Sheldon Whitehouse

Sheldon Whitehouse

Sheldon Whitehouse is a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. He served as a United States Attorney from 1993 to 1998 and the 71st Attorney General of Rhode Island from 1999 to 2003. In 2006, Whitehouse ran for the seat occupied by Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Republican seeking a second full term. On November 6, 2012, he won reelection to a second term in office, easily defeating Republican challenger Barry Hinckley. Whitehouse was re-elected to a third term in November 2018, defeating Republican Robert Flanders by 23 points.

About Sheldon Whitehouse in brief

Summary Sheldon WhitehouseSheldon Whitehouse is a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. He served as a United States Attorney from 1993 to 1998 and the 71st Attorney General of Rhode Island from 1999 to 2003. In 2006, Whitehouse ran for the seat occupied by Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Republican seeking a second full term. In 2007, the National Journal ranked Whitehouse the second-most liberal senator. On November 6, 2012, he won reelection to a second term in office, easily defeating Republican challenger Barry Hinckley. Whitehouse was re-elected to a third term in November 2018, defeating Republican Robert Flanders by 23 points. He has publicly opposed a reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment, but supported the Global Warming Prevention and Offshoring Reduction Act of 2007. He supports stem cell research, abortion rights, affirmative action, LGBT rights, and affirmative action intervention. He voted against cap and trade, but sponsored a bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act and the Patient Protection and Protection Act of 2010. He is the son of Mary Celine Whitehouse and career diplomat Charles Sheldon Whitehouse, and grandson of diplomat Sheldon Whitehouses. His great-great-grandfathers were Episcopalian bishop Henry John Whitehouse and railroad magnate Charles Crocker, who was among the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad. He graduated from St.

Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and from Yale College in 1978. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1982. He worked as a clerk for Judge Richard Neely of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia from 1982 to 1983. He also worked in the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office as a special assistant attorney general from 1985 to 1990, chief of the Regulatory Unit from 1988 to 1990. He was later tapped to serve as Director of Policy. In 1992 he was appointed the state’s Director of Business Regulation, where he oversaw a drastic reform in the state’s workers’ compensation insurance system. He initiated a lawsuit against the lead paint industry that ended in a mistrial; the state later won a second lawsuit against former lead paint manufacturers Sherwin-Williams, Millennium Holdings, and NL Industries that found them responsible for creating a public nuisance. In 1998, he was elected Rhode Island attorney General. He held the position for four years. In 1996 he was the first prosecutor to convict a member of organized crime under Clinton’s “three strikes law” Whitehouse also initiated the investigation into municipal corruption in Rhode Island that led to Operation Plunder Dome, in which Mayor of Providence Vincent Vincent Cianci was eventually convicted on conspiracy charges.