Stan Aronoff

Who is Stan Aronoff?

Stanley J. Aronoff is an American politician of the Republican party who served for a time as president of the Ohio Senate. Aronoff was raised in a Jewish family in the North Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati and attended high school at Walnut Hills High School. He earned a bachelor's degree and a law degree from Harvard University, after which he returned to Cincinnati to enter into the private practice of law.

In 1960, Ambrose Lindhorst, Walton Bachrach, and Republican operative George Eyrich persuaded Aronoff to run for a seat in the Ohio General Assembly. He began serving in the Ohio House of Representatives in 1961 and was re-elected twice, serving until 1967.

In 1966, Aronoff won a seat in the Ohio Senate. He was reelected in 1968, and again in 1972. In the 1974 primary election, he made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for Ohio Attorney General. He won reelection to the Senate in 1976.

In 1978, Aronoff sought the party's nomination for a seat in the United States House of Representatives, but party bosses endorsed television news broadcaster Thearon "Tom" Atkins instead. It was suspected that with the Jewish Bill Gradison already representing the Hamilton County Republican Party in Congress, that party leaders shied away from endorsing another Jew for Cincinnati's other congressional seat. Nevertheless, Aronoff prevailed in the Republican primary, but lost in the general election in a close race to Democrat Tom Luken.