Rep. Bob Ney (R) Elected 1994, 6th term
Born:	July 5, 1954, Wheeling, WV
Home:	St. Clairsville
Education:	OH St. U., B.S. 1976
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Elizabeth)
Elected  Office:	OH House of Reps., 1980-82; OH Senate, 1984-94.
Professional Career:	Teacher, Iran, 1978; Program Mgr., OH Office of Appalachia, 1979; Bellaire Safety Dir., 1980.
DC Office	2438 RHOB20515, 202-225-6265; Fax: 202-225-3394; Web site: www.house.gov/ney
State Offices	Chillicothe, 740-779-1634; Jackson, 740-288-1430; New Philadelphia, 330-364-6380; St. Clairsville, 740-699-2704; Zanesville, 740-452-7023.
Additional Info
Committees · Ratings · Key Votes · Election Results District Demographics
More On Ohio
At A Glance · State Profile District Map Redistricting · Almanac Home
Recent News Coverage
Search the CongressDaily, Hotline, House Race Hotline, National Journal and Technology Daily archives using the form below:
[an error occurred while processing this directive]

The hills of eastern Ohio are one of those obscure parts of America, seen by most Americans, if they are at all, from speeding cars on the Interstates or U.S. highways on their way to some place else. They were settled early on in our history, in the 1790s, mostly by Virginians (there was no West Virginia until 1863), and for the most part sparsely: this was hard land to clear and hard land to farm, better suited for dairy cattle than the plains that lay beyond. In some places near the Ohio River there was industrial development early on. The local clay was used to make pottery, the coal that lies near the surface was dug up, a green vitriol works was built, and a nail factory went into operation, all before 1814, and in time the area became dotted with small factory towns and some coal mines. Farther south there was little industrial development and the landscape has a timeless feel today. This is a part of America little affected by the flow of immigrants from Europe in 1880-1924, southern blacks in 1940-65 or Latino and Asian immigrants since 1970. Some counties have seen sharp job losses, as coal mines and factories shut down; others have benefited from local economic development and construction of a gasoline pipeline from the Ohio River to Columbus. This passes over scenic country, much of it forest lands opened up to hunters by MeadWestvaco. The most distinctive people here are the Amish, driving their horses and buggies over covered bridges in Holmes, Tuscarawas and Wayne Counties, the largest concentration of Amish in the world; they run shops now as well as farm and no longer eschew all farm machinery.

The 18th Congressional District of Ohio covers much of this hill country, from Holmes and Tuscarawas Counties in the north to Ross and Jackson Counties in the south. It includes such cities as New Rumley, the birthplace of General George Custer; Zanesville, the birthplace of writer Zane Grey and architect Cass Gilbert and home of a famous Y-shaped bridge; and Chillicothe, the first capital of Ohio, on the Scioto River, beneath Mount Logan, which is stamped on the Great Seal of the state of Ohio. Politically, much of this area was ancestrally Democratic, but in the last two decades it has become more Republican. George W. Bush won 55% of the vote here in 2000 and 57% in 2004.

The congressman from the 18th District is Bob Ney, a Republican first elected in 1994. Ney grew up in Bellaire, in Belmont County just across the Ohio River from Wheeling, West Virginia, and worked as a teacher and as safety director for the city of Bellaire. He worked as a teacher in Iran in 1978 and is the only House member who speaks fluent Farsi; he has called for dialogue with the self-styled reformers in the Iranian government. In 1979 Governor James Rhodes appointed him head of his Office of Appalachia. In 1980 he was elected to the state House, at 26, in quite an upset, beating Wayne Hays, the longtime congressman and chairman of the House Administration Committee who quit this seat in 1976 amid scandal and won a state House seat two years later. Ney lost that seat in the Democratic year of 1982 and spent some time teaching English in Saudi Arabia. In 1984 he was appointed to the state Senate and was elected later that year. When Democrat Douglas Applegate announced his retirement from the U.S. House in 1994, Ney gave up his Finance Committee chairmanship in Columbus to run. Democrats nominated state Representative Greg DiDonato. Most unions backed DiDonato, except for teachers' unions, who backed ex-teacher Ney. His Belmont County home base turned out to be the key; while it gave only 35% to Republican Senate candidate Mike DeWine that year, it voted 67% for Ney, enough to clinch a 54%-46% victory.

In his first years in the House, Ney opposed the Republican leadership on several issues. He removed language eliminating provisions of the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefits Act that make former employers pay for retirees' health care. He helped organized labor by protecting the bargaining rights of unionized bus drivers, and he opposed Republican leaders' anti-union bills. He was a leader among House Republicans opposed to normal trade relations with China. With other Steel Belt members, he backed quotas on foreign steel.

In January 2001 Ney became chairman of the House Administration Committee, the very panel where Wayne Hays created his power base as "Mayor of Capitol Hill." Ney was the only 1994 freshman who asked to be on the committee, and wanted even then to be chairman. Hastert passed over the more senior Vern Ehlers, who had voted against the leadership on rules votes, to pick Ney, who dissented on substantive issues important to his district but supported the leadership on rules. In 2001 he started off by moving to give Democrats one-third of committee staff funding--something they had been asking for in vain since Republicans took over. House Administration had been a partisan battleground since Democrats resolved the Indiana 8th District election contest in their own favor in 1985 though Indiana state officials said the Republican won. Now Ney and ranking minority member Steny Hoyer cooperated to the point of consulting each other's staffs; together they worked efficiently after September 11.

House Administration has jurisdiction over election law, and that put Ney in the center of two fights in 2001 and 2002. The first was over campaign finance regulation. He opposed the Shays-Meehan bill and produced his own alternative, co-sponsored by Albert Wynn, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Hastert hoped that Ney-Wynn could prevail over Shays-Meehan, but after the rule to consider them was voted down in July 2001, both bills were pulled from the floor. In January 2002 Shays-Meehan backers got 218 signatures on a petition to discharge their bill from the Rules Committee; Ney-Wynn had become irrelevant and Shays-Meehan was passed in March. The other issue was how to change election laws after the Florida fiasco. On this Ney reached bipartisan agreement with Hoyer in November 2001. Their bill set minimum national standards but not mandates for state laws; provided $400 million to buy out punch card voting machines and upgrade others and $2.25 billion for new machines and voter education; had procedures for absentee ballots and handicapped voters; and set up an Election Assistance Commission with a Standards Board. In December it was passed 326-63. The Senate took longer to act, and the conference committee took time handling difficult points, but a law similar to Ney-Hoyer was enacted in April 2002.

Hoyer became minority whip in January 2003, though he sometimes worked with Ney on election issues; the new ranking Democrats were John Larson in 2003 and Juanita Millender-McDonald in 2005. After France blocked a Security Council resolution authorizing military force in Iraq, Ney had the House restaurant rename French fries "freedom fries" and French toast "freedom toast." Ney and Millender-McDonald agreed that, after a two-year experiment in which all Congressional Research Service reports were posted on its website, that posting would no longer be automatic but instead at the discretion of the members requesting the studies. In March 2004, when Sheila Jackson Lee demanded that the fourth floor of the Rayburn Building be roped off between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. for an afternoon visit by singer and accused child molester Michael Jackson, Ney, whose office is on that floor, reopened the hall and said that Jackson was to be treated like any other well-known guest. In January 2005 Ney decided that the House would no longer pay the $227,000 bill for members' Blackberries; they could put the cost on their own office accounts instead. In 2004 Ney and the Republican leadership were attacked for blocking Democrat Rush Holt's bill to require a paper trail for all ballots. Ney pointed out that Hoyer and Senators Christopher Dodd and Mitch McConnell had joined him in March expressing concerns and that hearings in July showed opposition from disabilities groups. "Paper-based systems have a very long and documented history of failure and inaccuracy, with demonstrated error rates that exceed more modern electronic systems." In February 2005 he passed in committee the bill requiring elections of House members within 45 days (later changed to 49) if large numbers of members are killed or rendered incompetent by catastrophic attack.

On other issues, Ney has continued to back trade restrictions and sponsored a bill to preempt state predatory lending laws and impose federal limits. He showed the power of the House Admin chairman after the White House allowed him to bring only one guest into a 2002 Christmas party (his daughter went and his wife returned to her hotel room, rather than the houseboat he lives on in Washington); soon after, Cabinet officials lost 40 of their 44 House parking spaces. With Senator George Voinovich, he successfully resisted cuts in the Appalachian Regional Commission.

After the November 2004 election, Roll Call ran a story on Ney's relations with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In 2002 Abramoff told clients in a Indian tribe that Ney and Dodd would add an amendment to an elections bill reopening their casino in Texas which had been closed by a federal judge. A tribal official said Ney requested that the tribe pay for a trip to Scotland; Ney went on the trip, which included conferences on military issues and golf course outings, and was told that it was financed, as is allowed under House rules, by a foundation connected with Abramoff. Ney met later with Abramoff and tribal officials. Ney said that Abramoff assured him that Dodd favored the provision, but when he asked Dodd, the Connecticut senator said he had never heard of it. In any case the provision was not in the bill that went to the floor in October 2002. In March 2005 Ney said he would be happy to discuss the matter with members of the ethics committee.

Ney was elected in a district represented by Democrats for 46 years and had serious challenges in 1996 and 1998. In 2002 the legislature removed the Ohio River counties from his district and added five new counties in the south and two in the north. That raised the Bush 2000 percentage in the district from 51% to 55%. Ney was unopposed in the primary and general election. In November 2004 he won 66%-34%. Ney reaches the end of House Republicans' six-year term limit on chairmen in January 2007; he might seek a waiver of the term limit. By some accounts he is interested in a position in the Republican leadership should it open up.

Committees

• Financial Services (10th of 37 R): Capital Markets, Insurance & Government Sponsored Enterprises; Housing & Community Opportunity (Chmn.).
• House Administration (Chmn. of 6 R).
• Transportation & Infrastructure (14th of 41 R): Aviation; Highways, Transit & Pipelines; Water Resources & Environment.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	10	15	13	0	90	52	100	92	81	83	--
2003	10	--	13	5	--	59	100	84	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	33%	--	64%		36%	--	63%
Social	46%	--	54%		39%	--	60%
Foreign	23%	--	71%		39%	--	59%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. DC School Vouchers N 6. Ban Human Cloning *		7. Restrict Gun Liability Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds N 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Bob Ney (R)	177,600	66%	$1,484,643
	Brian Thomas (D)	90,820	34%	$18,417
2004 primary	Bob Ney (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Bob Ney (R)	unopposed
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (64%); 1998 (60%); 1996 (50%); 1994 (54%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 163,121 (57%) Kerry (D) 121,495 (43%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 132,709 (55%) Gore (D) 98,328 (41%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Eighteenth District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R + 6
• District Size: 6,876 square miles
• Population in 2000: 630,730; 43.3% urban; 56.7% rural
• Median Household Income: $34,462; 12.6% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 37.5% blue collar; 45.8% white collar; 16.7% gray collar; 14.3% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 95.9% White, 1.9% Black, 0.3% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.0% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 0.6% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 16.7% German, 10.2% USA, 8.7% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.