Ohio Democrats

Donate

Uncategorized

Third Time’s The Charm: J.D. Refuses To Answer Three Times Whether He Supports National Republicans’ Abortion Ban

Columbus, OH – Within the past week, J.D. Vance refused three times to answer whether he supports Lindsey Graham’s plan for a national ban – despite saying last year that he would “like abortion to be illegal nationally.” 

When asked by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Vance’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. This weekend, Vance was asked by the Daily Beast about his position and “would not say whether he’d support a national ban on abortion” and a Vance campaign spokesperson “declined to offer a position.” CNN also asked Vance about his position but he “did not respond to CNN’s questions.”   

J.D. Vance’s real feelings on abortion are extreme and out-of-touch – he’s compared abortion to slavery and called rape “inconvenient” – which is likely why he is trying to hide his views from Ohioans. Vance’s support of a national abortion ban is even at odds with Senator Rob Portman, who he is vying to replace. And Vance is out-of-step with Trump who supports abortion exceptions for rape and incest. 

Vance is also set to campaign with U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham next month – standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the biggest cheerleader for a national abortion ban. 

“J.D. Vance’s dangerous position of wanting to force survivors of rape and incest to give birth is so toxic that he’s trying to hide it at all costs. No matter how California fraud J.D. Vance contorts himself next, Ohioans know they can’t trust a single thing he says,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

###

Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine Joins Fellow Republican Justices in Signaling That He’s Willing to Rip Away Abortion Rights

Abortion Rights are on the Ballot

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Ohio Capital Journal today reported on recent remarks from Republican Justice Pat DeWine, questioning how Ohioans’ due process rights should be applied based on the Ohio Constitution. With due process rights at the center of ongoing court cases on Republicans’ six-week abortion ban and proposed legislation to ban abortion entirely, Pat DeWine is once again signaling how he’ll rule should an abortion ban come before him on the court. 

“Whether the Ohio Constitution’s due-process protections prohibit enforcement of Ohio’s strict new abortion regulations is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in Cincinnati. That suit has temporarily stopped enforcement of the new law. But the dispute seems all but certain to be headed to the state Supreme Court, upon which DeWine sits. And, of course, it’s important context that Senate Bill 23 — the abortion law that is temporarily stopped — was signed by Justice DeWine’s father, Gov. Mike DeWine,” writes Marty Schladen for Ohio Capital Journal. 

Pat DeWine’s comments follow Justice Pat Fischer’s recent comments comparing abortion to slavery and giving his thoughts on Roe v. Wade, another sign that if Republicans retain the bench, they are ready to rule in favor of abortion bans, which Pat DeWine’s dad – Mike DeWine – has promised will “go as far as we can.”  

“Justice DeWine’s comments are just the latest reminder that abortion rights are on the ballot this November. Pat DeWine joins Pat Fischer in making clear that they’re ready to rule to rip away reproductive rights if they remain on the court. We can’t let that happen,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

Read more HERE and below: 

  • In a speech last Tuesday, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine said that since the Civil War, state constitutions “too often” have become “secondary.” 
  • In the same speech, he highlighted that due-process protections in the Ohio Constitution are different from those in the federal 14th Amendment, which was passed in the wake of the Civil War. That’s when the slaves were freed and the feds said states have to respect guarantees that the government won’t “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” 
  • However, whether the Ohio Constitution’s due-process protections prohibit enforcement of Ohio’s strict new abortion regulations is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in Cincinnati. 
  • That suit has temporarily stopped enforcement of the new law. But the dispute seems all but certain to be headed to the state Supreme Court, upon which DeWine sits.
  • Pat DeWine made his comments in a speech to law students at Ohio Northern University, where his father received his law degree. He prefaced them by voicing a judicial philosophy shared by the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court that on June 24 overturned Roe v. Wade — the 1973 decision that protected a woman’s right to abortion. The philosophy holds that judges’ understanding of the writers’ intentions in the text of laws and constitutions should guide their thinking.
  • Such “textualist” thinking has led some judges to discard decades and more of decided law, as the U.S. Supreme Court did when it overturned the 49-year-old Roe decision. 
  • “Since the Civil War, too often state constitutions have become secondary,” said DeWine, who is seeking re-election. “A lot of that is the fault of state supreme courts. State supreme courts have often said, ‘Well, we’re just going to interpret our state Constitution exactly like the federal Constitution if there’s a similar provision.’ 
  • “We’ve done that in Ohio in many cases. And I think it’s been a mistake. Often we’ve interpreted the state Constitution like the federal Constitution even though the state Constitution has very different language.”
  • Was he hinting that he would use due-process protections in the state Constitution to extend individual rights to unborn fetuses? 
  • The idea might not be far-fetched. SB 23, the law restricting abortions signed by his father, refers to a fetus as an “unborn human individual” 22 times.
  • In the likely event that the case goes before the Ohio Supreme Court, we might learn more about what Justice DeWine meant last week when he said that when it comes to due process, many state supreme courts have lost their way since the Civil War.

###

DeWine Debate Watch: Day 22

Columbus, OH — As debate season starts to ramp up in the closing weeks and days of the election cycle, Mike DeWine has continued to duck committing to debates across Ohio with Mayor Nan Whaley, even as the Mayor has already publicly agreed and challenged DeWine to a number of debates. DeWine also dodged a debate with his primary opponents earlier this year, signaling that he is scared to defend his record to Ohioans, especially since he’s debated political opponents in the past. It’s ‘DeWine Debate Watch’ Day 22, reminding Ohioans that DeWine won’t even try to make his case to them as he seeks re-election to the highest statewide executive office. 

“Mike DeWine clearly knows his record over the last four years of selling out working families in favor of the wealthy and well-connected is not going to be popular with Ohio voters. If DeWine can’t even muster the political courage to tell Ohioans why they should re-elect him, he doesn’t deserve the job and should be held publicly accountable for his cowardice,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes. 

Ohioans deserve answers from DeWine on a number of key issues, including his promise to ‘go as far as we can’ to rip away reproductive rights, his broken promise to ‘do something’ to combat gun violence in Ohio, his connections to the largest public corruption scandal in state history and his role in the failed redistricting process that produced GOP-gerrymandered maps and cost Ohioans millions of dollars. 

Read more from the Lima News here and below: 

The Lima News: Republicans plan to skip ODC debates
Precious Grundy
September 17, 2022 

  • Gov. Mike DeWine and Senate candidate JD Vance, both Republicans, have not accepted invitations from the Ohio Debate Commission.
  • The ODC was created in 2018 to create a platform for televised nonpartisan debates for Ohio voters.
  • Gov. DeWine is running against Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton. DeWine has not accepted the debate invitation, nor did he accept it during the primary.
  • Whaley has agreed to debate DeWine.
  • “We owe it to Ohioans to debate the issues in a format where Ohioans can hear an open exchange of ideas,” Whaley said. “DeWine and I disagree on many things — on keeping our communities safe from gun violence and that government should stay out of a woman’s private health care decisions to name a few — but I at least thought he believed in debates that are a core tenet of democracy. I am ready to debate DeWine, and I hope that he changes his mind and will join me.”

###

ICYMI: Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb Touts Democratic Wins for Cleveland in New Op-Ed
 

Cleveland, OH — In case you missed it, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb recently penned an op-ed for the Ohio Independent touting key wins secured by Ohio Democrats that will bring ‘generational change’ to Cleveland and the rest of the state. In his op-ed, Bibb highlights how critical the American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure bill – legislative victories secured by Ohio Democrats – are for his community. 

“The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) are generational opportunities to change the trajectory of cities across the U.S. And they could not come at a better time, as we continue to work our way out of the pandemic and stabilize our city, our neighborhoods, our schools, and our families,” writes Bibb. 
 
Read more HERE and below: 

  • The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) are generational opportunities to change the trajectory of cities across the U.S.

  • And they could not come at a better time, as we continue to work our way out of the pandemic and stabilize our city, our neighborhoods, our schools, and our families. 

  • These investments from the Biden-Harris Administration have the potential to be transformational, but maximizing their impact is up to us. 

  • The City of Cleveland received the eighth largest allocation of ARPA funds, totaling $512 million. After taking office in January 2022, we launched Mayor Bibb’s Rescue & Transformation Plan to outline Cleveland’s priorities and set a robust process for evaluating how we spend ARPA and IIJA dollars and to better prepare the city to compete for additional funding. 

  • Our administration is doing this work through the Center for Economic Recovery, a strategic policy team responsible for shaping and evaluating ideas for ARPA-funded projects that systematically and equitably address our most urgent challenges.

  • We are not talking about spending ARPA dollars on one-off projects and programs. Such a list would be endless, and we would likely find ourselves in the same place we started. Instead of simply pushing money out the door, we are developing transformational investment strategies intended to reverse decades of decline and disinvestment, improve residents’ quality of life, address economic and social disparities and enhance our competitiveness.

  • We are laser focused on leveraging ARPA investment to solve Cleveland’s big, vexing issues like poverty, public safety, the digital divide, housing insecurity, lead contamination, education, and neighborhood disinvestment. These factors are responsible for decades of decline in our city. 

  • As we speak, we are in the process of moving legislation through Cleveland City Council for a third of our unencumbered ARPA dollars. Our first set of strategic priorities includes $50 million in proposals intended to address structural housing problems in the city through a new Housing Gap Financing Fund ($35 million), Home Repair Fund ($10 million) and a Developer Acquisition/Rehab Loan Pool ($5 million).

  • Housing is essential and these funds set us up to deal with housing challenges well into the future with a forward-thinking and long-term approach. 

  • It is imperative that, as mayors, we take the time to make the most strategic use of this influx of one-time funding—to ensure that what we begin today has an impact on generations to come. 

  • As we work to leverage these investments for their best and highest purposes, we must set our cities up to be intentional, vet proposals objectively, and be ready to act when additional opportunities arise. 

  • We can be a model for America with thoughtful urgency and collaborative execution on how we spend this money. In short, this is our shot, and we intend to make the most of it to benefit the residents we serve across our great city.
     

###

ODP Chair Liz Walters Slams J.D. Vance And Trump For Counterprogramming The OSU-Toledo Game

Columbus, OH — Yesterday, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters slammed Trump and J.D. Vance for holding a rally that will be happening at the same time as the Ohio State-University of Toledo game. Having a campaign event on a fall Saturday night is a cardinal sin in Ohio – something out-of-state fraud J.D. Vance has forgotten after spending most of his adult life on the coasts. 

Here’s remarks from Chair Walters and a recording here: 

  • “When J.D. Vance left Ohio behind for the coasts, he forgot how we spend our fall Saturdays here in Ohio: watching college football. So now, out-of-state fraud J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are scheduling a rally to counterprogram the OSU-Toledo game and do what they do best, which is promote themselves. It’s no secret Vance really hates spending time in Ohio.” 
     
  • “He left Ohio to make money working in Big Tech finance in California, and Vance then wrote that he would move back to Ohio to focus on a non-profit, which he said would help those struggling with addiction. And that’s not what happened. Instead, according to news reports, Vance’s non-profit turned out to be a “superficial” “charade” that was clearly meant to bolster his political career more than anything else. In its first year, the group spent more money paying Vance’s top political advisor than on programs to fight the opioid epidemic. And the group conducted polling that was probably used to test the waters for a future J.D. Vance run for office.”
     
  • “When he takes the stage on Saturday, he’s going to try and hide his extreme position on abortion from Ohioans, but we won’t be fooled. If J.D. Vance had it his way, abortion would be banned nationally with no exceptions for rape or incest. J.D. Vance is so out-of-touch he compared abortion to slavery and called rape ‘inconvenient.’ He’d be merely another ‘yes’ vote for national Republicans’ plan for a national abortion ban.”

###