John Kasich grew up in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, moving to Ohio to attend college.
133 Facts About John Kasich
2.
John Kasich was a key figure in the passage of both 1996 welfare reform legislation and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
3.
John Kasich decided not to run for re-election in 2000 and ran for president instead.
4.
John Kasich withdrew from the race before the Republican primaries.
5.
John Kasich ran for governor of Ohio in 2010, defeating Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland.
6.
John Kasich was re-elected in 2014, defeating Democratic challenger Ed FitzGerald by 30 percentage points.
7.
John Kasich was term-limited and could not seek a third gubernatorial term in 2018; he was succeeded by fellow Republican Mike DeWine.
8.
John Kasich ran for president again in 2016, finishing in third place in the Republican primaries behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
9.
John Kasich won the primary in his home state of Ohio and finished second in New Hampshire.
10.
John Kasich declined to support Trump as the Republican presidential nominee and did not attend the 2016 Republican National Convention, which was held in Ohio.
11.
In 2019, following the end of his second term as governor, John Kasich joined CNN as a contributor.
12.
John Kasich is known as one of Trump's most prominent critics within the Republican Party, and he endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for president in a speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
13.
John Kasich is the son of Anne and John Richard Kasich, who worked as a mail carrier.
14.
John Kasich's father was of Czech descent, while his mother was of Croatian descent.
15.
John Kasich has described himself as "a Croatian and a Czech".
16.
The letter was delivered to Nixon by the university's president Novice Fawcett and John Kasich was granted a 20-minute meeting with Nixon in December 1970.
17.
In 1978, John Kasich ran against Democratic incumbent Robert O'Shaughnessy for State Senate.
18.
John Kasich was the second youngest person ever elected to the Ohio Senate.
19.
Republicans gained control of the State Senate in 1980, but John Kasich went his own way, for example, by opposing a budget proposal he believed would raise taxes and writing his own proposal instead.
20.
In 1982, John Kasich ran for Congress in Ohio's 12th congressional district, which included portions of Columbus as well as the cities of Westerville, Reynoldsburg, Worthington, and Dublin.
21.
John Kasich worked with Ralph Nader in seeking to reduce corporate tax loopholes.
22.
John Kasich was a member of the House Armed Services Committee for 18 years.
23.
John Kasich developed a "fairly hawkish" reputation on that committee, although he " zealously challenged" defense spending he considered wasteful.
24.
John Kasich pushed through the bill creating the 1988 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which closed obsolete US military bases, and successfully opposed a proposed $110 million expansion of the Pentagon building after the end of the Cold War.
25.
John Kasich said he was "100 percent for" the first Persian Gulf War as well as the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, but said that he did not favor US military participation in the Lebanese Civil War or in Bosnia.
26.
In 1993, John Kasich became the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee.
27.
The Penny-John Kasich Plan, named after John Kasich and fellow lead sponsor Tim Penny, was supported by Republicans and conservative Democrats.
28.
On November 17,1993, John Kasich voted to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement, casting a "yea" vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act.
29.
In 1994, John Kasich was one of the Republican leaders to support a last-minute deal with President Bill Clinton to pass the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
30.
In 1995, when Republicans gained the majority in the United States Congress following the 1994 election, John Kasich became chair of the House Budget Committee.
31.
In 1998, John Kasich voted to impeach President Clinton on all four charges made against him.
32.
John Kasich served on the board of directors for several corporations, including Invacare Corp.
33.
John Kasich remained at Lehman Brothers until it declared bankruptcy in 2008.
34.
John Kasich stated that the bonus was for work performed in 2007.
35.
Republicans made efforts to recruit John Kasich to run for Ohio governor in 2006, but he declined to enter the race.
36.
In 2008, John Kasich formed Recharge Ohio, a political action committee with the goal of raising money to help Republican candidates for the Ohio House of Representatives and Ohio Senate, in an effort to retain Republican majorities in the Ohio General Assembly.
37.
On May 1,2009, John Kasich filed papers to run for governor of Ohio against incumbent Democratic governor Ted Strickland.
38.
John Kasich formally announced his candidacy on June 1,2009.
39.
On January 15,2010, John Kasich announced Ohio State Auditor Mary Taylor as his running mate.
40.
On May 4,2010, John Kasich won the Republican nomination for governor, having run unopposed.
41.
On November 2,2010, John Kasich defeated Strickland in a closely contested race to win the governorship.
42.
John Kasich was sworn in at midnight on January 10,2011, in a private ceremony at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus.
43.
John Kasich, who was elected with Tea Party support in 2010, faced some backlash from some Tea Party activists.
44.
John Kasich supported longtime ally and campaign veteran Matt Borges over Portage County Tea Party chairman Tom Zawistowski for the position of chairman of the Ohio Republican Party.
45.
John Kasich is considered by some to be a moderate Republican due to his strong condemnation of far-right conservatives and his endorsement of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
46.
In June 2013, John Kasich signed into law a state budget, HB 59, which stripped some $1.4 million in federal dollars from Planned Parenthood by placing the organization last on the priority list for family-planning funds; provided funding to crisis pregnancy centers; and required women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasounds.
47.
In 2015, John Kasich said in an interview that Planned Parenthood "ought to be de-funded", but added that Republicans in Congress should not force a government shutdown over the issue.
48.
In December 2016, John Kasich approved a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, except when a pregnancy endangers a woman's life, but vetoed HB 493, a six-week abortion ban.
49.
John Kasich cited the cost to taxpayers of defending the legislation in court, and the likelihood that the six-week bill would be struck down in federal court as reasons for vetoing the more restrictive bill.
50.
In December 2018, John Kasich again vetoed a proposed six-week abortion ban, citing the cost to taxpayers and previous rulings by the federal courts.
51.
John Kasich did sign a bill into law that bans the dilation and evacuation procedure commonly used for abortion.
52.
In 2015, John Kasich stated that he did not know all the causes of climate change, and that he did not know the extent to which humans contribute to climate change.
53.
In 2014, John Kasich signed into law a bill freezing Ohio's renewable portfolio standard program for two years.
54.
The legislation signed by John Kasich to stop the program was supported by Republican legislative leaders, utility companies, and some industry groups, and opposed by environmentalists, some manufacturers, and the American Lung Association.
55.
In 2016, John Kasich broke with fellow Republicans in the state legislature by vetoing their attempt to continue blocking the RPS standards; as a result, the freeze ended on December 31,2016, and the clean-energy mandate resumed.
56.
Specifically, John Kasich's plan called for imposing a 6.5 percent severance tax on crude oil and natural gas extracted via horizontal drilling and sold at the source, and for an additional 4.5 percent tax per thousand cubic feet on natural gas and liquefied natural gas.
57.
John Kasich formerly supported fracking in Ohio state parks and forests, signing legislation in mid-2011 authorizing him to appoint a five-member commission to oversee the leasing of mineral rights on state land to the highest bidders.
58.
In 2012, Kasich aides planned a campaign with a stated goal to "marginalize the effectiveness of communications by adversaries about the initiative" to bring fracking to state parks and forests, naming in an email the Ohio Sierra Club and state Representatives Robert F Hagan and Nickie Antonio as adversaries of the plan.
59.
John Kasich never appointed the commission, and the promotional plan was never put into effect.
60.
John Kasich supported the Keystone XL oil pipeline project and, along with other Republican governors, signed an open letter in February 2015 urging federal approval for the project.
61.
In 2016, in response to a request from South Dakota under the terms of an interstate compact, John Kasich dispatched 37 Ohio state troopers to South Dakota, where they were stationed around Dakota Access Pipeline protests near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
62.
In July 2015, the John Kasich administration announced its intent to sell the North Central Correctional Institution at Marion, in order to recoup the state's original investment in the facility and invest the proceeds in community-based alternatives to prison.
63.
In January 2015, John Kasich announced that, due to pending litigation and other issues, he was delaying all seven executions scheduled through January 2016.
64.
In February 2017, John Kasich again delayed Ohio executions for an additional three months, after a federal judge ruled that Ohio's three-drug lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional.
65.
John Kasich has the lowest clemency rate of any Ohio governor since at least the 1980s, when records began to be kept.
66.
In six years in office, John Kasich granted 86 of the 2,291 requests that he acted upon.
67.
In 2016, John Kasich granted executive clemency to 13 people; in all of the cases, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority had recommended clemency.
68.
In 2012, John Kasich signed into law a bill, sponsored by Cleveland Democratic Senator Shirley Smith and Cincinnati Republican Senator Bill Seitz, easing the collateral consequences of criminal conviction.
69.
In September 2014, John Kasich touted the Ohio's prison system's recidivism rate, which is one of the lowest in the nation.
70.
In 2015, John Kasich proposed a state budget including $61.7 million for addiction treatment services for prisoners.
71.
In March 2014, in an effort to address the opioid epidemic, John Kasich signed legislation expanding the availability of naloxone, a lifesaving antidote to opioid overdoses.
72.
In July 2015, John Kasich signed legislation further expanding the availability of naloxone, making it available without a prescription.
73.
John Kasich opposed Issue 3, an Ohio ballot measure in 2015 that proposed the legalization of recreational marijuana, saying it was a "terrible idea".
74.
In March 2008, John Kasich called for "phasing out" Ohio's state income tax.
75.
John Kasich signed a state budget in 2011 which eliminated the state's estate tax effective January 1,2013.
76.
In 2013, John Kasich signed into law a $62 billion two-year state budget.
77.
John Kasich used his line-item veto power to reject a measure that would stop the Medicaid expansion to cover nearly 275,000 working poor Ohioans.
78.
In 2015, John Kasich signed into law a $71 billion two-year state budget after using his line-item veto power to veto 44 items.
79.
On March 31,2011, in his first year as governor, John Kasich signed into law Senate Bill 5, a controversial labor law which restricted collective bargaining rights of public employees, such as police officers, firefighters, and teachers.
80.
The legislation, championed by John Kasich, prohibited all public employees from striking and restricted their ability to negotiate health care and pension benefits.
81.
In May 2015, John Kasich rescinded executive orders issued by his predecessor Ted Strickland in 2007 and 2008 that provided the right to home health care contractors and in-home child care contractors to collectively bargain with the state.
82.
John Kasich has campaigned for a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution.
83.
John Kasich created a 501 group, Balanced Budget Forever, to promote the cause.
84.
John Kasich said in 2016 that "I have never been an ideological supporter of free trade," but has long supported free trade agreements.
85.
John Kasich is a strong supporter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and participated with others in a meeting with President Obama in support of the agreement.
86.
On one occasion, John Kasich spoke out against proposals to mandate that technology companies provide a "backdoor" for the government to access encrypted devices, saying that this could end up aiding hackers.
87.
John Kasich proposed new legislation which would increase funding to charter schools and poor school districts.
88.
John Kasich canceled the school-funding formula put into place by his Democratic predecessor, Governor Ted Strickland.
89.
In 2011, John Kasich had the idea of establishing a Holocaust memorial on the grounds of the Ohio Statehouse.
90.
John Kasich successfully secured approval of the proposal from the Capital Square Review and Advisory Board.
91.
John Kasich has said that the US "should've left a base in Iraq" instead of withdrawing troops in 2011.
92.
In 2015, John Kasich said that airstrikes were insufficient to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and he would send US ground troops to fight ISIL.
93.
John Kasich opposed the landmark 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran, and in September 2015 was one of fourteen Republican governors who sent a letter to President Obama stating "that we intend to ensure that the various state-level sanctions [against Iran] that are now in effect remain in effect," despite the agreement.
94.
John Kasich has said that the program should be overseen by the Department of Defense, and not by the CIA.
95.
In November 2015, John Kasich said that if elected president, he "would send a carrier battle group through the South China Sea" to send a message to China regarding their claims of sovereignty there.
96.
John Kasich supports continued US support of Saudi Arabia, but he criticized Saudi Arabia's "funding and teaching of radical clerics who are the very people who try to destroy us".
97.
John Kasich supported Senator John McCain's call for maintaining existing US sanctions on Russia, and condemned the Trump administration's consideration of lifting sanctions.
98.
However, during his time in Congress, John Kasich was much less accepting, and voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of same-sex marriage.
99.
John Kasich indicated that he did not support an amendment to the US Constitution to overturn the decision.
100.
In December 2018, John Kasich signed an executive order extending non-discrimination protections for gender identity, including trans and non-binary identities, to state employees in Ohio.
101.
John Kasich was one of 215 Representatives to vote for the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which became law in 1994, but voted against the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established current background check laws.
102.
In 2012, John Kasich signed a bill allowing gun owners to transport weapons with loaded magazines in their vehicles and expanding concealed carry permit reciprocity.
103.
In December 2014, John Kasich signed legislation that reduced the numbers of hours of training required to obtain a concealed carry permit and eliminated the training requirement for permit renewals.
104.
John Kasich opted to accept Medicaid-expansion funding provided by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in Ohio.
105.
In 2015, John Kasich expressed support for many provisions of the ACA, but opposed mandates.
106.
John Kasich said that the nation's "soul" was at stake if Republicans passed legislation that left millions without health insurance.
107.
In May 2017, John Kasich said that the version of the Republican health care bill that passed the House was "inadequate" and would harm patients; John Kasich said that Republicans "should've worked with the Democrats" on the bill rather than passing legislation merely to fulfill a campaign pledge.
108.
In June 2017, John Kasich said that he didn't "have a problem" with gradually phasing out the ACA's expansion of Medicaid over a seven-year period, but only if Congress provided states with significantly more, more than the House Republican bill provided for, and only if Congress granted states more authority to manage the program.
109.
In 2010, while running for governor, John Kasich expressed support for amending the US Constitution to abolish the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of jus soli citizenship for people born in the United States.
110.
In September 2015, John Kasich said that the US had a moral responsibility to accept refugees fleeing war and violence in Syria.
111.
Subsequently John Kasich moved to the right, and in November 2015 wrote a letter to President Obama asking that no additional Syrian refugees be resettled in Ohio.
112.
John Kasich opposed Trump's executive order on travel and immigration, which Trump signed one week after taking office in January 2017.
113.
John Kasich has a "long-standing political partnership" with his lieutenant governor, Mary Taylor.
114.
In 2014, John Kasich defended Taylor after her chief of staff, and that chief of staff's administrative assistant, resigned following a timesheet probe.
115.
Nevertheless, John Kasich indicated that Taylor had "been a good partner" over his term and indicated that he would support her if she chose to run for governor in 2018.
116.
In December 2010, the US Department of Transportation announced that Ohio would lose the $385 million in grant funds allocated for high-speed passenger rail, since John Kasich had informed them that he had no intention of ever building high-speed rail projects.
117.
In February 2014, John Kasich signed into law a bill which cut six days from Ohio's early voting period, including the "golden week".
118.
In December 2012, Kasich appointed Judge Judith L French to Stratton's unexpired term, which ran from January 1,2013, through January 1,2015.
119.
On October 18,2019, John Kasich publicly stated that Donald Trump should be impeached.
120.
John Kasich had previously said there was not enough evidence to impeach the President.
121.
On July 21,2015, John Kasich announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination during a speech at the Ohio Union, the student union of his alma mater, the Ohio State University.
122.
John Kasich came in second place in the New Hampshire primary on February 9,2016, behind winner Trump.
123.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that this was "the best possible result" for John Kasich and lent "credence to the notion that he can emerge" as a Republican alternative to Trump and Cruz.
124.
John Kasich suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on May 4,2016, one day after Trump won the Republican primary in Indiana.
125.
The third remaining contender, Cruz, quit the race shortly before John Kasich did, leaving Trump as the only candidate remaining in the Republican field and hence the party's presumptive nominee.
126.
In May and June 2016, John Kasich said that Trump was a divisive figure rather than a "unifier," said he had no plans to endorse Trump in the near future, and ruled out the possibility of seeking the Vice Presidency as Trump's running mate.
127.
John Kasich doubted whether Trump could win Ohio, a critical state in the election.
128.
John Kasich received an electoral vote for the presidency from one faithless elector, Christopher Suprun of Texas, who had been pledged to vote for Trump.
129.
In February 2017, John Kasich met with Trump at the White House in a private meeting that followed a bitter feud.
130.
John Kasich indicated that he hoped for Trump's success, but would continue to be critical when he thought it was necessary.
131.
The creation of the group prompted speculation he could possibly run for president again, but John Kasich said that he had no plans to seek elected office in the future.
132.
In October 2019, John Kasich expressed support for the impeachment inquiry against Trump, saying that the "final straw" for him was when Trump's acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted that Trump had withheld US aid from Ukraine in part to pressure the country to investigate Trump's domestic political rivals, a statement that Mulvaney later said were misconstrued.
133.
John Kasich confirmed on August 10,2020, that he would be speaking at the 2020 Democratic National Convention in support of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.