56 Facts About Bob Taft

Robert Alphonso Taft III was born on January 8,1942 and is an American politician and attorney who served as the 67th governor of Ohio from 1999 to 2007.

Bob Taft then served as commissioner for Hamilton County from 1981 to 1990.

Bob Taft ran for lieutenant governor in 1986 but was unsuccessful.

Bob Taft won the 1998 Ohio gubernatorial election with 50 percent of the vote and became governor in January 1999.

Bob Taft pleaded no contest to the charges and was fined $4,000.

Bob Taft was born in 1942 in Boston, to US Senator Robert Bob Taft Jr.

Bob Taft was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he attended the Cincinnati Country Day School through the ninth grade and graduated from The Taft School.

Bob Taft was elected as a Republican to the Ohio House of Representatives and served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1977 to 1981, and then was Hamilton County commissioner from 1981 to 1990.

Bob Taft ran for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio on the ticket with Jim Rhodes in 1986, but was unsuccessful.

Bob Taft was re-elected in 1994, defeating Democratic candidate Dan Brady.

In December 1996, Bob Taft announced he would run for Governor of Ohio, becoming the first candidate to enter the race.

Bob Taft had been preparing for his run since 1995, raising money and securing the endorsement of term-limited incumbent George Voinovich.

Bob Taft won the May 5,1998 primary to become the Republican nominee.

Bob Taft was sworn in for his first term on January 11,1999.

Bob Taft had high approval ratings going into the election, and experts predicted he would easily win.

Bob Taft was sworn in for his second term on January 13,2003.

Bob Taft personally delivered the award to the institution in Cleveland.

The state awarded another $8 million in 2006 from their Biomedical Research Research and Commercialization Program, which the Bob Taft administration contributed to creating through the Third Frontier program.

Bob Taft's "Rebuilding Ohio Schools" was an ambitious project that would pour $10 billion over 12 years into new school construction.

Bob Taft signed legislation creating the Ohio Educational Choice Scholarship Pilot Program, which extended choice to students in failing schools, and the Ohio College Opportunity Grant, which extended grants to 11,000 new students.

In January 2003, Bob Taft signed Ohio Senate Bill 281 into law, which limited non-economic damages in medical injury lawsuits.

Bob Taft then signed Ohio Senate Bill 80, introduced by Sen.

In December 2000, Bob Taft signed House Bill 408, which designated Interstate 76 as the "Military Order of the Purple Heart Memorial Highway".

In November 2001, with the ensuing War on Terror set to begin, Bob Taft signed Ohio Senate Bill 164, called the Military Pay Bill, into law.

In 2005, Bob Taft signed legislation creating the Military Injury Relief Fund, which allowed taxpayers to donate a portion of their tax refund to help fund grants for injured veterans.

Bob Taft successfully lobbied, along with others, in 2006 to have the Royal Netherlands Air Force join the Ohio Air National Guard in training missions in Springfield.

Bob Taft's wife, Hope, started the "On the Ohio Homefront" initiative, which is an online database of businesses and charities that provide discounts and services catered toward veterans.

In 2003, Bob Taft unveiled his "Jobs and Progress Plan", which was a $5 billion, 10-year agenda to improve Ohio's highways and roads.

Bob Taft mandated that ethanol tanks be constructed at all new ODOT facilities.

Later in 2005, Bob Taft urged the US Congress to extend tax credits to those who install fuel cell electricity stations.

In early 2006, Bob Taft announced his "Energy Action Plan", which included doubling the use of E85 ethanol in state fleets from 30,000 US gallons to 60,000, increasing the use of biodiesel in state fleets by 100,000 US gallons annually, while mandating the purchase of flex-fuel only vehicles for the state fleet, and allocating $3.6 million from the Energy Loan Fund to make state buildings energy efficient.

Bob Taft called for a pilot program to create jet fuel from coal, moving Ohio's geological information on fossil fuel sources to digital formats, and reaffirming the state's commitment to FutureGen, a clean coal initiative.

Bob Taft spent considerable time during his administration promoting the Great Lakes, which included lobbying the US Congress for funding devoted to restoration projects, and signing pacts that included 8 Great Lakes states and 2 Canadian provinces to preserve the area.

In 2001, Bob Taft agreed to "Annex 2001", an addition to the Great Lakes Charter.

In May 2005, Bob Taft signed House Bill 29, known as Amy's Law into law, tightening restrictions on bond for suspects accused of domestic violence.

In February 2006 Bob Taft vetoed legislation passed by both houses of the Ohio General Assembly removing the 'Plain Sight' provision from the state's concealed carry law.

Bob Taft was criticized during his tenure for permitting state spending and state taxes to rise.

Critics argued that Bob Taft was responsible for the lagging Ohio economy during that time period, despite federal trade policies that were out of his control, resulting in the loss of 13,432 employment positions to international trade alone in 2006, and 71,242 employment positions lost overall between 1995 and 2006.

Bob Taft presided over the reintroduction of capital punishment in Ohio.

However, in 2021, Bob Taft co-authored an op-ed with former Ohio Attorneys General Lee Fisher and Jim Petro, calling for the state to abolish capital punishment.

Bob Taft's conviction was grounds under the Ohio Constitution for impeachment and removal from office by the Ohio General Assembly; however, impeachment proceedings did not occur and Bob Taft remained in office until the end of his second term.

Bob Taft stated he was not aware of the opinion until 2005 after news reports surfaced about the Coingate scandal.

Bob Taft personally notified the commission of possible disclosure failures, and offered his cooperation in correcting the issues in voluntarily triggering an investigation.

Judge Mark Froehlich ordered Bob Taft to apologize to the people of Ohio as well as state employees.

At the beginning of his governorship in 1999, Bob Taft had an approval rating of 49 percent.

Bob Taft's unpopularity contributed to major Democratic gains in the 2006 election, including the defeat of Republican Ken Blackwell by Democrat Ted Strickland in the race to replace Bob Taft as governor.

In polling conducted by Quinnipiac University in December 2006, Bob Taft left the governorship with an approval rating of only 16 percent.

Bob Taft said the trip was invigorating and that the buildings where he taught and lived 40 years earlier were still there.

Bob Taft joined the University of Dayton in August 2007 as a distinguished research associate for educational excellence.

Bob Taft's job is to help the university launch the Center for Educational Excellence, which encourages students to study science, technology, engineering, and math.

Lasley was quoted "I think the more people have gotten to know him [Bob Taft] the more they realize he is a very ethical individual".

Bob Taft is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.

The Bob Taft family has been involved in Republican politics for over a century.

Bob Taft's patrilineal great-granduncle Charles Phelps Taft was a US Representative from Ohio and, for a time, an owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

Patrilineal great-great-great-grandfather Peter Rawson Bob Taft I was a member of the Vermont legislature.

Kingsley Arter Bob Taft was a US Senator from Ohio and Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.