The campaign of U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Westwood) jumped on state Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Price Hill) on Thursday for remarks he made during a Regional Commerce Partnership debate that the Chabot camp says shows Driehaus supports using tax dollars to provide health care for illegal immigrants.

The Driehaus campaign disputes the charge, saying he has never said such a thing and was uncertain about what the Chabot campaign was even referencing. "That is not something that he stands for," said Driehaus spokesperson Joe Wessels. "I've never heard him say that...it goes against his core beliefs."

Wessels said that Driehaus has never said anything about health care for illegal immigrants. "As far as I know, it's never even come up in a debate," Wessels said.

Wessels said Driehaus had made a reference to the Emergency Room being a bad place to receive health care, which he said the Chabot campaign may be twisting somehow, but that he didn't want to speculate. The Chabot campaign had said that Driehaus ""again advocated providing health care to illegal immigrants" when he was asked about providing health care to the uninsured during the Wednesday debate. Chabot's camp added that Driehaus' response expanded on his support of the "McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill," referring to the controversial and failed legislation from the summer of 2007. The Chabot campaign said that Driehaus also accused Republicans of "digging in their heels against bipartisan reform."

Wessels said that he had heard Chabot earlier saying "more stuff that is untrue." "He said that he never voted to raid the Social Security trust fund," Wessels said. "[Chabot] said that during the first debate and Steve Driehaus said, ‘Am I saying this wrong?' And he went and looked it up to find out and make sure he wasn't saying it wrong. And not only did we find one, but we found five instances where he voted to raid the Social Security trust fund. So they're a little prone to telling lies. ...They're making this stuff up."

Wessels reiterated that Driehaus is not for citizenship for illegal immigrants, amnesty or health care.

Driehaus is challenging Chabot for Ohio's 1st Congressional District.