Peter Shumlin Biography

Peter Elliott Shumlin (born March 24, 1956) is an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as the 81st Governor of Vermont from 2011 to 2017. First elected governor in 2010, he was re-elected to a second term in 2012. In 2014 he received a narrow plurality in his race for re-election, but did not attain the 50% threshold mandated by the Vermont Constitution. In such cases the Vermont General Assembly elects the winner. The legislature almost always selects the candidate who received a plurality; this held true, and the General Assembly re-elected Shumlin to a third term by a vote of 110–69 in January 2015. In June 2015, Shumlin announced that he would not seek re-election in 2016. He has signed laws on physician-assisted suicide as well as the United States' first genetically modified food labeling requirement during his tenure as governor. He was chair of the Democratic Governors Association during his first two terms.