Paul Zeltwanger (born March 28, 1966) is an American accountant and politician who was a member of the

Ohio House of Representatives The Ohio House of Representatives is the lower house of the Ohio General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio; the other house of the bicameral legislature being the Ohio Senate. The House of Representatives first met in ...

from the 54th district. Zeltwanger succeeded Peter Beck, who was facing dozens of felony charges. He won the primary with 51% of the vote, and won the general election with 72% of the vote. Zeltwanger works as a real-estate developer. He is also a

certified public accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Stat ...

. He retired due to term limits in 2022.

Career

Abortion rights

In 2019, Zeltwanger co-sponsored legislation that would ban

abortion in Ohio Abortion in Ohio is legal on request up to the point of fetal viability (roughly 23 weeks) as a result of abortion rights being placed into the Ohio State Constitution by November 2023 Ohio Issue 1, adopted by 56% of voters. Planned Parenthood ...

and criminalize what they called "abortion murder". Doctors who performed abortions in cases of

ectopic pregnancy Ectopic pregnancy is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo attaches outside the uterus. Signs and symptoms classically include abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding, but fewer than 50 percent of affected women have both of these sympto ...

and other life-threatening conditions would be exempt from prosecution only if they "

ook Ook, OoK or OOK may refer to: * Ook Chung (born 1963), Korean-Canadian writer from Quebec * On-off keying, in radio technology * Toksook Bay Airport (IATA code OOK), in Alaska * Ook!, an esoteric programming language based on Brainfuck * Ook, the ...

all possible steps to preserve the life of the unborn child, while preserving the life of the woman. Such steps include, if applicable, attempting to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy into the woman's uterus".Ohio bill would make doctors 'reimplant' ectopic pregnancies (which is impossible) or face 'abortion murder' charges
National Post, November 29, 2019 Reimplantation of an ectopic pregnancy is not a recognized or medically feasible procedure.

COVID-19 and impeachment

In August 2020, during the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, he joined John Becker,

Candice Keller Candice Keller (born ) is an American politician and former state representative for the 53rd District of the Ohio House of Representatives, which includes part of Butler County, Ohio, Butler County. A Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

, and Nino Vitale in sponsoring a move to impeach against

Mike DeWine Richard Michael DeWine ( ; born January 5, 1947) is an American politician and attorney serving as the 70th List of governors of Ohio, governor of Ohio since 2019. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served a ...

, Ohio's Republican governor. The move was widely and immediately panned on both sides of the aisle and by legal scholars and commentators. Ohio Republican Party Chair

Jane Timken Jane Eileen Timken (née Murphy; born November 5, 1966) is an American politician and attorney serving as a member of the Ohio Senate for the Ohio's 29th senatorial district, 29th district. She previously served as chair of the Ohio Republican Pa ...

"issued a scathing condemnation of the trio of conservatives", calling the move “a baseless, feeble attempt at creating attention for themselves.” Ohio House Speaker, Republican Bob Cupp, called it an "imprudent attempt" to cause "a state constitutional crisis". Legal scholar Jonathan Entin said the proposal "means that we’ve distorted our understanding both of what impeachment is supposed to do and how people – especially, elected officials – are supposed to disagree with each other. Do we really want to say that the government can’t act in an emergency because the officials are afraid that if they do anything, they’ll be removed from office? Of course, if they don’t do anything, maybe the response is going to be ‘Well you should be impeached for not acting.' CNN's

Chris Cillizza Christopher Michael Cillizza (; born February 20, 1976) is an American political commentator, who worked for the television news channel CNN from 2017 to 2022. Prior to joining CNN, he wrote for ''The Fix'', the daily political blog of ''The Wa ...

analyzed it as one of several examples of how Donald Trump had politicized public health matters to the point Republican lawmakers felt they needed to make extreme and pointless moves in order to satisfy the base. DeWine responded by recommending his foes visit a hospital and talk to nurses.

References

External links

Representative Paul Zeltwanger (official site)Official campaign site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zeltwanger, Paul 1966 births Republican Party members of the Ohio House of Representatives 21st-century members of the Ohio General Assembly American accountants Living people People from Mason, Ohio Grace College alumni Kelley School of Business alumni