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Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters released the following statement celebrating the twelfth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act becoming law: 

“Thanks to the leadership of Senator Brown, Representatives Fudge, Ryan and Kaptur, the Affordable Care Act became law twelve years ago today – legislation that expanded Medicaid coverage for nearly 1 million Ohioans, lowered healthcare costs for working families, and secured protections for 2 million Ohioans with pre-existing conditions. The Affordable Care Act has made a real difference for working Ohioans by lowering the cost of prescription drugs, keeping rural hospitals open and eliminating lifetime caps. 

“As Democrats are laser-focused on expanding healthcare coverage and lowering costs, Ohio Republicans – from the congressional delegation, to the millionaires running for U.S. Senate, and to Mike DeWine – have opposed these efforts at the behest of the big corporations that fund their campaigns and the expense of the Ohio families they swore to represent. As Republicans are hellbent on fighting for higher medical bills and undermining protections for pre-existing conditions, Ohioans know that they can trust Democrats to keep fighting for affordable healthcare and protections for those with pre-existing conditions.” 

BACKGROUND: 

Several of the out-of-touch millionaires running for U.S. Senate have attacked the Affordable Care Act: 

• Josh Mandel said he was “hopeful” he would be the 51st vote to repeal the ACA. 
• Jane Timken admitted she got involved in politics because she was motivated to repeal the ACA. 
• Mike Gibbons called the law “a disaster” and said, “After we repeal ObamaCare, we need to start from scratch.” 
• Matt Dolan said that the law was “conceived wrongly, implemented poorly and has become a tool of partisan grift.”

Republican statewide officials have also slammed the Affordable Care Act: 

• Mike DeWine has worked to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. 
• Dave Yost has undermined the Affordable Care Act.

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For Immediate Release:

Columbus, OH — Today, the Ohio Democratic Party is once again calling on Mike DeWine and Jon Husted to tell Ohioans what they knew and when about the largest public corruption scandal in state history after FirstEnergy admitted that former executives Chuck Jones and Michael Dowling were the officials behind the bribes in the HB 6 bribery scandal.

In December 2018, DeWine and Husted had dinner with Dowling and Jones, raising questions about whether the bribery scandal was discussed.

“Today’s revelation is only the latest connection between Mike DeWine, Jon Husted and the largest public corruption scandal in state history. Ohio Democrats are once again renewing our call for DeWine and Husted to tell Ohioans what they knew and when about the bribery scheme. As Ohioans continue to pay more than $280,000 a day for this scandal, the very least they deserve is an answer from the governor,” said Chair Walters.

Last year, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio outlined various ways that the DeWine-Husted administration is connected to the scandal, including top-level staff with direct ties to the scheme that DeWine continues to stand behind. DeWine and Husted have tried to avoid answering questions on their ties to the scandal and what they knew and when, but Ohio voters deserve full transparency and accountability.

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For Immediate Release:

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters issued the following statement in response to Mike DeWine’s State of The State address. 

“Amid all of the bombast and bluster Ohioans heard from Mike DeWine today, what we failed to hear is any plan for him to do his job and fix the redistricting mess he created. The election chaos we’re seeing in Ohio falls squarely at the feet of Mike DeWine and  Republicans on the redistricting commission who failed time and again to pass fair maps. Ohioans are sick and tired of words, it’s time for action. Today, Ohio Democrats are once again calling on DeWine and his fellow Republicans to do their jobs and pass fair maps,” said Chair Walters.

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For Immediate Release:

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters, Ohio Auditor candidate Taylor Sappington and Ohio Secretary of State candidate Chelsea Clark held a statehouse press conference to lay out how DeWine and his fellow Republicans have failed to do their jobs and pass fair maps, a violation of their oaths of office to protect and defend Ohio’s constitution.

“Now, as Ohio finds itself amid a constitutional crisis, Mike DeWine and his fellow Republicans are solely to blame. So all the bombast and bluster we’ll hear from Mike DeWine today ultimately means nothing. Because when it comes down to it, the state of our state is broken. And that’s because Mike DeWine caved to his fellow Republicans and failed to do his most important job: putting the interests of Ohioans first,” said Chair Walters.

The redistricting commission first met in August 2021. In the seven months since, DeWine and his fellow Republicans have blown past constitutional deadlines, passed five separate sets of GOP-gerrymandered maps and each time ignored the directives of Ohio voters and the Ohio Supreme Court. They are solely to blame for the election chaos that has been created by their failure to do their job.

“Republicans have made clear that the only interests they’re protecting are their own – the will of Ohio voters be damned – as they push through gerrymandered maps that reflect an Ohio Republican Party wishlist more than the political realities of our state. In Nelsonville, we don’t point fingers or run out the clock when things don’t go our way. We wake up every day, put politics aside and do our jobs to deliver for the people we were elected to serve,” said Ohio Auditor candidate Taylor Sappington.

“Despite what DeWine, LaRose and Republicans on the commission would have you believe, it’s not that complicated of a task to complete. If they’d done the right thing from day one and worked with Democrats to pass a fair map, we wouldn’t be in the middle of this election chaos,” said Ohio Secretary of State candidate Chelsea Clark.

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Columbus, OH — A new report from The American Independent caught J.D. Vance flip-flopping on his support for a key gun violence prevention measure. It’s the latest political reinvention for Vance, which the article notes is “the latest in a long series of flip-flops from positions” as he struggles to compete in this crowded and nasty primary.

“The only thing Ohioans can trust about J.D. Vance is that he will sell out Ohioans for whatever political calculation he thinks will best serve him in the moment,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

The American Independent: J.D. Vance backed ‘red flag’ gun laws in 2018. Now he calls them ‘a giant distraction.’

Josh Israel

March 21, 2022

• Republican Ohio Senate hopeful J.D. Vance has spent much of his campaign attacking “gun grabbers” and opposing firearm regulations. But just four years ago, he urged his party to pass the very laws he now rails against.
• The author and venture capitalist appeared at a March 2018 Darke County Republican Party dinner as the featured speaker. According to a local newspaper report on the event, Vance appeared to endorse new laws to disarm those who are an imminent danger to others.
• “We should make it easier to take those guns out of the hands of people who are about to use them to murder large numbers of people,” he argued at the time. “We’ve got to have the right balance between protecting citizens, protecting our schools, and protecting the kids that go to them, but also protecting our really important and fundamental constitutional liberty.”
• Even then-President Donald Trump endorsed the idea in 2019 in the wake of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. “We can and will stop this evil contagion,” he promised. “That is why I have called for red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders.”
• But since announcing his Senate campaign, Vance has abandoned his support for any new gun safety legislation.
• Last July, Vance wrote an op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch warning that President Joe Biden and an “unholy alliance” was coming for Americans’ guns and other liberties. “Violence in our country is much more about density than guns,” he asserted. “That’s why the Biden Administration’s dull attempts to curb gun violence don’t work and they threaten the very foundation of the rights we are afforded as free, American citizens.”
• Vance’s campaign issues page contains similar language. “Joe Biden and anti-democracy multinational companies are trying to find new ways to take guns away from law-abiding citizens. They’re making it harder to buy firearms and ammunition, and imposing new, unconstitutional regulations on American citizens,” Vance’s campaign website reads. “I will fight the gun grabbers, whether they’re federal bureaucrats enacting regulations or multinational companies punishing people for exercising their rights.”
• Vance’s reversal on this is but the latest in a long series of flip-flops from positions the “Hillbilly Elegy” author took before he decided to run for political office.
• In 2016, he frequently lambasted then-candidate Trump as “xenophobic” and “an idiot”. Last year, he said he regretted criticizing Trump and was “wrong about the guy.”
• Shortly after Trump’s 2017 inauguration, Vance openly acknowledged the role white privilege plays in America, saying there were “obviously still advantages to being white” and “there are still disadvantages to being Black.” As a candidate, Vance now wants people to have the power to file lawsuits against companies that tell anyone to “deconstruct their privilege, or they need to sacrifice or repent of their whiteness.”
• He also once backed mask mandates to curb the coronavirus pandemic but went on to question why kids should have to wear masks. “I don’t know why we should mask our children under any circumstance, but especially not when Biden/Harris refuse to control COVID at our border,” Vance tweeted last August.

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