House - Marcy Kaptur - OH-9
- DONATE to Marcy's campaign via her website
- VOLUNTEER options
- Democrat running for re-election on Ohio's north coast from west of Toledo to outskirts of Cleveland
- Video clips: “The Longest Serving Woman in the House”; “Introducing Bill for National World War II Memorial”
Marcy Kaptur is the longest-serving woman in the House – she’s now in her 20th term – and the second-longest-serving woman in congressional history. Since her first election to Congress in 1982, when she upset the Republican incumbent, the closest an opponent has ever gotten to Marcy was 2 years later, when she won her first re-election by 12%.
But now the Ohio legislature’s 2022 redistricting maps put Marcy in a district that will be more challenging for a Democrat to win. "What they've done throughout the state is … basically cracked metropolitan communities and have moved districts to very awkward configurations in order to meet the numbers that they wanted," Marcy said. Extreme gerrymandering has produced a district that has been called “The Snake on the Lake” because of its long, narrow shape along the Lake Erie coastline.
Marcy’s focus has always been on fighting for workers and businesses that are doing their best to get ahead. She understands her constituents. The daughter of a Polish-American, working-class family, Marcy’s life and service “mirror the bootstrap, hardworking nature of her district … Her family ran a small grocery and her mother also worked at Champion Spark Plug, where she helped organize the workers into an auto trade union … Marcy is currently seventh in seniority among the 435 Members of the House and is the ranking Democrat on the House’s Energy and Water Appropriations Committee. She has used her experience and seniority on the Appropriations Committee to secure vital federal investments for the Ninth District, focusing on jobs, economic growth, infrastructure, and support for veterans and the U.S. military.” (ErieCountyDems.org).
Several Republican candidates have emerged. Theresa Gavarone, who has been a state senator since 2019, stirred controversy last year by suggesting that a statement from President-Elect Joe Biden – promising to make sure that minority-owned and women-owned businesses have "equal access to resources needed to reopen and rebuild” – was divisive and unfair to white men. "This is discrimination. Period," her original tweet stated (it has since been taken down). Gavarone’s ratings include 0% from NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio; 33% from Planned Parenthood of Ohio; and 92% from the NRA, who endorsed her in 2020. Gavarone, who has consistently listed Bowling Green as her home address, filed for the congressional race listing a residence in Huron since Bowling Green is not in the 9th District and Huron is.
Marcy is a champion for the Midwest in Congress. A lifelong resident of Ohio, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Wisconsin and a Master of Arts in urban planning from the University of Michigan. She began her public career as an urban policy adviser to President Carter. In 1982, while she was pursuing a doctorate in urban planning and development finance at MIT, she was recruited by local Democratic Party leaders to run against the incumbent Republican, whom she defeated in an upset that attracted national attention.
Marcy has sponsored legislation that has benefited the country as well as Ohio. She is the author of legislation that created the National World War II Memorial in Washington. During the economic crisis in 2008, Marcy was one of the first lawmakers to support congressional action to save the American automobile industry. She is Co-Chair of the House Great Lakes Task Force, which brings Republicans and Democrats together to defend vital programs like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and other conservation efforts in the region. Marcy has been honored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars with their coveted Americanism Award and is also the only woman ever to receive the American Prisoner of War “Barbed Wire” Award for her commitment to veterans.
Marcy receives a rating of 100% from the following organizations: NARAL Pro-Choice America, the NAACP, the ACLU, the NEA and many other labor unions. Her Planned Parenthood rating is 97%, and her League of Conservation Voters rating is 90%. Her rating by the NRA is 0%.
Donations now to Marcy Kaptur will help her in what will undoubtedly be her most challenging re-election race yet.
