About
Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) served Ohio’s 1st Congressional District the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995–2023, with a two-year hiatus from 2008–10. Prior to running for Congress, he served on the Cincinnati City Council for five years and as a commissioner of Hamilton County for another five years.
Although Chabot had Trump’s endorsement in the 2022 midterms, he lost after serving 26 years in Congress. During his latest campaign when a reporter asked if he still believes that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, the congressman demurred but said, “I do think that there were irregularities in that election cycle.”
In January 1999, as one of 13 House Managers during the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton, Chabot says that “he received praise for his even-handed and thoughtful approach to the trial.” In 2003 he was a key House sponsor of a federal law that banned what he and other abortion opponents call “partial birth abortion.”
When he was reelected to Congress in 2020, Chabot touted his record of bipartisanship. Yet as Trump ramped up the Big Lie about a stolen election, Chabot played right along and adhered to the GOP playbook by casting doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory. He also objected to certifying the Electoral College results and voted against both impeaching Trump for inciting the mob and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection.
In April 2021, Chabot’s former campaign treasurer Jamie Schwartz II, who had also served as a private consultant to his campaigns from 2011–19, was charged with embezzling $1.4 million from his campaign.
In March and August 2021, Chabot cast party-line votes against both federal voter protection bills, H.R. 1 (the For the People Act), and also the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. In addition, he voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill—before subsequently applying for funds from it that his district desperately needed.
In October 2021, Chabot claimed that the Justice Department treats parents with concerns about critical race theory being taught in public schools like “domestic terrorists.” Politifact rated his comment during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee as “false” and unjustified for multiple reasons.
January 6, 2021
- Just hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Chabot joined 146 other congressional Republicans in refusing to certify Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election.
- In a statement to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Chabot said that Trump should not be impeached over his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. But he would not answer the question about whether or not the former president deserved any form of punishment.
- Chabot objected to the use of the 25th Amendment to declare Trump incapacitated following his apparent approval of the deadly attack on the Capitol, stating, “encouraging the President’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment… will only serve to further divide the American people.”
- Chabot voted against establishing a House committee to investigate what led to the violent disruption of the congressional certification process that day. “There are already numerous investigations underway by congressional committees and law enforcement agencies,” he stated. “As a result, the panel proposed by House Democrats would be both duplicative and unnecessary, and would likely be used for partisan political grandstanding, which would only serve to further divide our nation.”