Rep. Steve Austria (R)

Last updated: July 1, 2011

The congressman from the 7th district is Steve Austria, a protégé of Republican Rep. Dave Hobson, the longtime incumbent whose retirement paved the way for Austria’s election in 2008. His father, Dr. Clement Austria, was born in the Philippines but moved to Cincinnati to attend medical school. Austria was born in Cincinnati and grew up in Xenia, Ohio, with eight younger siblings. He graduated from Marquette University with a bachelor’s degree in political science, then returned home and founded a financial planning business. He worked for the local GOP, and his wife, Eileen, worked for Hobson as his district director from 1990 to 2007.

In 1998, Austria launched his political career by challenging incumbent state Rep. Marilyn Reid, a fellow Republican embroiled in an ethics scandal. Austria upset Reid in the GOP primary and easily defeated the Democratic candidate in the general election. Two years later, he was elected to the state Senate, where he served two terms as majority whip. In the legislature, Austria focused on law and order issues, sponsoring bills stiffening penalties for soliciting sex from minors over the Internet and toughening penalties for child rapists. In 2003, he won praise for helping to broker a deal on a bill that allowed Ohioans to carry concealed handguns.

When Hobson announced his retirement in October 2007, Austria got into the contest for the seat as the front-runner. Austria had primary competition from former state Rep. Ron Hood, Clark County Republican Party Chairman Dan Harkins and former Air Force officer John Mitchel. Austria was not helped by the Dayton Daily News, which editorialized: “What he’s most likely to do is settle into a long, long career of keeping people back home happy, while remaining on the congressional back benches.” Nevertheless, Austria won, with 55% to Hood’s 34%, Harkins’s 6% and Mitchel’s 5%.

In the general election, Austria faced attorney Sharen Neuhardt. Democrats claimed Neuhardt could run a competitive race, but in spite of help from national Democratic groups, Austria still outraised her $1.2 million to $900,000. A couple months before the election, political blogger Jeff Coryell suggested Austria plagiarized sections of a column he wrote for the Xenia Gazette by taking text from a U.S. Department of Labor website. But the negative attention Austria got for that paled in comparison to the flak Neuhardt took a few weeks later, when the Dayton Daily News revealed that for six years she had housed a Rwandan refugee who was not legally in the United States. The Rwandan man also had been arrested for disorderly conduct and cited for driving without a license. In the campaign’s final stretch, Neuhardt blamed the Republican Party for the job losses in the district, but the message failed to resonate. Austria defeated her 58% to 42%, carrying every county in the district except Franklin.

In the House, Austria has proved to be a loyal Republican. He showed some independence early on, becoming one of 40 Republicans to vote for expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in 2009. But he sided with the majority of his party on major votes after that, and was rewarded in 2011 with a slot on the Appropriations Committee. He got a seat on the military construction panel, enabling him to have some say about spending at Wright Patterson. During a February 2009 interview with The Columbus Dispatch’s editorial board, Austria compared President Barack Obama’s economic-stimulus bill to former President Franklin Roosevelt’s economic policies and claimed government spending under Roosevelt caused the Great Depression. A week later, liberal MSNBC’s liberal news commentator, Keith Olbermann, ridiculed Austria’s take on American history.

Still, Austria won re-election easily in 2010 over Democrat Bill Conner, 62%-32%.