It’s now held by two-term Rep. Andrea White, a moderate Kettering Republican who won a very tight race over Democrat Addison Caruso in 2022, winning 50.45% of the general election vote. White is running unopposed on the Republican side in March, and will face the winner of the Horn-Lounsbury race in the November election.
Aside from Kettering and Oakwood, the district includes Riverside and stretches of downtown Dayton and east Dayton.
Ohio House representatives make $63,007 per year, plus more if they are elected to leadership positions. The state legislature decides many important issues, including school funding, gun laws, state tax rates, voting rules, and distracted driving laws. They have also been heavily involved in the abortion and marijuana legalization debates.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Chuck Horn
Horn, 66, is a retired attorney whose late father served in the Ohio Senate after terms as Montgomery County Commissioner and Kettering mayor.
A longtime West Chester Twp. resident, he ran unsuccessfully in 2020 for the 52nd District Ohio House seat and two years ago for the 45th District statehouse seat, both times against Jennifer Gross, Butler County election records show.
Horn said the most important issues are “corruption, abortion and gun sanity.” On all three, Horn said he wants to “roll it back and make it clean.”
He said the cases resulting in the convictions of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party leader Matt Borges — as well as federal and state charges against former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission Sam Randazzo — involving FirstEnergy demonstrate a need for change.
“You know, we’re still paying extra in our utility bills. That needs to stop,” Horn said.
PUCO commissioners are appointed by the governor. Horn said he would push for legislation to have a small panel of “independent” public utility regulators elected.
On abortion, Horn supports a greater emphasis on protecting women’s rights to health care. On gun issues, Horn said he would introduce legislation “to roll back laws that are making our children unsafe.”
He said would not support proposing “laws that say that firearms are not dangerous.” Horn said he would push for more required training and regulation involving guns.
“There’s no regulation at all,” he said.
Horn worked at Lexis/Nexis for more than 25 years. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics with a focus on business administration from the University of Cincinnati and a degree from the Taft Law School.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Rose Lounsbury
Lounsbury, 42, is a small business owner and a former public school teacher. She said her top priorities are public education, and ensuring all Ohioans have “their voices heard at the ballot box and their personal and private medical decisions respected in their doctors’ offices.”
She also wants a “future-focused economy. And that involves strengthening our unions and focusing on creating green jobs in a green economy.”
Lounsbury called education “the most important thing” for Ohio. She wants to “push back on that narrative” of failing public schools.
“From what I can see, public schools have been doing the same thing they’ve been doing for centuries, which is teaching kids how to read, write and do math,” she said.
But now, “we’re providing social and emotional learning, guidance, counseling, mental health support, sometimes feeding kids the only two predictable meals that they’re going to get that day,” she added. “And we’re also offering an education to every single child, regardless of their ability. This is something that schools were not doing 100 years ago.”
Lounsbury also said she wants to restrict access to school vouchers. “There is no reason that families of means should be able to send their children to private schools for free, which is what’s happening,” she said.
Lounsbury called the failed attempt last year to require 60% of voters — instead of a majority — to pass an Ohio Constitutional amendment “an attack on our democracy.”
Had the measure passed, “we would be locked into a gerrymandered state for I don’t know how long because we would have had no way to push back,” she said.
Lounsbury earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Western Michigan University and a master’s degree in teaching from Miami University.
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