Steve Driehaus

Steven Leo Driehaus (born June 24, 1966) is an American politician and former U.S. Representative for Ohio's 1st congressional district, serving from 2009 until 2011.

A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the Minority Whip in the Ohio House of Representatives.

The district included the western four-fifths of Cincinnati, as well as suburbs north and west of the city in Hamilton and Butler counties.

Driehaus, a 1984 graduate and class president of Elder High School in Cincinnati, studied political science at Miami University while earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1988.

He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal where he worked with village groups and local schools as a natural resource volunteer to promote sustainable environmental practices from 1988 to 1990.

Driehaus then served as Associate Director of the Center for International Education and Development Assistance at Indiana University.

While serving in this role, he coordinated the South African Internship Program, which was sponsored by the United States Information Agency that is the largest professional exchange program between the United States and South Africa.

He formerly directed and served as consultant to the Community Building Institute, a collaborative effort of Xavier University and United Way & Community Chest that promotes citizen-led, asset-based community development.

He is a member of the Price Hill Civic Club and serves on the Board of Seton High School.

He was a part-time political science instructor at Xavier University.

He began his political career as an aide for Cincinnati City Council Member Todd Portune and former U.S. Rep. Charlie Luken in the 1990s.

Driehaus served four consecutive terms.

Seven-term Republican incumbent Steve Chabot, elected in the Republican wave of 1994, had won the district consistently, but with varying margins.

He had won the seat with less than 55% of the vote in four of his seven previous victories.

He earned a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Indiana University Bloomington in 1995.

In 2000, Driehaus ran for the Ohio House of Representatives from the 33rd district, which at the time included Delhi Township, Price Hill, Sayler Park and other parts of western Hamilton County.

The incumbent, Jerome Luebbers, had surrendered his seat due to term limits.

Based on the 2000 and 2004 United States presidential elections, the district has voted 1% more Republican than the nation as a whole.

The district is regarded as a Democratically shifting maturing suburban district that is expected to vote more city-like as it becomes more dense.

The district was one of four Republican Ohio congressional seats that the party had targeted for takeover, but Chabot held off Cincinnati Councilman John Cranley by a 52% to 48% margin and the Republicans held on to three of the four seats.

He was formerly a four-term member of the Ohio House of Representatives, representing the 31st District from 2001 to 2009.

His Ohio State House district included western Cincinnati and all of Addyston, Cheviot, Cleves and North Bend, Ohio.

In the 2002 redistricting, Driehaus' district became the 31st district and surrendered many Republican constituents.

Driehaus has served the 31st Ohio House of Representatives district, which has included wards 19–22, 25 & 26 of Cincinnati as well as Cheviot, Cleves, North Bend, and Addyston since the 2002 redistricting.

This district is fully contained within Ohio's 1st congressional district.

It is also (along with districts 32 and 33) part of Ohio Senate district 9, which encompasses the south central portion of Hamilton County.

Driehaus did not have an opponent in any of his Democratic primaries, and he earned at least 57% shares of the vote in each of his general elections for state legislature.

He served as Minority Whip of the Ohio House of Representatives from the beginning of his third term in January 2005 until he resigned from the position to be replaced by Fred Strahorn in December 2007 due to his campaign.

Driehaus took a leadership role on issues such as election law and redistricting reform.

He took issue with information privacy in the state.

Driehaus was a centrist politician.

Right-wing local paper The Cincinnati Enquirer named him legislative "Rookie of the Year" during his first term.

He had been elected as the Minority Whip of the Ohio House of Representatives, replacing Dale Miller for the beginning of the 2005 session, in a November 2004 vote after being reelected to his third term.

Driehaus had been the choice of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to run in Ohio's 1st congressional district for the 2006 United States House of Representatives elections, but he decided to run for re-election in his Ohio House of Representatives seat.

Driehaus survived his own challenge from Scott Gehring with a 2:1 victory margin in the 2006 election for his state house seat.

Although Driehaus passed on the 2006 race, he began planning a run for the district in 2008 almost as soon as the 2006 election cycle ended.

This was largely because he was barred from running for a fifth term in the state house.

Ohio's 1st district was very high on the target list for the Democrats in both 2006 and 2008.

In 2008, the ARC of Ohio and the Ohio Association of Election Officials named him Democratic Legislator of the Year.

He had a reputation as an anti-abortion fiscal conservative.