Michael Rulli has been an employee of his family’s grocery store, a bass guitarist in a Boston-based grunge and noise band and an Ohio state senator.
“I didn’t get involved in politics until I was in my early 40s,” said Rulli, 55. “So I had a whole other life that had nothing to do with it.”
Music was an early passion. “My friends had bands and I always wanted to join their bands and they would never let me,” he said.
He finally got his chance when the bassist for a band called Red Bliss quit. “I was a really mediocre bass player,” Rulli said.
Still, the group achieved a modicum of success, at least by indie rock standards, touring and playing in the same music scene as the Lemonheads and Bullet LaVolta. Rulli and his bandmates shared a house with Buffalo Tom, a well-known ’90s indie act.
Now Rulli represents Ohio’s 6th District, a swath of eastern Ohio that stretches along the border with Pennsylvania and West Virginia, from Youngstown to Marietta.
He served on the school board in Leetonia, Ohio, for eight years before winning a seat in the state Senate in 2018. After former Republican Rep. Bill Johnson resigned in early 2024 to become president of Youngstown State University, he won a special election to finish the term.
Rulli, who was reelected in November, sat down with Roll Call recently to reflect on his unusual path to politics.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Q: What has being in the grocery business taught you about being in Congress?
A: I don’t know life without a grocery store, because it was founded in 1917 and I was born in ’69, so it’s always been a part of my life.
When I was real little, I used to get the grocery carts, and I would get the bottles when [customers] would return them, and I would clean them out. They used to call me Mr. President because I was such a bs-er with the customers. So I think it was always in the back of my mind that I might do something in politics.
Constituents and customers are sort of the same. Elected officials have to realize that your constituents are your customers, and if you cannot deliver to them, they will fire you, just like they won’t shop in your store. And you can’t just bullcrap your way through that.
Q: Can you talk about your political evolution? You’re a Republican now, but as a college student you interned with former Democratic Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II.
A: I never really was an activist as far as politics goes, but I went to Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts — and there’s no Republican Party that exists in Boston, Massachusetts.
I have a lot of family members and friends that are [part of] the opposition party, and I think it’s really dangerous when we have such a separation that we don’t even acknowledge each other. So I’d like to bring people together.
Q: Your district in eastern Ohio has undergone a similar shift, transforming from predominantly Democratic working-class area to a Republican stronghold in the span of about a decade.
A: I was the first Republican to be elected to the Ohio Senate from Youngstown. Youngstown, Ohio, is the perfect example of the lost worker. Look at Detroit, Cleveland, Youngstown, Akron, Toledo, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton — the forgotten people of America. And they’ve been taken advantage of by both political parties.
The neocons of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, that was a Republican Party that discarded the working man. The Democratic Party, since the ’30s, and all the way through LBJ, Clinton and Barack Obama, promised the working man everything. The rise of the populist movement in America is [a sign that] both parties neglected the worker. They called it the crossover, and they said Mahoning County [where Youngstown is located] was the epicenter.
Q: You landed a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which you described as a dream assignment. Why is that?
A: When I first started running for office, my main thing was energy. Way back in the day, my wife’s great-grandpa had this place called Big Moses in West Virginia, and it was one of the largest [gas] wells in American history. So when we were dating, there were always people doing measurements on the property, and sometimes I’d go down and check it out.
Then came the [shale] gold rush [in Ohio], around 2009 or 2010. When I was on the school board, I signed a gas lease to the school for horizontal drilling next door that they never did, but it was a windfall to the public school.
When I was in the Ohio Senate, [I supported building power stations fueled by natural gas], and this was one of the bipartisan things I could do with my Democrat friends. I could say, “You want an electric revolution. You want to have EVs everywhere. You need electric to do it. Let me take the natural gas, let me convert it to electricity, and we could all have everything.”
Q: How has being in a grunge band shaped your political career?
A: When I was first running for the Ohio Senate, they were vetting me and they had all these videos of my band and a couple of the old guard were like, “We don’t want this.” And the Senate President Larry Obhof said, “You know what? This is exactly what we want. We’re losing the culture war, we’ve made ourselves a bunch of old stuffy men. We’re like mothballs.”
I think people were intrigued by it. Now that I’m a little older, I play more jazz and bluegrass. I’m not as angry as I was in college.
Quick hits
What are your favorite bands right now? Probably Waxahatchee and Big Thief. I like Sharon Van Etten, Vampire Weekend, Soccer Mommy. For an older dude, I’m pretty much still on the pulse. I love creativity.
Last book you read? I started reading a book about Grant given to me at Christmas. I’m a Civil War fanatic.
Who’s your best Democratic friend? Sean O’Brien, he was a state senator from Ashtabula and still my best friend. He’s a true Blue Dog Democrat.
Give us a fact about your district that people might now know. It’s the great American melting pot.
Most embarrassing moment since you arrived in Congress? One time we had a conference and I got completely lost and the speaker was in the middle of speaking and I opened the door right next to him and he says, “Oh, we have our friend Rulli here.” Everyone’s chuckling and I turned bright red. But I realized we’re human, so we’re flawed. Allow yourself to make fun of yourself, and people will respect that.
The post Rep. Michael Rulli on populism, energy and his noise rock past appeared first on Roll Call.
