The Issues
Voinovich is considered a moderate Republican and voted with his party 75 percent of the time in the 110th Congress. He has consistently showed a willingness to go against party orthodoxy. Though he voted in favor of the Iraq war resolution, Voinovich broke with the President in 2007 and called for troop withdrawal. In a letter to the president, he stressed the need for a "comprehensive plan for our country's gradual military disengagement from Iraq." He said he’d come to believe that a non-military strategy was the way to bring stability to Iraq. He has also criticized the amount of money spent on the war. "We've kind of bankrupted this country" with the war spending, he said in April 2008. "We're in a recession and God knows how long it's going to last."
From his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Voinovich played an instrumental role in holding up John Bolton’s nomination as ambassador to the United Nations. He said Bolton was "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be." Voinovich voted to send Bolton’s nomination to the Senate floor without a recommendation from the committee. Once the nomination reached the floor Voinovich voted against cloture and Bolton wasn’t confirmed. He later reversed course on Bolton, promising to vote for him if he was re-nominated.
Early in his first term Voinovich was a harsh critic of President Clinton’s decision to authorize air strikes on Serbia, where his father was from. He said bombing would only further inflame the region. Still, he opposed former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was tried for crimes against humanity and genocide for his role in the Balkin wars of the 1990s. Voinovich called Milosevic a “war criminal.”
Economy
In late 2008, Voinovich voted for the government’s $800 billion bailout of the financial industry, though he admitted it was a difficult decision. “I have spent my entire career focusing on eliminating debt at the local, state and federal level…While deciding to vote for a package of this magnitude feels like being punched in the gut, the thought of what would happen to average Americans if we didn’t do this is much more painful,” he said.
A few months later, Voinovich opposed President Obama’s stimulus package after putting together a group of moderate senators to try to reduce the size of the package. Voinovich was dissatisfied with the compromise because, he said, the Democrats’ proposal contained too many “items that should be funded through the appropriations process and compete with other federal priorities."
As mayor Voinovich showed his willing to back tax increases to offset deficits. This preference continued once he entered the Senate. In 2000 he was one of only two Republicans to vote against the GOP budget. Later that year he joined three other Republicans in opposing the estate tax. Though he supported President Bush’s tax cuts in 2001, he opposed Bush’s $700 billion tax cut in 2003. He has consistently opposed Republican-led efforts to make tax cuts permanent, instead favoring a focus on balancing the budget. In May 2006, he said, “Instead of making the tax cuts permanent, we should be leveling with the American people about the fiscally shaky ground we are on. ... I have to say this, and I know it is controversial, but if you look at the extraordinary costs that we have had with the war and homeland security and Katrina, the logical thing that one would think about is to ask for a temporary tax increase to pay for them.”
Government Reform
Voinovich’s commitment to reforming the way government works was evident by the reaction to his announced retirement by the Partnership for Public Service, a group that focuses on the federal workforce. “Successfully improving government management is little noticed and does not win elections, but that never stopped Senator Voinovich. He has worked tirelessly to make our government work better, and nowhere has his impact been more significant, and lasting, than in his efforts to improve the federal workforce,” CEO Max Stier said.
Perhaps Voinovich’s greatest accomplishment in this regard came in 2002 when a bill he introduced constituting the first major change in civil service laws since 1978 became law. The legislation changed the way federal agencies hired employees by providing for “human capital officers,” allowing hiring from a wider pool and letting agencies buy out employees to reshape their work forces.
Environment
As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Voinovich helped push through legislation that allocated $7.8 billion to restore the Everglades. The plan called for the development of a system to capture and redirect rainwater to the Everglades in an attempt to revamp South Florida’s water supply.
In May 2008 Voinovich introduced a bill proposing an alternative to legislation calling for a cap-and-trade system on emissions to fight global warming. Voinovich’s bill encouraged the use of nuclear power and research to develop a way to burn coal cleanly. He opposed the cap-and-trade bill because he said it would dramatically raise energy costs for Ohio’s manufacturing industry. Environmentalists attacked Voinovich, accusing him of attempting to thwart any meaningful action on global warming. He said he simply wanted to wait to put limits on carbon dioxide until the technology is ready.
“Protecting and restoring the Great Lakes has been a top priority for me throughout my political career,” Sen. Voinovich said when he became co-chair of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force. He and his co-chair of the task force, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) introduced the latest version of the Great Lakes Legacy Act in April 2009. The legislation calls for the authority to spend money to restore the lakes. The senators want $150 million a year.
The Network
Though they’re members of different parties, Voinovich and fellow Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) have worked together on issues that affect the state.
Voinovich has worked closely on the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee with Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) on reforming civil service. He has also teamed up several times with Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), former Republican Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) as a part of an official moderate faction of Republican senators.
(photo: Pete Souza / White House)
