have participated in government most of my adult life. When the Constitution of the United States was amended in 1971 to reduce the voting age to 18, I registered to vote, ran for office, and was elected to the Board of Education at the age of 20 while I was a student at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. I served a full four-year term on the Board of Education, then ran for City Council and was elected to City Council in 1975, re-elected in 1979, and re-elected in 1983.

I have been active in the Democratic Party. I was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1972, elected by the people of the 20th Congressional District of Ohio, back when Ohio had twenty-four Congressional Districts. I was a member of the Democratic County Central Committee and Democratic County Executive Committee, and a delegate to the Ohio Democratic Party Convention, when I lived in Cuyahoga County. In Portage County, I have been a member of the Portage County Democratic Central Committee since 2005, an officer of the Portage County Democratic Party since 2007, and I was a delegate to the Ohio Democratic Party Convention from Portage County in 2006 and 2008. I was a member of the committee that prepared revisions of the Portage County Democratic Party constitution in 2007, to implement the principles of the national Democratic Party for transparency and accountability.

Since I was licensed as an attorney in 1974, I have never been an employee of any government or governmental agency except those public offices to which I was elected by the voters, and except for working fifteen-hour days as a precinct poll worker on election days.