Keynote Speaker

For more than 20 years, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has served the people of Rhode Island. He has championed health care reform, stood up for the environment, helped solve fiscal crises and investigated public corruption. Now, he is putting his experience as a seasoned prosecutor and policymaker to work for Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate.
Reforming health care has been a hallmark of Whitehouse’s career. He founded the Rhode Island Quality Institute, a collaborative effort between health care providers, insurers and government that has pioneered efforts to expand the use of electronic prescriptions and improve the quality of care delivered in the state’s intensive-care units.
He has been a strong advocate for environmental protection throughout his career, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court to protect public wetlands from development; sued to block efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act; and led the investigation into a devastating oil spill in Narragansett Bay. Whitehouse also launched the first-ever attempt by a state to hold paint manufacturers responsible for the lead-paint poisoning of 37,000 Rhode Island children.
Whitehouse has played a notable role in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into the unprecedented firings of several federal prosecutors late in 2006. He co-sponsored successful legislation to restore the Senate’s role in the confirmation of nominees for U.S. attorney vacancies and introduced a bill to restore safeguards against political interference at the U.S. Department of Justice, a policy ultimately adopted by Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
A graduate of Yale University and the University of Virginia School of Law, Whitehouse served as a policy adviser and counsel in the Office of the Governor of Rhode Island and as director of the state’s Department of Business Regulation before being nominated by President Bill Clinton to be the state’s U.S. Attorney in 1994. He was elected state attorney general in 1998, a position in which he served from 1999 to 2003. On Nov. 7, 2006, Rhode Islanders elected Whitehouse to the Senate, where he is a member of the Special Committee on Aging, the Budget Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, the Judiciary Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence.
He lives in Newport with his wife, Sandra, and their two children. •