Gretchen Whitmer

Gretchen Esther Whitmer (born August 23, 1971) is an American politician serving as the 49th governor of Michigan. A member of the Democratic Party, she served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2001 to 2006 and in the Michigan Senate from 2006 to 2015.

Born and raised in Michigan as the daughter of two lawyers, Whitmer graduated from Forest Hills Central High School near Grand Rapids, Michigan State University, and the Michigan State University College of Law. She ran unsuccessfully for the state house in the 1990s before being elected in 2000. In 2006 she became a state senator, a position she kept until term limits forced her to step down in 2015. She was the Senate's first female Democratic leader from 2011 to 2015. In 2013, Whitmer gained national attention for a floor speech during a debate on abortion in which she shared her experience of being sexually assaulted. For six months in 2016, she was the county prosecutor for Ingham County.

Whitmer was elected governor in the 2018 gubernatorial election, defeating Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette. As governor, Whitmer has focused on healthcare and infrastructure. In February 2020, she was selected to give the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's 2020 State of the Union Address.

Gretchen Whitmer was born in 1971 in Lansing, Michigan, as the eldest of three children to Sharon H. "Sherry" Reisig and Richard Whitmer, who were both lawyers. Her father served as head of the state's Department of Commerce under Governor William Milliken and was the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan between 1988 and 2006. Whitmer's mother worked as an assistant attorney general under Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley. Her parents divorced when she was 10 years old; she and her siblings moved with their mother to Grand Rapids. Her father traveled from his home in Detroit to visit the family at least once a week. She graduated from Forest Hills Central High School, just outside Grand Rapids. She received a BA in communications from Michigan State University in 1993 and a JD from Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University in 1998.

House of Representatives

Whitmer originally ran for the Michigan House of Representatives in the 1990s but was unsuccessful. In 2000, she tried again and was elected to represent the 23rd legislative district. She was reelected in 2002 and 2004.

State Senate

In March 2006, Whitmer left the state house and became a State Senator. She was elected and reelected in 2006 and 2010. In 2011, Whitmer's Democratic colleagues unanimously chose her to be the Senate Democratic Leader, making her the first woman to lead a party caucus in the Senate. She continued in that role for the remainder of her time there. Due to term limits, Whitmer was unable to run for reelection in 2014 and left office in 2015. In 2013, she received national recognition when she discussed her experience of being sexually assaulted. She told the story during a debate about abortion rights, particularly for victims of rape, arguing victims should be allowed to terminate pregnancies which resulted from rape.

On May 11, 2016, it was announced that the judges of Michigan's 30th Judicial Circuit Court had unanimously selected Whitmer to serve the remaining six months of the term of outgoing Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III after he was arrested on March 14, 2016, and charged with 11 counts of involvement with a prostitute and four counts of willful neglect of duty. In a letter dated March 29, 2016, Dunnings announced he would resign effective July 2.

On June 21, 2016, Whitmer was administered the oath of office as prosecutor by Ingham County Circuit Court Chief Judge Janelle Lawless. She said her top priorities during her six months of service would be to determine if any other officials in the prosecutor's office knew about Dunnings's alleged crimes and to change how the office handled domestic violence and sexual assault cases.

On July 22, 2016, Whitmer issued an 11-page report on whether Dunnings's alleged criminal activity had affected cases handled by the office. The report concluded that employees "were never asked to compromise a case or look the other way" and that she had "...full confidence that any problem that had existed in this office left with Mr. Dunnings." Whitmer's term expired on December 31, 2016.

2018 election

On January 3, 2017, Whitmer announced she would run in the 2018 Michigan gubernatorial race.

On August 7, 2018, Whitmer became the Democratic nominee for governor of Michigan. She won all 83 counties in the state in the Democratic primary,.

In July 2018, Republican officials accused Whitmer of supporting the movement to abolish ICE, a claim Whitmer disputed. She said that if elected she would focus on improving Michigan's "fundamentals", such as schools, roads, and water systems.

Whitmer's main opponent was Republican Bill Schuette, the term-limited Attorney General of Michigan. The two candidates met for a debate on October 12, 2018, in Grand Rapids at WOOD-TV. A second debate was held at WDIV studios in Detroit on October 24.

Whitmer defeated Schuette in the November 6 election by nearly a 10-point margin.

Tenure

Whitmer casts herself as a moderate Democrat, able to work with state legislatures from different political perspectives. In 2019, she struggled with a Republican-controlled legislature to pass a budget and made several concessions.

As both a gubernatorial candidate and as governor, one of Whitmer's key pledges was to "fix the damn roads", a reference to Michigan's struggling infrastructure. By some measures, Michigan has the worst roads in the nation. Whitmer's first budget earmarked several billions of dollars for investment in infrastructure.

The gubernatorial election and national conversation during Whitmer's time in office focused largely on healthcare. During the gubernatorial election, she was the only Democratic candidate not to support a single-payer healthcare system. As governor, she has focused on women's healthcare and Medicaid expansion.

In February 2020, Whitmer was selected to deliver the Democratic response to Donald Trump's 2020 State of the Union Address. Michigan is considered a swing state in the 2020 presidential election, and Democrats hoped Whitmer's selection would bolster their chances of winning the state.

Education

Whitmer would like to phase in full-day Universal Pre-K for 4-year-olds in Michigan. She also wants to reduce the cost of childcare for struggling families. She would eliminate Michigan's current 3rd grade "read or flunk" policy, which she has said penalizes students who have been failed by the education system, and would instead work to improve their reading skills. She proposes that all high school students be offered two years of debt-free higher education, either college or post-secondary training for skilled trades.

Health care

Whitmer has said she would fight Republican efforts to take away protections for patients with preexisting conditions. In the State Senate, Whitmer successfully worked to expand Medicaid coverage in the state. She has spoken against single-payer healthcare as unrealistic. She has stated she would work to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and would get rid of Shuette's drug immunity law, which she believes protects drug companies from legal trouble if their drugs harm or kill people.

Taxation

In March 2019 Whitmer proposed increasing the gasoline tax 45 cents per gallon to fund road repairs. If it is enacted Michigan will have the highest fuel tax in the United States.

Whitmer has two children with her first husband, Gary Shrewsbury. The couple divorced, and in 2011 she married dentist Marc Mallory, who has three children from his previous marriage. Whitmer and Mallory live in East Lansing, Michigan, with her two daughters, Sherry and Sydney, who attend East Lansing High School, and his three sons, Alex, Mason, and Winston.