Bob McEwen

This article is on the Ohio Congressman Bob McEwen. For others of that name see the disambiguation page at Robert McEwen.

Robert D. "Bob" McEwen (born January 12, 1950), was a conservative Republican U.S. representative from southern Ohio's Sixth District from January 3, 1981, to January 3, 1993. Tom Deimer of Cleveland's Plain Dealer wrote he was a "textbook Republican" who was "opposed to abortion, gun control, high taxes, and costly government programs." In the House, he openly criticized government incompetence and charged corruption by the Democratic majority. In April 2005, twelve years after he was defeated for re-election, he announced he was making another run for Congress from the Second District of Ohio (map) in the special election to replace Rob Portman. McEwen's 2005 platform was familiar from his past campaigns, advocating a pro-life stance, defending Second Amendment rights, and promising to limit taxes and government spending. His surname is pronounced mick-YOU-enn.

Before Congress

Born in Hillsboro, Highland County, Ohio, he graduated from Hillsboro High School, and from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida he received a bachelor of arts in economics in 1972. He also has a law degree from the Ohio State University in Columbus, earned after he left Congress.

McEwen is married to the former Liz Boebinger and has four children: Meredith, Jonathan, Robert, and Elizabeth. He is a member of many fraternal organizations and civic groups, including Sigma Chi, the Farm Bureau, the Grange, Rotary International, the Jaycees, and the Optimist Club. He is a member of the Church of Christ.

After two years in the family business, serving as a vice president of Boebinger, Inc., he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1974 at the age of twenty-four. He was re-elected to two more two-year terms. Having previously directed Representative William Harsha's re-election campaigns to Congress in 1976 and 1978, McEwen ran for Harsha's seat when he retired in 1980 and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in what The Washington Post called "a fail-safe Republican district." In that race he defeated psychologist Ted Strickland, who would ultimately defeat McEwen in 1992 and had previously lost to Harsha in the two campaigns McEwen ran.

Congressional career

In Congress, McEwen was a staunch conservative, advocating a strong military and reduced government spending. In addition, he was a strong advocate for government works in his district—dams, roads, locks and the like—as McEwen was on the House's Public Works and Transporation Committee. The Chillicothe Gazette would salute him for his work on funding for U.S. Route 35, a limited access highway linking Chillicothe to Dayton. A vehement anti-Communist, he visited Tblisi in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1991 to help tear down the hammer-and-sickle iconography of the Communist regime. That year he also called for the House to establish a select committee to investigate whether any soldiers declared "missing in action" in the Vietnam War and other American wars were still alive, H. Res. 207.

McEwen was not a man to mince words. When the Democratic majority in the House voted in 1985 to unseat Republican Richard D. McIntire, who the Indiana Secretary of State had certified as winning a seat in the 99th Congress, in favor of Democrat Frank McCloskey, McEwen declared on the House floor "Mr. Speaker, you know how to win votes the old fashioned way—you steal them."

When McEwen was late in 1990 to the House because of a massive traffic jam on the I-395 beltway around Washington, D.C., he said on the House floor on February 21 that the District of Columbia's government should be replaced:

The total incompetence of the D.C. government in Washington, DC, has become an embarrassment to our entire Nation. This experiment in home rule is a disaster. All of us who serve in this Chamber, well over 95 percent of us, have held other positions in government. We have been mayors. We have been township trustees, State legislators, and the rest. I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that there are well over 2,000 township trustees in my congressional district who with one arm tied behind their backs, could blindfolded do a better job of directing this city than the city council of D.C. It is high time that this experiment in home rule that has proven to be a disaster for our nation be terminated, that we return to some sort of logical government whereby the rest of us can function in this city.[1]

After McEwen was criticized for his remarks, he delivered a thirty minute speech in the House on March 1, 1990 on "The Worst City Government in America" [2]. Because of the crime problem in the District, McEwen also attempted to pass legislation overturning the District council's ban on mace, saying people in the District should be able to defend themselves. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, McEwen introduced legislation to end to President Gerald Ford's ban on U.S. government employees assassinating foreign leaders (Executive Order 12333) in order to clear the way for Saddam Hussein's removal (H. Con. Res. 39), McEwen objecting to the "cocoon of protection that is placed around him because he holds the position that he holds as leader of his country." [3]

In October 1987, encouraged by Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, McEwen announced he would challenge Senator Howard Metzenbaum, a Democrat, in his 1988 bid for re-election, but McEwen found he lacked statewide support and would face a strong primary challenger in Cleveland mayor George Voinovich. He dropped out of the race in December. McEwen's name was floated in 1991 as a possible challenger in 1992 to Ohio's other Democratic senator, John Glenn, but McEwen did not enter the race.

In the spotlight in his last term

McEwen served on the on the Public Works and Transportation and Veterans' Affairs Committees from his election to 1991. By 1989, he had risen to be the ranking minority member of the Public Works Committee's Economic Development Subcommittee and was sixth in seniority on the full committee. During the 99th and 100th Congresses, he was also a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence. During his last term, in the 102nd Congress, he left Public Works and Veterans' Affairs for the powerful Rules Committee and served on its Legislative Process Subcommittee. He was chosen for the Rules Committee by Republican leader Bob Michel of Illinois, but McEwen would grumble that "the Committee on Rules is stacked in a partisan manner 2 to 1 plus 1" by the Democratic majority [4]. During the 102nd Congress, he was also on the Select Committee on Children, Families, and Youth.

Late in his Congressional career, he began regular appearances public affairs programs such as Nightline and the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour and was often a guest on C-SPAN and the Cable News Network. Martin Gottlieb of the Dayton Daily News thought McEwen's performances showed why he had remained in the background previously:

In the past, McEwen's ambition has taken the form of interest in higher office. Twice he made feints about seeking statewide office. But he didn't want to risk his congressional seat. Now he's found a way to nurse a healthy level of ambition without taking that risk. He has, of course, a pronounced tendency to be wrong about the issues . . . . Most typically, he appears as an ideological combatant. He seems to be selling himself to the nation's conservatives as an attractive spokesman. He's got enough talent to do it. In the days when McEwen was content to be a back-bencher, he was criticized on this page for his irrelevance on the important issues. Now, however, it is clear that the nation as a whole was better off when he was keeping his views to himself.

Heated 1992 primary

McEwen was easily re-elected to the House in every election but his last. In 1982, he defeated Lynn Alan Grimshaw, 92,135 to 63,435; in 1984 he beat Bob Smith nearly three-to-one, 150,101 to 52,727; in 1986 and 1988 he faced Gordon R. Roberts, defeating him two-to-one in 1986 (106,354 to 42,155) and three-to-one in 1988 (152,235 to 52,635). McEwen in 1990 beat his opponent, Ray Mitchell (who the Dayton Daily News said "is an unknown small businessman who hasn't thought things through") by three to one. The tally was 117,200 to 47,415. Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America pronounced him "invincible" in his district.

However, Ohio lost two seats in the 1990 reapportionment. The Democrats and Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly struck a deal to eliminate one Democratic and one Republican district, as one congressman from each party was expected to retire. The Republican expected to retire was Clarence E. Miller, a seventy-four year old electrical engineer from Lancaster in his thirteen term called "chairman of the caucus of the obscure" for his invisibility on Capitol Hill, who surprised many by his re-election bid. The Democrats in the Statehouse would not reconsider the deal and so Miller's Tenth District was obliterated. (The new Tenth was in Cuyahoga County.)

The new district map was not agreed upon by the General Assembly until March 26, 1992, one week before the filing deadline for the primary originally scheduled for May 5. (Governor George Voinovich signed the new map into law on March 27, and the General Assembly moved the primary to June 2 on April 1.) Miller's own hometown was placed in freshman David Hobson's Seventh District, but Miller chose to run in the Sixth District against McEwen; only one of the twelve counties in Miller's old Tenth District was in the new Seventh but the largest piece of his old district, five counties, was placed in the new Sixth. Miller's decision was also impacted by his strong personal distaste for McEwen.

Miller was expected to withdraw after being hurt in a fall in his bathtub after slipping on a bar of soap. A deal was hoped for by the Republican leadership as late as May 15, the day Miller was scheduled to hold a press conference Ohio political observers thought he would use to annouce his withdrawl, but Miller stayed in the race and the two incubmbents faced each other in the Republican primary on June 2, 1992.

McEwen was caught up in the House Bank scandal, which had been seized upon by Newt Gingrich, a like-minded conservative House Republican, as an example of the corruption of Congress; members of the House had been allowed to write checks on their accounts which were paid despite insufficient funds and without penalty. Martin Gottlieb of the Dayton Daily News said "McEwen was collateral damage" to Gingrich's crusade. McEwen initially denied bouncing any checks. Later, he admitted he had bounced a few. Then when the full totals were released by Ethics Committee investigators, the number was revealed to have been 166 over thirty-nine months. McEwen said that he always had funds available to cover the alleged overdrafts, pointing to the policy of the House sargeant-at-arms, who ran the House bank, paying checks on an overdrawn account if it would not exceed the sum of the Reprsentative's next paycheck. In 1991, McEwen had also been criticized for his use of the franking privilege and his frequent trips overseas at taxpayer expense, but McEwen defended the trips as part of his work on the Intelligence Committee and in building relationships with legislatures overseas.

The primary race was bitter. Miller called McEwen "Pinnochio" and McEwen said of Miller "his misrepresentations and falsehoods are gargantuan. I tried to be his best friend in the delegation. I am deeply disappointed at the meanness of his effort." Tom Deimer of Cleveland's Plain Dealer wrote that the two candidates were largely identical on the issues: "both are textbook Republican conservatives, opposed to abortion, gun control, high taxes, and costly government programs—unless located in their districts." Miller noted he had no overdrafts at the House bank, saying "the score is 166 to nothing."

The 1992 primary was so close it forced a recount and prompted a lawsuit. When Ohio Secretary of State Bob Taft dismissed Miller's charges of voting irregularities in Highland, Hocking, and Warren Counties, Miller filed suit in the Ohio Supreme Court. Only in August did Miller drop his court challenge and then only because his campaign was out of money. In the final count, McEwen won 33,219 votes to Miller's 32,922, a plurality of only 297 votes. Ominously for November, each had won the counties they had formerly represented, McEwen making little headway in the new eastern counties in the district. After the final result, Miller refused to endorse McEwen (even after McEwen introduced H.R. 5727 in the House to name the dam and locks on the Ohio River near Gallipolis after Miller [5]) and carried an unsuccessful legal challenge to the redistricting to the United States Supreme Court, insisting district lines should be drawn on a politically neutral basis.

Defeat in November 1992

McEwen's previous district was in southwestern and south-central Ohio centered around his hometown of Hillsboro, but he now found himself running in the new Sixth District, a huge area stretching from Lebanon in Warren County to Marietta in Washington County on the opposite side of the state, much of the district being territory that he did not know and which did not know him. The district was difficult to campaign in, being in half a dozen different media markets and having no large cities and few unifying influences.

Patrick J. Buchanan, the conservative columnist who challenged President Bush earlier in the year in the primaries, came to Ohio to campaign for McEwen as did Vice President Dan Quayle and Oliver North, but McEwen was narrowly defeated by Ted Strickland, a Methodist minister and psychologist who had lost three previous elections for the seat, in the general election on November 3, 1992. Strickland received 122,720 votes to McEwen's 119,252, a plurality of only 3,468. "I think McEwen's loss was a case of bounced checks and some arrogance," said Alfred Tuchfarber, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati who runs the Ohio Poll. "He just had a certain personal arrogance about him that didn't go down well in a poor district."

Strickland said "I ran against Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, the National Rifle Association and Right-to-Life. They threw everything at me. I'm just so happy I beat back those guys. I think they're so divisive." (Strickland would lose by a similarly close margin in 1994 to Frank A. Cremeans, then win the seat again in 1996.)

Runs in the Second District in 1993

McEwen then sought election to the House in the Second District, the one immediately west of his former district, and which contained territory he represented in the 1980s. The election was to fill the vacancy caused by Willis D. Gradison Jr.'s resignation, Gradison having resigned on January 31, 1993, three months after his re-election, to become a lobbyist for the insurance industry. "It's important that we have an experienced person to fight for jobs for Southwest Ohio. We need to bring economic growth to our area," McEwen said. "It's important that we have someone who can hit the ground running, representing our values of economic growth and low taxes." Though a congressman does not need to live in the district he represents, McEwen put his home in Hillsboro up for sale and rented a home in Bethel in Clermont County.

In the Republican primary on March 16, McEwen faced trade lawyer Rob Portman, who had worked in the White House under President George H. W. Bush; real estate developer Jay Buchert, the president of the National Association of Home Builders; and several lesser known candidates: real estate appraiser Garland Eugene Crawford of Loveland; pro-life activist Ken Callis of the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming; Robert W. Dorsey, a professor at the University of Cincinnati and township trustee in Hamilton County's Anderson Township; and Ku Klux Klan leader Van Darrell Loman of Cheviot. (Three other candidates filed and qualified but withdrew from the primary, former Madeira mayor Mary Anne Christie; Lebanon attorney Bruce Gudenkauf, a member of the Warren County Republican Party's central committee; and Donnie Jones, city auditor in Norwood.)

In February the press reported that, according to campaign finance filings, McEwen trailed both Buchert and Portman in funds, Buchert having three times the treasury McEwen did. McEwen was endorsed by Oliver North, whose prosecution in the Iran-Contra Affair McEwen had labeld a "political witch hunt" [6] when he was in Congress. McEwen also crticized Portman for lobbying Congress to pass the tax increase President George H. W. Bush supported when Portman was a White House aide. He also critized Portman for being a lobbyist for Oman. McEwen brought his former House colleage Jack Kemp to Ohio to campaign for him.

Portman was criticized in the campaign for his law firm's work for Haitian dictator Baby Doc Duvalier, while McEwen faced questions about the bounced checks he had written on the House bank. Buchert ran campaign commercials citing McEwen's checks, the expenses of his Congressional office, and his campaign finance disclosures, while noting Portman was "the handpicked choice of the downtown money crowd" and was "a registered foreign agent for the biggest Democrat lobbying firm in Washington," labeling Portman and McEwen "Prince Rob and Bouncing Bob". McEwen, who had taken a hard line on his checks in 1992, relented in the campaign. Martin Gottlieb wrote "McEwen says now that his problem was a form of excessive pride. He says he used to 'demand perfection' of himself." McEwen also said "I felt I could never admit a mistake. . . . I am very, very sorry. I should have watched it more carefully . . . . I have learned a great deal." Les Spaeth, chairman of the Warren County Republican Party and former Warren County Auditor, said "People very much disliked the check overdraft thing, but I think they don't see it as happening again. I think it's past. He made a mistake and he got caught. But that's overridden by the service he's given, particularly to our county."

After his successor in Congress, Ted Strickland, found election-related files on his office computers, questions were raised about whether McEwen had been illegally using his House office in his re-election campaign in 1992. McEwen's former chief of staff said McEwen knew nothing about it and the chief of staff admitted "a technical violation of the rules."

McEwen won four of the five counties in the district, Adams, Brown, Clermont, and Warren, all of these counties save Brown having been at least in part in his old district. (In Adams, he received 77% of the vote, sixty-seven points ahead of the second-place finisher.) However, McEwen finished third in the largest county in the district, Hamilton, one he had never represented and which contained 57% of the Second District's registered voters. In the primary, Portman won only Hamilton County, taking 17,531 votes (35.61%) overall, while McEwen received 14,542 (29.54%), Buchert 12,488 (25.37%), Dorsey 2,947 (5.99%), the rest scattering. The race in the Second District, one of the most Republican in the country, was determined in the primary--six times as many Republicans as Democrats voted in the primary--and Portman easily defeat attorney Lee Hornberger 53,020 (70.1%) to 22,652 (29.1%) in the special election on May 4.

Following the primary, the Dayton Daily News criticized McEwen for having voters return absentee voter request forms to his campaign office rather than directly to the county boards of elections. The Daily News also said the "primary was completely about personalities, rather than issues."

Returns to private life

After his defeat, McEwen remained active in politics, but spent most of his time in the Washington, D.C. area (reported CongressDaily), residing in northern Virginia (reported The Cincinnati Enquirer). Since 1997, he has been a partner with eleven other former Members of Congress in the Washington firm Advantage Associates, a lobbying and consulting firm. He is also the founder of FreedomQuest International, an international investment banking firm based in Washington, D.C. He also went on the lecture circuit, delivering speeches for $10,000 apiece. [7]

2005 congressional run

In March 2005, the Associated Press and The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that McEwen was again considering running for the second district seat after President George W. Bush nominated Portman to be United States Trade Representative. In April 2005, McEwen announced he would run for Portman's seat and purchased a home in Hamilton County's Anderson Township, east of Cincinnati. McEwen had high profile endorsements from Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, former United States Attorney General Edwin Meese, Cincinnati Bengals player Anthony Munoz, American Family Association president Donald Wildmon, Citizens for Community Values anti-pornography crusader Phil Burress, and former New York congressman Jack Kemp, who came to the district to campaign for him. Kemp said in a rally in Clermont County on May 20 that "Bob and his wife Liz are like part of our family." Dobson wrote in his endorsement letter "I have rarely been more excited about a candidate running in a highly significant race than I am about Bob McEwen for Congress . . . . If Bob returns to the House of Representatives, he will once again emerge as a tireless champion for the family and for traditional conservative values." [8]

Namesake

There is a water treatment plant in Clermont County's Batavia Township named for McEwen. Clermont County was grateful to McEwen because he successfully forced the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to sell the county water from Harsha Lake after the state denied them water for years; the plant treats the Harsha Lake water he obtained for the county.

External links

References

Associated Press. "Two Quit Race to Replace Congressman-turned-lobbyist." The Plain Dealer. February 13, 1993. 5B. (Candidates in 1993 special election)
Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa. The Almanac of American Politics, 1994. Washington, D.C.: National Journal, 1993. ISBN 0892340584 (Information on 1992 primary and general election)
"Bob McEwen Is the Obvious Choice". (Editorial). Dayton Daily News. October 14, 1990. 6B. (Daily News endorses him reluctantly)
Adam Condo. "McEwen Helps Dismantle Symbol of Communism". The Cincinnati Post. September 12, 1991. 13A. (McEwen visits the Republic of Georgia)
Adam Condo. "McEwen Joining Powerful House Committee". The Cincinnati Post. December 20, 1990. 19A. (McEwen joins Rules Committee, leaves Public Works and Veterans).
Congressional Quarterly. Politics in America, 1992: The 102nd Congress. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1991. ISBN 0871875993 (General information on McEwen)
Tom Deimer. "Incumbents duke it out in new district". The Plain Dealer. May 25, 1992. (Primary between McEwen and Miller)
"Ex-lawmaker Says He Offers Experience". The Plain Dealer. January 22, 1993. 3B. (McEwen announces 1993 run in Second District)
"Files Left Behind in McEwen Computer". The Plain Dealer. February 21, 1993. 3B. (Strickland's staff finds election files on House computers)
"Election 80: New Faces in the House". The Washington Post. November 23, 1980. A15. ("Failsafe" district)
Adrienne Flynn. "GOP Primary Fight Bitter to the End." Dayton Daily News. March 16, 1993. 3B. (The 1993 primary, Oliver North visits)
"Former Congressman To Seek Portman's Seat". CongressDaily. April 15, 2005. 6. (2005 run in Second District)
Martin Gottlieb. "McEwen Raises Soul-Searching Issue". Dayton Daily News. March 5, 1993. 10A. (McEwen regrets his stance on the House bank scandal)
Martin Gottlieb. "McEwen Steps Into the TV Limelight". Dayton Daily News. May 1, 1991. 10A. (McEwen's television appearances)
Martin Gottlieb. "Strickland has come a long way ; This part of the state first saw him as an apparently hopeless cause". Dayton Daily News. May 11, 2005. A12. (McEwen was "collateral damage")
Richard Halloran. "Budget Cuts? 'Not in My District!'". The New York Times. May 3, 1988. A26. (McEwen protests proposed military spending cuts in Ohio)
D. Kaplan. "McEwen, Oakar face the music of the House bank scandal". Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. v. 50, n. 21. May 23, 1992. 1488-1491. (McEwen and others deal with fallout from bounced checks)
"McEwen's Absentee-voter Effort Shouldn't Be Copied by Candidates". (Editorial). Dayton Daily News. March 19, 1993. 14A. (McEwen's campaign collected absentee ballot applications)
"McEwen Had Geography Problem, But He Can't Blame Lack of Money." (Editorial). Dayton Daily News. March 18, 1993. 10A. (McEwen's 1993 primary campaign)
"McEwen Seeks Committee to Investigate MIA Claims". The Plain Dealer. August 3, 1991. 1C.
"McEwen Will Change Address to Run for Seat". Dayton Daily News. February 3, 1993. 2B. (McEwen moves from Hillsboro to Bethel)
Sharon Maloney. "House Race Wide Open After Blackwell Departure". Cincinnati Post. January 27, 1993. 3A. (Ken Blackwell won't run to replace Gradison)
Sharon Maloney. "McEwen's Record Helps, Hurts in Race". Cincinnati Post. February 16, 1993. 5A. (McEwen's bounced checks, Spaeth's reaction, Clermont County water intervention)
Sharon Maloney. "Mud's Flying in TV Ads for Three-way 2nd District Race." Cincinnati Post. March 13, 1993. 8A.
"Many deserve recognition for U.S. 35 success". (Editorial). The Chillicothe Gazette. December 4, 2004. A4. (McEwen and others commended for highway money)
"Miller contests vote in Ohio 6th District." Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. v. 50, n. 30. July 25, 1992. 2200. (Miller files complaint with Ohio Supreme Court)
"Money Woes Force Miller to Drop McEwen Challenge." The Plain Dealer. August 27, 1992. 1C. (Miller drops his complaint)
Thomas H. Moore. "Contest to replace Gradison a suburban vs. rural fight". Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. v. 51, n. 8. February 20, 1993. 396-397.
John Nolan. "Two lawyers to face off in May". The Plain Dealer. March 17, 1993. 3B.
"Ohio". Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. v. 50, n. 42. October 24, 1992. 3400-3403. (Profile of Ohio's Congressional races in 1992)
Len Penix. "Clermont Water Plant Reopens". Cincinnati Post. April 5, 2001. (Water plant named for McEwen)
Len Penix. "Clermont Wins Control of Lake Water". Cincinnati Post. October 1, 1991. 5A.
Leslie Phillips. "Few Join Call for End to Assassination Ban". USA Today. January 19, 1991. A8. (McEwen proposes lifting assassination ban)
Katherine Rizzo. "Builder Finances His Race, McEwen Trails in War-chest Funds." The Plain Dealer. March 8, 1993. 3B. (1993 primary campaign finance reports)
Katherine Rizzo. "Congressional Candidate Goes on the Attack With Ad". The Plain Dealer. February 20, 1993. 5B. (Buchert attacks his rivals in 1993 primary)
Michelle Ruess. "Congress' travel bugs interest group." The Plain Dealer. November 30, 1991. (McEwen's overseas travel cited)
Maralee Schwartz, Lloyd Grove, and Charles R. Babcock. "McEwen Quits Ohio Senate Race". The Washington Post. December 8, 1987. A8. (McEwen won't run against Sen. Metzenbaum)
Margaret Shapiro. "House Rejects GOP Effort to Rule Indiana Seat Open." The Washington Post. May 1, 1985. A4. (McEwen: "You steal them")
Molly Sinclair. "Consumer 'Heroes' Named in Congress". The Washington Post. March 11, 1985. A7. (McEwen gets zero rating on consumer issues)
Molly Sinclair. "District Reconsiders Mace Ban". The Washington Post. July 10, 1992. D1. (McEwen's proposal to allow mace)
Bob Sloat. "Overdrafts bounce McEwen out". The Plain Dealer. November 5, 1992. (McEwen loses in 1992, Tuchfarber cites arrogance, Strickland on what he ran against)
Jim Underwood. "Republicans have few takers to face Glenn". The Plain Dealer. March 17, 1991. (McEwen rumored to be running against Glenn)
United States. Congress. Joint Committee on Printing. 1987-1988 Official Congressional Directory, 100th Congress. Duncan Nystrom, editor. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1987. (Official biography)
United States. Congress. Joint Committee on Printing. 1991-1992 Official Congressional Directory, 102d Congress. Duncan Nystrom, editor. S. Pub. 102-4. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1991. (Official biography)
"Washington Dateline". Richmond Times-Dispatch. (Richmond, Virginia). February 25, 1990. B4. (McEwen denounces District of Columbia's government)
Howard Wilkinson. "Candidates' ad blitz goes from radio to TV". The Cincinnati Enquirer. May 19, 2005. 2C. (McEwen's 2005 endorsements)
Howard Wilkinson. "Kemp's for McEwen, but 2nd choice is DeWine". The Cincinnati Enquirer. May 21, 2005. B4. (Jack Kemp campaigns for McEwen in 2005)

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress