State Representative Michele Grim is a strong leader who has served our communities as a public health professional, educator, and Toledo City Councilwoman. Michele represents the 43rd District in the Ohio House and serves in the House Democratic Leadership as Assistant Whip. From delivering on economic development and infrastructure to fully and fairly funding our public schools, Michele is working effectively with members of both parties to get things done.

Michele is leading with policies that create good jobs in the industries of the future, revitalize neglected communities, and improve the lives of working families. In her first term in the House, Michele worked across the aisle to pass the largest infrastructure investment in Ohio history and to enact first-in-the-nation rail safety improvements following the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine. Michele passed new funding for local Innovation Hubs to strengthen Ohio’s advanced manufacturing economy and then advocated for the Northwest Ohio Glass Innovation Hub to accelerate innovation and job growth in Toledo’s glass sector and solar industry. Michele also fought successfully to save the Maritime Assistance Program to support critical improvements at our ports and support local manufacturing.

Michele is fighting for lower costs. Michele is standing up for families struggling with rising prices and cracking down on corporate price-gouging. She has introduced the Junk Fee Elimination Act to ban the hidden junk fees corporations pile onto all sorts of purchases and she is pushing reforms to lower property taxes and rein in skyrocketing healthcare and prescription drug costs.

Michele believes all Ohio’s kids deserve a world-class education. She pushed to fully fund the bipartisan Fair School Funding Plan, delivering $21.8 million in new state funding for Toledo Public Schools and $14 million for Washington Local Schools. She is strongly committed to bolstering state investment in our public universities and community colleges and to strengthening vocational education and creating new pathways to skilled trades apprenticeships.

Michele believes that health care is a right – not a privilege. A career public health professional, Michele worked to strengthen health care while serving in roles in government, university research, and with nonprofit community clinics. As an at-large member of Toledo City Council, Michele led the first stand-alone health committee and spearheaded Toledo’s groundbreaking medical debt relief initiative with Lucas County. As State Representative, Michele has sponsored and co-sponsored legislation to expand health coverage and lower costs and campaigned to help pass Ohio’s 2023 constitutional amendment protecting reproductive health care access.

Michele is a committed leader in the struggle to end sexual violence and domestic violence. As State Representative, Michele led the effort to pass a survivor’s right to know the status of their rape kit in Ohio and to require an annual inventory of kits to prevent a testing backlog. She worked with members of both parties to fund rape crisis services and domestic violence shelters and has introduced legislation to strengthen survivors’ rights. Michele co-chairs the Gun Violence Prevention Caucus and is leading with common sense public safety protections to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.

Dr. Michele Grim is a graduate of the University of Toledo with a bachelor’s degree in women and gender studies and a master’s degree in public health and earned her doctorate in law and policy from Northeastern University. She lives in Toledo with her husband Ben Krompak.