Hagan files forms to start raising money for a 2016 U.S. Senate bid


By David Skolnick

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

State Rep. Robert F. Hagan filed paperwork to raise money for a 2016 bid for the U.S. Senate.

Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th, said Monday he submitted forms with the secretary of the U.S. Senate’s Office of Public Records to create the Bob Hagan for U.S. Senate campaign fund.

Hagan announced April 17 that he was going to challenge U.S. Sen. Rob Portman because he was angry the incumbent Republican voted against a proposal to expand background checks for firearms purchases at gun shows and all Internet sales except most sales among family members.

“He must be held accountable for that vote, for caring more about the gun lobby that stokes his campaign with cash than he does about the safety and lives of the men, women and children of this state,” Hagan said Monday.

Portman, who isn’t up for re-election until 2016, has said he voted against the proposal because it “contains several provisions that would make it difficult for law-abiding Ohioans to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed rights.”

Hagan said Monday his “mission is to be a hair shirt, following him around to make him feel uncomfortable.”

Hagan, term-limited in the Ohio House at the end of 2014, said a “formal announcement tour is in the planning stages.”