Jim Jordan Biography

James Daniel Jordan was born on February 17, 1964 in Champaign County, Ohio, United States, to Shirley and John Jordan, who worked 30 years at a General Motors plant in Dayton. John, who supported Democrats as a union guy, gradually moved right believing they didn’t represent his values any more, and taught conservative values and hard work, individual responsibility and independence to his sons through wrestling.

In 1982, he graduated from Graham High School, where he also participated in wrestling and won state championships for all the four years he was in high school, with a 156–1 win–loss record.

While attending University of Wisconsin–Madison, from where he obtained bachelor's degree in economics in 1986, he won the 1985 and 1986 NCAA Division I wrestling championship matches. However, he lost the featherweight semifinal match at the 1988 US Olympic wrestling trials and failed to make the Olympic team.

He later completed his master's degree in education from Ohio State University before earning a Juris Doctor from the Capital University Law School.

Jim Jordan served as an assistant wrestling coach with Ohio State University's wrestling program from 1987 to 1995, during which period Richard Strauss served as the physician for the team. Much later in April 2018, Ohio State University began an independent investigation against Strauss into allegations of sexual misconduct that occurred between 1978 and 1998.

In July 2018, several former wrestlers accused both then-head coach Russ Hellickson and then-assistant coach Jordan of knowing about Strauss' alleged abuse but failing to take action.

Jordan consistently denied that he had any student-athlete report sexual abuse to him, going so far as to claim that the over 150 male student-patients were "choreographed" by "the left" to hurt his political career.

Several former wrestling team members like David Range, Mike DiSabato and Dunyasha Yetts asserted that Jordan knew of Strauss's misconduct, and while none accused him of misconduct, he was named a defendant in many lawsuits.

Former wrestler and ex-UFC fighter Mark Coleman alleged that Hellickson contacted two witnesses to pressure them to support Jordan, while DiSabato showed text messages pointing to witness tampering by Jordan, his brother Jeff and Hellickson.

Jim Jordan, who was all set to become a wrestling coach, decided to enter public service after his last child was born, because he became more aware of family as a key institution. He wanted to make a difference for that institution, be it through “tax policy, education policy or whatever”, and made up his mind to get into politics.

When a Statehouse seat opened through a retirement in 1994, he decided to run for the position, and despite being a newcomer, successfully defeated a county commissioner in the GOP primary.

He went on to win the general election to the Ohio House of Representatives in November 1994, representing the 85th Ohio House district where he went on to serve for three terms.

In 2000, he moved to the state senate and was elected from the 12th district by defeating independent candidate Jack Kaffenberger, securing 88% of the vote. He defeated Kaffenberger again in 2004 to win reelection to the Ohio Senate with 79% of the vote.

In 2006, after 26-year incumbent Mike Oxley announced his retirement, he decided to run for the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio's very conservative 4th district, which has been reliably Republican since 1938.

He won the Republican primary and was elected to Congress after defeating Democratic nominee Rick Siferd in the general election with 60% of the vote.

He was reelected to another term in 2008 after defeating Democratic nominee Mike Carroll with 65% of the vote, and again in 2010, defeating Democrat Doug Litt and Libertarian Donald Kissick with 71% vote. He was later reelected in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020, earning at least two-thirds of the vote in most election.

In the 112th Congress, Jordan served as Chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives, but turned down a position on the Appropriations Committee.

He was the committee's most powerful member during the 2013 government shutdown and led the Republican congressional strategy of bringing about a government shutdown to force changes in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

After receiving one vote for Speaker of the US House of Representatives in the 113th Congress and two during the 114th Congress, he ran for Speaker when Paul Ryan retired, but lost to Kevin McCarthy.

While his campaign ended when Democrats took the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives following midterm elections, he also campaigned for House minority leader, but again lost to McCarthy in a 159–43 vote.

During the 114th Congress, along with eight other members of Congress, he helped found the House Freedom Caucus, consisting of the most conservative of the conservatives, which ultimately pushed Speaker John Boehner into retirement.

He served as its first chair from 2015 to 2017 and vice chair thereafter, and was the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee in 2019-20 and of the House Judiciary Committee since March 2020.

Jim Jordan, a close ally of Donald Trump, actively campaigned to discredit investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and staged a sit-in to prevent a Trump impeachment inquiry hearing over the Trump-Ukraine scandal.

He supported Trump when he refused to concede after losing to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and has refused to cooperate with the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Jim Jordan was introduced to his future wife Polly in Ohio through her brothers, with whom he competed in wrestling, and they began dating when he was 13 and she was 14. They got married in 1985 and have four children including daughter Jessie Jordan, who is married to professional basketball player Jarrod Uthoff, and three grandchildren.

Jim Jordan revealed during an interview with David Greene in 2018 that he never took the bar examination and called himself a “wannabe” lawyer.