Sheldon Whitehouse


Sheldon Whitehouse is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States senator from Rhode Island, a seat he has held since 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island from 1993 to 1998, and as the 71st attorney general of Rhode Island from 1999 to 2003. He was elected to the Senate in 2006, defeating Republican incumbent Lincoln Chafee. He was reelected in 2012, 2018, and 2024.
A political progressive and climate hawk, Whitehouse became chair of the United States Senate Committee on the Budget in 2023. He has given hundreds of Senate floor speeches about climate change and asserted that politically conservative "dark money" groups are conducting a campaign to take control of the U.S. government, specifically the Supreme Court of the United States, to prevent climate action, among other reasons.

Early life and education

Whitehouse was born on October 20, 1955, in New York City, the son of Mary Celine and career diplomat Charles Sheldon Whitehouse, and grandson of diplomat Edwin Sheldon Whitehouse. Whitehouse's father served as the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand and Laos. Among his great-great-grandfathers were Episcopal bishop Henry John Whitehouse and railroad executive Charles Crocker, who was among the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad. Whitehouse graduated from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and in 1978 from Yale College. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1982.

Early career

Whitehouse worked as a clerk for Justice Richard Neely of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia from 1982 to 1983. He also worked in the Rhode Island Attorney General's office as a special assistant attorney general from 1985 to 1990, chief of the Regulatory Unit from 1988 to 1990, and as an assistant attorney general from 1989 to 1990.
Whitehouse worked as Rhode Island Governor Bruce Sundlun's executive counsel beginning in 1991, and was later tapped to serve as director of policy. He oversaw the state's response to the Rhode Island banking crisis that took place soon after Sundlun took office. In 1992, Sundlun appointed Whitehouse the state's Director of Business Regulation, where he oversaw the state's workers' compensation insurance system.

Early political career

U.S. attorney

President Bill Clinton appointed Whitehouse United States Attorney for Rhode Island in 1994. Whitehouse held the position for four years. With the 1996 extortion conviction of mobster Gerard Ouimette, he was the first prosecutor to convict a member of organized crime under Clinton's "three-strikes law". Ouimette was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

State attorney general

In 1998, Whitehouse was elected Rhode Island Attorney General. He initiated a lawsuit against the lead paint industry that ended in a mistrial; the state later won a second lawsuit against former lead paint manufacturers Sherwin-Williams, Millennium Holdings, and NL Industries that found them responsible for creating a public nuisance. This decision, however, was unanimously overturned by the Rhode Island Supreme Court on July 1, 2008. The court found that under Rhode Island law it is the responsibility of property owners to abate and mitigate lead hazards.
When African-American Providence police officer Cornel Young Jr. was shot and killed by two fellow officers while he was off duty in January 2000, Whitehouse was criticized for not appointing an independent prosecutor to investigate the shooting. Later that year, Whitehouse was criticized when 15-year-old Jennifer Rivera, a witness in a murder case, was shot by a relative of the man she was to testify against later that year.

2002 gubernatorial election

Whitehouse ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of Rhode Island in 2002. He lost the primary election to former State Senator Myrth York, who was unsuccessful in the general election against Republican Donald Carcieri.

U.S. Senate

Elections

2006

Whitehouse launched his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Lincoln Chafee, a Republican, on April 4, 2005. By September 30, he had raised over $600,000 for his campaign, including $360,000 of his own, more than doubling Chafee's fundraising. Whitehouse campaigned heavily against the Iraq War and the United States's dependence on foreign oil. After winning the Democratic primary by a large margin, he defeated Chafee with 53% of the vote in the 2006 general election. With his victory, Whitehouse became the first Democrat to win this Senate seat since John Pastore in 1970.

2012

On November 6, 2012, Whitehouse won reelection to a second term in office, defeating Republican nominee Barry Hinckley by 30 points, with 64.9% of the vote.

2018

On November 6, 2018, Whitehouse was reelected to a third term, defeating Republican nominee Robert Flanders by 23 points.

2024

On November 5, 2024, Whitehouse was reelected to a fourth term, defeating Republican nominee Patricia Morgan by 20 points.

Tenure

In 2007, the National Journal ranked Whitehouse the second-most liberal senator.
In the spring of 2007, Whitehouse joined other senators in calling for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's resignation. After Gonzales's first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee related to the controversy, Whitehouse told NPR, " had a hard sell to make to me, and he didn't make it." He continued to question Gonzales's service in the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.
He voted to confirm Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
Upon Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement in September 2014 of his intention to step down, some speculated that Whitehouse could be nominated as Holder's replacement.
In February 2016, after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, USA Today named Whitehouse as a possible nominee to fill the vacancy. Whitehouse's service as a U.S. Attorney and as Attorney General of Rhode Island gives him both legislative experience and experience as a legal official, though not as a judge. Whitehouse was ultimately not nominated.
In August 2024, Whitehouse said that if Democrats won control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives in the 2024 elections, they would be "virtually certain" to pass a Supreme Court reform bill by a simple majority, which would evade the 60-vote requirement for cloture. Whitehouse said Democrats would include 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices and establish ethics and recusal rules in an omnibus package that would also include a bill creating a national right to abortion.
In February 2025, the ethics watchdog group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust filed a complaint accusing Whitehouse of violating ethics policies by advocating for legislation to award his wife Sandra's nonprofit, Ocean Conservancy, $7 million in federal funding. The ethics complaint seeks to clarify whether it is a conflict of interest for Sandra to earn money from a group that has benefited from legislation Whitehouse supported.

Allegations of insider trading and failure to disclose stock purchases

Whitehouse has faced some criticism for alleged insider trading, avoiding big losses by trading stocks after top federal officials warned congressional leaders of "the coming economic cataclysm" on September 16, 2008. After meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on September 16, and being briefed on the unfolding financial crisis, Whitehouse sold a number of positions, valued between $250,000 and $600,000, over the next six days. After coming under scrutiny due to possible insider trading, a spokesperson for his office denied it, saying Whitehouse "is not actively involved in the management" of the implicated accounts and that he "neither directed his financial advisor to undertake any transaction during that time, nor ever took advantage of any exclusive or secret information".
In March 2022, Business Insider reported that Whitehouse had violated the STOCK Act, which is designed to combat insider trading, by failing to disclose two personal stock purchases by the federal deadline. The stocks in question were for the Target Corporation and Tesla, Inc. Whitehouse's office acknowledged that he missed the disclosure deadline, blaming it on a staff transition in his office.
In September 2022, an investigation by The New York Times found that Whitehouse was among the members of Congress who had bought or sold stock that intersected with his congressional work, including trading stock in public companies that came before the committees on which he serves.

Committee assignments

According to Politico, during Whitehouse's chairmanship of the Senate Budget Committee, he turned the committee into a de facto climate panel. He has sought to subpoena the executives of leading oil companies and to impose a carbon tax.

D.C. statehood

In a 2018 interview with the Providence Journal, Whitehouse expressed opposition to D.C. statehood. He was dismissive of efforts to give District residents representation in Congress, suggesting they should be satisfied with the amount of federal activity nearby. In July 2020, he cosponsored a Senate bill to grant D.C. statehood.