Ohio at a Glance State Profile - Gov. Taft (R) - Sen. DeWine (R) - Sen. Voinovich (R) Presidential Politics Congressional Districting - 01 - Chabot (R) - 02 - Portman (R) - 03 - Hall (D) - 04 - Oxley (R) - 05 - Gillmor (R) - 06 - Strickland (D) - 07 - Hobson (R) - 08 - Boehner (R) - 09 - Kaptur (D) - 10 - Kucinich (D) - 11 - Tubbs Jones (D) - 12 - Tiberi (R) - 13 - Brown (D) - 14 - Sawyer (D) - 15 - Pryce (R) - 16 - Regula (R) - 17 - Traficant Jr. (D) - 18 - Ney (R) - 19 - LaTourette (R) Almanac 2002 Home States & Districts Elected Officials For district profiles and additional information on the elected officials of Ohio, please use the pull-down menu above.

Columbus, smack in the center of Ohio, was founded in 1812 to be the state capital. Its flat-domed Capitol at Broad and High, with the statue of William McKinley out front, is surrounded by high-rises, public and private, while the city has been growing in all directions into the countryside, and now is on the verge of becoming a large metropolis. It is the headquarters of state government and Ohio State, one of the nation's largest universities; it is the home as well of Nationwide Insurance and The Limited and Wendy's. It is the headquarters of the Batelle Memorial Institute, the think tank that helped invent compact discs, office copy machines and the universal product code; a major industry here is data retrieval. Columbus, which has kept annexing suburbs, is now Ohio's largest central city by far, with 711,000 people in 2000; Franklin County topped 1 million and the metro area extends into formerly rural counties. Columbus is rapidly building civic landmarks--the Center of Science and Industry on the riverfront, the Jerome Shottenstein Center for sports and concerts at OSU, a hockey stadium for the Columbus Blue Jackets and the nation's first stadium built for a professional soccer team, the Columbus Crew. With the nation's highest proportion of residents age 25 to 34, Columbus continues to be a prime test market for products of all kinds.

Ohio's 15th Congressional District is made up of most of Columbus, all but the east side, plus southern and western Franklin County and rural Madison County directly to the west. The 15th includes some of Columbus' black population, white working-class areas on the south side of the city and in nearby Grove City, and the Ohio State University campus. Politically, these Democratic areas are more than balanced by the heavily Republican suburb of Upper Arlington, across the Olentangy River from Ohio State, and by Republican subdivisions sprouting up in rural land between the old villages.

The 15th District is represented in the House by Deborah Pryce, a Republican first elected in 1992. Pryce grew up in Warren, graduated from law school in Columbus in 1976, worked in state government and as a city prosecutor, and was elected municipal court judge in 1985. In 1992, when incumbent Chalmers Wylie retired after 26 years, Pryce ran for the House. She was unopposed in the primary but had tough competition in the general from Democrat Richard Cordray and from anti-abortion independent Linda Reidelbach, who became angry when Pryce announced she would support a Freedom of Choice Act that would restrict states' power to limit abortions. Pryce talked much about congressional reform--term limits, rotating chairmanships, line-item veto--and called for limiting annual spending increases to 3%. She won with 44% of the vote to Cordray's 38% and Reidelbach's 18%.

In the House, Pryce has a voting record that is mostly conservative on economic and foreign issues, sometimes liberal on cultural issues. In her first term she was elected interim president of her Republican class and helped to craft the Contract with America. When Republicans won the majority in 1994, Newt Gingrich tapped her to chair a committee to examine legal ramifications of the transition, including severance pay for thousands of aides who lost their jobs. Pryce has been a leadership loyalist on the Rules Committee since 1995 and headed the House Republican task force on tobacco.

Pryce has been particularly interested in issues relating to children, adoption and cancer. Her adoptive daughter developed cancer in September 1998 and died at age nine in September 1999. Pryce and her husband started Hope Street Kids, an organization to raise funds for cancer research, using funds donated in memory of their daughter. She is co-chairwoman of the House Cancer Working Group and sponsored a bill in 2001 to require private insurers to provide coverage of routine patient costs of cancer patients who qualify to participate in a clinical trial. She has favored increasing the $5,000 adoption tax credit to $10,000, which passed in May 2001. She tried unsuccessfully to change the Indian Child Welfare Act to exempt children whose parents have no significant tribal affiliation. She sponsored the law creating the adoption stamp, which was unveiled by Wendy's founder and adoption advocate Dave Thomas. She sponsored a law signed in March 2000 giving child protective services and child welfare workers access to more court records and doubling funding for federal child abuse and domestic assistance programs to $20 million.

On other issues, Pryce was a sponsor of the privacy amendment voted into financial services deregulation by the House in July 1999; it would give consumers the right to block banks and financial institutions from selling personal data to outside firms, but would let them share it with affiliated companies. In 2000 she inserted into an appropriation $235 million for graduate medical programs at children's hospitals; Children's Hospital of Columbus stood to get $5 million. In 2001 she sponsored an "apples for teachers" bill which would grant teachers a $400 tax credit for out-of-pocket expenses. She has obtained $11 million of a projected cost of $15 million for the West Columbus Floodwall project. She got the Appropriations Committee to grant $430,000 for Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman's $20 million revolving loan fund for central-city housing initiatives.

In July 1997, Pryce was elected Republican Conference secretary when leadership positions opened up following the retirement of Conference Vice Chair Susan Molinari. Running as the moderate among the four candidates, Pryce won 110 votes on the second ballot to 65 for Sue Myrick and 42 for Duke Cunningham. In November 2000 she moved up, being elected Conference vice chair without opposition.

Pryce has won re-election easily. Redistricting is controlled by Republicans, and the 15th is one of four Ohio districts that must shed population.

Cook's Call:
Safe. Although this district is not the most Republican in the state (Bush only won here with 52% in 2000), Pryce has had little trouble winning this suburban Columbus district. She should be safe in 2002.

The People:

• Pop. 2000: 649,980; Pop. 1990: 570,740, up 13.9% 1990-2000.
• 85.9% White, 7.7% Black, 3.2% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 1.8% Two+ races, 1% Other. 2.3% Hispanic origin.

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 117,382 (52%) Gore (D) 101,364 (45%) Nader (Green) 6,851 (3%)

1996 Presidential Vote Dole (R) 114,183 (48%) Clinton (D) 105,947 (44%) Perot (I) 17,324 (7%)