Pryce, Deborah, 1951-

Deborah Denine Pryce (born July 29, 1951) is an American lawyer, jurist, and politician from Ohio who was the member of the United States House of Representatives for Ohio's 15th congressional district, which includes the western half of Columbus and the surrounding suburbs, from 1993 to 2009. She is a member of the Republican Party.

Born in Warren, Ohio, she graduated from Ohio State University in 1973 and received her law degree from Capital University Law School three years later. From 1976 to 1978, Pryce served as an administrative law judge for the Ohio state department of insurance. She worked as a prosecutor and municipal attorney for the city attorney’s office of Columbus from 1978 to 1985. Pryce served two terms as the presiding judge in the municipal court of Franklin County from 1985 to 1992. In 1980 Pryce married Randy Walker; they divorced in 2001.

Pryce was first elected to the U.S. House in November 1992. Primarily a fiscally and socially conservative Republican, she became a Deputy Majority Whip in 1996. In 1998 GOP colleagues elected Pryce Secretary of the House Republican Conference; two years later, she ran unopposed for the Republican Conference vice chair in 2000. Unlike a majority of Republicans, Pryce was pro-choice. During her time in Congress, she focused her legislative efforts on issues that concerned children and health care, becoming a leading advocate of increasing federal money for cancer research and expanding access to clinical trials for cancer patients.

In August 2007, citing the difficulty of keeping up her hectic congressional schedule while being a single parent to her five-year-old daughter, Pryce announced her decision not to run for re-election in the fall of 2008. Pryce openly shared her disdain for the 2006 campaign where she spent more than $4.5 million in a competitive and often unpleasant race. In 2011, Ohio Governor John Kasich appointed Pryce to a 12-year term as chair of the Ohio liquor control commission. She also serves as a principal for an Ohio law firm.