Rob Portman
Robert Jones Portman (born December 19, 1955) is an American lawyer and the current United States Trade Representative. From 1993 to April 29, 2005, he was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio, representing that state's second congressional district (map), which stretches along the Ohio River from the Hamilton County suburbs of Cincinnati east to Scioto County.
Portman, a Methodist who is a millionaire thanks to his family's heavy-equipment business, was born in Cincinnati and graduated in 1974 from Cincinnati Country Day School. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1979 and a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1984. Upon his graduation, he worked for the Washington law firm of Patton, Boggs, and Blow from 1984 to 1986, when he returned to Cincinnati. In Cincinnati, he worked for Graydon, Head, and Ritchey until going to work for President George H. W. Bush as associate White House counsel in 1989. Portman later served as director of the Office of Legislative Affairs until 1991. He returned to Cincinnati to Graydon, Head, until his election to Congress.
Portman was first elected to the House in a special election in 1993 to complete the term of Willis D. Gradison Jr., who resigned on January 31, 1993, three months after his re-election, to become a lobbyist for the insurance industry. In the Republican primary on March 16, Portman faced six-term Congressman Bob McEwen, who had lost his Sixth District seat to Ted Strickland in November 1992, and real estate developer Jay Buchert. Portman was criticized for his law firm's work for Haitian dictator Baby Doc Duvalier, while McEwan faced questions about the bounced checks he had written on the House bank. Portman won all five counties in the district, taking 36% of the vote overall. (McEwan received 30% and Buchert received 25%). The race in the Second District, one of the most Republican in the country, was determined in the primary. Portman spent $650,000 in his primary campaign but only $81,000 in the general election held May 4, 1993, in which he easily defeated Lee Hornberger, Gradison's opponent in 1992, by 53,020 (70.1%) to 22,652 (29.1%).
Portman was easily re-elected in every election. In 1994, he defeated Democrat Les Mann 150,128 to 43,730. In 1996, he defeated Democrat Thomas R. Chandler, a hospital technician who had lost the Democratic primary to Hornberger in 1993, and independent Kathleen M. McKnight; Portman had 186,853 votes to Chandler's 58,715, and McKnight's 13,905.
In 1998, his Democratic challenger was Waynesville mayor Charles W. Sanders, but Portman defeated him 154,344 to 49,293. Portman faced Sanders again in the succeeded three elections, Sanders never getting even one-third of the vote. In 2000, Portman won 204,184 to 64,091, with Libertarian Robert E. Bidwell getting 9,266. In 2002, Sanders was again nominated by the Democrats even though, because of redistricting, he no longer lived in the Second District, but Portman won 139,218 to 48,785, and in 2004, Portman defeated Sanders 221,785 to 87,156.
Portman was a member of the Budget and Ways and Means Committees and is very close to President George W. Bush, who acted as the liaison between Congressional Republicans and the White House. In nominating him for the trade post, President Bush called Portman "a good friend, a decent man, and a skilled negotiator."
Well respected on both sides of the aisle, Portman worked on reforming the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS Restructuring Act of 1998), Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, unfunded mandates (the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995), and pensions offered by small businesses. Portman's hometown paper would describe him as having "two personas: the well-connected Congressman who would surface on cable news channels as a 'talking head' for the Bush led agenda and another as the politician who drove himself from one small town pancake breakfast or Kiwanis luncheon to another in a district stretching 100 miles plus."
In December 2004, Portman and Cheryl Bauer published a book on the Shaker community that existed in Turtlecreek Township in Warren County, Ohio in the Nineteenth Century entitled Wisdom's Paradise: The Forgotten Shakers of Union Village. (Wilmington, Ohio: Orange Frazer Press, 2004. ISBN 1882203402). Portman was interested in the topic because his grandparents, Robert and Virginia Jones, in the 1930's purchased the Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon, about four miles east of the former Shaker settlement, and decorated it with Shaker furniture and artifacts.
On December 1, 2004, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Ohio's governor, Bob Taft, was considering a job in the Bush administration and that Portman would be appointed lieutenant governor in order to become governor when Taft resigned. This, however, did not come to pass. On March 17, 2005, President George W. Bush nominated Portman to be United States Trade Representative. Portman was confirmed by the Senate on April 29. He resigned his Congressional seat at noon that day and he House took notice of his resignation on May 2, 2005 [1] [2].
Portman's wife is Jane and they are residents of Terrace Park in Hamilton County.
See also
- Election Results, U.S. Representative from Ohio, 2nd District
- List of United States Representatives from Ohio
- Jane Portman (His wife)
External links
References
- Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa. The Almanac of American Politics, 1994. Washington, D.C.: National Journal, 1993. ISBN 0892340584
- Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa. The Almanac of American Politics, 1998. Washington, D.C.: National Journal, 1997. ISBN 0892340800
- Michael Barone, Richard E. Cohen, and Grant Ujifusa. The Almanac of American Politics, 2002. Washington, D.C.: National Journal, 2001. ISBN 0892340991
- Elizabeth Becker. "Congressman From Ohio Is Chosen for Trade Post". The New York Times. March 18, 2005. C1.
- Congressional Quarterly. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 49th edition, 103rd Congress, 1st Session, 1993. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1994. ISBN 1568020201.
- Congressional Quarterly. Politics in America, 1992: The 102nd Congress. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1991. ISBN 0871875993
- "The Portman File". Cincinnati Enquirer. March 18, 2005. A13.
- Howard Wilkinson. "Portman will join Bush's cabinet." Cincinnati Enquirer. March 18, 2005. A1, A12.
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress