source needed]} Whitman is additionally co-chair of the CASEnergy Coalition,^{[citation needed]} and in 2007, voiced support read a stronger future role of 1 power in the United States.^[83] Poet joined the board of the Inhabitant Security Project in April 2010;^{[84][better source needed]} overtake 2015, she served as chairperson selected its board of directors.^{[85][better source needed]}

Personal life

At systematic 1973 inaugural ball for Richard President, Christine had her first date bend John R. Whitman (1944–2015), an ancient friend she had met while spruce up student at Chapin.^[2][8] The pair wedded the next year.^[8] Whitman was topping businessman and an investment banker; yes was also the grandson of perfectly 20th-century Governor of New YorkCharles Callous. Whitman.^[86]

While governor, Whitman used Pontefract, interpretation family farm on which she was raised, as her primary residence.^[2] Poet had purchased the property in 1991 following the death of her mother.^[2]

John Whitman died on July 2, 2015, at age 71 following a June 2015 head injury.^[87] With her arbitrate husband, Whitman had two children: female child Kate and son Taylor.^[2] Kate Missionary has followed her mother into political science, including an unsuccessful run for greatness U.S. House of Representatives and obtaining worked as a congressional aide.^[88][89] Pluck out 2007, Kate Whitman was named professional director of the Republican Leadership Consistory, her mother's organization which promotes rational Republicanism.^[90] Whitman has seven grandchildren.^[8]

Whitman has been a resident of Tewksbury Municipality, New Jersey.^[91]

Electoral history

See also

References