Article published April 27, 2008 CONGRESSMAN BOB LATTA New man on Capitol Hill dives into his latest role Son of long-serving representative embraces duties: 'I'm not here to sleep. My job is to work.'
Rep. Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green) and his wife, Marcia, walk toward his office in the Longworth House Office Building after leaving the U.S. Capitol.
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SPECIAL TO THE BLADE/MICHAEL TEMCHINE
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WASHINGTON — In the four months he’s been on the job, U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green) has cast hundreds of votes, opened three district offices, posed for photos regularly with groups of constituents in front of the Capitol, and signed thousands of letters.
He still hasn’t found a place to live.
Mr. Latta gets a little sheepish about the fact that he sleeps on an air mattress in his office in the Longworth Building on Capitol Hill.
“You just want to get as much done as you possibly can. I’m not here to eat. I’m not here to sleep. My job is to work,” Mr. Latta said.
“There’s only 435 people that get this privilege and honor to hold this job, and I just want to make sure I’m giving 100 percent.”
Mr. Latta, 52, was sworn in Dec. 13 after a special election two days earlier to serve the year remaining in the term of the late Rep. Paul Gillmor (R., Tiffin), who died Sept. 5 in a fall in his Arlington, Va., townhouse.
Since then Mr. Latta has plunged with enthusiasm into Congress’ busy round of committee meetings, constituent obligations, and voting.
None of this is a big surprise to Mr. Latta, whose father, Delbert Latta, 88, of Bowling Green, held the same seat from 1959 to 1989.
Bob Latta has been appointed to two committees: Agriculture, and Transportation and Infrastructure.
On a typical day, Mr. Latta said, he is up by 5 a.m., exercised, dressed, and at his desk before 6:30 a.m., impatient for the House cafeteria to open an hour later. With much to do and little time to do it in, and no car, Mr. Latta said he so far has rarely ventured beyond the Capitol Hill complex with its office buildings connected by underground tunnels.
“At one point I realized I hadn’t been outside for 56 hours,” Mr. Latta said. Now that spring sunshine beckons, he plans to start a morning jog to the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial.
He’s taken over Mr. Gillmor’s office in the Longworth Building, but may have to move to less spacious digs when he changes from serving the remainder of Mr. Gillmor’s term to serving his own term in January, if he wins re-election in November.
Del Latta, father of Rep. Bob Latta, was an ardent conservative, one of the last to hold out against agreeing to vote for impeachment of President Nixon in the Watergate scandal. He served in Congress from 1959 to 1989.
Mr. Latta has opened offices in Defiance, Norwalk, and Bowling Green and finished hiring his staff, some of them trusted associates from Columbus as well as experienced Washington hands.
“They’re doing a great job in this office,” he quips of his staff. “They can produce a lot of letters for me.”
A typical week for Mr. Latta is to fly in to Reagan National Airport from Toledo or Detroit on Tuesday for votes on the House floor at 6:30 p.m. and then to fly back on Thursday after the last vote, leaving Mondays and Fridays for work in the district.
Sometimes, the week in Washington starts on Monday; sometimes it ends on Friday.
Mr. Latta’s routine will shield him from the criticism that dogged Mr. Gillmor. Although he maintained a condominium in Tiffin as his official residence, the late congressman lived with his wife and sons in a $1 million home in a golf course development in suburban Columbus, far from the congressional district he represented.
A busy schedule
On April 16 in Washington, Mr. Latta helped welcome Pope Benedict XVI to the White House. It was a busy day that included a meeting with a group of 5th District high school students from Norwalk, a committee meeting to talk about a Democratic proposal to update the Clean Water Act, and frequent votes on the House floor.
Back in his Bowling Green district office he has meetings and reads and signs letters and uses it as a base to attend meetings in the district, some as far as 94 miles away in Mercer County.
A lot of the work of a congressman involves constituent concerns, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Veterans Administration benefits. He was called one Sunday night to help intercede with the State Department on behalf of a family that had an emergency overseas and needed passports expedited.
Like father, like son Mr. Latta joins 26 other members of the House whose parent preceded them in office.
Memories and stories about his father spill easily out of Bob Latta. “I used to work 13 county fairs for dad throughout the ’80s until he left office,” he said. “I’d leave work and drive an hour and a half to the far points of the district and work ’til late and get back in the car and drive home and get up the next morning and go to work.
“We all wanted to make sure dad could do his job, so we all pitched in to help,” he said.
Mr. Latta now attends the chicken dinners, fairs, and town hall meetings that were once his father’s domain.
When in his district, Mr. Latta drives an older car — a 1998 Ford Taurus — like his father used to do. Del Latta once accused his son of pilfering his tools from underneath the front seat of the 1971 sedan he was then driving, until he realized that the tools had fallen out a hole in the floorboard and apologized.
Today, because of redistricting, the district spans parts of 16 counties, ranging from the state borders with Indiana and Michigan, taking in southwestern Lucas County and all of Wood County, and extending eastward to Ashland County in north-central Ohio.
His father was an ardent conservative, one of the last to hold out against agreeing to vote for impeachment against President Nixon in the Watergate scandal. The elder Mr. Latta also was co-author of the Gramm-Latta amendment, which embodied President Reagan’s 1981 budget that cut taxes and boosted military spending.
Pushing forward Bob Latta went to Bowling Green State University and then to the University of Toledo law school, graduating with his law degree at age 24.
When his father opted against seeking re-election in 1988, his son ran for the seat.
He lost the Republican primary to Mr. Gillmor, then president of the Ohio Senate, by 27 votes.
Denied the chance to run for Congress, Mr. Latta won a seat as a Wood County commissioner in 1990. In 1996, he defeated Democrat Chris Redfern of Port Clinton for the 2nd District Ohio Senate seat and held that post until 2000, when he was elected to the House, where he was re-elected in 2002, 2004, and 2006. As a state legislator, Mr. Latta successfully pushed legislation in 2000 increasing the exemption on Ohio’s inheritance tax so that 78 percent of estates were exempt from being taxed. He unsuccessfully backed legislation to abolish the practice of letting party bosses fill vacancies by appointment instead of special elections.
The fighter within Congress beckoned again last year after Mr. Gillmor’s untimely death.
Known as a nice guy, Mr. Latta exhibited a bare-knuckles side of his personality in the two races it took to win the special election to fill the remainder of Mr. Gillmor’s term.
He and state Sen. Steve Buehrer (R., Delta) spent heavily and traded attacks, some of them unfounded, in their fight for the GOP nomination in November.
Mr. Latta followed up that narrow victory with a sound thrashing of Democrat Robin Weirauch, 57 to 43 percent, on Dec. 11 after a campaign that was also dominated by negative TV attack ads.
He beat Scott Radcliffe, an Iraq war veteran from Perrysburg, in the March 4 Republican primary.
He faces George Mays, 52, of Norwalk, the Democratic nominee, in November.
Mr. Mays said he doesn’t agree with Mr. Latta on the war, on how to revive the economy, or on energy, and hopes voters are “smart enough” to see that “our district and our state doesn’t need old blood or blue blood; they need new blood.”
“I don’t have anything negative personally to say about Bob,” said Mr. Mays, who is a disc jockey and karaoke operator. “I tend to think Bob would be the old guard and would go along with the current administration, which has basically continued to ship our jobs overseas, pushed energy prices through the roof, and continue to keep us mired down in a war that should never have taken place.”
A matter of priorities Mr. Latta plans to emphasize energy independence.
In a one-minute speech on the House floor on Wednesday, Mr. Latta warned that China is rapidly expanding its offshore oil drilling and spending $24 billion on coal gasification — conversion of coal into methane to drive electrical turbines.
He said the Democrats who control the House “exclude coal from their energy policy, even though it is the most abundant and efficient fuel source found in the United States.”
“We have got to do things now. We have got to keep this country on course. Where are people’s incomes going to be when they’re paying $7 for a gallon of gas? People won’t have the purchasing power to buy anything else,” Mr. Latta said. “In 10 years, in my opinion, we’ve got to be energy independent.”
A strong fiscal conservative who believes in a government that takes as little tax money as possible, he’s quick to warn listeners about the impending repeal of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.
He told a group of visiting students from Norwalk that he’s committed to electing Republican John McCain as president. “Right now the only thing holding back massive spending is the President’s veto pen,” Mr. Latta said.
Some would say the current president is most to blame for massive overspending, primarily on the Iraq war. But Mr. Latta said national security trumps fiscal conservatism. “Protecting your country is your No. 1 obligation,” he said.
‘Quite conservative’ Democrat Alvie Perkins, a longtime Wood County commissioner, said he had to credit both Mr. Latta and Mr. Gillmor for staying active in their district.
“It’s an awful responsibility to try to get around in the rural areas. It was a real challenge for Del, raising a family and doing what he did. Bob’s doing the same thing now,” he said.
He said Mr. Latta is “very responsible, very conscientious,” but “Bob’s different than I am. He’s quite conservative, very much so. Bob is just in his nature very …” Mr. Perkins said, pausing and then choosing his word, “conservative.” Steve Fought, communications director for U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo), said Mr. Latta has adjusted quickly to Congress and has a bright future. He said Mr. Latta may have been held back in the Ohio Statehouse because he didn’t come from one of the politically powerful “Three Cs” — Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati — but that won’t matter in Washington.
“He will rise quickly. … He’s not the type of guy who offends people. He’s experienced. He’s from an important state,” Mr. Fought said. “And he has the prospect of being there for a good, long time.”
Republicans in the sprawling 5th District said they have high hopes for Mr. Latta.
Lyle McKanna, Republican chairman of Putnam County, said, “I think he’ll do real well. He pretty much reflects the views of the bulk of the people in the district. “He’s a very conscientious individual. He’s never missed a vote in the Statehouse, and he’s trying to do the same thing in Washington,” Mr. McKanna said.
He said he thinks Mr. Latta’s main job is to try to bring new jobs to his district.
State Rep. Randy Gardner (R., Bowling Green), who has traded state offices with Mr. Latta, predicted Mr. Latta will emphasize constituent service. In Columbus, he said Mr. Latta worked with him to amend state law to allow commissioners to waive sales tax collections to help bring Bass Pro Shops to Rossford. “There was a lot of opposition to giving counties even permissive authority, and we got the law changed,” Mr. Gardner said.
Mike Marsh, a former longtime Republican chairman of Wood County and a year older than Mr. Latta, said he never heard him talk about running against Mr. Gillmor, other than in 1988.
“As far as I can tell, he was always happy doing the things he did. I don’t think he was looking for anything to happen [with Congress]. That was totally unexpected,” Mr. Marsh said.
He said Mr. Latta is well in tune with his district because “he’s just a regular guy; that’s what people like to see in their political leaders around here.” “He’s not a headline grabber, by any stretch. He’d rather go hunting than have his picture in the paper,” Mr. Marsh said.
Mr. Latta said he goes deer hunting every year and has introduced his daughters to the sport.
The family man Mr. Latta and his wife, Marcia, decided to keep the family home in Bowling Green and have Mr. Latta commute, as his father did for most of his tenure. Their daughters, Elizabeth and Maria, are 16 and 14, and Mrs. Latta has a full-time job in the development office of Bowling Green State University.
Still, Mrs. Latta said she wants her husband to establish a normal residence in Washington.
“I’d like for him to find a spot soon. He quite honestly has not had any time to look,” Mrs. Latta said. “He’s a full-time dad and a full-time congressman and a full-time spouse.”
She added that the current accommodations don’t bother Mr. Latta, who, she said, “is not a man of creature comforts.”
Mr. Latta said his living arrangements will become more normal when the new Congress is elected in the fall and a new crop of members comes to town looking for roommates.
While some congressmen and senators rent apartments or own homes in the District or in the suburbs, many share space.
“There’s one house with six House members and three senators. You’ve got nine guys in a house. It’s kind of like being in college,” he said.
Contact Tom Troy at: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058. Permanent LinkNew man on Capitol Hill dives into his latest rolehttp://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080427/NEWS09/804270355STORY:2008804270355
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