George Voinovich, a two-term Ohio governor who also was Cleveland’s mayor and, most recently, a U.S. senator from Ohio, died Sunday at his home in Cleveland. He was 79.
Mr. Voinovich, one of Ohio’s most celebrated politicians, spent 46 years in public service, first as assistant attorney general of Ohio in 1963. He received more statewide votes throughout his political career than any person in Ohio history and was never voted out of office.
Mr. Voinovich’s wife, Janet, said he died peacefully in his sleep early Sunday. The moderate Republican delivered his last public remarks Friday during a 25th Slovenian Independence Day event at Cleveland City Hall.
PHOTO GALLERY: Former Gov. George Voinovich through the years
He was to be a delegate for Ohio Gov. John Kasich at the Republican National Convention next month in Cleveland.
Mr. Voinovich served as assistant attorney general of Ohio from 1963 to 1964; as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from 1967 to 1971; as auditor of Cuyahoga County from 1971 to 1976; as a member of the Cuyahoga County board of commissioners from 1977 to 1978; as Ohio’s lieutenant governor in 1979; as mayor of Cleveland from 1980 to 1989; as Ohio governor from 1991 to 1998; and as a U.S. senator from 1999 to 2011.
Although Mr. Voinovich was sometimes criticized for his perceived favoritism toward Ohio’s “three C” cities of Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner said Mr. Voinovich was “the most helpful governor” of any Ohio chief executive during Mr. Finkbeiner’s three terms as mayor.
In November, 1993, Mr. Finkbeiner met with Mr. Voinovich, who had flown from Columbus to meet with the new mayor and outgoing mayor John McHugh, and to offer assistance to the city’s first elected “strong mayor” following the end of its city-manager era.
Helping Toledo area
“[Mr. Voinovich] said he’d do anything in his power to help the city of Toledo to grow,” Mr. Finkbeiner said.
Accompanying Mr. Voinovich was his chief of staff, Paul Mifsud, with whom Mr. Finkbeiner later developed close ties while working with the governor.
Mr. Finkbeiner credited Mr. Voinovich with three major developments for Toledo: state funding for the new Jeep plant, widening I-75 from the Michigan border into Toledo, and construction of the Buckeye Basin Greenbelt Parkway, which provided a direct route between downtown Toledo and I-280 on the north side of the city.
“I found no governor as helpful to the city of Toledo than Governor Voinovich,” Mr. Finkbeiner said. “In my first two terms, he was very, very, very helpful and generous.”
Mr. Voinovich was an early supporter of a proposed federal bailout in 2008 for the auto industry, which employs thousands of people in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.
“Ohio and our nation have lost one of its most dedicated and effective public servants,” said U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo). “As mayor, governor, and senator, George Voinovich built a distinguished legacy, impacting every community in our state. It was my privilege to work with him, on a bipartisan basis, and always find common ground, in the public interest.”
Mr. Voinovich was a Republican who thrived in one of the state’s most Democratic counties and cities — Cuyahoga and Cleveland. He worked easily with those from across the aisle and was known as a pragmatist whose objective was to get things done.
Throughout his political career, Mr. Voinovich was a staunch supporter of tax and fee increases. Yet his opposition to tax cuts never led to a dismal November.
“He was a champion for northwest Ohio,” said Jon Stainbrook, chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party. “He was the definition of a good man and a dedicated public servant. While in the Senate, he helped northwest Ohio by voting to safeguard the auto industry from bankruptcy.”
“He was a great human being and a great Ohioan. He did so much for people of this state,” said Sandy Drabik Collins, who served in Mr. Voinovich’s cabinet as director of administrative services. “Some words I would use about him are statesman and leader. He accomplished a lot. Working for him was the highlight of my career in public service. He had no ego. He was kind and had strong feelings about wanting to improve the quality of life of all Ohioans.”
When Mrs. Collins’ husband, D. Michael Collins, was elected Toledo’s mayor in 2014, Mr. Voinovich met with Mr. Collins at his Cleveland State University office.
“He was still deeply engaged in Ohio government,” Mrs. Collins said.
Mr. Voinovich was the first Republican Catholic to be elected Ohio governor, and he often invoked his religion in speeches. He also was not shy about showing emotion. He famously cried during a television interview in 1992 after protesters demonstrated outside the Statehouse when he cut anti-poverty funding.
Turbulence
During another incident in 1995, Mr. Voinovich lost his temper when his plane was held on the ground at Port Columbus International Airport because of President Clinton’s arrival on Air Force One.
Mr. Voinovich angrily told an air traffic controller, “If they shoot us down, they can. I’m going to tell them to go screw themselves, OK?”
The FAA fined him $1,500.
In 1991, just four months after taking office as governor, Mr. Voinovich appointed Toledo-area coin dealer Tom Noe to a seat on the Bowling Green State University board of trustees. Noe, a BGSU college dropout, had been on Mr. Voinovich’s Toledo finance team during the gubernatorial campaign.
He was selected over banker Ed Reiter and civic booster David Bryan.
It set in motion Noe’s rise in Ohio Republican politics, which would end with the Coingate scandal in 2005. Noe was found guilty of theft, money laundering, forgery, and corrupt activity for stealing $13.7 million from $50 million invested in rare-coin funds by the state Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
The investments began during the Voinovich administration and continued after Bob Taft was elected.
Noe was convicted of 29 charges, including 25 felonies. Among them was a mandatory 10-year sentence for a RICO-related felony. He’s currently serving an 18-year prison sentence.
Mr. Mifsud was also involved in scandal, going to jail on misdemeanor charges of trying to cover up free-home remodeling work performed by a state contractor.
The early years
George Victor Voinovich was born July 15, 1936, in Cleveland as the oldest of six children to Serbian and Slovenian parents, George and Josephine, who immigrated from what is now Croatia.
At Ohio University, he was elected student body president, which forged a lifetime spent in politics. The university’s school of public affairs bears Mr. Voinovich’s name. He received a law degree from Ohio State University in 1961.
Mr. Voinovich and his wife, Janet, were married in 1962. They had four children: George, Betsy, Peter, and Molly, the latter of whom died in 1979 after being hit by a van that ran a red light.
He defeated Dennis Kucinich, the incumbent Democratic mayor of Cleveland, in 1979. It began a decade-long resurgence for the Rust Belt town, which would get the moniker “Comeback City.”
Mr. Voinovich was credited with restoring financial stability to Cleveland, thanks to a 33 percent income-tax increase, after it became the first major American city to default since the Great Depression.
He presided over $2 billion in downtown construction that included new venues for the Indians, Cavaliers, and Browns; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Great Lakes Science Center, transforming the city’s skyline.
In 1988, he unsuccessfully challenged Democrat Howard Metzenbaum for his U.S. Senate seat. Undeterred, Mr. Voinovich was elected governor two years later, then won re-election in 1994 with a record 72 percent of the vote.
As governor, Mr. Voinovich preached a mantra of “working harder and smarter, doing more with less,” vowing to streamline state government. The state faced massive debt when he took over, but when he left the governor’s mansion, the state had nearly $1 billion in its “rainy day” fund.
Most trying time
Perhaps Mr. Voinovich’s most trying time as a politician came during the 1993 Easter Sunday prison riot in Lucasville. Inmates took control of the prison for 11 days. Nine inmates and one guard were killed in what remains the longest state prison riot in U.S. history.
Ohio paid $4.1 million to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from that incident.
Mr. Voinovich served two terms in the U.S. Senate. A majority of his 12 years were spent opposing GOP-introduced tax cuts that did not include attempts to cut spending. However, in 2001, under pressure from the Bush administration, he voted for a 10-year tax cut of $1.35 trillion despite apprehension of future deficits that did occur.
The White House would need Mr. Voinovich’s vote again in 2003, when they came to an agreement on a $350 billion tax cut to ensure his vote. Mr. Voinovich also wrestled with the Bush administration on its Iraq War policy.
“He was a unifier who thought outside the box, never gave up, and worked hard for the ideas he believed in up until the very end of his life,” current Gov. John Kasich said. “Thanks to that leadership, he saved Cleveland, governed Ohio compassionately and responsibly, and was a candid voice for reason in the U.S. Senate. I am proud to have known him and grateful for what he did for our state and nation.”
Mr. Voinovich announced his retirement in 2009, saying he wanted to spend more time with his wife and grandchildren.
“I have had a philosophy,” he said in 2009. “It’s God, family, and country or community.”
Staff writer Jim Sielicki and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Kyle Rowland at: krowland@theblade.com, 419-724-6282, or on Twitter @KyleRowland.
First Published June 13, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
