Matt Borges

Matthew "Matt" Borges is an American politician, and the former Chairman of the Ohio Republican Party.

Matt Borges
Chair of the Ohio Republican Party
In office
May 31, 2013 – January 6, 2017
Preceded byKevin DeWine
Succeeded byJane Timken
Personal details
Political partyRepublican
Alma materOhio State University (BA)

He was honored with the "Distinguished Alumni Award" by The Ohio State University Department of Political Science in 2019.[1] He also serves on OSU's Advisory Board for the Political Science Department.

Early life and education

Borges grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island,[2] and earned a B.A. in political science from The Ohio State University in 1994. He is a partner in 17 Consulting, a Columbus, Ohio-based public affairs firm. He and his wife, Kate, live in Bexley, Ohio.

Politics

Borges spent most of his early career working on state and local political campaigns in Ohio. He ran local campaigns before running Joe Deters successful campaigns for Ohio Treasurer of State in 1998 and 2002. Borges has worked on several presidential campaigns, and traveled the world as an Advance Representative for the White House from 2001 to 2008. He worked on John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008. In 2010, Borges ran the successful statewide campaign of Dave Yost, who now serves as Ohio Attorney General. Borges served as Executive Director for the Kasich-Taylor Inaugural Committee in 2011. He is still active in several other campaigns in Ohio. He is a lifetime member of the McCain Alumni Association, and in 2019 was appointed by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine to the Board of Trustees at Columbus State University.[3] In February 2020, he was reportedly backing Joe Biden's presidential campaign to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders.[4] In June 2020, Borges joined with Anthony Scaramucci and other former Trump and Bush administration officials to launch Right Side PAC, a super PAC encouraging Republicans to vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.[5]

Controversies and arrest

Between 2005 and 2019, Borges was – according to the Dayton Daily News – "embroiled in a dispute over unpaid taxes and liens".[6] According to Borges, he had started to repay approximately $150,000 in state and federal tax arrears by 2013, with the matter being ultimately settled in 2019.[7][6]

A case against Borges was dismissed by a Cuyahoga County judge in 2009. Five years earlier, Borges pleaded to one count of a "revolving door" violation, after he refused to testify against former Republican state Treasurer Joe Deters, whom he believed had done nothing wrong. He paid a $1,000 fine. [8] Later, the prosecutor who initially tried to bring the case against Deters resigned after failing to act on one of the largest corruption investigations in American history.[9][10]

On July 21 2020, Borges, along with Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry Householder, and three others were arrested by Federal authorities. They were accused of accepting $60 million in bribes from FirstEnergy in exchange for $1.3 billion worth of benefits in the form of Ohio House Bill 6, which increased electricity rates and provided that money as a $150 million per year bailout for two nuclear plants (Davis–Besse and Perry) owned by FirstEnergy.[11][12]

References
  1. "The Department of Political Science Distinguished Alumni Award | Department of Political Science". polisci.osu.edu. Matthew J. Borges, Distinguished Alumnus 2019
  2. Gomez, Henry J. (May 31, 2016). "Here's the book on Matt Borges". cleveland.com.
  3. "Columbus State Community College". cscc.edu.
  4. Rowland, Darrel (February 16, 2020). "Capitol Insider | Former Ohio GOP chief: I'm backing Biden to sink Bernie, not Trump". The Columbus Dispatch.
  5. Gstalter, Morgan (June 17, 2020). "Republican operatives pushing GOP turnout for Biden with new super PAC". TheHill. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
  6. Bischoff, Laura A. (July 21, 2020). "Who is Matt Borges? Charged in racketeering case". Dayton Daily News. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  7. "Aspiring Ohio GOP chair using own funds to pay thousands in tax liens". Toledo Blade. Associated Press. July 22, 2020. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
  8. "New lobbyists in Ohio have strong Republican ties | cleveland.com". cleveland.com. Retrieved November 27, 2016.
  9. McCarty, James F. (September 17, 2012). "Bill Mason resigns as Cuyahoga County prosecutor four months before term ends". cleveland.com.
  10. McCarty, James F. (March 10, 2012). "Jimmy Dimora convicted of racketeering, 32 other corruption-related charges". cleveland.com.
  11. Wamsley, Laura (July 21, 2020). "Ohio House Speaker Arrested In Connection With $60 Million Bribery Scheme". NPR. Archived from the original on July 21, 2020. Retrieved July 21, 2020. Last year's nuclear bailout law tacked on a charge to residents' power bills, sending $150 million a year to the nuclear power plants. They are owned by the company Energy Harbor, which was previously known as FirstEnergy Solutions.
  12. Hughes, Clyde (July 21, 2020). "Ohio House speaker, 4 others arrested in bribery case". UPI. Archived from the original on July 21, 2020. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
Party political offices
Preceded by
Kevin DeWine		 Chair of the Ohio Republican Party
2013–2017		 Succeeded by
Jane Timken
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