Governor Ruth Ann Minner

Accomplishments

Since taking office in 2001, Governor Ruth Ann Minner has worked to get things done in Delaware by improving schools, preserving and protecting the environment, improving health care and fighting cancer as well as creating and keeping jobs.

In education, Gov. Minner sent an extra $165 million into classrooms in her first term, with special reading teachers in every elementary school, after-school programs and new teachers, books and computers. As a result, more students are meeting our high standards in every grade and in every subject than four years ago.

The Environmental Right-To-Know Act, repeat offender law, and the first-ever regulation of aboveground storage tanks are part of Gov. Minner’s initiatives to reduce industrial pollution and make industry in Delaware more accountable. The Governor also advocated for and signed a law holding industrial managers and officials personally liable for negligent industrial accidents that harm people.

Gov. Minner has championed a comprehensive fight against high cancer rates, with $15 million so far for increased education, screening and treatment, the creation of a cancer registry to identify cancer case “hot spots” or environmental causes, a first-in-the-nation program to pay for cancer treatment for those who can’t afford it, and the Clean Indoor Air Act, which has reduced cancerous pollutants in Delaware’s restaurants, bars and casinos by more than 90 percent.

Governor Minner’s New Economy Initiative is designed to jumpstart Delaware’s economy, with private and government support for manufacturing plants, in high-technology businesses and in new startup companies.

The first Minner term saw more than 12,000 jobs created or kept in Delaware, with employers like AAA Mid-Atlantic, Wal-Mart and Invista choosing the state over dozens of other sites. She also expanded opportunities for small business, especially women- and minority-owned companies in the state.

Gov. Minner also steered the state through what experts have called the worst fiscal crisis for states since World War II. During the national economic recession, while other states reduced school to one day a week, dropped health care for families and laid off thousands of employees, Gov. Minner cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of the state budget without drastic effects on services and without raising taxes on average Delawareans. Her leadership was recognized nationally and made Delaware one of just a few states to weather the recession in sound shape.

Preparation to Serve

Widowed suddenly at 32 with three sons to raise, she worked two jobs while going to school, earning her G.E.D. She built a family towing business with her second husband, Roger Minner. Roger died of lung cancer in 1991. Ruth Ann began in politics stuffing envelopes, then worked as an aide in the state legislature and as receptionist to then-Gov. Sherman Tribbitt. She was elected to four terms in the state House of Representatives beginning in 1974, to three terms in the state Senate beginning in 1982 and to two terms as Lieutenant Governor in 1992 and 1996.

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