George Voinovich (15 July 1936-12 June 2016) was the Republican Mayor of Cleveland from 1 January 1980 to 31 December 1989 (succeeding Dennis Kucinich and preceding Michael R. White), as Governor of Ohio from 14 January 1991 to 31 December 1998 (succeeding Dick Celeste and preceding Nancy Hollister), and in the US Senate from 3 January 1999 to 3 January 2011 (succeeding John Glenn and preceding Rob Portman).
Biography[]
George Voinovich was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1936 to a Croatian Serb father and a Slovenian mother. He practiced law before serving as an assistant attorney general from 1963, in the state house from 1967 to 1971, as Cuyahoga County auditor from 1971 to 1976, as Lieutenant Governor of Ohio in 1979, as Mayor of Cleveland from 1980 to 1989 (fighting his shyness and going to "war" to transform Cleveland into "the Comeback City" through urban restoration), as Governor from 1991 to 1998 (overseeing the falling of the unemployment rate to a 25-year low, the creation of 500,000 new jobs, the cutting of the Medicaid growth rate, the halving of welfare enrollments, the expansion and addition of business facilities in his state, the creation of a public voucher plan to pay tuition at church-affiliated schools, the success of the state's Head Start Program, and the creation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995), and as a US Senator from 1999 to 2011 (opposing lowering tax rates, establishing a reputation as a moderate Republican, supporting anti-hate crime legislation after Matthew Shepard's murder, and supporting the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010). Voinovich retired in 2011 after 44 years of public service, and he died in 2016.