Democratic Party officials say Wilson died Sunday afternoon in a Florida hospital from complications of a stroke he suffered in February.

Before being elected to Congress, Wilson served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1997 to 2005. He then served two years in the Ohio Senate before winning his first congressional campaign in 2006, filling the seat vacated by Gov. Ted Strickland.

Wilson had failed to gather enough petition signatures to qualify for the state’s primary, requiring him to run as a write-in.

He lost bids for Congress in 2010 and 2012.

Bob Ney readily admits he made mistakes and broke the law.

“I did wrong. I had criminal behavior,” Ney said on All Sides with Ann Fisher Monday morning.

But he says it’s more complicated than that. His new book is called “Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill.” Ney says even as the feds were investigating him in 2006, he wanted to continue his campaign, but only stepped down at the request of then House Majority Leader John Boehner because promised him a job, Ney says.

“…that is comparable in money to what you are making, and, most important to me, he said “I will raise you money for your legal defense fund to put this behind you.”

Ney says as soon as he resigned, Boehner and other GOP leaders refused to return his calls. Boehner says no such conversations or promises ever took place.

“Corporate profits have sky-rocketed to all time highs, and for more than a decade wages and incomes have barely budged. It is our generation’s task, then, to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth: a rising, thriving middle class.”

And with that, the President layed out his agenda for boosting the middle class…a massive job creation program, calls to Congress to spare entitlements while still pearing the deficit and closing tax loopholes for the rich. WOSU’s Steve Brown spoke with Democratic Congressman Joyce Beatty of Columbus about whether the proposals laid out by Mr. Obama are enough to cut the deficit and avoid sequestration.

Click the play button above to hear their conversation.

Bill Johnson upset Democratic incumbent Charlie Wilson two years ago. The 6th Congressional District was sprawling then, hugging the Ohio River from Mahoning County to the southernmost tip of the state. Now it stretches even further, cutting inland deeper into other parts of Ohio’s coal country.

In this year’s rematch with Wilson, Johnson says he’s been far more active than Wilson in his 2 terms.

“You know as a freshman legislator I’ve had five pieces of legislation pass the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis,” Johnson says.

One of the bills Johnson sponsored is the Stop the War on Coal Act, the final piece of legislation to pass the House this year.

The bill removes the Obama administration’s rules governing the handling of coal dust and waste and removes new protections for streams impacted by mining. It’s part of Johnson’s war on regulations.

Keeping the EPA out of the oil and gas industry, stopping the EPA and agencies like the Department of the Interior that also has the war on coal.

Johnson’s anti-war efforts go way beyond coal. His bill undoes the EPA’s efforts to regulate green-house gases and tail-pipe emissions. The Democratically controlled Senate has not taken up the measure.

Johnson’s opponent, Charlie Wilson declined to be interviewed for this story. But back in 2010, he, too, defended coal.

86 percent of our electricity comes from coal. We rely on it to power our homes and businesses, but in Washington, they just don’t get it.

Scott Miller is an energy policy analyst with Ohio University, acknowledges the Obama administration has not been overly coal friendly. Instead, the past four years have seen support for alternative energies like wind and solar by the White House.

“And it has also chosen, which previous administrations had not chosen, to fully enforce regulations that have been on the books for quite a while,” Miller says.

The coal industry is contracting in Ohio and neighboring states, but Miller asks “Is that really because of regulatory forces or is that because of market forces? And it’s a mixture of both.”

Miller note that new regulations are cutting into the bottom line of the coal industry, but so is competition from cheap natural gas.

Six years ago nobody thought we’d be producing more natural gas in the United States than Russia, but we are.

The 6th District’s new boundaries now cut into the heart of the Utica shale region of eastern Ohio’s Carroll County, where there’s little concern about coal or who’s running for Congress.

Ron Minast voted Republican in early voting.

“Give me a name,” Minast says.

Reporter: “Well, you’re in the 6th district.”

Minast: “I don’t know who’s where…”

Reporter: “Bill Johnson – that’s the Republican candidate.”

Minast: “Well that’s who I voted for.”

Carroll County is shale country. And Carrollton’s John Dendak, like Manist, supports whichever candidate will keep the shale gas boom pumping.

This is a poor community, it’s been a poor community, and these people— it’s the first time they’ve had money to do anything other than pay their taxes and buy a plot to be buried in.

The importance of energy jobs is one of the few things both incumbent Bill Johnson and challenger Charlie Wilson agree on, according to political writer David Skolnick at the Youngstown Vindicator.

“I do see this as being a close race,” Skolnick says.

The redrawn 6th District leans 54 percent Republican. But Wilson’s home turf is the heart of coal country, Belmont County.

So I think that was maybe somewhat of a strategical error in the part of the Republicans when they were redistricting to include that part in the new 6th District.

Skolnick says the sprawling district covering eastern Ohio’s shale gas and coal mining corridor could be the only true Congressional toss up in Ohio come November 6th.

Republican Jim Renacci made his name and fortune as the owner of nursing homes, car dealerships and sports teams – and as the mayor of Wadsworth—before he ran for the 16th Congressional District two years ago. He unseated one-term incumbent and Democrat John Boccieri.

Betty Sutton, a labor lawyer, state lawmaker and Democrat, is seeking a sixth term in a Congress, after GOP lawmakers wiped out her district and merged some of it into Renacci’s. Theirs is one of only two congressional races in the country pitting incumbents of opposite parties. And that’s translated into big money and lots of attention, including that of the 300 people packed into the City Club of Cleveland debate.

Like a microcosm of the presidential race, Sutton voiced support for the Affordable Care Act and for raising taxes on wealthy people. Renacci says higher taxes would strangle small business owners, while Obamacare creates too much uncertainty for all businesses.

“Now there were some good things in the bill. Pre-existing conditions; I agree with some of those things. But we could have done that in four or five pages. We don’t have to throw a 2,400-page bill on the table and say ‘We need to pass it to know what’s in it.’”

But Sutton supports the health-care act and says Renacci, and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have talked of replacing it but won’t say how or with what.

On economic development, Sutton repeatedly touted her anti-corrosion initiative to develop the $400 billion rust-prevention industry in Northeast Ohio.

“Making sure that when we build that infrastructure, we can use American iron, steel and manufactured goods to get those ripple effects and those good jobs for our folks. We can also close those loopholes that my opponent has consistently voted for, that encourage outsourcing of our jobs. We could also rein in Chinese currency manipulation, something that I would ask my opponent to join me in calling on Speaker Boehner to put on the House floor, because that could mean a million jobs.”

That drew a pointed a response from Renacci, who has supported eliminating taxes on profits American companies make overseas if they re-invest that money in the U.S.

“Congresswoman Sutton talked about loopholes. I’m a CPA. To send jobs overseas, I’d love for her to tell me one of those loopholes she’s talking about. I don’t know what those deductions are to send jobs overseas. I’d love to hear them someday. I believe that we need certainty and predictability for those job creators. She talked about what she believes. I believe the job creators are the ones we should be listening to.”

The candidates also diverge sharply on what should be done about the $1.2 trillion in cuts in defense and domestic spending that is coming Jan. 1. Congress agreed on the cuts in August 2011 to resolve an impasse over the national debt.

“I voted against the sequestration in the first instance because I knew it would get us into this place.”

Renacci voted for the cuts, but then supported an alternative this summer that would lessen the cuts to defense.

Most talk about debt and deficits in the races this year for president, Senate and Congress includes an argument over whether Bush-era tax cuts for the the wealthiest Americans should expire.

This debate was no different.

Renacci says no, contending many of those who would be affected are small-business owners, whom he calls job-creators.

Sutton says the cuts should expire for income above $250,000.

David Joyce was first elected Geauga County Prosecutor in 1988. He’s 55, married, with three children. He and LaTourettefc are reportedly close. At a press conference Friday shortly after his selection was announced, Joyce laid out his views on what he would bring to Congress.

“Over the coming months the hardworking taxpayers of the 14th district will hear our message of cost effective government that is limited in scope, and focused where needed.

“A message that calls for the federal government to get out of the way of job creation by removing unnecessary regulatory red tape and reforming our unfair and antiquated tax system. A message that does not tell people what they want to hear, but what they need to know.”

Joyce stressed the importance of physical infrastructure – roads, bridges, rail and harbors – to Northeast Ohio business and commerce, and lauded LaTourette’s diligence in securing federal funds for infrastructure spending, an indication that he doesn’t oppose earmarks as many republicans in Congress have. And he says he supports a fully funded defense.

Joyce hedged a bit when asked if he would follow in LaTourette’s moderate footsteps.

“Steve tells me I run to the right of him. But I find myself as a person who looks at the issues before him, as I’ve done here as a prosecutor. I take the facts and evidence and look at the law and I come to a result that I think is appropriate.”

LaTourette announced in late July that he would not seek re-election because of the increasingly-partisan climate in Washington.

Joyce’s selection was an unusual circumstance, one that members of the the 14-person committee of GOP Chairs and secretaries say they’ve never encountered. LaTourette officially withdrew from the race Wednesday – less than 90 days before the general election.

More than 90 days would have triggered a primary, which LaTourette and others say would have been expensive and time consuming.

When the vacancy falls inside that 90 day window it falls to party leaders to pick a replacement. Cuyahoga County GOP Chairman Rob frost says a quick decision was called for, and Joyce stood out among the field of some 20 people who expressed interest in running.

“I was able to meet with each of the candidates who wanted to sit down with me or talk in person with other where we couldn’t get together. And I was able to decide early on, the first time that I met Dave Joyce about this, that he was a person who was well qualified to go to Congress.”

Asked whether HE thinks joyce will follow LaTourette’s moderate stance, Charlie Frye, Chairman of the Ashtabula Republican Party, responds this way:

“Well, we’ll have to find out when he starts voting on the different issues that come before him. But I think he would mirror LaTourette in many ways.”

In November Joyce will face Dale Virgil Blanchard, a Solon accountant and a perennial candidate who has run in every election since LaTourette was a freshman congressman.

Some have suggested he leave the race and make way for a stronger democratic candidate, but Blanchard has indicated he plans to see this campaign through.

LaTourette, a nine-term lawmaker and a close confidant of House Speaker John Boehner, said in a news conference in Painesville Tuesday that he wouldn’t seek another term. He said the atmosphere in the House “no longer encourages the finding of common ground.” He cited the toll that the job has taken on him and said he didn’t want to do it any longer.

LaTourette was elected to Congress during the GOP wave in 1994 when the party seized control of the House after decades in the minority. He is a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Lawmakers around the state and around the country were reacting yesterday to LaTourette’s decision to step down. Click the play button above to hear a full report from WKSU’s Kevin Niedermier.

The spokesman says Kucinich would have to resign to establish residency in Washington and he has no plan to do that. The Seattle Times reports the Washington district most often mentioned as a destination for Kucinich was redrawn into a swing district that would be harder for him to win.

There was speculation Kucinich was looking to Washington last year when he made a half-dozen visits to the state.

That was one of the surprises from Wednesday’s deadline to file to run for Ohio’s congressional and legislative seats. Chris Redfern says he hopes to retain his position with party leadership if he wins a seat. He previously represented a district near Lake Erie.

Wednesday also brought the number of Democrats hoping to represent Franklin county’s new urban 3rd Congressional district to four: Columbus city councilwoman Priscilla Tyson, former Ohio House Minority Leader Joyce Beatty, former U.S. Representative Mary Jo Kilroy, and current Ohio Representative Ted Celeste.

As predicted, Republican Reps. Steve Austria and Mike Turner will face off in a primary to represent the new 10th Congressional district. Democrats Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich will compete in a primary race to represent the revamped Lake Erie-hugging 9th district.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich also bucked some speculation by turning in enough signatures to get his name on Ohio’s primary ballot.