Christine Todd Whitman

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Christine Todd Whitman
Official photo as EPA administrator, c. 2001
50th Governor of New Jersey
In office January 18, 1994 – January 31, 2001
Preceded by	James Florio
Succeeded by	Donald DiFrancesco
9th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
In office January 31, 2001 – June 27, 2003
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Carol Browner
Succeeded by	Marianne Lamont Horinko (Acting) Michael Leavitt
Born	September 26, 1946 (1946-09-26) (age 62) New York City
Political party	Republican
Spouse	John R. Whitman
Religion	Presbyterian

Christine Todd "Christie" Whitman (born September 26, 1946) is an American Republican politician and author who served as the 50th Governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001, and was the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. She was New Jersey's first, and to date, only female governor. She was the second woman and first Republican woman to defeat an incumbent governor in a general election in the United States.

Today Whitman has an energy lobbying group called the Whitman Strategy Group which is "a governmental relations consulting firm specializing in environmental and energy issues." She is a director of Texas Instruments^[1] and United Technologies^[2]. Whitman is also co-chair of the CASEnergy Coalition, and in 2007, voiced support for a stronger future role of nuclear power in the United States.^[3]

Contents 1 Early life and family 2 Career in politics 2.1 Nixon administration and early politics 2.2 Governor of New Jersey 2.3 Frisking a sixteen-year-old 2.4 Environmental Protection Agency 2.4.1 Arsenic in drinking water 2.4.2 Climate change 2.4.3 September 11 attacks 2.4.4 Resignation 3 Political philosophy 4 Electoral history 5 Quotes 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Early life and family

Whitman was born in New York City and grew up in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the daughter of Eleanor Prentice Todd (née Schley) and Webster B. Todd, both interested in New Jersey Republican politics. She attended Far Hills Country Day School^[4] and the Chapin School in Manhattan. 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 New Jersey political families, the Todds and the Schleys, and related by marriage to New York's politically-active Whitmans. She is married to John R. Whitman, a private equity investor. They have two children. 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.

Whitman's daughter Kate has followed her mother into politics.^[5] Most recently, Kate Whitman ran for the 2008 Republican nomination for New Jersey's 7th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, placing second in a primary field of seven candidates with about 20 percent of the vote.^[6] Previously, Kate Whitman served as press secretary for Craig Benson’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign in New Hampshire, and later, communications director for the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.^[7] She also was a Congressional aide^[8] and in 2007, she was named executive director of the Republican Leadership Council, her mother's organization which promotes moderate Republicanism.^[9] Kate Whitman made news in 1998 at the age of 21, while her mother was governor, when she was cited by police in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for littering.^[10]

[edit] Career in politics

[edit] Nixon administration and early politics

During the Nixon administration, Whitman worked in the Office of Economic Opportunity under the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld. She 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.^{[citation needed]}

She was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Somerset County College (now Raritan Valley Community College). Elected to two terms on the Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders, she served as Deputy Director and Director of the Board. Among her accomplishments as freeholder was 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, and lost a close election.^[11] 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.

[edit] Governor of New Jersey

Whitman ran against James Florio for governor in 1993, and defeated him by one percentage point plurality to become the first female governor in New Jersey history. She was the second woman and first Republican to defeat an incumbent governor in a general election. Charges of suppression of minority votes were raised during this campaign. ^[12]She was re-elected in 1997, and narrowly defeated Jim McGreevey (again with a one percent plurality), the mayor of Woodbridge Township.

As Governor, Whitman failed to fund fully the state pension system, and instead floated bonds to avoid raising taxes.^[13] Although Whitman's predecessors did not take the same approach to state pensions, recent governors from both political parties have diverted billions of dollars from the New Jersey pension fund into other government purposes over the last 15 years. ^[14]

In 1996, Whitman rejected her Advisory Council's recommendation to spend tax money on a needle exchange, in an effort to reduce the incidence of HIV infections.^[15] In 1997, she rolled back the 1 cent sales tax increase her predecessor Governor Florio had imposed, instituted unspecified education reforms, and removed excise taxes on professional wrestling, which led the World Wrestling Federation to resume holding events in New Jersey. In 1999, Governor Whitman vetoed a bill that outlawed partial birth abortion; the veto was reversed, but the statute was later declared unconstitutional by the courts.

In 2000, under Whitman's leadership, New Jersey's violations of the federal one-hour air quality standard for ground level ozone dropped to 4 from 45 in 1988. Beach closings reached a record low, and the state earned recognition by the Natural Resources Defense Council for instituting the most comprehensive beach monitoring system in the nation. Additionally, New Jersey implemented a new watershed management program and became the United States leader in opening shellfish beds for harvesting. Governor Whitman agreed to give tax money to owners of one million acres (4,000 km²) more of open space and farmland in New Jersey.

[edit] Frisking a sixteen-year-old

In 1996, Whitman joined a New Jersey State Police patrol in Camden, New Jersey. During the patrol, the officers stopped a 16-year-old African American male named Sherron Rolax, and frisked him. After the police found nothing on him, Whitman also frisked the youth while a state trooper photographed her. In 2000, the image of the smiling governor frisking Rolax was 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 -- especially since Rolax was not arrested nor found to be violating any law. 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.

In 2001, Rolax learned about the photograph and sued Whitman in federal court, claiming that the search was illegal and an invasion of privacy. The appeals court agreed that the acts did indeed suggest "an intentional violation" of Rolax's rights, and that he "was detained and used for political purposes by his governor," but upheld the trial court's decision that it was too late to sue. ^[16]

[edit] Environmental Protection Agency

Whitman was appointed by President George W. Bush as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, taking office on January 31, 2001.^[17][18]

[edit] Arsenic in drinking water

In January 2001, the Clinton administration in its final weeks declared a new drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L (10 parts per billion, or ppb) arsenic to take effect January 2006. The old drinking water standard of 0.05 mg/L (equal to 50 ppb) arsenic had been in effect since 1942, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had been studying the pros and cons of lowering the arsenic Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) since the late 1980s.^[19] The incoming Bush administration suspended the new regulation, but after some months of study, Whitman approved the new 10 ppb arsenic standard and its original effective date of January 2006.^[20]

[edit] Climate change

Under her direction as the first director of the EPA under the Bush administration, in 2001 the EPA produced a report detailing the expected effects of global warming in each of the states in the United States. The report was dismissed by President Bush who called it the work of "the bureaucracy."^[21]

[edit] September 11 attacks

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.^[22] 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." She also said, "The concentrations are such that they don't pose a health hazard...We're going to make sure everybody is safe."^[23] Later, a 2003 report by the EPA's inspector general determined that such assurances were misleading, because the EPA "did not have sufficient data and analyses" to justify the assertions when they were made.^[24] 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 carried some of them still further.^[25] 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.^[26]

In February of 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Deborah A. Batts issued a ruling that rejected 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."^[27][28]

In June 2007, Whitman testified in front of Congress about the Agency's culpability in telling rescue workers that the air was safe. She was repeatedly booed by rescue workers and activists who attended the hearing. She defended herself by saying her statements about the air being safe were to people living or working near the area, not to rescue workers. She also said terrorists, not the EPA, were responsible for the tragedies that befell people after September 11.^[29] In December 2007, legal proceedings began in a case on the question of responsibility of government officials in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Whitman is among the defendants in the suit; plaintiffs in the suit allege that Whitman is at fault for saying that the downtown New York air was safe in the aftermath of the attacks.^[30]

In April 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overruled the district court, holding that as EPA head Whitman could not be held liable for saying to World Trade Center area residents that the air was safe for breathing after the buildings collapse. The court said that Whitman had based her information on contradictory information and statements from President Bush. The U.S. Department of Justice had argued that holding the agency liable would establish a risky legal precedent because future public officials would be afraid to make public statements.

[edit] Resignation

On June 27, 2003, after having had several public conflicts with the Bush administration, Whitman resigned from her position to spend more time with her family.^[31] In a later interview, Whitman stated that Vice President Dick Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, not the personal reasons she cited at the time, led to her resignation.^[32]

[edit] 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 George W. Bush administration and its electoral strategy, which she views as divisive. She has formed a political action committee called It's My Party Too-PAC (IMP-PAC) that she intended 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. Eventually, the IMP-PAC went (according to its website) under the auspices of the Republican Leadership Council.

[edit] Electoral history

• 1997 Race for Governor: Christine Todd Whitman (R) (inc.), 47% - James McGreevey (D), 46%
• 1993 Race for Governor: Christine Todd Whitman (R), 49% - James Florio (D) (inc.), 48%
• 1990 Race for U.S. Senate: Bill Bradley (D) (inc.), 50% - Christine Todd Whitman (R), 47%

[edit] Quotes

• "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." ^[33]

[edit] See also

• EPA 9/11 pollution controversy
• Health effects of September 11, 2001 attacks

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, National Governors Association
• biographical information for Christine Todd Whitman from The Political Graveyard
• It's My Party Too!
• Republican Leadership Council

• Laura Flanders, Bushwomen (ISBN 1-85984-587-8)

Political offices
Preceded by James Florio	Governor of New Jersey January 18, 1994–January 31, 2001	Succeeded by Donald DiFrancesco
Government offices
Preceded by Carol Browner	Administrator of the EPA January 31, 2001–June 27, 2003	Succeeded by Michael Leavitt
Party political offices
Preceded by Mary V. Mochary	Republican Nominee for the U.S. Senate (Class 2) from New Jersey 1990	Succeeded by Dick Zimmer
Preceded by Jim Courter	Republican Nominee for Governor of New Jersey 1993, 1997	Succeeded by Bret Schundler

v • d • e Governors of New Jersey Livingston · Paterson · Howell · Bloomfield · Ogden · W.S. Pennington · M. Dickerson · Williamson · Vroom · Southard · Seeley · P. Dickerson · W. Pennington · Haines · Stratton · Fort · Price · Newell · Olden · Parker · Ward · Randolph · Bedle · McClellan · Ludlow · Abbett · Green · Werts · Griggs · Voorhees · Murphy · Stokes · Fort · Wilson · Fielder · Edge · Edwards · Silzer · Moore · Larson · Hoffman · Edison · Driscoll · Meyner · Hughes · Cahill · Byrne · Kean · Florio · Whitman · DiFrancesco · McGreevey · Codey · Corzine

v • d • e Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency Ruckelshaus • Train • Costle • Burford • Ruckelshaus • Thomas • Reilly • Browner • Whitman • Horinko (acting) • Leavitt • Johnson