Rep. Steven LaTourette (R)

The congressman from the 14th District is Steven LaTourette, a Republican elected in 1994. He grew up in the Cleveland area and went to law school at Cleveland State University. In the 1980s, he worked as a public defender and in 1988, became Lake County district attorney. Well-known and well-liked, he won a three-candidate Republican primary with 54% of the vote to compete for the House seat. In the general election, he challenged freshman Rep. Eric Fingerhut. LaTourette attacked Fingerhut for backing President Bill Clinton’s budget and tax increases and for being soft on crime. He won 48%-43%. In January 2009, LaTourette won a seat on the coveted Appropriations Committee, though to get the spot, he had to give up his seats on the House Financial Services Committee and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

In the House, LaTourette has the most moderate voting record of Ohio’s Republican members. He was an ardent advocate of a minimum-wage hike and broke with House Republicans to oppose normalizing trade relations with China, though he did deliver crucial, last-minute support for the Central American Free Trade Agreement. He later said that he regretted that vote. In a major break with his party in January 2007, he voted for most of the bills in the new Democratic majority’s agenda, except for the energy proposal.

As a senior member of the Transportation panel, LaTourette’s high-priority projects have included improvements of Ohio Routes 82 and 8, plus enactment of legislation to add Ashtabula, Mahoning and Trumbull counties to the Appalachian Regional Commission. In May 2009, he was promised by the Obama administration and Chrysler company officials that, despite the company’s imminent bankruptcy filing, the plant in his district would remain open and its 1,250 employees would keep their jobs. Days later, after the bankruptcy proceedings became official, the company announced that the plant would close. LaTourette accused the administration and Chrysler of lying, and a Chrysler lobbyist called him to apologize for the “misunderstanding.”

As a member of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in 2004, LaTourette took seriously the responsibility of committee members to render bipartisan decisions and joined in unanimous committee votes to admonish GOP Majority Leader Tom DeLay on three ethics charges. When GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert, without explanation, removed him from the committee in 2005, LaTourette was privately unhappy with his punishment but did not say so publicly. In 2007, he voiced disapproval of attacks on Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, who was a suspect in a federal bribery investigation. The partisan skirmishing over Jefferson, he said, amounted to “the dumbing-down of the House,” with both parties to blame.

In contrast to many members of the Class of 1994, LaTourette quickly secured his formerly Democratic seat without a competitive challenger. In 2004, the challenger was Democrat Capri Cafaro, a 26-year-old shopping-center heiress who spent nearly $2 million of her own money. Cafaro struggled with the issues, and LaTourette won 63%-37%. During the campaign, however, he acknowledged an affair with his former chief aide, who had become a lobbyist and whom he soon married. His former wife endorsed Cafaro and complained, “Washington corrupts people.” In 2008, retired Appeals Court Judge William O'Neill spent $550,000 on a campaign and had some name recognition in the district, but LaTourette won 58%-39%.