State and Local News That Matters
The U.S. Senate primary campaign of Jane Timken has released a poll showing she has climbed into a strong second-place performance against five od six rival candidates named in the poll ahead of the Ohio GOP primary in early May.
The interactive voice response poll of 1,000 likely Republican primary voters shows her challenging former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel for frontrunner status while putting distance between rivals Mike Gibbons and J.D. Vance.
The Club For Growth Action Super PAC backing U.S. Senate candidate Joshua Mandel has unleashed a $500,000 ad campaign in Cleveland targeting Ohio GOP rival J.D. Vance.
The broadcast campaign doubles down on a $470,000 ad campaign from the Club for Growth also focused on Vance’s past negative views about former President Donald Trump spread among the Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo markets that ran from mid-October through Thanksgiving.
A national liberal organization has challeged Ohio’s recently approved congressional redistricting maps in a lawsuit filed with the Ohio Supreme Court, contending the new “gerrymandered” maps violate redistricting reforms added to the Ohio Constitution in 2018.
The National Redistricting Action Fund affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee said the map passed last week in the Ohio General Assembly “undluly favors the Ohio Republican Party” and minimized the political power of Democrats, particularly minorities.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has urged President Joe Biden to support keeping propane and light crude flowing through pipelines along the floor of the straits of Mackinac under threat of closure from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, and environmentalists.
DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted, who heads Ohio’s workforce development efforts, sent a letter to Biden warning of the severe economic damage a shutdown would entail to the state and the region.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The November 19 vote of congressional Democrats to pass the Build Back Better Act cornucopia of social spending and policies unleashed a wave of criticism from Ohio’s GOP U.S. representatives united in a fear of unbridled inflation and an expanded federal government.
U.S. Representative Brad Wenstrup (R-OH-02) criticized the $1.85 trillion package – even at half of its original cost – as “Build Back Broke” for its effect on the national debt while U.S. Representative Robert Latta (R-OH-05) called House Resolution 5376 a “wish-list spending spree” by Democrats.
Republicans in the Ohio House passed a four-year congressional map on a 55-36 party-line vote after more than an hour of floor speeches.
Democrats and others opposed to Amended Sen. Bill 258 called for Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, to veto the measure while House Minority Leader Emelia Strong Sykes, D-34-Akron urged Ohioans to overturn the legislati by putting the legislation on the ballot.
Legislation to allow all businesses to qualify as “essential” and have an equal opportunity to remain open during a future public health emergency has passed the Ohio Senate.
Unanimous Senate passage on November 16 of Amended House Bill 215 – or the Business Fairness Act – seeks to prevent the wholesale closure of businesses such as smaller Ohio retailers considered “non-essential” under Ohio Health Department’s orders at the onslaught of COVID-19 20 months ago.
Ohio Attorney Dave Yost has taken social media behemoth Facebook to federal court for misleading investors on how the negative effects of its content management algorithms in an effort to boost its stock performance while deceiving shareholders.
The civil lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for Northern California on behalf of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) and other Facebook investors, charged Facebook and its senior executives violated securities laws by purposely withholding information about the negative effects its products have on the health and well-being of children and the steps the company claimed it had taken to protect the public.
The leadership of the Ohio Republican Party has taken away the board subcommitee assignments of several State Central Committee members who have questioned the accounting standards and management actions of management during the last months.
The sidelining of the six members elected by GOP voters comes ahead of a Dec. 3 quarterly State Central Committee meeting that may include the state GOP’s panel’s consideration of endorsing Ohio Governor Mike DeWine ahead of the May 3 primary election.
The Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to take up the appeal of Governor Michael DeWine’s decision to cut off the $300 bonus unemployment checks funded by the federal government.
The court announced it will take up the case from the 10 District Court of Appeals but has yet to schedule a hearing date or indicate if the appeal warrants oral arguments.
Passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act over the weekend brought accolades from a chief negotiator, U.S. Senator Rob Portman, R-OH, as well as U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, D-OH.
But conservative U.S. Reprepresentative Warren Davidson, R-OH-08, had harsh words for 13 GOP representatives who bucked the Republican leadership and helped pass the $1.2 trillion spending package Davidson dubbed “a trojan horse” for the pending Build Back Better legislation.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and six other state attorneys general have challenged the Biden administration’s authority to impose COVID-19 regulations through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration emergency regulations power in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati.
Yost joined Republican colleagues in Kentucky, Kansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia on Nov. 5 in asking the court to rule against the OSHA regulations requiring those working for businesses with 100 or more employees to either get vaccinnated or wear masks indoors at their workplaces and get tested once every seven days.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the authority of the Biden administration to requiring all federal contractors to require staff COVID-19 vaccinations, calling the mandate a threat to public safety.
Yost filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court fin Frankfort, Ky., in conjunction with the attorneys general of Kentucky and Tennessee; the sheriff’s office of Seneca County, Ohio; and the prosecuting attorney and sheriff’s office of Geauga County, Ohio even as the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced extension of COVID vaccination and masking requirements for up to two-thirds of the private-sector workforce.
Republican primary candidate for U.S. Senate Jane Timken said her political action committee (PAC)’s support for supporting conservative candidates for Ohio school boards helped 21 candidates win seats at the November 2 ballot boxes across the state.
Her Jobs for A New Economy Political Action Committee supported 43 school board candidates throughout the state this fall with donations as well as providing field support, robocalls and text messaging assistance in the weeks and days leading up to the election.
U.S. Representative Dave Joyce has introduced legislation designed to hold Big Tech media companies accountable for their so-called website moderation policies which doesn’t silence conservative voices in the virtual marketplace of ideas.
Joyce (R-OH-14) joined Representatives Tom Rice (R-SC-07) and Ralph Norman (R-SC-05) on November 1 in introducing the Promoting Responsibility Over Moderation in the Social Media Environment (or PROMISE) Act, a bill designed to hold Big Tech companies accountable for their pledges to keep their content moderation policies and enforcement free of political bias.
More Headlines…
A former co-campaign manager for Ohio gubernatorial candidate Joe Blystone has filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission (OEC) that alleges the candidate purposely underreported cash contributions, failed to disclose the names of those contributors in campaign finance reports, and that “these cash contributions are being reported in this manner in order to facilitate a theft of these campaign funds by the respondents.”
The former co-campaign manager, Sarah Chambers, filed the complaint, OEC Case #2021G-022, on October 28 supported by affidavits of other former staff and volunteers who claim they also witnessed the collection of cash donations not properly recorded at the expressed direction of the Blystone campaign leadership.
An antiquated IT system pushed into overdrive when businesses were ordered shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic helped fuel as much as $3.3 billion in unemployment overpayments and $475 million in criminal fraud activity at the Ohio Department of Family Services.
Ohio Auditor Keith Faber on Thursday released the full audit following an investigation launched after the department’s previous management initially failed to disclose risk factors and the magnitude of fraud in the unemployment system as the number of Ohioans filing claims quickly rose to record levels.
The Ohio Republican Party has asked three Columbus television stations to take down a Allison Russo for Congress television attack ad against GOP opponent Mike Carey, alleging the ad violates Federal Election Commission and Federal Communications Commission rules.
The GOP party’s defense of rookie candidate Mike Carey comes just a few days before the special election in Ohio’s 15th congressional district determines who finishes out the term of Republican Steve Stivers, a 10-term congressman who resigned in May.
The vast majority of Ohio’s 11 GOP congressional delegates have signed on as co-sponsors of a House resolution opposing a proposal granting the Internal Revenue expanded power to reach into the private financial transaction records of Americans’ financial accounts.
The wall of support for House Resolution 5586, filed Oct. 15 by U.S. Representative Drew Ferguson IV, R-GA-3, comes even as the Biden Admnistration modified an earlier policy proposal that critics have said would have covered nearly anyone with a financial account as it seeks to catch taxpayers underreporting income.
A suburban Columbus businessman seeking the Ohio GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate has pushed back against the Center for Christian Virtue, the host of an October 25 forum featuring six other Republican candidates after its disqualification from participating on the debate stage and the subsequent cancelation of contract affording the candidate a campaign table outside the auditorium.
Rookie GOP candidate Mike Carey has taken a comfortable lead in a recent poll heading into the last 10 days of the special election for Ohio’s 15th congressional district, a seat that opened up in May when newly re-elected U.S. Represenative Steve Stivers stepped down for a job in the private sector.
But the Republican nominee who emerged from a crowded early August primary continues to press on in a bid to keep the solid conservative district for the GOP amid a contentious political environment in Washington, D.C.
Two nurses and an activity aide at a Cincinnati nursing home claim Hamilton County poll workers prompted choices on absentee ballots for patients, including those in a dementia/Alzheimer’s/memory care unit.
The claims bring into sharp focus whether Ohio election law makes it too difficult to have voters disqualified for lack of mental competency to choose candidates and chime in on tax levies.
A super PAC supporting the GOP nomination of venture capitalist and author J.D. Vance for U.S. Senator has released a poll showing the rookie candidate narrowing the gap with the rival campaign of former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel.
The crowded 2022 nomination race to replace retiring U.S. Senator Rob Portman, R-OH, remains fluid with more than 40 percent of those polled earlier this week still undecided with a little more than six months to go before the Republican primary election.
Ohio gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci’s campaign has taken his bid to oust Governor Mike DeWine as the GOP standard bearer in November 2022 to the virtual savannas of Africa in portraying the incumbent as a dangerous political animal: a Republican in Name Only, aka RINO.
The new 60-second digital ad comes as Renacci, a former congressman, prepares to host a Medina County GOP fundraiser featuring Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, tonight. (Oct. 20).
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and 19 other state attorneys general have asked President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to withdraw a plan to allow require banks, credit unions and other financial institutions to report massive amounts of personal financial data to the Internal Revenue Services in a stated effort to track down tax cheats.
The proposal within the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better budget reconciliation package would require financial institutions to supply data on accounts of $600 or more with $600 or more in annual transactions.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission faces yet another deadline regarding the redrawing new congressional districts as members wait on Ohio House Speaker Robert Cupp bides his time on moving forward on a process that could have ended Sept. 30.
The commission has not met since the Ohio General Assembly failed to consider, let along pass, options for redistricas the state prepares to lose one congressional district following the reapportionment of congressional representation among the states sparked by the 2020 U.S. census.
The Ohio Republican Party has asked Ohio Justice Jennifer Brunner to step aside in hearing cases tied to redistricting Ohio’s state legislative district boundaries because of public stands she and her political supporters have taken on the issue.
Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Paduchik cited several instances where Brunner, who is now running for chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, acknowledged the potential for redistricting litigation and role the state’s high court might play during her campaign.
The e-commerce division of Amazon.com Inc. has committed to building a 1 million-square-foot distribution center in northeast Canton that will employ 1,000 full- and part-time workers when it opens in next year.
In choosing Canton, the company cited an exisiting trained workforce and a welcoming community.
U.S. Senate candidates Jane Timken and U.S. Representative Tim Ryan offered a peak into their third quarter fundraising efforts this week ahead of the formal Oct. 15 deadline.
Jane Timken, the former Ohio Republican Party chairwoman, announced raising $1.7 million from about 1,200 donors during the quarter ended Sept. 30, leaving her with $3.1 million cash on hand in the race against six other announced candidates for the GOP nomination to replace outgoing U.S. Senator Rob Portman, R-OH.
The campaign of U.S. Senate hopeful J.D. Vance of Ohio has called for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to resign after the nation’s top law enforcement official issued a directive targeting hostile parents nationwide who protest progressive education policies at school board meetings.
Garland issued the directive on Oct. 4 telling the U.S. Attorneys and Federal Bureau of Investigation offices to coordinate with federal, state and local law enforcement on what he called an increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and school staff.