Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is a mother of two but has a blended family with her husband Dr Marc Mallory. Let’s meet her kids.
Gretchen Whitmer is an American lawyer and politician.
Whitmer is the first of three children, and her parents divorced when she was ten years old. She and her siblings moved with their mother to Grand Rapids, and their dad continued to visit them every week.
She got her high school certificate from the Forest Hills Central High School, and got her Law degree from the Michigan State University College of Law.
A member of the Democratic Party, she served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2001 to 2006 and in the Michigan Senate from 2006 to 2015.
In 2011, she became the Senate’s first female Democratic leader.
She serves currently as the governor of Michigan State; an office she assumed in 2019.
As governor, she has signed over 1,000 bipartisan bills and four balanced, bipartisan budgets to deliver on the kitchen-table issues, grow the economy, and create good-paying jobs in every region of the state.
Away from her works, she is a wife and a mother. She has a blended family of five kids. Let’s meet all of her children.
How many children does Gretchen Whitmer have?
Gretchen Whitmer is biologically a mother of two but she’s also a mom to the children of her spouse, Dr Marc Mallory.
In total, her kids are five; three sons (from her spouse’s first relationship) and two daughters (from her previous marriage). Their names are Sydney Shrewsbury, Sherry Shrewsbury; Alex Mallory, Mason Mallory, and Winston Mallory.
While Whitmer and Mallory have been married for years, they do not have any kids together. However, they are a blended family of 7 (including themselves).
After his divorce from his first wife, Marc met Gretchen Whitmer, who had also divorced from her first husband. Their relationship started off as a doctor-patient friendship before advancing into much more. They started dating eventually, and after a not-so-long courtship, they tied the knot in 2011, the same year she was voted in as Senate Democratic Leader. Gretchen was a senate minority leader at the time.
Due to Gretchen’s position as Michigan State Governor, her husband serves as the First Gentleman of the state of Michigan, US.
Gretchen Whitmer shares her children with her ex-husband Gary Shrewsbury
Gretchen Whitmer was previously married to Gary Shrewsbury. The former couple had two daughters but divorced shortly after their arrival.
Whitmer and Gary’s daughters are Sydney and Sherry Shrewsbury.
There are no further information about the former couple’s relationship.
Dr. Marc Mallory shares her children with his ex-wife Felicia Lindell.
While Dr. Marc Mallory is now married to Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, that wasn’t always the case. He was once married to Felicia Lindell with whom he had three children; a set of twins, Mason and Alex, and Winston, the last born.
Felicia is a native of East Lansing, and has a degree in general physiology. She worked as a professional veterinary degree.
Just like Marc, his son Mason obtained a pre-dental and zoology degree from the Michigan State University. He got his Dental Surgery Doctorate in 2019 from the University Of Detroit Mercy School Of Dentistry. He now practices in Marlette, Michigan.
Alex pursued Law at the same Michigan State University and now practices as an associate attorney at a Michigan law firm.
The last born, Winston also followed in his father’s footsteps and enrolled in the University of Michigan to study dentistry.
Gretchen Whitmer’s has come with its share of controversies
Whitmer won election four years ago on a promise to “fix the damn roads.” She proposed a gas tax hike that was rejected by the Legislature and instead borrowed money through a $3.5 billion bond authorization for funds that can only be spent on state roads, not local ones.
She’s worked with the GOP-led Legislature to boost funding for public education, signed an auto insurance reform law that led to $400 rebate checks and agreed on plans to spend billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief and stimulus funds.
Whitmer says she’ll “fight like hell” to protect abortion access in Michigan, which is in jeopardy after the U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down Roe v. Wade. The governor took county prosecutors to court to prevent them from enforcing a 1931 abortion ban and is asking the Michigan Supreme Court to declare that law unconstitutional.
Despite a large state budget surplus, Whitmer has vetoed multiple GOP tax cut bills, including a $2.7 billion plan that would have cut the state’s personal income tax rate from 4.25 percent to 4 percent and created a child tax credit.
Whitmer has proposed her own tax relief plans, including one-time $500 rebate checks, expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for lower income workers and broader exemptions for senior income.
Whitmer imposed a series of aggressive COVID-19 restrictions early in the pandemic, including stay-home, school closure and nursing home orders blasted by Republicans and some business groups. When the Michigan Supreme Court struck down her authority to issue orders, her administration used health department orders instead.
Whitmer campaigned on transparency, but her administration brokered confidentiality agreements with outgoing unemployment agency and health department directors that prohibited them from discussing billions of dollars in fraudulent benefit payments and thousands of nursing home deaths.
Missteps during the pandemic caused opponents to accuse her of hypocrisy, including flying on a private jet to Florida to visit her sick father at a time when her administration urged people not to travel and violating COVID-19 protocols by gathering with a large group at a bar.
A plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer foiled by FBI IN 2020.
The Whitmer kidnapping plot was busted by the FBI in October 2020 after one of the group’s members became a confidential informant, according to ABC News.
The Democratic governor was ultimately unharmed, and later blamed then-President Donald Trump for “stoking” hate, calling the suspects “sick and depraved men.”
“This should be a moment for national unity where we all pull together as Americans to meet this challenge head on with the same might and muscle that put a man on the moon,” Whitmer said during a news conference, via ABC News.
“Instead our head of state has spent the past seven months denying science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking distrust and fomenting anger and giving comfort to those who spread hatred and division.”
She continued: “Just last week the president of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups like these two militia groups.
“‘Stand back and stand by,’ he told them. ‘Stand back and stand by.’ Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action.
“When our leaders speak, their words matter. They carry weight,” Whitmer added.
“When our leaders meet with, encourage or fraternize with domestic terrorists they legitimize their actions and they were complicit.
“When they contribute to hate speech, they are complicit.”
In response to Whitmer’s speech, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that Trump had “continually condemned white supremacists and all forms of hate” and that “America stands united against hate and in support of our federal law enforcement who stopped this plot.”
Despite McEnany’s initial statement, Trump later called the kidnapping plan a “fake deal” in August 2022, according to the Associated Press.
14 people have been arrested and charged and only nine of them have been convicted.