Uncategorized

Columbus, OH – In case you missed it, Ohio veteran Connie Pillich penned an op-ed for Cincinnati.com this week outlining the ways that Frank LaRose’s anti-voter legislation is also anti-veteran. The bill, championed by Frank LaRose, prevents veterans from using their county-issued photo IDs to cast their votes and shortens the window for service members to return their absentee ballots when they’re serving overseas.

“Our servicemen and women should be focused on the mission at hand and keeping themselves safe when serving overseas, not rushing to mail in their ballot so their vote can count like the rest of us. Our veterans at home shouldn’t have to jump through bureaucratic hoops just to cast their vote. But Republicans are scared that voters will hold them accountable for their out-of-touch policies, so they’re making it harder for all of us − including members of our military − to vote,” wrote Pillich. 

Read more from Cincinnati.com HERE and below:

• Earlier this year, Republican politicians at the Statehouse − bolstered by Secretary of State Frank LaRose − enacted one of the worst anti-voter bills in the entire country. The bill, among other things, disenfranchises Ohio’s veterans and military members who put their lives on the line for our democracy and the sacred right to vote. 
  
  
• This bill is a slap in the face to any Ohio veteran who has ever put on a uniform and served our nation. LaRose and his Republican cronies at the Statehouse should be ashamed of themselves.
  
  
• Not only does this legislation prevent veterans from using their county-issued photo IDs to cast their votes, it shortens the window for our service members to return their absentee ballots when they’re serving overseas.
  
  
• Our servicemen and women should be focused on the mission at hand and keeping themselves safe when serving overseas, not rushing to mail in their ballot so their vote can count like the rest of us. Our veterans at home shouldn’t have to jump through bureaucratic hoops just to cast their vote. But Republicans are scared that voters will hold them accountable for their out-of-touch policies, so they’re making it harder for all of us − including members of our military − to vote. 
  
  
• LaRose knows better. But LaRose will always put his own political ambitions over the needs of the people he swore an oath to serve. 
  
  
• Late last year, LaRose chose politics over people when he voted for GOP-gerrymandered maps he privately described as “asinine.” And right now, he’s pushing legislation that would effectively kill citizen-led ballot initiatives and create a $20 million, taxpayer-funded election in August − all so that politicians at the Statehouse can pursue their special interest agenda while the voters they’re elected to serve are hurt the hardest. 
  
  
• LaRose has sold out our state so he can run for U.S. Senate. And we’re the ones paying the price. 
  

###

Frank LaRose was caught on tape downplaying the value of a Trump endorsement – an admission of his own problems with the former president and the latest sign of how messy the Republican primary will become. LaRose told attendees of a “closed-door political event” that Trump’s support “doesn’t carry the same weight it used to” and. at the same time, criticized Bernie Moreno who Trump has praised. 
 
“Frank LaRose knows he has a Trump problem which is why he’s trying to convince Ohio Republicans behind closed doors that the former President’s support doesn’t matter and attacking the candidate Trump has praised,” said ODP spokesperson Reeves Oyster. “This is just the latest sign that this primary is only going to get messier from here as candidates are forced to duke it out to earn their conservative bona fides.”
 
Read more: 
 
POLITICO: Top Senate GOP recruit privately casts doubt on power of Trump endorsement
Meridith McGraw
May 4, 2023

• Former President Donald Trump’s endorsement is widely viewed among Republican candidates as the golden ticket to the nomination. But at least one prominent GOPer weighing a bid in a competitive state has privately conveyed he thinks the former president’s seal of approval is overstated.
• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a potential candidate in the race to unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, recently told a group of Ohio Republicans at a closed-door political event that while Trump’s endorsement “matters,” it doesn’t carry the same weight it used to. He pegged the proportion of Republican voters who would “vote for whoever” Trump endorses at just 20 percent.
• “Max [Miller] has been making trips down to Mar-a-lago saying hey Mr. Trump, President Trump, can you endorse my father in law? Notice that [Trump] didn’t endorse him but he said nice things about him,” LaRose said in the recording.
• Few, if any, GOP candidates would openly downplay the significance of Trump’s endorsement. At the GOP event, he said that the 2022 midterms proved that the Trump endorsement doesn’t carry as much weight as it once did.
• LaRose, for his part, has not endorsed Trump’s current presidential campaign. Neither he nor Dolan have said whom they would support. So far, Moreno is the only candidate who has endorsed Trump.
• Trump has conveyed to aides he is less concerned with putting his stamp of approval on other candidates when he is running for president himself. He has been working the phones and meeting with state leaders in an effort to earn endorsements of his own.

Columbus, OH – In case you missed it, the Columbus Dispatch last week reported that out-of-state billionaire Richard Uihlein is bankrolling the Super PAC working to effectively end citizen-led ballot initiatives in Ohio. 

Here’s what you should know about Uihlein:

• Uihlein is an Illinois-based billionaire and “one of the GOP’s biggest mega donors” who has funneled millions to out-of-touch political causes and candidates.
• Uihlein has repeatedly used his fortune to try to buy elections. In 2016 alone, Uihlein and his wife Elizabeth spent nearly $24 million on candidates, PACs and parties across the country. 

“It’s despicable that an out-of-state billionaire is bankrolling Republicans’ plan to strip power away from Ohioans and let special interests call the shots. Our elected leaders should be accountable to Ohio voters, not an out-of-state billionaire,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

Read more about Richard Uihlein in the Columbus Dispatch HERE and below:

• A conservative megadonor is funneling more than $1 million into Ohio to persuade House Republicans to vote on a measure that would make it harder to amend the state constitution.
  
  
• Richard Uihlein gave roughly $1.1 million this month to the newly formed Save Our Constitution PAC, which is urging lawmakers to set an August election for Ohio voters to decide on the proposed amendment. The measure, if approved, would require 60% of the vote to enact new constitutional amendments, instead of a simple majority.
  
  
• Save Our Constitution PAC has already been running radio ads against Stephens and Rep. Jay Edwards, R-Nelsonville, in southern Ohio. But the group is ramping up its efforts with texting, digital and television ads targeted at Stephens and other key House Republicans.
  
  
• Uihlein is the PAC’s sole benefactor. The Illinois billionaire and his wife, Elizabeth, are major Republican donors and spent roughly $54 million during the 2022 election cycle. Richard Uihlein donated to several Ohio GOP congressional candidates and gave millions to the anti-tax group Club for Growth, which backed Josh Mandel’s 2022 U.S. Senate campaign.
  
  
• Proponents of the resolution are pushing for an August election to get ahead of a November ballot question that would enshrine abortion access in Ohio. The proposed amendment would also require petitioners to gather signatures of support from all 88 counties, instead of 44, and eliminate a 10-day period for them to replace invalid signatures.
  
  
• Critics say the plan would take power away from citizens and make the process so onerous that only well-funded outside groups could get something on the ballot. Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters’ of Ohio, said it’s hypocritical for the resolution’s backers to use out-of-state funders to fight their cause.
  
  
• “Ohio’s constitution is not for sale to out-of-state billionaires,” Miller said. “The Ohio General Assembly must reject this undemocratic and unfair attack on citizens’ abilities to amend the constitution. There’s nothing good government about this.”
  

###

Columbus, OH – Ohioans from across the political spectrum are speaking out against Republicans’ plan to effectively end citizen-led ballot initiatives in Ohio and force taxpayers to foot the bill for a $20 million special election in August.

“Republicans and Democrats in Ohio agree: the legislature should reject this clear power grab and attempt to end citizen-led ballot initiatives in Ohio. Ohioans are united in opposition against these political efforts to rip fundamental rights away from voters and create unnecessary, taxpayer-funded special elections in the process – now it’s time for their elected leaders to listen,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

Here’s what leaders of both parties are saying about efforts to effectively end citizen-led ballot initiatives in Ohio and create a special election in August to sneak through the measure: 

Ohio Election Officials: 

Stephanie Penrose, Director of the Trumbull County Board of Elections: “It’s almost a slap in the face to have the same legislature that just outlawed August elections, except for extreme circumstances, now just less than a year later putting an election on in August.”

Sherri Chagnon, Sandusky County Board of Elections Director: “We feel like we’re being ignored. And I think the taxpayers are being ignored.”

Laura Burns, Board of Elections Director in Miami County: “It makes me question the use of all that money when we know we’re not going to have turnout.”

Frankie DiCarlantonio, a Trustee of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials and a Board of Elections Member in Jefferson County: “This $20 million is definitely a burden to taxpayers. The taxpayers of Ohio just paid for a second primary election in 2022 that was state-funded as well…at the end of the day, we want to make this known that this may not be a good use of taxpayer dollars.”

Former Ohio Governors: 

Republican Bob Taft: “I believe it would be a mistake to raise the voter approval threshold for amendments to the Ohio Constitution to 60 percent. If that threshold had been in effect during my time as Governor, two signature initiatives, the Clean Ohio Fund and the Third Frontier Project, would not have been approved.”

Democrat Ted Strickland: “I think it’s just a shameful arrogant action. And I think it is for one purpose, and that is to deprive Ohio women to have the right to an abortion. They think that by increasing the percentage required to pass a constitutional amendment to 60%, it will make it more difficult. I think it’s blatantly hypocrisy. A few months ago, this legislature passed legislation prohibiting in nearly all cases, an August referendum.”

Republican John Kasich: “Ohio is stronger when we can all lend our voices and we all have an equal chance to participate in the work of our state’s democracy. I’ve experienced that firsthand having policies backed by myself and a majority of the legislature’s members overturned at the ballot box and it never occurred to me to try to limit Ohioans’ right to do that. It wouldn’t have been right then, and it isn’t right now.”

Democrat Dick Celeste: “If they honestly thought that 60% of the vote was what should be required for a constitutional amendment, then they should write down language into their constitutional amendment and say, ‘This will only become effective if 60% of Ohioans vote for it.’”

Former Ohio Attorneys General: 

Former Attorneys General Betty Montgomery, Jim Petro, Nancy Rogers, Lee Fisher and Richard Cordray: “Constitutions are designed to endure, and major changes in fundamental constitutional arrangements should not be made unless the changes are supported by a careful understanding of the policies being changed and the consequences of the proposed changes. Such changes should not be made without the opportunity for participation of those most intimately affected by the constitution—the people. Clearly, that has not happened in this rush to revise our constitution.”

###

New reporting from the Sandusky Register reveals that Matt Dolan owns up to $50,000 in Norfolk Southern stock – the railway company responsible for the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this year and other derailments across the state, including in Sandusky. 
 
Since the derailment, Dolan has refused to endorse the bipartisan Railway Safety Act introduced by Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown and J.D. Vance. The bipartisan legislation would enhance safety procedures to protect workers and Ohio communities while enforcing greater penalties on corporations like Norfolk Southern for wrongdoing.
 
“Matt Dolan is prioritizing his profits at the expense of Ohio workers and families,” said ODP spokesperson Reeves Oyster. “Ohioans deserve representatives who will fight for them – Matt Dolan is proving he will always side with powerful corporations and special interests to pad his own wallet.”