Sheldon Whitehouse (born October 20, 1955) is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2007 as the junior United States senator from Rhode Island.

[citation needed] Whitehouse worked as Rhode Island Governor Bruce Sundlun's executive counsel beginning in 1991, and was later tapped to serve as director of policy.

[citation needed] President Bill Clinton appointed Whitehouse United States Attorney for Rhode Island in 1994.

[8] Whitehouse initiated the investigation into municipal corruption in Rhode Island that led to Operation Plunder Dome, in which Mayor of Providence Vincent "Buddy" Cianci was eventually convicted on conspiracy charges.

On November 6, 2012, Whitehouse won reelection to a second term in office, defeating Republican challenger Barry Hinckley by 30 points, with 64.9 percent of the total vote.

[29][30] In February 2016, after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, USA Today named Whitehouse as a possible nominee to fill the vacancy.

[32] After meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on September 16, and being briefed on the unfolding financial crisis, Whitehouse sold a number of positions, valued between $250,000 and $600,000, over the next six days.

[33][34][35] After coming under scrutiny due to possible insider trading, a spokesperson for his office denied it, saying Whitehouse "is not actively involved in the management" of the implicated accounts and that he "neither directed his financial advisor to undertake any transaction during that time, nor ever took advantage of any exclusive or secret information".

He was dismissive of efforts to give District residents representation in Congress, suggesting they should be satisfied with the amount of federal activity nearby.

[50] In November 2011, Whitehouse introduced the Safeguarding America's Future and Environment (SAFE) Act, a bill that would require federal natural resource agencies to be concerned with the long-term effects of climate change, encourage states to prepare natural resource adaptation plans, and "create a science advisory board to ensure that the planning uses the best available science".

[51] Of a proposed action on mandatory emissions curbs, Whitehouse told The Hill, "I am not hearing anybody on our side, even the people who are more economically concerned about the climate legislation who come from coal states, that sort of thing, saying, 'What are we going to say about this, is this a problem?

[54] In a May 29, 2015, Washington Post editorial, Whitehouse advocated prosecution of members of the fossil fuel industry under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

Initially, he was one of the two Democratic holdouts in the Senate, but an activist effort, including mobilizing fans of the Rhode Island band Downtown Boys, contributed to changing his position.

[64] In December 2009, Whitehouse said "birthers", "fanatics", and "people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups" opposed Obamacare.

[65] In January 2025, Talking Points Memo reported that Whitehouse was "actively considering" voting to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee for Secretary of HHS.

"[67] In September 2014, Whitehouse was one of 69 members of Congress to sign a letter to then-FDA commissioner Sylvia Burwell requesting that the FDA revise its policy banning donation of corneas and other tissues by men who have had sex with another man in the preceding five years.

Whitehouse has been a staunch critic of so-called "dark money", or political spending by nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.

[70] According to Roll Call, "Whitehouse hasn't been as convincing as he'd hoped in his campaign to curb conservative anonymous donors and their influence on the Supreme Court—even as that 'dark money' now floods in to support the judicial nomination process his party controls."

[72][73] Whitehouse critiqued conservative dark money groups who backed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's nomination.

[74] In 2019, Whitehouse announced that he intended to introduce legislation that would require groups that file amicus curiae briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court to disclose their donors.

"[78] Senator Ben Sasse critiqued Whitehouse's allegation that the FBI investigation of Kavanaugh had been "fake", saying "This kind of paranoid obsession is Nixonian poison to public trust.

"[79] On July 9, 2024, it was reported that Whitehouse and Senator Ron Wyden sent an official letter the previous week to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for possible tax and ethics violations.

The New York Times called the club a haven for members of America's "ruling class" and various media outlets have said it has an all-white membership.