Times Bulletin - Congressman Bob Latta Returns to Van Wert

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Times Bulletin - Congressman Bob Latta Returns to Van Wert

U. S. 5th District Congressman Bob Latta is trying to make good use of his time away from Washington.

"My goal is, I want to be in every factory and every business I can get into in my district. There's some weeks I can get into three to five, and some weeks I can only get into one," Latta stated. "You only have as much time that you are on this earth, and I want to see how much work I can get in."

Latta is in the midst of his fourth election campaign in less than a year. The man took over the term of the late Paul Gillmor after surviving a primary fight last November and a general election just over a month later. In March, he won the nomination of the Republican party for the seat he had just taken over. Now he is in the home stretch as the incumbent representative running for reelection.

Within those 12 months, Latta observed that the attention of the American people made some drastic shifts. "When I ran last fall, the number one issue was immigration," he pointed out. "As we working from November to December, it was shifting from immigration to the economy. In the March primary, it was nothing but energy. Energy was the number one issue until we hit the financial crisis."

As a result, Latta is well versed on all the issues. In a conversation with The Times Bulletin staff, he moved at ease from expounding on the energy situation to dissecting the war in Iraq to recalling his conversations with Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin.

Latta met Palin on a trip to see ANWR, the area of Alaska that has been the focus of oil exploration debate. On that journey he saw personally how oil drilling could be accomplished without marring the picturesque landscape of the nation's final frontier. The experience helped solidify Latta's opinion to open up ANWR for oil exploration.

The necessity of oil in manufacturing many consumer products leads Latta to believe that the country cannot ignore the need for petroleum. However, he notes that he is also a supporter of alternative energy sources. "The bill that almost all Republicans have co-signed is everything that we get from oil leases in Alaska and offshore, we're going to use that money to put into alternatives," he shared.

Yet with four wind turbines not far from his hometown of Bowling Green, Latta stated that alternative energy sources could not be efficient or plentiful enough to replace oil.

With the attention of the country moving to the efforts to shore up American financial markets, Latta voted twice against what became known as the financial bailout bill, noting that almost every single comment he heard from the district was critical of the package. "People don't like the idea of someone getting a big payout, parachute, a severance package," he said. "They also see that if people have to live within their means, people should, businesses should. Nobody should get paid for doing a lousy job."

The political process to get the bill through after a revision was obviously a sore spot for the Republican congressman. He described, "The first bill, they were going to call us in and vote on this bill the day after we got back. There were going to be no hearings. Nobody had seen this bill. I hate to say it, but the committee process in Congress is just about dead in my opinion. It's all run from the Speaker [of the House Nancy Pelosi]'s office. She decides what she wants and the heck with the American people testifying about this stuff."

The second bill eventually passed, but Latta claimed it was pretty much the same bill as the first version. At least the outcome is mostly identical. "The 92 percent of the people who have been paying their mortgages on time, they're going to get a double whammy because now they're going to have to pay for the bailout bill," he declared.

It has been less than 12 months since Latta was voting in the Ohio Legislature, so his knowledge of state issues is still up-to-date. As for the casino question, Issue 6 on the Nov. 4 ballot, his position is clear. "I am absolutely against it. There is a human cost in these things... I just think it's the wrong thing."

As far as the payday lending question (Issue 5), Latta admitted the choice was a tough one. "It's one of those decisions for people, do you think we should control that or do you think people should control themselves. In some cases, people can't control themselves... But you run into the problem that sometimes these places are all some people have."

While in Van Wert, Latta stopped by the Family Caring Clinic for the ribbon cutting ceremony. He also received the National Association of Manufacturers award for Manufacturing Legislative Excellence at a ceremony at Eaton Corporation. The award is presented to members of Congress who reflect consistent support for pro-growth, pro-jobs policy agendas.

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