Brown-Waite, Ginny, 1943-

Virginia Brown-Waite (born October 5, 1943) is a retired American legislative aide and politician. A member of the Republican Party, she represented Florida's 5th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 to 2011.

Born Virginia Frances Kniffen in Albany, New York, she graduated from Albany’s Vincentian High School in 1961. That same year, she was married; that union later ended in divorce. While working for 17 years as an aide in the New York state senate in the 1970s and 1980s, Brown-Waite graduated with a bachelor’s degree in public administration from the University of New York at Albany in 1976. Brown continued her education at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, where she earned an MS in public administration in 1984. Brown later married Harvey Waite, a New York state trooper.

Brown-Waite’s career in electoral politics commenced after she moved to Florida in 1987. She won election to the Hernando County board of commissioners in 1990 and to the Florida state senate in 1992. As a state senator, she served three terms and chaired several committees. Brown-Waite focused on legislation dealing with welfare reform, health care reform, and veterans’ issues. With a platform focused on revamping Social Security, improving prescription drug benefits to seniors, and cutting taxes as a catalyst for economic growth, Brown-Waite narrowly defeated Karen Thurman to enter the U.S. House of Representatives in 2003.

During her time in Congress, Brown-Waite voted to reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act, to enact the 2003 tax cuts, and for the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. A strong supporter of the GOP’s Medicare Prescription Drug bill in 2003, she championed the program throughout her district. In her freshman term, she proposed legislation requiring the Veterans’ Administration to treat patients seeking health care within 30 days. During the 109th Congress (2005–2007), Brown-Waite served as a co-chair for the bipartisan Congressional Women’s Caucus where she pressed for reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. In 2009, she was named to a Republican task force on health care reform, where she strongly opposed the Affordable Care Act. After her husband died of pancreatic cancer in 2008, Brown-Waite married businessman Tony Selvaggio in March 2010.

In April 2010, during a congressional recess, Brown-Waite was diagnosed with a pancreatic growth similar to what killed her husband, Harvey. On April 30, 2010, citing her own health challenges, Brown-Waite announced that she would not seek re-election.