Jane Swift

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Image:Jane swift.jpg Jane Maria Swift (born February 24, 1965) is an American politician from Massachusetts. A Republican, she was Acting Governor of Massachusetts from 2001 to 2003. Swift is the first woman to serve as Governor of Massachusetts.

From an Irish-Italian political family in Berkshire County, Massachusetts in the town of North Adams, she learned politics from her father who was active in the Republican party in town, county, and state government. She graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1987.

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Massachusetts politics

She served as a state senator, an executive with the Massachusetts Port Authority, and as the commonwealth's consumer affairs secretary before being elected lieutenant governor.

Swift was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1998 and became Acting Governor in 2001 when Governor Paul Cellucci became the United States Ambassador to Canada.

She became the first governor of any state to give birth while in office (twin girls, born May 15, 2001). She continued to exercise executive authority during her maternity leave, including chairing a meeting of the Massachusetts Governor's Council by teleconference from her hospital bed.

By the end of her term, Swift was extremely unpopular with voters in the state (at one point having the dubious honor of a single-digit approval rating), due in part to an abuse of her gubernatorial privileges, including her alleged use of a State Police helicopter to return from Boston to her home in North Adams and demands that State House aides pick up her children at day care. Massachusetts does not have a Governor's Mansion. However, during the Swift Administration, it was given serious consideration. For security reasons after 9/11, Swift was driven daily to the state capital, spending up to six hours commuting as profiled on CBS's 60 Minutes. She rode in a van which had been converted into a mobile office. She withdrew from the 2002 gubernatorial primary to make way for Mitt Romney, who went on to win the Republican nomination and the election.

Since leaving office, Swift has moved back to Western Massachusetts, but continued to commute to the Boston area for a fellowship at Harvard University in the Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics. Among her co-fellows were former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen and Martin Mackin of Ireland.

Her official portrait was unveiled in the Massachusetts State House in 2005.

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