Toledo Blade - Bob Latta Advances Towards A Legacy

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Toledo Blade - Bob Latta Advances Towards A Legacy

By Joshua Boak
Blade Politics Writer

Toledo, Ohio (November 11, 2007) —When State Rep. Bob Latta graduated from law school, his father - a man presidents sought for counsel - shared one piece of advice: Stay out of public life.

As the congressman for Ohio's 5th District, Del Latta knew the grind of public service. The long meetings, stump speeches, and phone calls never stopped. His daughter and son had a childhood divided between Washington and Bowling Green.

In 1981, Bob Latta received a law degree from the University of Toledo and the possibility of leaving behind the drudgery associated with politics. But he ultimately ignored his father's ad-vice, leaving the private practice of law for the campaign trail.

With a victory last week in the 5th District Republican primary, Mr. Latta is on the verge of inheriting a legacy he witnessed firsthand as a chauffeur, secretary, and son. Attached to that legacy is personal sacrifice, rather than self-entitlement, Bob Latta said last week.

Delbert Latta, was the 5th District House member in 1988 when President Ronald Reagan visited Bowling Green.

"I hold an office in trust, not a title," he said. "I don't want to say it's a kamikaze approach to life, but it's ingrained."

Mr. Latta faces Democrat Robin Weirauch in the Dec. 11 runoff election, with the winner completing the year remaining in the late Paul Gillmor's term. The 51-year-old Bowling Green Republican leaned on his record in the Ohio General Assembly during the primary against State Sen. Steve Buehrer (R., Delta).

But nostalgia for Del Latta permeated many of his talking points, even though the former congressman remained out of the public eye during the race.
Del Latta, 87, continues to live in Bowling Green but was unavailable for comment because of health reasons.

A father's influence

His influence on his son is inescapable. Bob Latta met his wife, Marcia, because she briefly worked in his father's office. Indeed, it seemed natural that Bob Latta's signature issue in the Statehouse involved limiting the estate tax.

The candidate regularly traded anecdotes about his father, who during his tenure in Congress from 1959 to 1989 helped constituents get passports, win appointments to the military academies, and even rid gardens of crop-killing insects. And on weekends, Del Latta insisted on traveling the district, a fact still fondly recalled by many.

"It didn't matter if there were 300 people at the event or 10," said Fulton County Recorder Sandy Barber. "If he was in the area, he went to the meeting."

As a teenager, Bob Latta answered the constituent phone calls, interrupting him from homework, often following up on their needs directly with the corresponding federal agencies. The experience taught him lessons in constituent services that he wants to take to Washington.

"It's not the big things you do in life for people; it's the little things," said Mr. Latta, quoting his father. "People expect the big things, not the little things."

Gaining a foothold

When Del Latta announced his retirement in 1988 because "it's time to think of the family a bit and myself," Bob Latta ran for the congressional seat his father held. His message was that a young congressman could build enough seniority to eventually preside over powerful committees, the same argument Del Latta gave during his 1958 run, according to news clippings.

Del Latta successfully pursued that strategy. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, he quickly fused his family farm loyalties to Cold War patriotism. Amber waves of grain became a frontline against communism.
As Fidel Castro transformed Cuba into a communist dictatorship, Del Latta proposed replacing sugar cane imports from that Caribbean nation with sugar beets grown in northwest Ohio. He objected to subsidizing American wheat bound for Soviet stomachs.

By 1974, Mr. Latta was on the Rules Committee, the "traffic cop" responsible for directing the flow of legislation. But the presidency was in peril. The Watergate burglary exposed a series of crimes and cover-ups by the Nixon administration.

The president needed a defender on the Judiciary Committee. Republican leaders picked Del Latta, rewarding him a year later with an assignment as the GOP's ranking member on the Budget Committee. The posting allowed him to sponsor the budget proposed in 1981 by newly elected President Ronald Reagan.

Tackling taxes

Along with Phil Gramm, a Democratic congressman who later switched parties, Del Latta became the namesake of the Gramm-Latta bill, which increased military expenditures while chopping marginal income tax rates by 25 percent.

"There's never been anything as important as this bill, for its far-reaching implications, in all the time I've been in Congress," commented Del Latta on the day it passed the House.

In the current congressional race, Bob Latta often references the bill. He suggests that Washington's woes might be fixed if only Congress returned to this eponymous bit of legislation, even though the top income tax rate is now half of the 70 percent level that existed at President Reagan's inauguration.

But in the 1988 race to succeed his father, the benefits of legacy were not enough for Bob Latta, who lost the Republican primary by 27 votes to then-Ohio Senate President Gillmor. Mr. Latta proceeded to become a Wood County commissioner, state senator, and state representative before Mr. Gillmor's death this September opened the congressional seat.

A changing game

What ensued after Mr. Gillmor's death was a nasty ideological battle between Mr. Latta and Mr. Buehrer.

The two GOP frontrunners traded barbs against each other in TV commercials and mailers, violating Mr. Reagan's 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." They fueled the ad buys by raising a combined $600,000.

For all the lessons of Del Latta's career, his son acknowledged that the nature of the game had changed.

Congressmen no longer have the simple pleasures of hitching a ride to Washington from the Baltimore and Ohio train passing through their districts. They no longer can dedicate their time exclusively to their constituents. They now need money.

"One of the things that was probably to Dad's discredit was that he was never a fund-raiser," Mr. Latta reflected. "But he didn't live in an era of TV ads."

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