Уитфилд: политическая карьера и законодательные инициативы.

American politician (born 1943)

Whitfield first became interested in politics as a high school student and attended his first political event at a rally for former United States Senator Dee Huddleston. As a student at the University of Kentucky, Whitfield was elected President of the University Young Democrat's Club and in 1962 became involved in Edward T. Breathitt's successful campaign for Governor of Kentucky. As a student, Whitfield worked in the State Treasurer's office and after graduating from U. K. Law School he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1973. He represented Hopkinsville and parts of Trigg County and was a member of the Democratic Party. After serving one term he decided not to seek re election in 1975 or challenge freshman U. S. Rep. Carroll Hubbard in the 1976 primary. He focused on his family's oil distributorship until he went to work with Seaboard System Railroad as Legal Counsel in 1979.

Whitfield introduced the Electricity Security and Affordability Act (H. R. 3826; 113th Congress) into the House on January 9, 2014. The bill would repeal a pending rule published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on January 8, 2014. The proposed rule would establish uniform national limits on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new electricity generating facilities that use coal or natural gas. The rule also sets new standards of performance for those power plants, including the requirement to install carbon capture and sequestration technology. His major national accomplishment may have been the banning of U. S. horse slaughter for human consumption, with an amendment that barred the U. S. Department of Agriculture from spending money on inspections of horse slaughterhouses, which fed demand for horsemeat in some European and Asian countries. The ban is no longer in place, but it had the effect of killing the horse slaughter industry in the U. S.

Whitfield's legislation to prohibit the soring of Tennessee Walking Horses garnered the support of 311 House members and 57 Members of the United States Senate but was not brought to the floor of the House of Representatives because of an ethics complaint filed by individuals who sored horses The individuals who filed the complaint had a total of 52 violations of the 1970 Horse Protection Act. In July 2016, the House Ethics Committee reproved him for failing to prohibit lobbying contacts between his staff and Connie Harriman Whitfield, a lobbyist for the Humane Society of the United States. The bill was introduced by Congressman Whitfield and had been a concern of his for many years; the Humane Society of the United States supported the legislation and was a part of a coalition of over 75 entities working to adopt it. The Ethics Committee issued a report stating that Whitfield's breach was unintentional. Whitfield said the individuals who filed the complaint had accomplished their goal of stopping his legislation. Whitfield was ranked as the 43rd most bipartisan member of the U. S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the most bipartisan member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Kentucky) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party).

Whitfield had been a Democrat for most of his life, but in 1994 filed to run in the 1st District as a Republican. He defeated the 1992 Republican nominee, Steve Hamrick, in the primary, and then defeated freshman Democratic Congressman Tom Barlow by 2,500 votes. He defeated Dennis Null in 1996 even as Bill Clinton carried the district, and never faced a close race afterwards. On September 29, 2015, Whitfield announced that he would not seek re election in 2016. Critics said he did not seek re election because of an ethics complaint filed against him by a group opposed to his legislation to stop the soring of Tennessee walking horses. That complaint was filed in 2013, and despite publicity throughout his district, Whitfield was re elected overwhelmingly. He won every county in his district with the exception of Marion. On August 31, 2016, Whitfield announced that he would resign, effective September 6, prompting a special election that would allow his successor to serve in the lame duck session of Congress after the Nov. 8 election.

Connie Whitfield is the Congressman's second wife. She was a former Justice Department attorney, Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and National Parks in the George H. W. Bush Presidency. She was also a Director of the Export Import Bank of the United States and was appointed Vice Chair of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission by Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher. On November 14, 2016, Whitfield was presented the Distinguished Rural Kentuckian Award by the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives at a ceremony in Louisville, Kentucky.