Jeanne Shaheen - Governor of New Hampshire

Governor of New Hampshire

Shaheen's original decision to run for New Hampshire Governor followed the retirement of Republican Governor Steve Merrill. Her opponent in 1996 was Ovide M. Lamontagne, then chairman of the State Board of Education. Shaheen ran as a moderate. Her campaign centered on the problems of New Hampshire's schools and her pledge to expand kindergartens so that more children statewide could benefit from them. She defeated Lamontagne by 57 to 40 percent.

In 1996, Shaheen was the first woman to be elected governor of New Hampshire. (She was not, however, the first woman to serve as New Hampshire's governor; Vesta M. Roy was acting governor from December 30, 1982 until January 6, 1983.)

In 1998, she was overwhelmingly re-elected by a margin of 66 to 31 percent.

In both 1996 and 1998, Shaheen pledged to veto any new broad-based taxes for New Hampshire, which taxes neither sales nor its residents' earned income. A school-funding crisis, however, pressured the state's reliance on property taxes.

Running for a third term in 2000, Shaheen refused to renew that no-new-taxes pledge, becoming the first New Hampshire governor in 38 years to win an election without making that pledge. Shaheen's preferred solution to the school-funding problem was not a broad-based tax but legalized video-gambling at state racetracks—a solution repeatedly rejected by the NH legislature.

In 2001 Shaheen tried to implement a 2.5 percent sales tax, the first broad-based tariff of its kind in history of New Hampshire. Unlike neighboring New England states New Hampshire does not have a sales tax. The state's legislature rejected her proposal. She also proposed an increase in the state's cigarette tax and a 4.5 percent capital gains tax.

Read more about this topic:  Jeanne Shaheen

Famous quotes containing the words governor of, governor and/or hampshire:

    Three years ago, also, when the Sims tragedy was acted, I said to myself, There is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of Massachusetts,—what has he been about the last fortnight? Has he had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake?... He could at least have resigned himself into fame.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    Anything I can say about New Hampshire
    Will serve almost as well about Vermont,
    Excepting that they differ in their mountains.
    The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;
    New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)