Antoinette Jennings (born May 17, 1949) is an American politician who was the 16th
lieutenant governor of Florida. She was nominated to the office by Governor
Jeb Bush in February 2003 to replace
Frank Brogan
Frank T. Brogan (born September 6, 1953) is the former Assistant Secretary of Education (Elementary and Secondary Education). He succeeded Deborah S. Delisle.
He is the former Chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, fo ...
, who resigned to become president of
Florida Atlantic University. She was sworn in on March 3, 2003, becoming the first woman to hold the office.
She declined to run for
governor in
2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
even though she was reputed to be Bush's preferred choice as his successor.
After the 2006 elections, Jennings was replaced as lieutenant governor by
Jeff Kottkamp, on January 2, 2007.
Jennings previously served in the
Florida House of Representatives
The Florida House of Representatives is the lower house of the Florida Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Florida, the Florida Senate being the upper house. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of Florida, adopted ...
from 1976–1980, and in the
Florida Senate, from 1980–2000. In 1994, when
Orange County chairman
Linda Chapin announced she was not seeking re-election, she failed to convince Jennings to return to
Orlando and campaign for the office herself. Instead, she remained in Tallahassee to be elected by her Senate peers to be president of the Florida senate—the only person to have held the powerful office for two terms, from 1996–2000. In 2000, legislative
term limits
A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potenti ...
came into effect, having been instituted by a constitutional referendum taken several years earlier. Jennings was thereafter prohibited from seeking reelection.
Before entering public service, Jennings was an
elementary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...
teacher. During and after her tenure in the
legislature, she also ran the family construction business. She is a graduate of
Wesleyan College.
As lieutenant governor, she worked on legislative relations for Bush, on education policy, hurricane preparedness, disaster relief and issues related to the
Space Coast in Florida.
She joined FPL's board of directors a month after leaving office in 2007.
Jennings endorsed former
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...
in the 2008 presidential primary election.
See also
*
List of female lieutenant governors in the United States
References
External links
Biography at the Florida Women's Hall of Fame
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jennings, Toni
1949 births
Living people
Lieutenant Governors of Florida
Presidents of the Florida Senate
Republican Party Florida state senators
Republican Party members of the Florida House of Representatives
People from Orlando, Florida
Wesleyan College alumni
Women in Florida politics
21st-century American women