Gretchen Whitmer Biography- Gretchen Esther Whitmer (born August 23, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician who has been Michigan’s 49th Governor since 2019. She was a Democratic Party member who served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2001 to 2006, as well as the Michigan Senate from 2006 to 2015. Whitmer was born and grew up in Michigan. She earned degrees from Forest Hills Central High School, Michigan State University, and the Detroit College of Law. Her political career began in 2000, when she was elected to Michigan’s House of Representatives. She was elected to the state senate in a special election in 2006, where she served until 2015, becoming the chamber’s first female Democratic leader between 2011 and 2015. Whitmer garnered national notoriety in 2013 for a floor speech she gave during an abortion debate in which she discussed her sexual assault story.
Gretchen Whitmer Biography 2024
Governor Gretchen Whitmer is Michigan’s 49th governor, and she has signed over 1,000 bipartisan measures and four balanced, bipartisan budgets to address kitchen-table issues, build the economy, and generate good-paying jobs in every region. Since Whitmer entered office, Michigan has announced 35,000 auto jobs, completed 20,000 lane miles of road and 1,400 bridges by the end of 2022, and financed programs that will put tens of thousands of individuals on tuition-free paths to higher education and skills training. She has worked across the aisle to support Michigan’s economic development and brought crucial supply chains back from China. Whitmer has made the largest education investment in state history four years in a row, providing the highest state per-student funding ever, expanding on-campus mental health resources, and assisting in the hiring of thousands of qualified teachers.
Gretchen Whitmer Biography 2024 Details
| Born | Gretchen Esther Whitmer August 23, 1971 (age 53)
Lansing, Michigan, U.S. |
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| Political party | Democratic |
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| Spouses | Gary Shrewsbury (divorced) Marc Mallory |
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| Children | 2 |
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| Education | Michigan State University (BA, JD) |
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| Category | Politician Biography |
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Gretchen Whitmer
Gretchen Esther Whitmer is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2019 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. Whitmer was born and raised in Michigan.
Born: 23 August 1971 (age 53 years), Lansing, Michigan, United States
Previous offices: Minority Leader of the Michigan Senate (2011–2015), MORE
Party: Democratic Party
Spouse: Dr. Marc Mallory (m. 2011)
Education: Michigan State University College of Law (1998), MORE
Books: True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between
Awards: Shorty Impact Award for Government & Politics, MORE
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Early life and education
Gretchen Esther Whitmer was born on August 23, 1971, in Lansing, Michigan, as the eldest of three children to Sharon H. “Sherry” Reisig (née Hanna) and Richard Whitmer, both attorneys. Her father served as the head of the Michigan Department of Commerce under Republican Governor William Milliken, as well as the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan from 1988 until 2006. Her mother worked as an assistant attorney general for Michigan’s Attorney General, Frank J. Kelley.
Whitmer’s parents divorced when she was eleven years old, and she and her siblings moved to Grand Rapids with their mother. Her father visited the family at least once a week from his house in Detroit. From 1985 to 1989, she attended Forest Hills Central High School near Grand Rapids, where she was a member of the softball and track teams.
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Michigan Legislature
Whitmer ran for the 70th district of the Michigan House of Representatives in 2000, succeeding Laura Baird. She defeated Mary Lindemann, John Schlinker, and Bob McCann in the Democratic primary before facing Republican nominee Bill Hollister. She advocated for educational and healthcare reform, as well as environmental preservation. Whitmer won with 17,409 total votes. She was re-elected to the 69th House District in 2002 and 2004, and she served as vice chair of the Michigan House Appropriations Committee. Whitmer introduced a bill in the Michigan House in 2003 to increase alcohol taxes and boost state fire protection, which drew the attention and support of then-governor Jennifer Granholm. Whitmer was named the most effective Democrat in the Michigan House in 2005.
Ingham County prosecutor
On May 11, 2016, it was revealed that the judges of Michigan’s 30th Judicial Circuit Court had unanimously chosen Whitmer to fill the remaining six months of outgoing Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III’s term. Dunnings resigned on July 2, 2016, after being accused with misconduct in office and prostitution-related offenses; he later pled guilty to multiple counts and was sentenced to one year in jail and two years probation. On June 21, 2016, Ingham County Circuit Court Chief Judge Janelle Lawless administered the oath of office to Whitmer as prosecutor. She claimed her primary priority during her six months of duty would be to find out if any other officials in the prosecutor’s office knew about Dunnings’s alleged crimes and to change how.
Whitmer published an 11-page report in July 2016 examining whether Dunnings’ actions had an impact on the cases handled by the office. The report found that staff “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 ended on December 31, 2016.
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Policies and political positions
During the COVID-19 outbreak, anti-abortion activists chastised Whitmer for letting abortion procedures to continue in Michigan. Whitmer began working with the state legislature in September 2021 to abolish a 90-year-old statute that prohibited abortion in Michigan, in order to protect abortion rights in the state if Roe v. Wade were overturned. After the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade in 2022, it was unclear if Michigan’s 1931 statute criminalizing abortion techniques and medications remained in effect. Whitmer signed legislation eliminating Michigan’s 1931 abortion prohibition in April 2023, ensuring abortion access. Whitmer actively backed 2022 Michigan Proposal 3, a ballot proposal that altered the Michigan Constitution to include the right to reproductive freedom, which the legislation characterized as “the ability to make and carry out.
Personal life
Whitmer and her first husband, Gary Shrewsbury, have two girls who were born 19 months apart. In 2002, shortly after giving birth to her first child, her mother died from glioblastoma. Whitmer and Shrewsbury got divorced in 2008. In 2011, she married dentist Marc P. Mallory, a Republican who qualifies as fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Mallory has three sons from a previous marriage. The couple and their five children live in the Michigan Governor’s Mansion in Lansing, Michigan. They also have a holiday cottage in Antrim County, near Elk Rapids. Whitmer’s daughters both went to East Lansing High School and the University of Michigan. Her oldest daughter is openly lesbian.
Whitmer’s sister, Liz Whitmer Gereghty, is a trustee for the Katonah-Lewisboro School Board in Westchester County, New York.
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Gretchen Whitmer Net Worth
What is Gretchen Whitmer’s net worth? Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s net worth is $2.98 million.
