The new congressman from the 12th District in Florida is Dennis Ross, a Republican who in 2010 succeeded GOP Rep. Adam Putnam, who ran for statewide office. Ross grew up in Lakeland, Fla., the youngest of five children. He remembers his mother, Loyola Ross, as a strict parent who preached the virtues of hard work. “She made us self-sufficient and believed in us working to earn our own spending money,” Ross told The Lakeland Ledger after his mother died in 2006. “In the eighth grade, she had me mowing lawns and she was my accountant.” He was active in student government in high school and attended the University of Florida for a year before transferring to Auburn University and graduating in 1981 with a degree in organizational management. He spent a year working as a legislative aide to then-state Rep. Dennis Jones, for a short time had a job installing and selling computers, and then enrolled in law school at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. He returned to Lakeland and became an in-house counsel for Walt Disney World, handling workers’ compensation claims for the company. But he wanted to start his own law practice, so he borrowed $10,000 from a neighbor and opened a firm that eventually grew to seven lawyers and 27 employees. Ross spent three years as chairman of Polk County’s Republican Executive Committee. In 2000, he won a seat in the Florida House, where he developed a reputation as a faithful, but not automatic, GOP vote. Read More

The new congressman from the 12th District in Florida is Dennis Ross, a Republican who in 2010 succeeded GOP Rep. Adam Putnam, who ran for statewide office. Ross grew up in Lakeland, Fla., the youngest of five children. He remembers his mother, Loyola Ross, as a strict parent who preached the virtues of hard work. “She made us self-sufficient and believed in us working to earn our own spending money,” Ross told The Lakeland Ledger after his mother died in 2006. “In the eighth grade, she had me mowing lawns and she was my accountant.” He was active in student government in high school and attended the University of Florida for a year before transferring to Auburn University and graduating in 1981 with a degree in organizational management. He spent a year working as a legislative aide to then-state Rep. Dennis Jones, for a short time had a job installing and selling computers, and then enrolled in law school at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. He returned to Lakeland and became an in-house counsel for Walt Disney World, handling workers’ compensation claims for the company. But he wanted to start his own law practice, so he borrowed $10,000 from a neighbor and opened a firm that eventually grew to seven lawyers and 27 employees. Ross spent three years as chairman of Polk County’s Republican Executive Committee. In 2000, he won a seat in the Florida House, where he developed a reputation as a faithful, but not automatic, GOP vote.

When Putnam announced plans in 2008 to leave his seat to run for state commissioner of agriculture, Ross, who had hit his term limit in the legislature, jumped into the race. In the August primary, he trounced fellow Republican John Lindsey, a businessman and political neophyte, winning 69% of the vote.

In the general election, he faced Democrat Lori Edwards, the Polk County supervisor of elections, and tea party nominee Randy Wilkinson, a former Polk County commissioner. Edwards campaigned as a moderate, saying she would fit in with the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats in the House. Her main theme was a promise to defend the interests of the middle class against the influence on Congress of from special interests and lobbyists.

Ross called for repeal of the Democrats’ health care overhaul and tougher immigration laws. He ran ads tying Edwards to President Obama and liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while playing up his embrace of Putnam’s conservative philosophy, as well as touting his support from former Gov. Jeb Bush and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. Ross also had an overwhelming financial advantage, raising over $1 million compared to Edwards’ $657,000. Ross won convincingly, 48% to 41%, with 11% of the vote going to Wilkinson.