Carrie Fitzwater
| Offices | President Pro Tempore of the Constitutional Convention Chancellor of the Exchequer Minister for Women |
| Member of Parliament for | Israat & Anglia |
| Monarch | Elizabeth I |
| Prime Ministers | Christophe Landry Gerhardt Eugen Seydlitz |
| Party | National Unity Party |
| Died | 1687 AN Nivardom, Constancia |
Carrie Fitzwater was a Caputian politician of the National Unity Party, one of the framers of the constitution of the Kingdom of the Union of Caputia and among the most prolific legislators of its Parliament. She presided over the Constitutional Convention as its President Pro Tempore and sketched the first draft of the kingdom's constitution, served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the first government under Christophe Landry, led her party until 1659 AN, sat in Parliament as the member for Israat & Anglia, and joined the First Seydlitz Government as Minister for Women and Lord Great Chamberlain in 1665 AN. After the collapse of the kingdom she followed the Royal Caputian Government in Exile to Nivardom in Constancia as keeper of its financial records, and died there in 1687 AN.
Constitutional Convention
Fitzwater was one of the 250 deputies of the Constitutional Convention that assembled at the Zalae City Hall to settle the shape of the successor state to the Commonwealth of Hamland. When the Convention's President, Regina Ravaillac, left to attend the peace conference at Maison Verneuil, the deputies elected Fitzwater President Pro Tempore in her place. In the chair she began drafting a constitution for the new state, the framework that the Convention developed into the Constitution Act ratified by referendum at the kingdom's founding.
Chancellor of the Exchequer
On the formation of the kingdom's first government under Christophe Landry, Fitzwater was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Second Lord of Her Majesty's Treasury and Lord Privy Seal, and was sworn of the Privy Council. At the Treasury she grounded the kingdom's first budgets in published estimates of its population and gross domestic product, a body of analysis she later expanded into a public manual on the workings of the Caputian economy. The kingdom's banking system began during her chancellorship.
She was later named president and chief executive of three of the kingdom's state corporations: the General Company of the Caputian Kingdom, the Royal Caputian Mining Company, and the Greater Keltian Trading Company.
Member of Parliament
Fitzwater sat in the Parliament as the National Unity Party member for Israat & Anglia, the constituency of the state of Anglia & Israat, and had left the Treasury by the royal wedding of 1661 AN. The first Parliament seated 250 members, a chamber later enlarged to 422, and her party entered it as the largest, with 128 seats against the National Salvation Party's 61, the Liberal League's 20, Hatnuah's 10, and 31 members sitting as independents. Within her party she was nominated interim Party Chairman, elected to the National Executive Committee, and served as Party Leader; at the Third Party Congress on 24.XI.1659 AN she endorsed the party secretary, Gerhardt Eugen Seydlitz, as her successor, and he was elected by acclamation.
She moved the first Address in Reply to the speech from the throne and authored the Legislative Committee Act, the National Road Infrastructure Act, and the Economy Act among the first Parliament's early measures. Later came the Neutrality Act of 1658 AN, which wrote into law the armed neutrality first proclaimed by the Crown under the Landry government; the National Holidays Act of 1661 AN; the Judicial Proceedings Act and the State Party Contracts Act of 1663 AN; and the Government Formation and Transition Act of 1665 AN. The measures of 1661 AN and 1663 AN passed under the coalition government of Royston Merrick, in which her party governed alongside the National Salvation Party.
Her National Social Grant Act of 1665 AN created the National Social Transfer, a block grant paid to the states and dependencies to fund social security, welfare, and health programs, set at ₺10 billion in Caputian laurels in its first year and ₺20 billion in 1666 AN with an annual escalator of 1.03. The Act also created a separate Wait Times Reduction Transfer for the health system and was written to sunset on 3.VI.1667 AN.
Minister for Women
When Seydlitz formed the First Seydlitz Government, proclaimed at Bellesea Palace on 12.XIII.1665 AN, Fitzwater joined his ministry of nineteen as Minister for Women and Lord Great Chamberlain, and led the Ministry for Women from 1666 AN to 1670 AN.
At the ministry she set out a program directed at the economic standing of Caputian women: technical support and resources for small and mid-size businesses owned or started by women, a simpler process for starting a business, equal pay legislation, paternity leave, and tax exemptions for child care expenses. Its centerpiece was a staged quota requiring 40 percent female directorship of companies in Caputia by 1680 AN, under which public companies were to reach 20 percent within three years and 40 percent within six, private companies were given ten years, and industries the government considered essential to the national interest twelve, with fines, possible nationalization, or closure for failure to comply.
Later life and death
Fitzwater remained at her post beyond the fall of the Seydlitz government in 1668 AN, leading the ministry as the White Plague spread through the kingdom, and left office in 1670 AN. In the collapse of Caputia she oversaw the removal of the Treasury's records and the archives of the National Credit System from Zalae, and carried them into exile with the Royal Caputian Government in Exile at Nivardom in Constancia. There she served as keeper of the exiled government's financial records under its prime minister, Royston Merrick, holding the accounts of the National Credit System in trust for the scattered Caputian diaspora, while the state corporations she had headed passed in the dissolution toward the holdings of the ESB Group. She died at Nivardom in 1687 AN.
