Summary
Robert Portman was born in 1955 and is currently serving as the junior United States Senator from Ohio. Senator Portman’s seat will be up for election in 2022.
Portman was first elected in the U.S. Senate in 2010 and reelected in 2016. From 1993 until 2005 he represented Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He resigned from the House to become the U.S. Trade Representative under President George W. Bush. He later served in the Bush Administration as Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2006 until 2007.
Senator Portman is currently serving on the Foreign Relations Committee; the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; and the Finance Committee.
Below is Senator Portman’s voting record and public positions on issues important to the Jewish community.
Senator Portman opposed the Iran nuclear deal. He opposed UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that claimed that Israel’s settlements have no legal validity and supported the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Senator Portman opposes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and cosponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act and the Combating BDS Act, two bills that aimed to fight discriminatory boycotts of Israel. Together with Senator Cardin, he introduced a resolution that opposes the delegitimization of the State of Israel and the global BDS movement.
In 2018, Senator Portman cosponsored the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act, a legislation that supported full funding of security assistance to Israel as outlined in the 2016 U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding.
In 2019, he voted for the Strengthening America’s Middle East Security Act which, among other things, strengthened Israel’s security and allowed a state or local government to adopt measures to divest its assets from entities that boycott Israel.
