Representative Ross Spano

Vincent Ross Spano (born July 16, 1966) is an American politician and attorney who served as the U.S. representative from Florida’s 15th congressional district from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he represented a district stretching from Lakeland to the northeastern suburbs of Tampa and was first elected to Congress in the 2018 elections. He served one term in the United States House of Representatives and ran for reelection in 2020, but was defeated in the Republican primary.

Ross Spano was born in Tampa, Florida, and raised in the surrounding area. He graduated from Brandon High School in Hillsborough County. He later attended the University of South Florida, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1994. Spano went on to study law at the Florida State University College of Law, receiving his Juris Doctor degree cum laude in 1998. While in law school, he was a member of the Florida State University moot court team and contributed to the FSU Journal of Transnational Law and Policy. He was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1998 and established his professional and political base in the Tampa Bay region. Spano is a Baptist and has long resided in Dover, Florida, near his birthplace of Tampa.

Before his election to Congress, Spano built a career in law and state-level public service. Following redistricting in the Florida House of Representatives, he ran in 2012 for the newly created 59th District. In a competitive Republican primary, he faced Joe Wicker, Betty Jo Tompkins, and Mike Floyd, emerging with 40 percent of the vote, narrowly ahead of Wicker, who received 38 percent. In the general election he ran against Democratic nominee Gail Gottlieb and won with 51 percent of the vote, prevailing by 1,051 votes. As a member of the Florida House of Representatives, Spano served on several key committees and subcommittees, including the Choice and Innovation Subcommittee, Civil Justice Subcommittee, Health Quality Subcommittee, Higher Education & Workforce Subcommittee, and the Judiciary Committee. He also served on the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission during his tenure in the Florida House.

During his service in the Florida legislature, Spano focused on criminal justice and social issues, particularly human trafficking. He authored numerous pieces of human trafficking legislation and sponsored a bill allowing judges to vacate certain criminal convictions if offenders could prove they committed the offenses under duress, as in cases involving victims of illegal trafficking. His legislative record also included socially conservative initiatives; in 2017, he sponsored a resolution declaring that the viewing of pornography was causing a “public health crisis,” reflecting his alignment with conservative positions on cultural and moral questions.

In 2018, Spano sought federal office and ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida’s 15th congressional district. He won the Republican primary against Neil Combee, receiving approximately 44 percent of the vote to Combee’s 34 percent. In the general election, he faced Democratic candidate Kristen Carlson. Spano defeated Carlson with 53 percent of the vote to her 47 percent in what became the closest race in the district in 26 years, since Charles Canady’s five-point victory in 1992 in what was then the 12th District. It was only the fourth time since Andy Ireland’s party switch in 1984, in what was then the 10th District, that a Democrat had managed to secure 40 percent or more of the vote in the district, which was renumbered the 12th in 1992 and has been designated the 15th since 2013. His victory sent him to Washington as a freshman Republican in the 116th Congress, where he contributed to the legislative process and represented the interests of his central Florida constituents.

Spano’s 2018 congressional campaign drew scrutiny over its financing. During the race, he loaned his campaign more than $100,000, reporting the money as personal funds. Media reports later noted that his financial disclosure forms did not show sufficient assets to support such a loan. It was subsequently reported that Spano had borrowed the money from friends and then used it for his campaign. In a December 2018 news release, he acknowledged that his campaign financing “may have been in violation of the Federal Campaign Finance Act.” In November 2019, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was conducting a criminal investigation into possible campaign finance violations related to these loans. Spano denied any wrongdoing, but the investigation and related controversy became a significant issue during his time in office and in his subsequent reelection campaign.

In Congress, Spano served on the United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the United States House Committee on Small Business. Within the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, he sat on the Subcommittee on Aviation, the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, and the Subcommittee on Railways, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials. On the Small Business Committee, he served on the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access and was the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Investigations, Oversight and Regulations. His committee assignments placed him at the intersection of transportation policy, infrastructure development, and small business oversight, areas of particular importance to his rapidly growing central Florida district.

Spano’s voting record and public statements in Congress reflected his conservative Republican orientation. He gained attention when he quoted civil rights leader Coretta Scott King while explaining his opposition to the Equality Act, legislation intended to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity; King herself had been a prominent supporter of LGBT rights, and Spano’s use of her words drew criticism from supporters of the bill. On December 18, 2019, he voted against both articles of impeachment against President Donald J. Trump. Following the 2020 presidential election, in December 2020, he was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the election results in several states where Joe Biden had prevailed over Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, ruling that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge how other states conducted their elections.

Spano sought a second term in the House in the 2020 election cycle. However, amid ongoing questions about his 2018 campaign financing and a competitive challenge from within his own party, he narrowly lost the August 2020 Republican primary for renomination to Lakeland City Commissioner Scott Franklin. His defeat in the primary ended his congressional service at the conclusion of his first term in January 2021. After leaving Congress, Spano returned to private life in Florida, where he has remained active in legal and political circles while continuing to reside in the Tampa Bay area.