U.S. Sen. George Voinovich still lives in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood, but now that he's retiring, he plans to spend more time at his Florida condo.WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On a warm, overcast day in September, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich walked from his office to the Capitol with the intent of voting on a measure that would give Democrats and President Barack Obama an economic victory.
It was a breach of solidarity with his fellow Republicans, though they'd known for days that it was coming.
Voinovich's offense: He voted to create a $30 billion small-business loan fund with an additional $12 billion in tax breaks.
Fellow Republicans said they certainly wanted to help small businesses, which were hamstrung by banks' refusal to lend money in this unstable economy. But in an era of federal government bailouts, Republican leaders said they didn't want Washington gaining another foothold in the private sector, this time potentially getting a stake in local banks.
Voinovich says he had other considerations. The survival of small businesses, jobs and families' finances were all at stake, and his colleagues' political theories and what he saw as election-season crassness were unpersuasive.
"There were some people around here who didn't want to give the president a victory," the veteran Ohio politician recalled in an interview in his soon-to-be-empty Senate office. "I said it doesn't have a damn thing to do with a victory for the president. We should be working to our best ability to respond to the problems that are confronting our country."
The small-business lending bill passed only because Voinovich and another Republican, George LeMieux of Florida, used their votes to break a Republican filibuster. For Voinovich, it was among his last rebellious acts in a public career spanning more than 46 years.
George Voinovich – a rebel with a cause?
With his aw-shucks smile, Save the Children ties and occasional tears when talking about tough choices, he hardly casts the image of hell raiser. He came to Washington nearly 12 years ago with a reputation in politics from his terms as Cleveland's mayor, rebuilding the city's finances after its default, and as Ohio's budget-right-sizing governor.
He loved the guts of governing and still savors ways to make it better, or, as he puts it, "empowering people to utilize the talents that God has given them" to serve the public.
Want to talk about quality management initiatives and the merits of biennial budgeting, as is done at the state level? Voinovich is your man. If you're not a student of Eastern European politics, this grandson of Slovenians and Serbians will lose you quickly as he drops the names of Baltic and Balkan leaders with whom he has met as part of largely successful efforts to stabilize that region and enlarge NATO.
Yet he has been a confounding presence in Washington, where it can take decades for a senator to gain a reputation. His predecessor, John Glenn, was a serious lawmaker but is famous not for lawmaking but for his heroics as an astronaut (and as a senator who returned to space).
Another Senate predecessor from Ohio, Howard Metzenbaum, became known as a champion of the working man and a guardian against corporate excesses, yet few people can name the laws or policies he shaped.
So here is Voinovich, retiring at age 74 after two terms. With his wife of 48 years, Janet, he'll still live in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood -- his son Peter lives on the same street -- but he intends to spend more time in his condo on Florida's Gulf Coast, too, to "see how I like it."
He's already sold his condo near Washington's Eastern Market, a section of Capitol Hill whose hipness quotient grew with Voinovich's time there. (No one suggests a direct correlation.)
A conservative investor who favors municipal bonds and once plucked a penny out of a urinal, Voinovich says that the Washington condo – which he sold without a Realtor -- paid off despite the glum real estate market.
He is a self-described wonk, then, more pragmatic than dogmatic. And as a man whose admirers say cares more about solutions than political party, he has been willing to buck the GOP -- but not predictably so. That could be his legacy, although in his office interview he listed other achievements, such as spearheading what he called a "nuclear renaissance."
"If it wasn't for me, there would be no nuclear renaissance," he said, sipping green tea from an oversize mug with the logo of Ohio's bicentennial.
He championed bills to make it easier for nuclear power plants to get new licenses and financing, and to improve the oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Voinovich is also a major booster of plans by Babcock & Wilcox, with factories in Barberton and Euclid, to build small modular nuclear reactors. This could create jobs in Ohio while generating dependable, carbon-free electricity, he says.
It is way too soon to know whether nuclear power plants will multiply, as Voinovich hopes. The same uncertainty hangs over some of his other domestic pet projects – lower debt, a balanced budget, a major highway-and-bridge-building initiative that could employ more than 750,000 Americans. He has tried, though, to seed these ideas in advance of his retirement.
Not afraid to break ranks
What would Voinovich do? Not quite a parlor-game question, this was asked by fellow politicians and the press when closely divided issues came up for votes. Moderates such as Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine came under that lens regularly when Democrats, who hold a majority in the Senate, lacked the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. Voinovich was tougher to peg.
He stood with his party to oppose Obama's health care law (too burdensome and expensive) and was against the White House's economic stimulus bill (too scattershot). He engaged in talks to curtail greenhouse gas emissions after saying he recognized that global warming was real, but he never agreed on the proposed solutions.
Frank Maisano, a Washington public relations representative for utility companies and oil refiners, said that Voinovich's involvement at key moments signaled where the talks were heading. For example, Voinovich last November was the only Republican to show up at a Senate environmental hearing that was called to fine-tune a controversial bill to cap carbon emissions.
But he wasn't there to support the bill. Rather, Voinovich feared the legislation would drive electricity rates sky high in Ohio, which relies on coal for most of its electricity. So he showed up at the hearing but only to urge more time for a fuller EPA analysis.
Then he thanked Barbara Boxer of California, the Democratic chairwoman, and joined the GOP boycott.
"When they can get Voinovich to walk with them, you know that there is an imbalance there," Maisano said. "His walking out of that markup hearing set the tone."
Environmentalists, pointing to reams of studies, found him maddening.
"Early in the battle we were cautiously optimistic" that Voinovich would be a moderating voice in the climate change discussions, said Sara Chieffo, deputy legislative director of the League of Conservation Voters. "But unfortunately we were deeply disappointed at every turn."
Yet Voinovich broke ranks with his party in 2005 and slammed the nomination of John Bolton to be President George W. Bush's United Nations ambassador, because he'd learned that Bolton was abusive to employees. Bolton, the senator said at a Foreign Relations Committee meeting, was "the poster child for what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be."
Voinovich then startled colleagues on the Senate floor when he cried, saying the appointment was too important to rubber stamp "at a strategic time when we need friends all over the world."
Bush, unable to get the nomination through a procedural hurdle, bypassed a Senate vote and gave the job to Bolton on a temporary basis. But by 2006, Voinovich said that Bolton had grown. He became Bolton's ally, although the White House still lacked votes for confirmation and Bolton stepped down.
More recently, Voinovich was noncommittal initially when Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. But after meeting with her and reviewing her record, he became one of nine Republicans to vote for confirmation.
"In addition to being fit for the bench, the story of Judge Sotomayor is the story of so many Americans who rose from humble beginnings to reach levels of achievement that would not be possible in any other nation," he said in a speech on the Senate floor.
Then there was last Christmas Eve. Voinovich was the only Republican who crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats on raising the country's debt ceiling by $290 billion, which was necessary to keep the government operating.
Though a self-described debt hawk, he says he did so because he knew from regularly attending conferences of the German Marshall Fund and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that the rest of the world was watching.
"I knew that if we didn't pass this. . . it would send a signal out there" and tell the rest of the world that "this bunch of people in Congress are irresponsible."
He tried to be bipartisan
Voinovich could go down in history as a swing vote who was not always predictable. Sitting in a rocking chair made by the Amish in Holmes County, he recalled a conversation he had with John McElroy, chief of staff to the late Ohio Gov. James A. Rhodes when Voinovich was lieutenant governor.
McElroy told him, according to Voinovich: "'You know what the trouble with you is, George? You have an independent soul.' "I said 'John, I have an independent soul because I have a conscience and I am probably too scrupulous.'"
Blame it, he says with a laugh, on "those nuns" at Christ the King, the East Cleveland church whose school he attended from first through eighth grades, "and my mother."
Voinovich was a senator who "acted honorably," said Sherrod Brown, his Democratic colleague from Ohio. "He certainly worked to serve the state. Unfortunately, in some ways the Republican Party has left him," because he wants to act in a bipartisan manner "and the leadership won't let him."
Considering his legislative agenda, he leaves the Senate at an inopportune time, though that was not his intent. He says he just did not want to grow old or feeble without enjoying more of life with Janet, whom he adores, and his children and eight grandchildren. He has a new granddaughter, named Molly. Molly was also the name of his daughter who was struck and killed by a van when she was in elementary school.
This, however, is the state of affairs as Voinovich ends his public service: A presidentially appointed commission is about to recommend concrete ways to cut the budget, reduce debt and deal with long-term Social Security and Medicare cost issues. Voinovich has spent years complaining about Washington's inattention to these issues. He has pushed to raise the federal gasoline tax to pay for highway construction projects, but the Obama administration and many fellow conservatives won't hear of it so far. Yet the president's debt commission has proposed a similar idea in a draft of its report.
Nuclear power might or might not see a renaissance -- in interviews for this article, critics and proponents disagreed -- but if it does, Congress will still have a major role to play. By choosing this as an issue to champion, Voinovich "signaled that it was timely to discuss," said Alex Flint, senior vice president of the Nuclear Energy
Institute, the nuclear energy's lobbying organization. "His interest set the framework for a lot of the discussion about nuclear issues."
But Voinovich is leaving before the matter is settled.
Is it possible that he's leaving too soon?
He hesitated before answering and looked toward the ceiling, gathering his thoughts. Then he spoke of his age and the uncertainties of life.
"I've watched some of my colleagues deteriorate before my eyes," he said. "Age catches up with you quickly."
He is comforted that Rob Portman, a former Bush budget and trade adviser and former congressman from Cincinnati, will succeed him.
"Rob Portman is going to be a great senator," he said. "I think he is the genuine article, the real McCoy."
As for leaving before his own issues fully ripen, he said, "I'm concerned about the problems, but I think there comes a time when" -- his voice caught and he paused -- "when it's time to hand the baton off to the next generation."
George Voinovich
July 15, 1936: Born in Cleveland to parents of Serbian and Slovenian heritage.
1954: Graduated from Collinwood High School.
1958: Graduated from Ohio University with a bachelor of arts in government.
1961: Earned law degree from Ohio State University.
Sept. 8, 1962: Married Janet Allan.
1963-64: Served as an assistant Ohio attorney general.
1967-1971: Served as a state representative, winning election as the Republican nominee in 1966 over Democratic State Rep. Gerald Fuerst. Voinovich, who criticized Fuerst on his co-sponsorship of the state's fair housing law, won the Collinwood district, even though it was 2-to-1 Democratic.
1971-1976: Served as Cuyahoga County auditor.
1977-1978: Served as Cuyahoga County commissioner.
1978: Gov. James Rhodes selects Voinovich as his running mate. He serves as lieutenant governor until leaving to run for Cleveland mayor.
1979: During his mayoral campaign, the Voinovichs' youngest daughter, Molly, 9, dies after being struck by a van.
1980-1989: Voinovich serves as mayor.
1982: Voinovich vetoes legislation to establish a civilian-run police review board after several police shootings of residents.
1984: Voinovich, who fought to expand Cleveland Public Power, gets emotional when he tells a reporter: "Someday, when somebody writes a book about Cleveland, they will remember a man named George Voinovich who did more for public power than any other man but Tom L. Johnson."
1988: Loses a campaign for U.S. Senate seat against Democratic Sen. Howard Metzenbaum.
1990: Is elected Ohio governor and serves from 1991-98.
1991: Fires director of Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Services and later does not renew the term of the Ohio Inspector General. Both offices had or were investigating Voinovich's chief of staff, Paul Mifsud.
1992: Voinovich sobs at the Statehouse after being questioned about his decision to cut funding for the poor. "I'm doing the best I can with what we got," he said. "I really do love my fellow man."
1995: Voinovich persuades legislators to give him control over the Bureau of Workers Compensation's $14 billion in investments – and has the BWC earmark a large portion of its investment contracts for Ohio-based firms. The agency, after Voinovich leaves office, later becomes the focus of the "Coingate" scandal after entrusting an Ohio Republican fund-raiser to invest million of dollars in rare coins.
October 1995: Voinovich is fined $1,500 for violating a no-fly order issued by the Secret Service when President Bill Clinton was in Columbus. Voinovich, who had wanted to leave town in a state-owned plane, angrily told an air traffic controller: "If they shoot us down, they can. I'm going to tell them to go screw themselves."
1996: Mifsud resigns to spend time with his family and to help Voinovich land a U.S. Senate seat.
1997: As part of a plea bargain, Mifsud pleads guilty to two misdemeanors for improperly accepting and then covering up free remodeling work from a state contractor.
1999: Voinovich becomes a U.S. senator.
2001: Voinovich votes against President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind legislative package, saying later it was "yet another unfunded federal mandate" and because "the U.S. Senate and Congress are not the school board of the United States."
2003: Voinovich bucks President Bush's big tax cut. Voinovich insists the nation could not afford it, and though he ultimately sides with the president, he forces a compromise and a smaller tax cut.
2005: Voinovich chokes up as he pleads with fellow Senate Republicans to reject John Bolton's nomination as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He later decides Bolton did a good job.
April 9, 2007: Voinovich states at a hearing on the war in Iraq: "We've kind of bankrupted this country [with the war spending]. We're in a recession . . . and God knows how long it's going to last."
2007: Voinovich, with other members of Congress representing Great Lakes states, backs a $20 billion plan to improve water quality, restore fish and wildlife around the lakes and guard against invasive species that could inflict economic pain on the region.
Jan. 12, 2009: Voinovich announces he won't run for re-election in 2010.