Paul Gillmor

Paul Gillmor
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 5th district
In office January 3, 1989 – September 5, 2007
Preceded by	Del Latta
Personal details
Died	September 4, 2007
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Karen L. Gillmor

Paul Eugene Gillmor (February 1, 1939 – September 4, 2007) was an American politician of the Republican Party who served as the U.S. Representative from the 5th congressional district of Ohio. The district, the second-largest in the state, includes Bowling Green and most of Toledo's suburbs, including Fremont. He died on September 5 2007.[1]

Early life, career, and family

Gillmor was born in Tiffin, Ohio, and grew up in Old Fort, Ohio; his father owned a trucking business in the area. He attended Old Fort High School, graduating in 1957. In 1961 he received a bachelor of arts degree from Ohio Wesleyan University (Delaware, Ohio); in 1964, he graduated with a law degree from the University of Michigan (in Ann Arbor).

From 1965 to 1966, Gillmor was on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, as a Judge Advocate, attaining the rank of Captain. He then entered the practice of law.

Gillmor's 2006 financial disclosure place his wealth at between $6.2 and $27.8 million. Much of that is from an eight-branch local bank, Old Fort Bank, owned by Gillmor and his relatives.

Political career

Ohio State Senate

Gillmor was elected as an Ohio state senator in 1967, where he remained until being elected to Congress in 1988. He was the Republican Leader from 1978 to 1980 and from 1983 to 1984. After the Republican Party won a majority in the Ohio Senate, Gillmor was elected President of the Ohio Senate and served in that office for three General Assemblies from 1981 to 1982 and from 1985 to 1988. He ran in the 1986 Republican primary for governor, but lost to former governor James A. Rhodes.

U.S. Congress

Elections

In 1988, Gillmor entered the Republican primary for the 5th District after 30-year incumbent Del Latta retired. Latta endorsed his son, Bob, as his successor; Gillmor defeated him by only 27 votes. He was then handily elected in November and has been reelected nine times in this heavily Republican district, usually by margins of 2-to-1. He ran unopposed in 1992.

In 2002, Gillmor defeated Republican Rex Damschroder in the primary,[2] in a campaign where Gilmor was accused of ignoring his district and spending almost all of his time at his homes near Washington and Columbus, Ohio.

Committees and positions

Gillmor was the ranking Republican on the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee of the Financial Services Committee. He also serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and chaired its Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee until the Republicans lost control of Congress in 2007. In 2006, Gillmor served as a member of a bipartisan reform task force on ethics and congressional mailing practices. He was a member of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership.

The American Conservative Union gave Gillmor's 2005 voting record 82 points out of a possible 100 points; the liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave him 0 points.

Residency and real estate

Until March 2006, when he bought a condominium in Tiffin for $230,000, Gillmor claimed his boyhood home in Old Fort as his official residence. Both are within his district. However, when Gilmore is not in Washington, D.C., he lives primarily in Dublin, a suburb of Columbus, about a 90 minute drive from the condominium and outside the district he represents. Gillmor and his wife also own a townhouse in Arlington, Virginia, purchased in 1989 for $389,000 and valued in 2007 at $640,000. Gillmor's wife works in Columbus as vice chairman of the State Employment Relations Board; prior to being appointed to that position, she was a state senator. Their three sons attend Dublin schools.. When asked prior to the November 2006 election how often he stayed at the Tiffin house, Gilmore refused to answer. His opponents in the last three cycles have made an issue of his residence, and many of the condominium's residents claim they rarely see him there. However, Gillmor has long insisted that Seneca County (home to both Old Fort and Tiffin) is his true home. Members of the House are constitutionally required to live only in the state they represent, but it has become a strong convention that they live in the district they represent as well.

In March 2007, Gillmor and his family moved into a new house in Dublin. In 2004, the land where that house now sits was purchased by Zenith Holding & Trading Corp., a subsidiary of a Columbus law and lobbying firm, Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease. In 2005, Zenith Holding received a construction loan of $967,000, to build the house. Prior to moving into the house, Gillmor and his family lived in a four-bedroom, 3,571 square-foot house in Dublin that they bought in 1996 for $364,900.

In a letter to the Toledo Blade in early May 2007, the firm said that Zenith has the new Dublin house and its land in trust "at the request of, and for the benefit of" Gillmor, who pays the mortgage and taxes. In a follow-up letter to the newspaper, Gillmor said he considers the properties outside his district, in Dublin and Arlington, to be "only real estate investments." In his April 2007 letter to The Blade, Gillmor similarly said that the property was in a trust. But in May 2007, Gillmor's spokesman, Brad Mascho, said that a trustlike entity that is "not a trust" controls the house, so there had been no need to notify the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct that Gillmor was transferring assets into a trust in order to purchase the home.

Banking interests

Gillmor received became partial owner of Old Fort Bank in Seneca County, about 60 miles southeast of Toledo, after the death of his father, Paul M. Gillmor. In 2006, Gillmor received $540,000 in dividends from the bank, for his share of ownereship, out of a total of $2 million paid to all shareholders. The bank had total profits of $3.6 million in 2006.

In 2007, Gillmor has received approval from the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and the offices of two federal regulators to be an initial director and investor in a new Florida bank, the Panther Community Bank.

In May 2007, the House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 371-16, a bill by Gillmor and Representative Barney Frank (D., Mass.) that blocked retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores and The Home Depot from establishing their own industrial loan companies. Industrial loan companies are state-chartered corporations that are potential competitors of community banks.

See also

• Election Results, U.S. Representative from Ohio, 5th District
• List of United States Representatives from Ohio

External links

• Official U.S. House website
• Congressional blog by Gillmor
• Official campaign site
• United States Congress. "Paul Gillmor (id: g000210)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Federal Election Commission — Paul E Gillmor campaign finance reports and data
• On the Issues — Paul Gillmor issue positions and quotes
• OpenSecrets.org — Paul E. Gillmor campaign contributions
• Project Vote Smart — Representative Paul E. Gillmor (OH) profile
• SourceWatch Congresspedia — Paul Gillmor profile
• Washington Post — Congress Votes Database: Paul Gillmor voting record