The congressman from the 12th District is Pat Tiberi, a Republican elected in 2000. He is an experienced Ohio politician who is one of Speaker John Boehner’s closest allies, and has reaped the benefits of that association by swiftly ascending on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Read More

The congressman from the 12th District is Pat Tiberi, a Republican elected in 2000. He is an experienced Ohio politician who is one of Speaker John Boehner’s closest allies, and has reaped the benefits of that association by swiftly ascending on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

The son of Italian immigrants, Tiberi (TEE berry) grew up in Columbus and graduated from the Ohio State University. He worked as a real estate agent and then as an assistant to Republican U.S. Rep. John Kasich (now governor) for eight years. Kasich helped Tiberi win a seat in the state House, where he became majority leader and supported business-friendly legislation and tort law changes. In 1999, Kasich, then chairman of the Budget Committee, announced his retirement from the House. Tiberi won support to replace his mentor from most of the Republican establishment and from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He faced a noisy but not very effective primary challenge from state Sen. Gene Watts, who sought to rally conservatives. Tiberi won 73%-21%.

The resounding victory gave him a big boost heading into the general election against Maryellen O'Shaughnessy, a Democratic Columbus City Council member. She had a compelling personal story as the single mother of a 10-year-old son. Tiberi played up his Columbus roots and his membership in the Ohio State marching band and held O’Shaughnessy responsible for negative Democratic Party ads that labeled him a defender of insurance companies on the issue of affordable prescription drugs. This was one of the most-watched House races in the nation. With campaign help from Kasich, Tiberi won 53%-44%.

In the House, Tiberi’s record has been conservative on economic and cultural issues but occasionally centrist on defense and foreign policy. He took over the chairmanship of Ways and Means’ Select Revenue Subcommittee in 2011 and pledged to work on scrapping the income tax code. His partner in the effort was Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has a habit of seeking pragmatic Republicans to work with him on knotty issues. They compared their alliance to President Ronald Reagan working with a Republican Senate and a Democratic House to reform the tax code in 1986.

Tiberi was the campaign manager for Boehner’s successful bid for majority leader in early 2006, and he later helped Boehner fix organizational problems at the National Republican Congressional Committee. He typically toes the party line against Democratic proposals on Ways and Means and was a sharp critic of the 2010 health care overhaul, but he supported their bills to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. He also supported a Democratic overhaul of food safety laws in 2009 and, at Boehner’s urging, backed the final version of the Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2008 after initially opposing it. Tiberi and fellow Ohioan Steve LaTourette were two of only seven Republicans to vote against denying federal funding for National Public Radio in March 2011.

Despite the district’s narrow partisan balance, Tiberi has easily won re-election. In 2006, he faced an unusual challenge from 79-year-old Bob Shamansky, a lawyer and real estate investor who held the seat for two years before Kasich defeated him in 1982. Shamansky criticized the Iraq War, but Tiberi distanced himself from President George W. Bush on Iraq, and he won 57%-43%.

In 2008, he was challenged by businessman and environmental advocate David Robinson, a political novice who ran on the need for change in Congress. Tiberi won 55%-42%, although he lost 51%-46% in Franklin County, which cast over half the vote. He drew a serious challenger two years later in Franklin County Commissioner Paula Brooks, who sought to tap into anti-Washington anger. But Tiberi made the most of the fact that Brooks actually lived in the neighboring 15th District, not the 12th. With Kasich leading the GOP wave in Ohio that year, Tiberi won 56%-41%.