With this year’s historic election as important as any in memory, voters in Fayette, Ross, and Pickaway Counties will help determine the balance of power in Washington D.C. when they vote for congressional representatives on Election Day. For reasons to follow, The Guardian endorses re-election for Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio’s 15th Congressional District.
Stivers, 55, a Republican of Upper Arlington, is seeking his sixth term in Congress, representing the 15th District. He is being challenged by Attorney Joel Newby, a Columbus Democrat. This week, the two faced off in a virtual debate, where Newby challenged Stivers over what he called “all talk and no action.”
The Guardian disagrees with Newby’s claims that the Congressman is “all talk and no action.”
Stivers was in the Ohio Senate from 2003 to 2008 and currently serves in the Ohio Army National Guard since 1985, where he is a brigadier general. Anyone who serves to protect our homeland is certainly more than just “all talk.”
The top reason the Guardian has chosen to endorse Stivers is his response to his constituents and addressing their concerns. Once, the Congressman helped a family locate their loved one’s ashes after they were lost in the U.S. Mail. Another time, the Congressman made calls to try and help get an airman home for his mother’s wedding. To us, these acts — and countless others by Stivers — certainly meet the definition of “action.”
“The Guardian believes in transparency and accountability, and helping those in need. When hundreds-of-thousands of Ohioans are out of work because of a pandemic, Congressman Stivers has worked in Congress to combat the coronavirus, voting three times for relief packages and has been laser focused on developing a vaccine for the virus,” said the Guardian’s Editor, Derek Myers. “The Congressman also understands the importance of small business and making sure Main Street doesn’t get muddied up by Wall Street.”
If the citizens of the 15th Congressional district want to believe Newby’s claims that their Congressman is “all talk and no action,” than the Guardian would respond with saying that those citizens have evidently never called their representative asking for help.
Stivers has represented the 15th Congressional district that includes most of the Guardian’s coverage area: Ross, Fayette, and Pickaway counties, along with 9 other counties since 2011.
For the reasons stated above, and many more, the Guardian endorses the re-election of Congressman Steve Stivers for Ohio’s 15th Congressional district.
Election day is November 3.