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 fought successfully to save the Maritime Assistance Program to support critical improvements at our ports.

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 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 and 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 and their dog Maximum Rocknroll (“Max”).