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There were jabs on top of jabs this week in what’s shaping up to be “one of the messiest,” “most expensive,” and “bruising” primaries in the country. Here’s what you might have missed.

BERNIE MORENO IS IN AND THE GLOVES ARE OFF

At both his Tuesday “launch” and following events, Moreno jabbed at current and potential opponents – calling Dolan “Democrat-light” and criticizing LaRose for being a ladder-climbing politician. The gloves are off, folks!

And some Ohioans – who aren’t happy with the current selection – want even more Republicans in this fight…

PLUS, J.D. VANCE SAYS THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD… 

WARREN DAVIDSON TEASES #OHSEN RUN AND TAKES A JAB AT BERNIE

Warren Davidson teased his #OHSEN bid to POLITICO this week and claimed he would be “the conservative” in the race – a not-so-thinly-veiled-jab at Bernie Moreno. 

WARREN DAVIDSON: “It’s safe to say I’m actually very actively looking at the race every day…I would clearly be the conservative.”

And with Club for Growth already urging Davidson to enter the race and pledging early support – setting up a repeat of 2022’s nasty battle between Peter Thiel and Donald Trump – even more chaos is ahead.

LAROSE CALLED OUT FOR RUNNING A SHADOW CAMPAIGN FOR U.S. SENATE

More from WOSU’s Snollygoster podcast:

STEVE BROWN: “I think the elephant in the room here is Frank LaRose. Frank LaRose is running for this office. You can tell by his Twitter feed – he is constantly attacking Sherrod Brown. Frank LaRose is running for U.S. Senate. He’s running a shadow campaign right now…”

MIKE THOMPSON: “Not official yet…”

STEVE BROWN: “Not official but let’s be honest, he’s going to run for U.S. Senate. It’d be shocking if he did not run for U.S. Senate.”

MORE BRUISING AHEAD

Cleveland.com’s Jeremy Pelzer on Spectrum News: “We’re expecting to have a pretty bruising Republican Senate primary. We have not only Matt Dolan but Bernie Moreno, a Cleveland car dealer, has entered the race. We could have Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Congressman Warren Davidson join the race as well.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

BERNIE MORENO ON OPPONENT MATT DOLAN: “We have a very, very simple choice in the Republican primary. Do you want an America-first conservative outsider or do you want a professional politician that is a little bit Democrat-light. Those are your choices.”

And now introducing…

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Columbus, OH — As Republicans in the Ohio Legislature push through a constitutional amendment to effectively kill citizen-led ballot initiatives, here’s every time Frank LaRose has been called out by Ohioans and the media for putting special interests first.
 
The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Senate Republicans OK August election, plan to make it harder to change constitution
Haley BeMiller
April 19, 2023

• Democrats called the measure undemocratic and arrogant and believe it will erode the ability of Ohioans to make their voices heard. Critics have also noted that Republicans, including Secretary of State Frank LaRose, advocated for the law to limit August elections because of cost and low turnout.

Ohio Capital Journal: In GOP flip, August special election will return
Susan Tebben
April 20, 2023

• Less than half a year after proclaiming August elections to be too expensive for the turnout they attract, the Senate Republican majority expanded the use of a special election this year, complete with $20 million in funding.
• Speaking in opposition for SB 92, state Sen. William DeMora, D-Columbus, quoted Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose who spoke in support of reducing August special election usage last year, when he said they “aren’t good for taxpayers, election officials, voters or the civic health of our state.”
• “(SB 92) is so bad that (LaRose) Secretary LaRose couldn’t even find the time to come and testify about it in committee,” DeMora said.

Associated Press: Ohio GOP advances making constitutional changes tougher
Julie Carr Smyth
April 19, 2023

• The star witness on behalf of eliminating most August special elections was Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who blasted them as low-turnout drains on election board budgets that are bad for the state and for democracy. But LaRose now says he favors this particular August election, which he calls an exceptional circumstance.

Ohio Capital Journal: Ohio SOS gives yet another reason to make it a lot harder for voters to amend Constitution
Marty Schladen
April 14, 2023

• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Wednesday offered another rationale for making it much more difficult for voters to amend the Ohio Constitution. Now he’s saying it’s needed to fight a possible power grab like one that grew out of a massive bribery and money-laundering scandal.
• But LaRose didn’t mention in his op-ed that his name came up repeatedly in a criminal trial related to the scandal and that he appeared to be in close communication with some of its central figures.
• Nor did his office respond when asked whether LaRose ever spoke out against the corrupt utility bailout before the FBI started arresting people in July 2020.

Cleveland.com: HJR 1 would blast away constitutional amendment rights Ohio citizens have had for 111 years: editorial
Editorial Board
April 5, 2023

• In January, August special elections were seen as unneeded, costly exercises by Ohio cynic-in-chief Frank LaRose, who as Ohio secretary of state is Ohio’s chief elections officer. LaRose was full of praise in January when Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 458 into law. The bill, into which all manner of major electoral changes, including photo voter IDs and tighter absentee-ballot deadlines, had been crammed, started out life — and is titled — “Eliminate August special elections except for US House nomination.”
• LaRose had applauded that part of the law, in particular, calling August special elections “a costly, low-turnout, and unnecessary election for our county [elections] boards to administer.”
• Now, he and others can hardly wait to hold another August special election, courtesy of $20 million of our tax dollars (if Senate Bill 92, which is now pending in a Senate committee, or another measure authorizing this passes, of course).

The Columbus Dispatch: LTE: ‘Sneaky’ Frank LaRose
Dave Schwendenman, Columbus
April 4, 2023

• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose doesn’t want to have August elections where ‘sneaky local’ officials use the traditionally small turnouts to favor their chances of success, but it’s A-OK for sneaky state officials to use the same low turnout August election to push through their 60% amendment to the constitution as regards citizen initiatives?
• If Frank LaRose wants to hold this to vote in August, why not make passage of it dependent upon the same 60% margin he wants for the November vote on women’s rights? And what’s with throwing shade on local officials and of all things sewage issues?  

The Columbus Dispatch: Thomas Suddes: Power hungry LaRose, Huffman think you are stupid or have amnesia
Thomas Suddes
April 2, 2023

• Three months ago, virtually all Republicans in the General Assembly and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a suburban Columbus Republican, the state’s chief election officer, favored abolishing August special elections as provided by House Bill 458, a measure the legislature passed in December and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed in January.
• What’s changed since then is growing GOP fear the voter-proposed November abortion rights amendment has momentum. (What hasn’t changed is LaRose’s hunger for 2024’s Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate for the seat now held by Cleveland Democrat Sherrod Brown, himself secretary of state from 1983 through 1990.) 

Akron Beacon Journal: Hypocrisy thrives with Ohio Republicans, LaRose
Editorial Board
March 31, 2023

• Ohio Republicans love to talk about special interests as a shadowy force of out-of-state operatives hellbent on disrupting our state with liberal ideas.
• Perhaps they’re really describing themselves, albeit with a hyper-conservative agenda we believe most Ohioans oppose.
• The only special interests we see are Statehouse Republicans trying to make the difficult process of citizens amending the state’s constitution even harder.  

The Columbus Dispatch: Our view: Desperate Ohio lawmakers ready to slap voters in the face to stop abortion vote
Editorial Board
March 30, 2023

• A word sums up an effort led by Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Senate President Matt Huffman, State Rep. Brian Stewart and others to steal a power Ohioans have enjoyed since 1912: undemocratic.
• As with the 2022 Ohio redistricting battle, Huffman, LaRose and other Republicans want to change the rules to get what they want.
• Turnout in special elections is traditionally low even when important issues are on the ballot. Just last year LaRose said as much when he supported a new law that says local governments and school districts can only hold August elections when there is a fiscal emergency.
• LaRose, Huffman and the rest want to stack the deck against Ohio voters.

The Columbus Dispatch: LTE: Frank LaRose and his hypocrisy
Richard S. Donahey, Columbus
March 30, 2023

• The Dispatch has been carefully tracking the Republican Party’s latest attempt to manipulate and control the election process. In the March 29 Dispatch.com article “Ohio secretary of state defends possible August election after pushing to limit them,” the hypocrisy of Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Secretary of State, screams out at the electorate as if he is trying to fool someone. 

WOUB: After supporting the elimination of August elections, Ohio’s Secretary of State now says sometimes they’re ok
Karen Kasler
March 29, 2023

• Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose is suggesting he’s on board with an August election for voters to decide on a GOP-backed plan he supports to make it harder to amend the state constitution – even though three months ago he testified in favor of the law that got rid of August special election.

Cleveland.com: Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose objected to August elections, but not to change Ohio Constitution
Laura Hancock
March 28, 2023

• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, the state’s chief elections officer, said Tuesday he supported a bill last year that generally ended August elections because he believes municipalities, local school districts, local sewer districts and others schedule them “to have a sneaky levy when nobody’s paying attention.”
• However, LaRose isn’t objecting to an August special election that would make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution and possibly scuttle a statewide vote in November on a proposed constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights. 

The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio secretary of state defends possible August election after pushing to limit them
Haley BeMiller
March 28, 2023

• Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Tuesday defended a potential August election for the effort to make it harder to amend the state constitution − just months after advocating to limit those elections.

The Chronicle-Telegram: Don’t hold special elections in August
Editorial Board
March 24, 2023

• It seems as if just last year Ohio legislators passed a law largely eliminating special elections in August.
• Oh, wait, it was last year.
• The near elimination of such elections was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise disappointing Republican-backed bill that imposed strict photo ID requirements on voters and eliminated early in-person voting on the day before Election Day.
• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, celebrated when GOP Gov. Mike DeWine signed it into law in January. In a news release LaRose’s office even highlighted the law’s near elimination of those elections, except when a political subdivision or school district was in a state of fiscal emergency. 

The Columbus Dispatch: LTE: Why does majority rule upset Frank LaRose so very much
Thomas W. Billing, Springfield
April 15, 2023

• I have some questions for Frank LaRose after reading his April 12 column, “Corrupt mastermind’s plot shows frailty of our state’s constitution,” and they start with: why does a simple majority upset you in voting on state constitutional amendments? 
• What happened to majority rule? 

Columbus, OH – In case you missed it, David DeWitt of the Ohio Capital Journal took statehouse Republicans to task for their latest attack on Ohio voters. This week GOP politicians in Columbus ignored voters and rushed through legislation that would effectively kill the citizen-led ballot initiative in Ohio and create a taxpayer-funded, $20 million special election in August.

It’s just the latest way Ohio Republicans are working to consolidate power for themselves and special interests friends, leaving working Ohioans to pay the price. 

“This is a naked power grab to remove any last vestige of accountability for them to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want, no matter the consequences, a majority of voters be damned. They have been seduced by the prospect of their own total, unadulterated power, and are scheming to slit the throat of representative government in sacrifice to it,” writes DeWitt.

Read more from the Ohio Capital Journal HERE and below: 

• Ohio Republicans are in a full-court press on their attempt to make it harder for voters to amend our Ohio Constitution by raising the threshold for passage from 50% to 60%.
  
  
• Ohio Republicans eliminated the August elections originally, they said, because it’s expensive with low turnout. The August 2022 election cost $20 million and had 8% turnout.
  
  
• That low turnout has now become not a concern, but part of their strategy, as they know their best shot at asking voters to bow down and kneel in subservience to them by relinquishing our democratic powers is for as few voters as possible to participate in that decision.
  
  
• The House version is sponsored by Republican state Rep. Brian Stewart and was conceived in coordination with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose with the support of the religious fanatics at the extraordinarily influential special interest group, the Center for Christian Virtue.
  
  
• LaRose denied that he wanted to block abortion protections or anti-gerrymandering measures when he announced plans to overhaul the direct democracy over our constitution that Ohioans have enjoyed responsibly since 1912. But in a letter to Ohio House colleagues in December, Stewart listed only two reasons for Republican lawmakers to support attacking voters’ ability to amend our constitution: abortion and gerrymandering.
  
  
• In the Ohio Senate chamber Wednesday, Republican Senators made clear they share Stewart’s priorities: Proposed amendments to increase Ohio’s minimum wage and protect abortion rights, as well as the prospect of further anti-gerrymandering reform, were all cited by the GOP lawmakers attacking the power of Ohio voters.
  
  
• Preposterously, these gerrymandered lawmakers — who won their seats by running under unconstitutional maps that they forced onto voters — claim they want to protect Ohio from special interests.
  
  
• These lawmakers who indulge and tolerate all manner of corruption, bribery, sweetheart lawmaking, and nepotistic hiring and appointments, are just oozing condescension out of every pore when they point their fingers at Ohio voters as the ones who can’t be trusted to protect ourselves from special interests.
  
  
• This is a naked power grab to remove any last vestige of accountability for them to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want, no matter the consequences, a majority of voters be damned.
  
  
• They have been seduced by the prospect of their own total, unadulterated power, and are scheming to slit the throat of representative government in sacrifice to it.
  
  
• These people are the shame of Ohio, and they represent the most feckless, irresponsible, corrupt, contemptible, rigged, un-American, anti-science, anti-fact, anti-intelligence, anti-democracy, anti-voter, and anti-Ohioan general assembly I’ve seen in my lifetime. Which is really saying something.

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, after saying he wouldn’t run a year ago, Bernie Moreno officially entered what has been called “one of the messiest,” “most expensive,” and “bruising” primary battles in the country yesterday. Moreno did not hold back from hitting his rumored and current opponents at last night’s Milford event: 
 
Moreno on Frank LaRose: “How many times have you seen people run for one office, get elected, and immediately pivot and run for another office? Does that make any sense to you? Let me ask you a question: In your job, could you hold on to your job with full pay while actively spending 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% of your day looking for another job? Could you do that? In my business, I had people like that, I employed people like that. You know what they’re called? Former employees.”
 
Moreno on Matt Dolan: “Lastly, and it’s important for all of you to know because you should always know where people stand. I may have opponents in this race, that go the spectrum of they won’t vote for President Trump if he’s our nominee… My current opponent in this race has already said publicly that he may or may not support Trump if Trump’s our nominee. To me: disqualifying…”
 
The mud-slinging doesn’t stop there. Warren Davidson also weighed in on the #OHSEN field yesterday and confirmed he’s “very actively looking at the race every day.” In the same breath, Davidson took a thinly veiled swipe at Moreno, claiming he would “clearly be the conservative” in the race once entering. 
 
As this primary heats up, one thing is clear: there is only chaos and more mud-slinging ahead.

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Columbus, OH – Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters released the following statement after statehouse Republicans advanced anti-voter bills that would effectively end citizen-led ballot initiatives in Ohio. 

“Republican politicians in Columbus know they’re on the wrong side of the issues that are important to working Ohioans. So now they’re attempting to rig the rules and make it nearly impossible for citizen-led ballot initiatives to pass – all so they can consolidate power for themselves and do the bidding of their special interest pals. We will be working over the coming days, weeks and months to fight these attacks on Ohio voters and keep power in the hands of the people, not politicians,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters.

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