Ohio’s most decent Congress Members work across the aisle & respect elections

Our goal is to get all 18 of Ohio’s members of Congress to be decent, statesmanlike representatives of our State, regardless of party or policy. Decency means working through disagreements honestly in good faith, and not using deceitful manipulation or demonizing fellow Americans. It means honoring election results, especially in defeat. An important sign of decency is bipartisanship: working across the aisle for the common good. Here is an overview of Ohio’s Congress members; recognizing those who are decent, and identifying the most divisive hyper-partisans who need to be replaced.

	Congress Member	Bipartisan Rating	Accepted Other Party’s President
	Senator Rob Portman 3rd most bipartisan US Senator 2019-2020 Negotiated infrastructure & gun safety deals	1.8	✓
	Rep Anthony Gonzalez Problem Solvers Caucus	1.3	✓
	Rep Steve Stivers (resigned) Civility and Respect Caucus co-founder	1.1	✓
	Rep David Joyce Problem Solvers Caucus Civility and Respect Caucus	1.0	✓
	Rep Tim Ryan	0.7	✓
	Rep Troy Balderson Civility and Respect Caucus	0.5	✓
	Rep Mike Turner	0.3	✓
	Rep Joyce Beatty Civility and Respect Caucus co-founder	0.0	✓
	Rep Marcy Kaptur	-0.2	✓
	Senator Sherrod Brown	-0.2	✓
	Rep Bob Latta	-0.1	—
	Rep Brad Wenstrup	-0.2	—
	Rep Marcia Fudge (resigned) Civility and Respect Caucus	-0.7	—
	Rep Steve Chabot	0.4	✘
	Rep Bill Johnson Problem Solvers Caucus	-0.1	✘
	Rep Warren Davidson Freedom Caucus	-0.9	✘
	Rep Bob Gibbs 6th most partisan out of 427 reps 2015-2016	-0.9	✘
	Rep Jim Jordan 3rd most partisan out of 437 reps 2019-2020 Freedom Caucus co-founder and deputy chair Low legislative productivity	-1.1	✘

Bipartisanship

This review uses the Lugar Center Bipartisan Index, which creates ratings based on all introduced bills and their number of cosponsors from the other party, compared to historical averages. A rating above 1.0 is outstanding; higher than 0.5 is very good. Below -0.5 is poor; under -1.0 is very poor. I averaged their ratings between 2013 and 2020.

Membership in the Problem Solvers Caucus indicates a dedication to finding bipartisan solutions, as does the Civility and Respect Caucus which was co-founded by our own Steve Stivers and Joyce Beatty.

Bipartisanship shows success in building consensus on specific initiatives, but it does not mean collapsing the core values of the 2 major parties. Ohio’s most bipartisan Congressman from each party still voted differently 60% of the time according to Propublica. That shows that a healthy amount of policy diversity can be well represented while still working across the aisle on some issues.

Accepting the other party’s presidential election results

Accepting the winner of a presidential election is fundamental to our representative democracy, and half the time that means counting the votes cast for the other party’s candidate. You can see a correlation between bipartisan lawmaking and honoring the votes of Americans. At the other end, hyper-partisanship correlates with threatening the preservation of our Constitutional republic.

The Freedom Caucus is a far-right group, co-founded by Jim Jordan, whose roughly 45 members nearly all voted to overturn the 2020 election, demonstrating antagonism toward American democracy. Advocating for limited government is fine, but subverting people’s votes is unacceptable. Only 2 of its known members outright opposed objecting to the election results, although one of them, Ken Buck, did support the Texas lawsuit seeking to challenge the results in 4 states. Chip Roy was the only known member to rightly oppose both efforts to undo Biden’s victory.

January 6th over the years

In 2021, 147 Republicans, including 8 Senators, voted to reject Joe Biden’s electoral wins in Arizona and/or Pennsylvania, and some verbally objected to other states. Jim Jordan, Bob Gibbs, Warren Davidson and Bill Johnson all voted to reject both states. Steve Chabot rejected Pennsylvania, even though he defended against objections to his own party’s winner in 2005, saying, “this is nothing more or less than an attempt to sow doubt on the legitimacy of this President.” Bob Latta and Brad Wenstrup voted to accept Biden’s victory, but also joined a Texas lawsuit to challenge the election results in 4 states. Republicans Portman, Gonzalez, Stivers, Joyce, Balderson and Turner voted to accept the election results.

In 2017, 7 House Democrats verbally objected to Donald Trump’s electoral votes in several states, but none from Ohio. Marcia Fudge did not participate in those objections, but did question the legitimacy of the election due to alleged Russian interference. She also boycotted Trump’s inauguration in solidarity with Rep John Lewis, who said “I don’t see the President-elect as a legitimate president.” Rep Joyce Beatty acknowledged Trump’s victory on 11/15 and attended Trump’s inauguration. Marcy Kaptur and Sherrod Brown also attended.

In 2008, the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidential qualification was questioned by Donald Trump and others. Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt purportedly agreed that Obama was ineligible, but later said he was the legitimate President. Former House Speaker John Boehner accepted the truth of his Hawaiian birth. I found no other Ohio Congressman who questioned it.

In 2005, 32 Democrats voted to reject Ohio’s electoral votes for George W. Bush, including Ohio’s former Reps Stephanie Jones Tubbs and Dennis Kucinich. However, current members Tim Ryan, Marcy Kaptur and Sherrod Brown all voted to accept Bush’s victory. (Beatty was not in Congress at that time.)

In 2001, some Democrats verbally objected to George W. Bush’s electoral votes, but I did not find any Ohioans who participated.

Weighing democracy over bipartisanship

Upholding election results is more important than how bipartisan a member is. Although Marcia Fudge is consistently more partisan than Steve Chabot, Fudge merely made conditional comments and a ceremonial protest of Trump’s victory, whereas Chabot actually voted to reject Biden’s electoral votes. Voting against democracy tarnishes his otherwise above average record of bipartisanship.

Latta and Wenstrup’s support of the Texas lawsuit challenging Biden’s victory is arguably worse than Fudge’s statements. However, legal challenges are the correct way to address election concerns, and the fact that these Congressmen respected its outcome and ultimately voted to accept Biden’s victory shows some good faith restraint. Given Fudge’s comments, would she not have signed on to a lawsuit to suss out allegations of Russian interference in Trump’s election if she had the option? This is why these 3 were sorted by bipartisanship alone.

Years after the 2000 election of George W. Bush, Sherrod Brown called it stolen, saying to a reporter, “You honestly as a journalist believe those bastards didn’t steal the election? […] They didn’t let it play itself out. Doesn’t that count as theft? That’s OK because they did it with good lawyers, not with a gun?” That election was legitimately controversial, narrowly concluded by a 5/4 Supreme Court decision. The National Opinion Research Center found that a robust Florida recount showed Gore actually did narrowly win. However, that full recount was not requested, and the recount of undervotes that was done had Bush with the most votes. So even if the Supreme Court had not intervened, Bush would have still won. It’s not quite accurate to call that “theft”, but Sherrod isn’t wrong to complain that the wrong person was declared the winner either. It’s also important to note that he said it privately on a campaign bus, much different from those who publicly, and repeatedly, stir up angry crowds with blatant lies of a stolen election.

After the 2018 elections, before Georgia’s gubernatorial race was determined, Sherrod said, “if Stacey Abrams doesn’t win in Georgia, they stole it.” He called out minority voting precincts being shut down in Georgia, among other voter access issues. (When she lost, Abrams acknowledged that Kemp won, but called the election “rigged”.) It’s undemocratic rhetoric to insist that her loss couldn’t possibly be because more people preferred Brian Kemp, although I’m not aware of any vote or legal action taken by Brown to overturn Kemp’s victory.

Impeachments

Impeachment or censure attempts are separate from accepting election results. A bipartisan legislator is more likely to hold a member of their own party accountable for real abuses, and less likely to try to impeach the other party’s official for frivolous reasons. Impeachment is not considered in the rankings above because sometimes it is appropriate, but I’ve included this information here for reference.

Joe Biden

In 2021, Rep Gibbs filed articles of impeachment against President Biden, without much support, which he described as “a shot across the bow”. Two articles amount to disapproval of Biden’s immigration and Afghanistan policies. One article is regarding extension of the eviction moratorium without Congressional support, similar to what Trump had done by executive order in 2020.

Donald Trump

President Trump was impeached twice, in 2019 over his Ukraine dealings and in 2021 for subverting the election, but was not convicted by the Senate in either case. Democrats Brown, Beatty, Fudge, Kaptur and Ryan voted to impeach both times. The second time Gonzalez was among 17 Republicans who agreed with impeachment, creating a majority that was still short of the 2/3rd needed to convict. In November 2017, Marcia Fudge cosponsored another impeachment resolution for obstruction of justice, emoluments, and undermining the judiciary and the press.

Barack Obama

In 2012, Ohio’s Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich said Obama’s Libyan air strikes were an impeachable offense, and Kucinich was the only Ohioan who cosponsored a resolution declaring such actions impeachable. However, no such resolution was approved against Obama. Ohio Republican House Leader John Boehner opposed impeachment efforts.

George W. Bush

In 2008, Rep. Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush regarding the Iraq war, handling of Hurricane Katrina and other issues. No other Ohioans supported the failed effort.

Bill Clinton

In 1999, all of Ohio’s Republican Reps, including Portman, Chabot, Kasich and Boehner, voted to impeach President Bill Clinton for false statements and obstruction of justice over his affair with a staff member. None of our Democrats agreed, including Sherrod Brown, Kaptur and Kucinich. Both Senators Mike DeWine and George Voinovich voted to remove him from office.

Vacancies and Retirements

2021

Rep Stivers’ seat is now vacant after becoming President of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Lobbyist Mike Carey is the Republican nominee running against Democratic State Rep Allison Russo. Update: Carey won.

Rep Fudge’s seat is now vacant after becoming US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown is the Democratic nominee running against Republican businesswoman Laverne Gore. Update: Brown won.

2022

Senator Portman is not running for reelection and several candidates are vying to replace him. Republican State Senator Matt Dolan lauded the bipartisan infrastructure deal and vows to follow Portman’s example. Josh Mandel has declared the end of civility and bipartisanship, and has pushed for an unconstitutional overthrow of the 2020 election results. Jane Timken called for election results to be decertified. The Democratic challengers are Representative Tim Ryan and attorney Morgan Harper. Update: JD Vance and Tim Ryan won the primary, while Vance won the general election.

Rep Gonzalez is not running for reelection. Republicans Max Miller and Jonah Schulz campaigned against Gonzalez, but redistricting put them in Rep Bob Gibbs’ district instead. On 4/6/22, Gibbs announced his retirement, and a month later Miller won the primary. Miller went on to win the general election.

Ohio is losing 1 US House of Representatives seat starting in 2023.

New ratings ahead of 2022 midterm elections

On 5/2/22, Lugar Center released their latest Bipartisan Index for 2021, the first half of the 117th Congress. Outgoing Senator Rob Portman is still #3 most bipartisan Senator in America. Anthony Gonzalez and Tim Ryan were Ohio’s most bipartisan Representatives coming in at #14 and #21 of 435. Dave Joyce also had a highly positive rating.

Congress Member	Bipartisan Rating
Senator Rob Portman (retiring)	1.97
Rep Anthony Gonzalez (retiring)	1.34
Rep Tim Ryan (lost run for Senate)	1.06
Rep Dave Joyce	0.83
Rep Mike Turner	0.43
Rep Brad Wenstrup	0.11
Rep Troy Balderson	-0.01
Rep Marcy Kaptur	-0.03
Senator Sherrod Brown	-0.04
Rep Steve Chabot (lost re-election)	-0.28
Rep Bill Johnson	-0.28
Rep Joyce Beatty	-0.81
Rep Warren Davidson	-1.11
Rep Bob Latta	-1.17
Rep Bob Gibbs (retiring)	-1.66
Rep Jim Jordan	-1.91

Jim Jordan is still Ohio’s most partisan Congress member and 8th most partisan in America, and outgoing Bob Gibbs is not much better at 18th most partisan. Warren Davidson remains very partisan, while Bob Latta and Joyce Beatty were more partisan in 2021 than before. Also, Steve Chabot and Troy Balderson lost their positive ratings.

Newcomers Mike Carey and Shontel Brown were not rated since they joined late in the year.

On 11/8/22, Greg Landsman, Max Miller and Emilia Sykes won their first Congressional terms beginning in 2023, along with JD Vance in the Senate. Sykes had an average Statehouse Bipartisan Rating of -0.16 during her time as State Representative.

Resources

Rejecting state certified election results is unconstitutional

GOP Democracy Report Card – These metrics were considered differently here, but are useful nonetheless.