Kilroy, Mary Jo, 1949-

Mary Jo Kilroy (born April 30, 1949) is an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as the U.S. Representative for Ohio's 15th congressional district from 2009 until 2011.

Born in Euclid, Ohio and raised in Cleveland, she graduated from Villa Angela Academy in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1967. She received a BA in political science from Cleveland State University and went on to earn her JD at Ohio State University. She married Robert Handelman, with whom she worked as a lawyer in their private practice firm. Kilroy first became involved in public service after winning a seat on the Columbus board of education in 1991. She served two terms (1992–1999) and was elected president of the board in 1999. In 1996 Kilroy ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Ohio state senate.3 After declining to stand for a third term on the board of education, Kilroy ran instead for Franklin County commissioner in 2000; she won and was re-elected in 2004. From 2005 to 2007, she served as president of the commission.

In 2006, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recruited Kilroy to run for Congress; challenging incumbent Deborah D. Pryce, at the time the Chair of the Republican Conference, Kilroy lost by just over 1000 votes. After Pryce announced her decision to retire in 2008, Kilroy won the open seat against Republican Steve Stivers by less than 2400 votes. Kilroy worked with fellow Ohio Democrats on employment issues in the state and targeted companies that planned to move thousands of Ohio jobs overseas. When it came to light in March 2009 that a major insurer that had been rescued by the federal government was going to pay its executives hundreds of millions of dollars in retention bonuses, Kilroy sponsored a resolution that expressed the sense that Congress deplored such conduct. On the Homeland Security Committee, Kilroy supported measures that bolstered national and local defense and emergency preparedness. In addition to the issues she targeted through her committee work, Kilroy was a vocal supporter of health care reform. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2003, Kilroy was familiar with the issues surrounding expensive treatments and preexisting conditions and was committed to ending discriminatory policies. Kilroy voted for the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and supported a public insurance option.

Kilroy’s slim margin of victory in 2008 made her a target for Republicans in the 2010 election. In a midterm cycle that saw Republicans capture the House majority, Kilroy lost in a rematch with Steve Stivers, who took 55 percent of the vote to Kilroy’s 41 percent. In 2012 Kilroy lost the Democratic primary for a seat in the House from a new district created after the 2010 Census. In 2014 she lost a three-candidate race for Franklin County appeals judge.