Bob Ney

Robert William Ney (born July 5, 1954) is an American politician from Ohio.

He graduated in 1972 from St. John's High School in Bellaire.

He attended Ohio University Eastern Campus in Belmont County before transferring to Ohio State University in Columbus.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree from OSU in 1976.

After college, he worked at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, taught English in Iran, served as Bellaire safety director, and worked as the health and education program manager of the Ohio Office of Appalachia.

He has two children from a previous marriage, and no children with his second wife, Elizabeth.

In 1980, at the age of 26, Ney defeated state Representative Wayne Hays, a former U.S. representative who had resigned from Congress in 1976 after a sex scandal.

Ney served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1981 to 1983.

He was defeated in his reelection bid in November 1982.

After his defeat, Ney managed a home security company in Saudi Arabia.

He was appointed to the Ohio Senate in 1984 to replace former state senator Sam Speck, who resigned the 20th District seat to accept a presidential appointment.

Ney won the seat in November 1984 and then re-election in 1988 and 1992.

In November 1994, Ney decided to run for Ohio's 18th congressional district after nine-term incumbent Democrat Douglas Applegate announced his retirement.

Ney won the six-candidate Republican primary field with 69% of the vote.

For the first time since 1994, he drew a primary challenger.

In 1996, he won re-election to a second term, defeating Democratic State Senator Rob Burch 50%–46%.

He went on to win re-election four more times easily without difficult competition in 1998 (60%), 2000 (64%), 2002 (unopposed), and 2004 (66%).

Ney's best-known congressional work was on the election reform efforts founded in the wake of the confused 2000 voting in Florida, and his support and backing for the "Stand Up For Steel" crusade and resulting laws.

From 2001 to 2006, Ney was Chairman of the House Administration Committee.

As chair of that committee, he oversaw operations in the Capitol complex and was sometimes known as the "Mayor of Capitol Hill".

Ney was born in Wheeling, West Virginia.

The son of a TV cameraman for WTRF-TV, Ney grew up in Bellaire, Ohio, an industrial town across the Ohio River from Wheeling.

A Republican, Ney represented Ohio's 18th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 until November 3, 2006, when he resigned.

Ney's resignation took place after he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in relation to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal.

Before he pleaded guilty, Ney was identified in the guilty pleas of Jack Abramoff, former Tom DeLay deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy, former DeLay press secretary Michael Scanlon and former Ney chief of staff Neil Volz for receiving lavish gifts in exchange for political favors.

On January 26, 2006, Ney announced his candidacy for re-election to a seventh term.

Even before his indictment, Ney was one of the Republican elected officials whom Democrats highlighted as part of a "culture of corruption" in the 2006 campaign.

Republican James Brodbelt Harris, a financial analyst from Zanesville, Ohio, decided to challenge him in 2006.

Harris did not campaign, and collected less than $5,000 in campaign contributions.

On May 2, 2006, Ney defeated him 68%–32%.

On the day of the election, Greg Giroux of Congressional Quarterly noted: "I'd be surprised if Harris got more than 20 or 25 percent. That would be a sign that there is a chunk of the Republican base that's disenchanted with the incumbent."

Commenting on his situation after the primary, Ney said "I have a healthy campaign account, in contrast to the Democratic Party, which is deeply divided and has a candidate with almost no campaign cash."

Ney's opponent in the November general election was to be Zack Space, a Dover, Ohio lawyer and hotel developer.

As of July 2006, Space was considered to be slightly ahead of Ney, with a large percentage of undecided voters.

For the first three months of 2006, Ney blamed legal costs for causing his re-election campaign to spend more than it raised.

For the April–June period, it was unusually intense campaigning in his rural district that caused the six-term incumbent to spend $52,675 more than donors gave him in the last three months, he said.

On August 7, 2006, state senator Joy Padgett announced that Ney was withdrawing his candidacy in the 2006 election, and that Ney and House Majority Leader John Boehner had asked her to run in his place.

Later that day, Ney confirmed in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that he would not run for re-election to a seventh term, but intended to serve out his term until January 2007.

About his future plans, Ney said "I have some options in the nongovernment sector."

The 18th had a considerable Democratic lean, but Ney scored a considerable upset, defeating Democratic State Representative Greg DiDonato 54%–46%.