Betty Montgomery

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Betty Montgomery is an American politician from the state of Ohio. A Republican, she has served as Ohio State Auditor since 2003. Montgomery was one of three Republican candidates seeking the party's 2006 nomination for Governor before dropping out of the race in order to run for her former position of Attorney General.^[1]

Montgomery was elected Wood County Prosecutor in 1980.

In 1988 she was elected to the Ohio Senate where she chaired the Criminal Justice Subcommittee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Montgomery worked on passing Ohio's first living-will law.

In 1994 Montgomery was urged by Republican Party leaders to challenge Democrat Lee Fisher for the job of Ohio Attorney General. Montgomery faced an uphill battle against the very-popular Fisher. Montgomery campaigned on her record as a prosecutor. She narrowly defeated Fisher by a vote of 1,716,451 to 1,625,471. [2] As Attorney General, Montgomery worked to increase funding for law enforcement and for more crime labs. She defeated Democrat Richard Cordray for re-election in 1998, earning more votes than any other Republican candidate.

By the end of 2001, Montgomery was term limited from being re-elected Attorney General. Ohio Republican Party Chairman Robert Bennett urged Montgomery to run for the job of state auditor. She swapped offices with then Auditor Jim Petro, who was elected as attorney general. Montgomery defeated Democrat Helen Knipe Smith and became State Auditor in 2003. Montgomery was the top vote getter in the 1998 and 2002 state elections.

During her campaign for governor, Montgomery challenged J. Kenneth Blackwell, (a two-term Secretary of State, former State Treasurer, and former Cincinnati Mayor), and Jim Petro (the Attorney General and former Auditor of State). After trailing both Blackwell and Petro in early polls, Montgomery dropped out of the governor's race to once again run for Attorney General. Her 2006 opponent in the general election was State Senator Marc Dann, who defeated Montgomery.

While Montgomery is known as more moderate on some social issues, she has challenged many liberal positions, most notably in her bid to end what she termed "inexcusable" legal delays in Ohio's system of capital punishment. However, Montgomery's positions were less of an issue in the 2006 campaign than was her slow action as auditor in investigating the BWC Coingate scandal of Tom Noe, one of her campaign contributors. Marc Dann hit this note repeatedly in the 2006 campaign ads, and won a narrow victory over the relatively popular Montgomery.

Preceded by Lee Fisher	Attorney General of Ohio 1995 – 2003	Succeeded by Jim Petro
Preceded by Jim Petro	Auditor of Ohio 2003 – 2007	Succeeded by Mary Taylor (elected)