Christine Quinn

About

Christine Callaghan Quinn (born July 25, 1966) is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she is a former member and speaker of the New York City Council. Quinn is the third person and first woman to serve as speaker of the New York City Council. She ran to succeed Michael Bloomberg as the city’s mayor in the 2013 mayoral election, but finished third in the Democratic primary. Quinn is a political contributor on CNN and MSNBC.

Quinn was born in Glen Cove, New York, one of two daughters of Mary (née Callaghan) and Lawrence Quinn. Her mother died of breast cancer in 1982. She attended School of the Holy Child in the village of Old Westbury on Long Island in New York, and graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1988. Her maternal grandmother, Ellen (née Shine) Callaghan, was a survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
She served as head of the Housing Justice Campaign for the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development. Quinn entered politics to manage the City Council campaign of Thomas Duane in 1991, after which she served as Duane’s chief of staff for five years. She later became the…