Holly Kinser

Holly Kinser
Born	1965 (age 51–52) Orinda, California
Residence	Philadelphia
Education	Scripps College
Occupation	lobbyist
Spouse(s)	Bill DeWeese (married 1992, divorced 1999)

Holly Kinser (born 1965) is a Pennsylvania lobbyist, where she is the President of The Kinser Group. As a lobbyist for the City of Philadelphia, she is credited with driving legislation in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, including a rental-car and hotel tax, to help fund the construction of sports stadiums and to expand the Philadelphia International Airport. Details of her marriage and subsequent divorce to former Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Bill DeWeese garnered significant coverage in the media.

A native of Orinda, California, Kinser's father ran an executive search company. When Kinser was 17, her father became a personnel director for the Reagan White House and she moved with her family to Washington, DC. She took a summer job with the Republican National Committee, an organization where she worked until she graduated from Scripps College, where she majored in history and was the swim team captain. She took a position with International Paper, who sent her to Harrisburg in 1990 to open their lobbying office. A year later she began seeing Bill DeWeese socially, and they married in December 1992.

In 1992, DeWeese supplanted Robert W. O'Donnell as Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and in 1994 Kinser's allies Tom Ridge and Rick Santorum were elected. She then took a position with Greenlee Associates and began lobbying on behalf of Philadelphia and was able to help pass rental-car tax that helped fund the stadiums, the airport expansion funding, and the one percent hotel tax that fuels the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation. It was during this time that rumors of a relationship between her and then-Mayor of Philadelphia Ed Rendell began. Both Rendell and Kinser deny any impropriety in their relationship.

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