Martha Whitehead is a former elected official from the U.S. state of Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. She was the last Texas State Treasurer

Texas State Treasurer

Texas State Treasurer was a political office in the U.S. state of Texas, established in the Constitution of 1876. It was abolished in 1996.-History:...

 before the position was abolished by constitutional amendment in 1996.

Biography

Whitehead is a former mayor of Longview, Texas

Longview, Texas

Longview is a city in Gregg and Harrison Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 80,455. Most of the city is located in Gregg County, of which it is the county seat; only a small part extends into the western part of neighboring Harrison County. It is...

. In 1993, Texas Governor Ann Richards

Ann Richards

Dorothy Ann Willis Richards was an American politician from Texas. She first came to national attention as the state treasurer of Texas, when she delivered the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Richards served as the 45th Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995 and was...

 appointed Whitehead to fulfill the term of Senator-Elect Kay Bailey Hutchison

Kay Bailey Hutchison

Kathryn Ann Bailey Hutchison, known as Kay Bailey Hutchison , is the senior United States Senator from Texas.She is a member of the Republican Party. In 2001, she was named one of the thirty most powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal. The first woman to represent Texas in the U.S....

.

In 1994, Whitehead ran for State Treasurer on the explicit promise to abolish the office and move its few remaining functions to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts is an executive branch position created by the Texas Constitution. As with nearly every other executive branch head, the Comptroller is popularly elected every four years concurrently with the Governor and the other elected executive branch positions...

 office (which had already taken over most of the duties of collecting and accounting for state taxes), and was subsequently elected. In 1995, the Texas Legislature

Texas Legislature

The Legislature of the state of Texas is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Texas. The legislature is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The Legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin...

passed a proposed constitutional amendment to abolish the office, which was approved by the voters later that same year. The office was formally dismantled in 1996.