David Pepper's Biography

Born and raised in Greater Cincinnati, David was elected to the Hamilton County Commission in November 2006. His defeat of incumbent Republican Phil Heimlich marked the first time that Hamilton County has had a Democratic majority on its commission in forty years. He won by garnering substantial bipartisan support, building major inroads into Republican and independent voting areas throughout the County, and winning a number of traditional Republican jurisdictions outright.

He now serves as the Vice President of the three-member Commission, focusing his efforts on safety, improving quality of life, and economic growth. On public safety, he has worked across party lines to enhance the prosecution of the County's most violent offenders, while reducing recidivism and enhancing treatment and reentry of non-violent offenders. On economic development, he has fought for full funding of the County's economic development work (against Republican proposed cuts), while leading innovative efforts to enhance economic empowerment, job training, and the prevention of foreclosures (with over 400 homes saved from foreclosure in 2007). In the first 14 months under the new Democratic majority, the County was able to accomplish major economic successes-such as finalizing an agreement and initiating work on the long-stalled Banks riverfront project, as well as retaining hundreds of automotive jobs at Ford's Sharonville plant.

David's County service follows four years on the Cincinnati City Council, to which he was elected shortly after the 2001 riots. In his first race for political office in 2001, David finished first out of 26 Council candidates, the first time that had been achieved by a non-incumbent in 40 years. He finished in first place over 26 more candidates, by an even wider margin, in November 2003. His success stemmed again from bringing together a broad coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans.

On the City Council, David served as the Chairman of Council's Law and Public Safety Committee. He was a part of a new team of leaders who began the turn-around Cincinnati has experienced since the riots. Through projects to revitalize downtown such as Fountain Square, adding police to the street while improving police-community relations, and making critical investments in new housing, jobs, and quality of life, David's four years of work with others led to positive new directions. David's final year on Council marked the first time in decades that the City's population grew, a trend that has continued.

Since 2000, David has also served as an associate in the Cincinnati office of the law firm of Squire Sanders & Dempsey, where he concentrates his practice on appellate litigation. From 1999-2000, he clerked for Judge Nathaniel Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati.

From 1993 to 1996, David worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., as an aide to former National Security Adviser Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and later in St. Petersburg, Russia, working with Russian and American business leaders to stimulate investment and economic growth in the City. In those years, he worked with a wide variety of well-known international leaders, including Henry Kissinger, Paul Bremer, Vladimir Putin, CEOs of some of the West's largest companies, diplomats, and numerous members of Congress.

David graduated from Cincinnati Country Day in 1989 and earned his B. A. magna cum laude from Yale University in 1993, where he was Phi Beta Kappa and served as Managing Editor of the Yale Daily News. David earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1999, where he won several school-wide awards for his written work and was a published author three times.

David is a fifth-generation Cincinnatian, coming from a family with a long tradition of public service to the community and with roots throughout the region.

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