User:Jj04/Austria

Steven "Steve" Austria is a Republican member of the Ohio Senate, representing the 10th District since 2001. Previously he was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from 1998 until 2000.

In 2004, Austria easily won re-election to the Senate by defeating his Democratic challenger Charlie Hart, a Springfield, Ohio-area farmer.

In 2008, Austria was the Republican nominee for the US House of Representatives from Ohio's 7th congressional district to replace retiring Congressman Dave Hobson. He defeated Democratic challenger Sharen Neuhardt in the general election, 58.7% to 41.3%.

Personal life
Steven Austria was born in Cincinnati and grew up in Xenia, Ohio, the eldest of nine children. His father is the late Dr. Clement G. Austria from Tiaong, Quezon, Philippines who moved to Ohio to attend Medical School.

He has lived in Beavercreek for more than 20 years with his wife Eileen, and their three sons Brian, Kevin and Eric.

Controversies
On September 2 2008,  Ohio political bloggers discovered that a Labor Day column published in the Xenia Gazette under Austria's name was in whole or part plagiarized from  a Department of  Labor website on the history of Labor Day. Austria's campaign denied any wrongdoing, claiming that a citation was omitted.

Bloggers writing at Ohio Daily Blog later identified significant portions of the column not taken from the Department of Labor site that were apparently copied from Wikipedia. Later analysis by a Wright State University professor found that about one quarter of the column was lifted directly from the Department of Labor’s Web page on the history of Labor Day and that additional parts of the column were taken from a Wikipedia entry on Labor Day.

One university professor carefully analyzed the piece line by line and concluded that it was almost entirely copied from two different sites. Even an automatically generated report from turnitin.com showed a whopping 59% plagiarism which would result in a flunking grade for students, no doubt disciplinary actions and/or even being expelled from some educational institutions.