Christine Todd Whitman
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| Christine Todd Whitman | |
 Official photo as EPA administrator, c. 2001 |
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| In office January 18, 1994 – January 31, 2001 |
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| Preceded by | James Florio |
| Succeeded by | Donald DiFrancesco |
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| In office January 31, 2001 – June 27, 2003 |
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| Preceded by | Carol Browner |
| Succeeded by | Marianne Lamont Horinko (Acting) Micheal Leavitt |
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| Born | September 26, 1946 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.
Whitman now has an energy lobbying group called the Whitman Strategy Group, "a governmental relations consulting firm specializing in environmental and energy issues."[1] She is currently a director of Texas Instruments[2] and United Technologies[3]. 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.[4]
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[edit] Early life
Whitman was born in New York City and raised in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the daughter of Eleanor Prentice Todd (née Schley) and Webster B. Todd, both active in New Jersey Republican politics. She attended Far Hills Country Day School[5] 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 prominent private equity investor, and 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 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 Jr., 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.
Whitman's daughter Kate is a candidate for the 7th district congressional seat, being vacated by Mike Ferguson.[6]
[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 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, and lost a close election.[7] 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. Charges of suppression of minority votes were raised during this campaign. [8]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 did not fully fund the state pension system and instead floated bonds to avoid raising taxes.[9] 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. [10]
In 1996, Whitman rejected her Advisory Council's recommendation to permit needle exchange, an effort to reduce the incidence of HIV infections.[11] In 1997, she rolled back the 1 cent sales tax increase her predecessor Florio had imposed, instituted education reforms, and removed excise taxes on professional wrestling, which led the World Wrestling Federation to once again hold events in New Jersey. In 1999, Governor Whitman vetoed a bill that outlawed partial birth abortion; the veto was later reversed, but also 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 also won voter approval for the state's first stable funding source to preserve one million acres (4,000 km²) more of open space and farmland in New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the country.
[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 black male named Sherron Rolax for "suspicious activity" 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 how his image had been used 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. [12]
On May 24, 2008, Rolax was shot dead following an argument, after several arrests involving drugs.[13]
[edit] Environmental Protection Agency
Whitman was appointed by President George W. Bush as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
[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.[14] The incoming Bush administration suspended the new regulation, but after some months of study, EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman approved the new 10 ppb arsenic standard and its original effective date of January 2006.[15]
[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."[16]
[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.[17] 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."[18] 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.[19] 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.[20] 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.[21]
On February 2, 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."[22]
On June 25, 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.[23] On December 10, 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.[24]
On April 22, 2008, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that 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 appeals court said that Whitman had based her information on contradictory information and statements from President Bush. The 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. Judge Deborah Batts had previously declined to dismiss Whitman as a defendant, saying that her actions were "conscience-shocking."[25]
[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.[26] In a later interview, Whitman claimed 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.[27]
[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." [28]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Website of the Whitman Strategy Group. Retrieved on 2008-02-04.
- ^ Corporate Governance: Board of Directors. Texas Instruments. Retrieved on 2008-02-04.
- ^ Board of Directors. Retrieved on 2008-02-04.
- ^ Nuclear Energy Needs to Grow, by Christine Todd Whitman, San Francisco Chronicle, September 12, 2007
- ^ Bumiller, Elisabeth. "POLITICS: ON THE TRAIL;In Political Quest, Forbes Runs in Shadow of Father", The New York Times, February 11, 1996. Accessed December 11, 2007. "Christine Todd, Mr. Forbes's childhood friend from the Far Hills Country Day school, would grow up to become Governor Whitman."
- ^ Whitman enters race for Congress. PolitickerNJ.com (2007-11-29). Retrieved on 2007-12-05.
- ^ King, Wayne. " THE 1990 ELECTIONS: What Went Wrong?; Bradley Says He Sensed Voter Fury But It Was Too Late to Do Anything", The New York Times, November 8, 1990. Accessed March 29, 2008.
- ^ Hanson, Christopher. "Insider Cynicism: Ed Rollins Meets the Press", Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 1994. Accessed October 22, 2007.
- ^ State Budget Contains First Appropriation for State Pension Funds in Many Years
- ^ Walsh, Mary Williams. "New Jersey Diverts Billions, Endangering Pension Fund", The New York Times, April 4, 2007. Accessed August 7, 2007.
- ^ Whitman Rejects Panel's Suggestions About Needle Exchange
- ^ Nick Hepp and John P. Martin. “Used by governor, killed by streets”, Star Ledger, May 28, 2008.
- ^ "Man frisked by Gov. Whitman shot dead in Camden", Philadelphia Inquirer, May 27, 2008. Accessed May 28, 2008.
- ^ The history of arsenic regulation, Southwest Hydrology, May/June 2002, p.16.
- ^ EPA announces arsenic standard for drinking water of 10 parts per billion, EPA press release, 10/31/2001.
- ^ Compilation of Exhibits for 110th Congress's examination of political interference with climate science
- ^ Video: Health Effects of 9/11 Dust
- ^ EPA Response to September 11, "Whitman Details Ongoing Agency Efforts to Monitor Disaster Sites, Contribute to Cleanup Efforts" (September 18,2001)
- ^ EPA Report No. 2003-P-00012, page 7. August 21, 2003.
- ^ EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Towers Collapse, A Documentary Basis for Litigation
- ^ Heilprin, John. "White House edited EPA's 9/11 reports", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 23, 2003. Accessed August 7, 2007..
- ^ Judge Slams Ex-EPA Chief Over Sept. 11, ABC News, February 2, 2006.
- ^ Whitman on Hot Seat Over 9/11 Aftermath
- ^ Sarah Portlock, "Government's Post-9/11 Actions Questioned" "New York Sun" December 11, 2007 http://www.nysun.com/article/67846
- ^ The Associated Press April 22, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-EPA-Sept-11-Lawsuit.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=whitman&st=nyt&oref=slogin
- ^ Muchraker: In her forthcoming memoir, former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman takes stock of the GOP's "rightward lurch" under Bush
- ^ Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency: Leaving No Tracks
- ^ It's My Party Too, by Christine Todd Whitman, p.73
[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 |
| 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 |
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