The congressman from the 3rd District is Mike Turner, a Republican first elected in 2002. A former Dayton mayor, he has shown a stronger interest in urban issues than most House Republicans while taking a more of a party-line approach on defense and other matters. Read More

The congressman from the 3rd District is Mike Turner, a Republican first elected in 2002. A former Dayton mayor, he has shown a stronger interest in urban issues than most House Republicans while taking a more of a party-line approach on defense and other matters.

Turner grew up in Dayton, where his father worked 42 years for General Motors. He graduated from Ohio Northern University, Case Western law school and the University of Dayton business school and became a corporate lawyer. In 1993, at age 33, he narrowly defeated a scandal-tainted Democratic incumbent to win the first of two terms as Dayton mayor. He narrowly lost a bid for re-election in 2001. Ohio and national Republican leaders recruited him to challenge 3rd District Democratic Rep. Tony Hall, who had served 12 terms but was vulnerable after post-2000 census redistricting made his turf considerably more Republican. In early 2002, Turner announced he was running for Congress, the same day the Ohio Legislature passed their redistricting plan. A week later, President George W. Bush nominated Hall as ambassador to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

In the Republican primary, Turner had fierce opposition from newspaper publisher Roy Brown, grandson and son of former U.S. Reps. Clarence Brown and Clarence Brown Jr., who had represented the neighboring 7th District from 1938 to 1982. Brown spent $1.3 million of his own money in the primary, largely on ads attacking Turner’s record on taxes and lambasting him for being insufficiently conservative. Brown owned 10 newspapers in the 3rd District, and Turner contended that Brown’s campaign guided his newspapers’ coverage of the race. Then, a few days before the primary, the Ohio Election Commission ruled that Brown violated state law with false statements in a televised ad. Voters evidently took the same view. Turner beat Brown 80%-14%. The general election was comparatively sedate. The Democratic nominee was Rick Carne, Hall’s chief of staff. He had little support from the national party but he raised nearly $600,000, with help from a local appearance by Dayton native Martin Sheen, who played President Bartlet on popular The West Wing television series. Turner won 59%-41%.

In the House, Turner has been generally supportive of his party but is one of the more moderate members of the Ohio delegation. After the GOP takeover of the House in 2010, he became chairman of the Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee, which oversees the nation’s nuclear arsenal, military satellites, the Pentagon’s intelligence programs (including Wright-Patterson’s center) and missile defense. In 2009, he was strongly critical of the Obama administration’s plans to cut funding for missile defense. After the president signed the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia in February 2011, Turner said he would continue to pursue tougher missile defense options even in the face of potential Russian objections. He also chairs the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Parliamentary Assembly, the inter-parliamentary organization of legislators from the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Earlier, he worked successfully to keep Wright-Patterson off the base-closing list and to expand its jobs, including a new center for research on fixed-wing aircraft. Turner also collaborated with Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., to review the military’s handling of sexual assault charges. To address the nation’s budget problems, he told reporters in February 2011 that “everything needs to be on the table,” including possible changes to the military’s health care program. In 2007, he was successful in getting the Office of the Architect of the Capitol to return the word “God” to the official certificates with flags that are sent to constituents.

Turner formed a caucus of former mayors serving in Congress to focus on urban issues. He has worked on House-passed legislation to accelerate clean-up of polluted brownfields by making it easier for communities to apply for federal grants as well as a separate bill providing business tax credits for cleanups. He also promoted the kind of public-private partnerships that he used for economic development in Dayton. In March 2009, Turner was one of only seven House Republicans to support a bill that would give bankruptcy judges the power to restructure the terms of home mortgages. Then-Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the bill “just the worst idea in the world.” That same year, he joined Democrats in backing authorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers numerous low-income children in cities, and to overhaul food safety laws.

Turner seems entrenched in what had been a safe Democratic district. In 2008, Ohio Democrats made an issue of the fact that he had not disclosed a five-year business relationship between his wife, Lori Turner, and home builder Tom Peebles, who had contributed to Turner’s campaign. Turner asked for a ruling from the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and the panel concluded he did not have to disclose the relationship between Peebles and his wife. Turner won 63%-37%. In 2010, he received an all-time best of 69% of the vote.