Jane Maria Swift

JANE SWIFT was born in North Adams, Massachusetts. She received a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Trinity College in 1987. Swift's career as an elected official began in 1991 at age 25 when she was the youngest woman ever elected to the Massachusetts State Senate. She quickly became the youngest woman in senate history to hold a leadership position, rising to assistant minority leader. Governor Cellucci appointed her as director of the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation in 1997. She became governor on April 10, 2001, when Governor Cellucci resigned to become the U.S. Ambassador to Canada. Elected lieutenant governor in 1998, she worked as "co-governor" with Cellucci to stimulate economic growth, impose fiscal discipline, improve public education, and enhance the quality of life for working families. She led the Cellucci-Swift administration's effort to improve the state's public education system through strong accountability and high standards for schools, teachers, and students. As lieutenant governor, she instituted meaningful remediation programs for struggling students and helped parents access more information regarding their children's schools. She worked hard to provide tax relief to Massachusetts families, reducing the state income tax through a ballot initiative overwhelmingly approved by voters. In one of her first official acts as governor, she signed the "No-New-Taxes Pledge" and filed legislation to expand the state's earned income tax credit to help low-income families keep more of their hard-earned paychecks. She championed solutions that provide a guaranteed college education for foster children and enable state employees to better balance the demands of work and family.