Full Biography for Janet Howard

Candidate for
State Senate

State Senator Janet Cohen Howard was elected to the Ohio Senate in November 1994. She represents the people of the 9th Senate District, comprised of a very diverse constituency including central Cincinnati and the suburbs.

In the 122nd General Assembly, Senator Howard has been appointed to serve as chair of the Judiciary Committee's Juvenile Subcommittee, vice chair of the Human Services and Aging Committee and vice chair of Health Committee. She is also a member of the full Judiciary Committee and Economic Development, Technology and Aerospace.

Before her election to the legislature, Senator Howard was employed in the marketing division of a major oil company, worked on economic development projects for low income neighborhoods and served as a bailiff for the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. She has volunteered for the Beechwood Elementary PTA and the Greenhills-Forest Park Kiwanis.

Howard was elected to Forest Park City Council in 1993. She has shown tremendous commitment to the Republican Party by serving as activity director for the Forest Park Republican Club and as a board member of the Hamilton County Republican Women's Club. Within the Hamilton County Republican Party, she has been a member of the Executive, Central, Nominating and Policy committees.

As the first African American woman to hold a Republican seat in the Senate, Howard earned the attention of peers when, in. 1995, she was awarded a fellowship to the Bowhay Institute of Legislative Leadership Development at the University of Wisconsin La Follette Institute for Public Affairs. Earlier the same year, the Ohio Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority named her Woman of the Year. She is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of Xavier University, the Honorary Board of the Cincinnati Boychoir, First Council of Republican Women Advisers to Congress, the National Federation of Republican Women, the National Council of State Legislators Women's Network Executive Board & Advisory Board, the Ohio Bicentennial Commission, the Ohio Women Policy and Research Commission, Scarlet Oaks Regional Business Partnership Council, and Women in Government/Legislative Business Roundtable.

In 1988, Senator Howard was granted the Women of Courage Political Achievement award from the National Federation of Black Women Business Owners.

Senator Howard graduated from Hughes High School and attended Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Cincinnati. She is married to Allen Howard, a columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer. She is the mother of three children.