Steve Stivers

Early life, education, and career

Stivers was born and grew up in Ripley, Ohio, the son of Carol Sue (née Pulliam) and Ernst Bambach Stivers. Steve is a recipient of the Eagle Scout Award.

Stivers attended The Ohio State University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and international relations in 1989 and an MBA in 1996. While attending Ohio State he joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity.

Stivers spent seven years at Bank One, three years at the Ohio Company, two years as Finance Director for the Franklin County Republican Party and five years as a staff member in the Ohio Senate. Stivers has worked as a Series 7 licensed securities trader with the Ohio Company.

Military service

Stivers has served in the Ohio Army National Guard since 1985 and holds the rank of Brigadier General in the Logistics branch. Stivers was called to active duty while serving in the Ohio Senate in October 2004. It was then that Stivers served in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Djibouti as Battalion Commander until December 2005. He was awarded a Bronze Star for his accomplishments as a battalion commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Elections

In December 2002, incumbent Republican Priscilla Mead decided to resign after only serving in the Ohio Senate for a year. Stivers was recommended by a Senate screening committee and was appointed by election of the Senate Republicans on January 4, 2003. He then won re-election in 2004 to a full senate term with 58% of the vote.

Tenure

Stivers served in the Ohio Senate from January 9, 2003, until December 2008.

He sponsored 12 bills while in office which became law, 11 of which were bipartisan. He was the lead sponsor of the following bills:

He also passed a balanced, fiscally conservative state budget, provided the largest personal property tax cut in Ohio history, and froze tuition rates for Ohio’s college students.

Committee assignments

Stivers sat on a variety of Ohio Senate committees. He was the Chairman of the Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee, Vice-Chair of the Finance and Financial Institutions Committee, served on the Ways and Means Committee, the Judiciary Committee on Civil Justice, the Judiciary Committee for Criminal Justice, and also the Controlling Board.

Elections

In November 2007, Stivers announced he would run for election to Congress in Ohio's 15th District, a seat held by retiring Republican member Deborah Pryce. He won the Republican nomination and ran against Democratic nominee Mary Jo Kilroy, Libertarian Mark Noble and Independent Don Elijah Eckhart. Stivers lost by 2,311 votes, conceding on December 7, 2008, after a long vote recount.

Stivers won the Republican primary with 82% of the vote. He again faced Democratic incumbent Mary Jo Kilroy along with Constitution Party nominee David Ryon and Libertarian nominee William J. Kammerer. On November 2, 2010, Kilroy conceded to Stivers.

Redistricting after the 2010 census made the 15th much friendlier to Stivers. During his first term, he represented a fairly compact district covering all of Union and Madison counties, as well as most of the western half of Columubus. The new map, however, pushed the 15th into more rural and exurban territory south and west of the capital.

Stivers ran again in 2012 against Democratic nominee Pat Lang. He was endorsed by the NRA, National Right to Life, Ohio State Medical Association and United States Chamber of Commerce. Stivers was re-elected by 76,397 votes.

Stivers ran in 2014 against Democratic rival Scott Wharton. Gaining more than 66 percent of the vote, he was reelected for a third term.

Stivers ran in 2016 against Democrat Scott Wharton for the OH-15 seat. Winning 66.2% (222,847) of the vote to Wharton's 33.8% (113,960).

Tenure

Stivers has voted against raising the debt limit when there was no offset or systemic reform and supports prioritizing spending in the event that the debt limit is reached. He was part of a proposal to add a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution. Stivers voted to offset the costs of disaster relief spending through discretionary budget cuts.

On December 15, 2011, Stivers introduced a bill that would alter the composition of the penny, nickel, dime and quarter to steel, with a copper coat for the penny, which claimed to save an estimated $433,000,000 over the course of ten years. The bill was referred to committee and was rejected, but Stivers has resubmitted it twice more, once in April 2013 (again rejected in committee) and again in January 2015 (once more referred to committee). In spite of the US Mint releasing a technical report in December 2014 for its Alternative Metals Study in which it reported that steel is an unacceptable material for US coins (due to difficulty in minting, lack of security, and severe impact on both the public and the coin vending industry), Stivers kept the wording of his bill identical to the previous two versions.

He voted to audit the Federal Reserve and its recent actions, specifically its involvement in mortgage loans.

Stivers supports all energy options, including green, nuclear, and clean coal and supports tax benefits for renewable energy usage. However Stivers opposes federal regulations on efficiency standards

Stivers is a strong supporter of gun rights and opposes any limits to Second Amendment rights. He supports loosening regulations for interstate gun purchases and supports veterans registering unlicensed firearms acquired from outside the United States.

Stivers is an opponent of government-run healthcare and has voted on numerous occasions against such. He supports privatized healthcare options opposes the use of federal funds for any healthcare program expansions or acts.

Stivers opposed President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order to impose a temporary ban on entry to the U.S. to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries. He stated that “While I agree with the President that we must improve our visa vetting process in order to better protect Americans, I believe the executive order risks violating our nation’s values and fails to differentiate mainstream Islamic partners from radical Islamic terrorists — setting back our fight against radical Islam. I urge the Administration to quickly replace this temporary order with permanent improvements in the visa vetting process.”

Stivers opposes the privatization of social security. In addition, he also opposes raising the retirement age from its current state.

Stivers took the Taxpayer Protection pledge, insuring he would not support any tax raises. He supports a flat federal tax rate across the board for all income brackets.

Legislation

On November 21, 2013, Stivers introduced the bill To amend the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to authorize privately insured credit unions to become members of a Federal home loan bank (H.R. 3584; 113th Congress). The bill would amend the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to treat certain privately insured credit unions as insured depository institutions for purposes of determining eligibility for membership in a federal home loan bank. The bill was scheduled to be voted on under a suspension of the rules on May 6, 2014.

Stivers was ranked as the 36th most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the second most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party).

National Republican Congressional Committee

Stivers beat Rep. Roger Williams to be elected chair the National Republican Congressional Committee on November 18, 2016. In his position to support Republican congressional candidates, Stivers said his goal is to "defy history" in protecting his party's majority in the House.

Candidate conduct

In response to congressional candidate Greg Gianforte being charged with assault on the eve of Montana's special election, Stivers characterized the assault as "out of character." He said, "we all make mistakes" and "need to let the facts surrounding this incident unfold." The assault was witnessed by four Fox News reporters and the victim's account corroborated by their audio recording.

Committee assignments

Caucus memberships

Electoral history

*Write-in candidate Travis Casper received 6 votes (<1%)
**Write-in candidate Bill Buckel received 45 votes (0.02%)