Ron Lewis
Ron Lewis (born September 14 1946), an American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1994, representing the 2nd Congressional District of Kentucky.
Early life, education, and career
Lewis was born in South Shore, Kentucky. He graduated from McKell High School in 1964. He attended Morehead State University from 1964 to 1967 and graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1969 with a bachelor of arts degree in history and political science. Lewis returned to Morehead in 1980 to earn a master's degree in education in 1981.
Lewis worked in the gubernatorial campaign of Louie B. Nunn in 1967. Nunn's victory got Lewis a state job for a time and encouragement to run for the state House in his native Greenup County in 1971. Lewis lost, but kept an interest in GOP politics. In 1972, Lewis served briefly in the U.S. Navy [1], attending the Navy Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida; a kidney ailment resulted in his honorable medical discharge that year.
Lewis worked in sales for several companies, including Ashland Oil, before teaching for five years at Watterson College in Louisville, Kentucky, beginning in 1980 (the school closed in the 1990s). He also was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1980, serving as pastor for the historic White Mills Baptist Church, after attending the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1985 Lewis and his wife opened a religious bookstore, Alpha Bookstore, in Elizabethtown.
Congressional career
1994 election
Lewis won his House seat in 1994. Lewis filed to run against longtime Democratic William H. Natcher in the general election in November 1994. However, Natcher died, and a special election was called in May 1994 to replace him. The Second District was predominantly Democrat in terms of voter registration, and Lewis was named as a candidate by the state GOP leadership as somewhat of a "sacrifical lamb".
In the special election, Lewis faced Joe Prather, a state senator from Hardin County, Kentucky. His native conservatism, plus support from numerous national Republican sources and many religious conservative groups, made his a well-financed campaign in a district that had never had a Republican representative. Lewis tied Prather to an unpopular President Clinton and a proposal to raise taxes on tobacco, the staple crop of the state.
In a major upset, Lewis defeated Prather by a 55%-45% margin in a election with less than 20% turnout. It was a result that many political pundits saw as a harbinger of the Republican gains in Congress in the regular election later that year. [2]. Lewis was elected to a full term that November, defeating Democrat David Adkisson with 60 percent of the vote.
One of the centerpieces of Lewis' 1994 campaign was term limits in Washington. He was one of five Republicans who signed a pledge committing themselves to only three terms, if elected. [3] In 2000, Lewis broke that pledge by running for a fourth term. Lewis says that it was a mistake to have made the pledge.
Political positions
Lewis has a seat on the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax laws and deals with Social Security. He also sits on the Government Reform Committee.
In 2004 Lewis joined numerous Republican colleagues in sponsoring legislation that would allow lawmakers to override certain Supreme Court decisions by a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate. Lewis likened his proposal to the existing right of Congress to override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority.
1996-2004 campaigns
The lowest percentage of the general vote received by Lewis since first elected was in 1996, when he got 58%. In the 2004 election , he defeated Democrat Adam Smith, getting 68% of the vote.
2006
In the 2006 election, Lewis faces retired U.S. Army Colonel Mike Weaver [4], a former member of the Kentucky House of Representatives.