christine quinn

Christine Quinn at a Gay Pride march

Staten Island, NY, 2008

Photo by Thomas Good / NLN Speaker of the New York City Council In office

1999 – December 2009 Preceded by Gifford Miller Constituency Council District 3 Born 25 July 1966 (1966-07-25) (age 42)

Glen Cove, New York Political party Democratic Residence New York City, United States Website http://council.nyc.gov

Christine Callaghan Quinn (b. 25 July 1966 in Glen Cove, New York) is a Democratic politician and the current Speaker of the New York City Council, which is considered the second most powerful position in city government after the Mayor. Quinn is the first woman and first openly gay person to be elected to this position.[1] She 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. She was said to be a potential choice for the U.S. Senate after Hillary Clinton resigned her seat to become U.S. Secretary of State. If chosen, Quinn would have become the first openly gay female U.S. Senator in American history. Contents [hide] 1 Early Life 2 Political Career 3 NY St. Patrick's Day Parade boycott 4 References 5 External links //

Early Life

Quinn 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 Duane in 1991, after which she was Duane's Chief of Staff for five years. She later became the Executive Director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, and was appointed by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani as a member of the NYC Police/Community Relations Task Force.

Political Career

Quinn ran successfully for the City Council in 1999. As of 2009, she still represents the Council's third district, representing Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and Hell's Kitchen, as well as parts of SoHo and Murray Hill. In January 2006, at the age of 39, after serving on the City Council for almost 7 years, Christine Quinn was elected City Council Speaker.

Before becoming Speaker, Quinn served as chair of the Health Committee, during which she sponsored the Equal Benefits Bill and the Health Care Security Act, which requires that City contractors provide parity in benefits between married spouses and registered domestic partners. This and the Health Care Security Act (which ensures health care for grocery workers) were passed over Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto. However, the courts threw out the Equal Benefits Bill for conflicting with existing competitive state bidding laws.[2] Quinn led the Council's opposition to Bloomberg's unsuccessful West Side Stadium plan.

Preceding the controversial lecture by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University, Quinn wrote to the university requesting that his invitation to speak be withdrawn.[3]

Since the Members of the City Council