Ohio Congressman Fights Taint of Abramoff - Forbes.com

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS , 12.21.2005, 12:20 PM

The way Kiki DeLancey sees it, Rep. Bob Ney is a hardworking congressman who comes to town, eats with the regulars at the Bob Evans, helps people with their problems and watches out for the industries vital to his district.

"He's worked his butt off for American steel," said DeLancey, a 46-year-old bookseller who was raised a Democrat but now votes Republican. "He's done a lot to promote the coal industry."

Ney is caught up in a lobbying scandal that has Democrats dreaming about winning his seat. But some constituents from both parties are in no hurry to judge.

A popular Republican in a district that voted overwhelmingly for President Bush last year, Ney has been subpoenaed in an investigation into whether lobbyist Jack Abramoff tried to defraud Indian tribes out of millions of dollars.

A guilty plea by Michael Scanlon, a former Abramoff partner, alleged that Ney received campaign donations and gifts such as a 2002 golf trip to Scotland in return for official acts such as supporting legislation favorable to Abramoff's clients.

Ney, 51, has not been charged with anything, has denied wrongdoing and said he was duped by Abramoff.

The six-term congressman has received at least 60 percent of the 18th District vote the past four elections. Two years ago, no one ran against him.

That is not likely to happen next year. Although no Republicans are challenging Ney, at least two Democrats say they are going after the seat.

The district stretches 212 miles from Appalachia in southern Ohio up through coal country in the far eastern part of the state. It is a largely rural, strongly conservative region of farms, working and abandoned mines, churches and small Rust Belt cities tucked into rolling hills. Unemployment has crept up the past five years.

In St. Clairsville, where Ney lived for several years, Democrat Bob Sall said Ney has been good for the small city, which has been trying to overcome years of job losses in the steel factories and coal mines.

"It'd have to be really bad for me to vote against him," said Sall, 72, a retired construction worker. "He's good for the area because it takes years to build up clout in D.C."

Ney opposed Bush's rolling back of steel tariffs on foreign imports, pushed for federal grants to retrain unemployed coal miners and regularly brings home money to help local governments - a $425,000 grant for a Cambridge sewer project last month, for example.

But at the Country Boy restaurant in Cambridge, a city of 11,500, Democrat Bonita Delbert had little good to say about Ney, considering him part of a scandal-ridden state GOP.

"He's on golfing trips, and those people at Ormet don't have jobs," said Delbert, 61, who retired as a psychologist at a state mental hospital. Ormet Corp., an aluminum maker based in nearby Wheeling, W.Va., is recovering from bankruptcy.

"I've just had a lot of red flags that have popped up," said Republican Jim Gray, 53, a retired bank executive. "I'm really going to keep my eyes open and keep reading on what's going on to see if he's behaving himself."

Ney's troubles are the latest in a string of GOP embarrassments in Ohio.

Gov. Bob Taft pleaded no contest to ethics charges for accepting golf outings and other gifts he did not report. And Tom Noe, a prominent GOP contributor and fundraiser, is under indictment on charges he skirted federal campaign finance laws by funneling $45,000 to Bush's re-election campaign through colleagues and associates.

The lobbyist investigation could give Democrats a shot in the district, but it won't be an easy campaign, said Walter Huber, a Muskingum College political scientist.

"You're not going to beat Ney by running significantly to the left of him, not in this district," Huber said. "You almost want to run a campaign that says, 'I support the values that Ney has, but he's abandoned them.'"