Christine C. Quinn

Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHR : Christine C. Quinn

Christine C. Quinn (b. 1966) is a Democratic politician from New York City who has served for six years on the New York City Council. She is the third speaker of the City Council, which is considered the second-highest position in the city's government. Quinn is the first woman and first openly gay person to be elected speaker. Christine has been rated one of the fifty most powerful women in New York City by the New York Post and one of the "Forty Under Forty" by Gotham Magazine.

Early Life and Career

Quinn grew up in Glen Cove, New York on Long Island, and attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She served as head of the Housing Justice Campaign for the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development. Quinn entered politics to manage the City Council campaign of Thomas K. Duane in 1991, who became the city's first openly gay councilmember. Quinn was Duane's Chief of Staff for five years, after which she became the Executive Director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. While in that position, Mayor Rudy Giuliani appointed her to be a member of the NYC Police/Community Relations Task Force.

City Council membership

When Duane was elected to the New York Senate in 1999, Quinn won his seat on the Council. As of 2006, she still represents the Council's third district, representing the Manhattan neighborhoods of Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and Hell's Kitchen (Clinton), as well as parts of SoHo and Murray Hill. Her current term is set to expire December 31, 2009.

Before becoming Speaker, Quinn served as chairwoman of the Health Committee, on which she supported the passage of the Equal Benefits Bill, to provide health care benefits to domestic partners and grocery workers over the veto of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The courts threw out the domestic partner bill for putting restrictions on private companies. She was also on the committees for Finance, General Welfare, Governmental Operations, Land Use, Lower Manhattan Redevelopment, and Rules, Privileges & Elections, as well as the Zoning & Franchises subcommittee. Quinn led the Council's opposition to Bloomberg's ultimately unsuccessful West Side Stadium plan.

Christine Quinn received much criticism for her first major act as Speaker, laying off 61 central staff employees by letter after first leaking the news to the press.

References

[Christine C. Quinn official City Council site]
Hu, Winnie. [Council Ready to Fill the Job of Speaker]. New York Times, January 3, 2006.
Hu, Winnie. [Next Council Speaker in New York is a Doer and a Trailblazer]. New York Times, January 4, 2006.
Krugler, Sara. [Quinn elected as NY City Council Speaker]. Associated Press, January 4, 2006.
Lombardi, Frank. "http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/392386p-332786c.html Quinn drops the ax on 61 Council staff". "Daily News", February 18, 2006

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.