Ginny Brown–Waite, a longstanding political veteran, focused her congressional career on protecting the interests of seniors and veterans in her Gulf Coast district. During her four terms in the House she charted an independent course by working with Members from both parties to strengthen entitlements, veterans’s care, and protections for women. “The bottom line is that the voters…like their elected officials to have the backbone of steel that Ginny Brown–Waite has,” said fellow Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz.1
Virginia Kniffen was born in Albany, New York, on October 5, 1943. She was raised by her mother, Charlotte Kniffen, a file clerk, who expelled her abusive husband from the household.2 She graduated from Albany’s Vincentian High School in 1961. That same year she was married; that union later ended in divorce. While working for 17 years as an aide in the New York state senate in the 1970s and 1980s, she earned a bachelor of science degree in public administration from the University of New York at Albany in 1976. Brown continued her education at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, where she earned a master’s in science degree in public administration in 1984. Brown later re–married to Harvey Waite, a New York state trooper. The couple raised three daughters: Danene, Lorie, and Jeannine.3
Brown–Waite’s career in electoral politics commenced after she moved to Florida in 1987.4 She won election to the Hernando County board of commissioners in 1990 and to the Florida state senate in 1992. As a state senator she served three terms and chaired several committees. Brown–Waite developed a reputation for her work on welfare reform, health care reform, and veterans’ issues. She climbed the GOP ranks in the Florida senate, serving as majority whip in 1999 and president pro tempore from 2001–2002.5
In 2002, redistricting favored Brown–Waite in the race for Florida’s west–central congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She won the Republican primary in September 2002, and commenced a “sleep–optional” campaign against the five–term incumbent, Democrat Karen Thurman. She relied on grass–roots volunteers for most of her campaigning. “We knew it was going to be won on the ground, not the airwaves,” she said.6 In a district populated by many retirees, Brown–Waite’s platform focused on revamping Social Security, improving prescription drug benefits to seniors, and cutting taxes as a catalyst for economic growth.7 She prevailed over Thurman in a four–way campaign with 48 percent of the vote. Brown–Waite won re–election to the House in subsequent elections with 59 percent of the vote or greater.8
Taking her seat as a Member of the 108th Congress (2003–2005), Brown–Waite served on the Financial Services, Veterans’ Affairs, and Budget committees.9 Usually a reliable vote for the Republican leadership, Brown–Waite voted to reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act, enact the 2003 tax cuts, and ban partial–birth abortion.10 A strong supporter of the Medicare Prescription Drug bill in 2003, she championed the program throughout her district.11 In her freshman term, she proposed legislation to designate 30 days as the standard time for access to primary care for the Veterans’ Administration.12 She later helped push through the 2005 law to increase the death benefit paid to survivors of service members killed in action.13 Yet, Brown–Waite did not always toe the party line. She was skeptical of the George W. Bush administration’s proposed changes to Social Security and opposed privatization. I am “especially attuned to the need for equity and making sure the Social Security recipients are held blameless,” she said.14 She also voted with 50 other Republicans in 2006 to override the President’s veto of legislation expanding federally funded embryonic stem cell research and was one of five Republicans to vote against intervening in the Terri Schiavo affair.15
During the 109th Congress (2005–2007), the Congressional Women’s Caucus selected Brown–Waite and Democrat Hilda L. Solis of California as its co–chairs. In this position, Brown–Waite pressed for reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (H.R. 3402). The daughter of an abusive father, this issue was particularly consequential to her.[FOOT 16] “[D]omestic violence affects our most vulnerable constituents: battered women and their families,” she stated on the House Floor.17 In 2009, she exchanged her seats on the Financial Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans’ Affairs committees for a spot on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.18 She was also named to a Republican task force on the health care overhaul, where she strongly opposed the Majority Democrat’s health care plan.19
In August 2008, at the start of the congressional campaign, Brown–Waite’s husband, Harvey Waite, passed away after a six–month battle with pancreatic cancer.20 While attending bereavement counseling she met Tony Selvaggio, a businessman who had recently lost his wife. They were married in late March 2010 soon after she announced her intention to seek re–election to a fifth term.21 In April 2010, during a congressional recess, Brown–Waite was diagnosed with a similar pancreatic growth to that which killed her husband, Harvey.22 On April 30, 2010, citing her own health challenges, Brown–Waite announced that she would not seek re–election. Making the announcement only hours before Florida’s filing deadline, she tapped Hernando County Sheriff Richard Nugent as her preferred successor.23 He defeated consultant Jim Piccillo for election to the House for the 112th Congress (2011–2013) with 67.5 percent of the vote.24
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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