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For Immediate Release:
Thursday, July 7, 2022

Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters announced the party is requesting a preliminary injunction in its ongoing lawsuit with Mike DeWine to make sure key records connected to the FirstEnergy bribery scandal are not destroyed.

• Find the preliminary injunction HERE. 
• Find the submitted public records requests HERE.
• Find the records Ohio Democrats have successfully obtained from the DeWine administration HERE. 

“These are questions we started asking in October, answers Ohio voters deserve. But Mike DeWine and his lackeys apparently think that they don’t need to do their job or be held accountable – that they’re above the law. We’re here to make sure they know they aren’t,” said Walters.  

In early May, Democrats sued Mike DeWine over his refusal to turn over records connected to the largest public corruption scandal in state history and resubmitted public records requests to get to the bottom of what DeWine knew and when.

To date, none of those records requests have been fulfilled despite empty claims from the DeWine team about the governor’s commitment to “transparency and accountability.” Now, Democrats are taking further legal action to make sure key records connected to the scandal are not destroyed by DeWine and Ohioans can get the answers they deserve.

Since October, Ohio Democrats have been working on getting answers to who knew what and when about the FirstEnergy scandal – which Ohioans continue to pay $287,000 every single day for – but have been stonewalled at every turn by the DeWine administration, leaving public records requests unanswered. The lack of answers from DeWine leads to even more questions about what DeWine is hiding, especially as the scandal inches closer and closer to DeWine and his inner circle.

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For Immediate Release:
July 7, 2022

Columbus, OH – A newly uncovered interview first reported by Vice reveals that JD Vance said, “There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery… it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society.”

The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the implementation of Ohio’s six-week abortion ban – which recently forced a 10-year-old girl to travel out of state to get an abortion after being raped – put Vance’s extreme anti-abortion comments into even sharper focus. In addition to comparing abortion to chattel slavery, Vance has said “two wrongs don’t make a right” when explaining why he wants to force survivors of rape and incest to give birth and called rape “inconvenient.”

“J.D. Vance is dangerous and belongs nowhere near the U.S. Senate,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Vice: JD Vance Compared Abortion to Slavery
Cameron Joseph
July 7, 2022

• JD Vance compared abortion to slavery in an interview last fall, drawing a controversial parallel between America’s original sin and a procedure that until recently was a constitutional right.
• “There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery, and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society,” Vance, the GOP nominee for an open Ohio Senate seat, said in an interview with the Catholic Current last October.
• Vance then referenced Abraham Lincoln’s quote “I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master,” before arguing that because of abortion, many Americans have “begun to see children as inconveniences to be discarded, instead of blessings to cherish.”
• “I really think abortion has really done something very socially destructive to us as people in how we see the most vulnerable and the most dependent among us,” Vance continued. “I think that’s one of the under-appreciated facts about abortion. It’s really distorted our entire society.”
• The Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn a half-century of precedent and allow states to back abortion has significantly raised the stakes on the issue in both state and federal elections—especially since some congressional Republicans already working on legislation to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy at the national level.
• Vance’s own state now has a six-week abortion ban in place, with no exceptions for rape and incest. That law reportedly recently blocked a ten-year-old girl who’d been raped from getting an abortion; she had to travel to another state to obtain one.
• Vance seems to oppose such exceptions in abortion bans. When asked last fall about including exceptions in cases of rape and incest in abortion bans, he replied that “two wrong[s] don’t make a right.”
• “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society,” Vance said.
• Vance’s campaign did not respond to questions from VICE News about his abortion comments.

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For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Columbus, OH — After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, Republican politicians like Mike DeWine and Dave Yost wasted no time in working to rip away reproductive rights from millions of Ohio women. And with Mike DeWine promising to go “as far as we can” to strip away abortion rights, Ohioans can expect an onslaught of anti-choice attacks in the coming weeks and months.

With so much on the line, one of the few checks on extreme anti-choice Republicans is the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohioans expect their Supreme Court justices to rule fairly and impartially, upholding the rule of law. When it comes to a woman’s right to choose, however, the conservative justices on the Supreme Court have a long record of playing politics and doing the bidding of their political donors.

With so much at stake this November, reproductive rights are on the ballot, especially in the Supreme Court races.

Read more below:

Justices Kennedy, DeWine and Fischer All Voted to Close Toledo’s Only Remaining Abortion Clinic: 

• Capital Care Network Of Toledo v. Department of Health – By a 5-2 split, the Court upheld the state’s decision to close Toledo’s only abortion clinic.
• In its ruling, the Court overturned a lower court ruling in the case, stating the Department of Health could revoke Capital Care’s facility license.

Sharon Kennedy Has Faced Multiple Ethics Complaints Over Her Conflicts of Interest in Abortion Cases: 

• March 2017: Kennedy spoke at an anti-choice fundraiser in Toledo. The speech came just two days after the court agreed to hear the Capital Care Network case.
• July 2017: Kennedy faced two ethics complaints related to her fundraising appearance, citing the conflict created by Kennedy supporting an anti-choice organization while ruling on the future of an abortion clinic in Toledo. Kennedy refused to recuse herself from the case.
• 2020-2022: Since then, Kennedy has received at least $700 in campaign contributions from anti-choice organizations

Pat DeWine Shares His Dad’s Anti-Choice Record: 

• January 2004: As a Cincinnati City Councilman, DeWine voted for a motion to insist future healthcare contracts exclude abortion coverage for city workers. The motion was ultimately rejected.
• October 2012: DeWine received a campaign donation from Cincinnati Right to Life PAC

Pat Fischer has a long history of taking campaign cash from anti-choice groups. 

• October 2012: Fischer received a campaign donation from Cincinnati Right to Life PAC
• March 2022: Fischer endorsed by Ohio Right to Life PAC

“In races up and down the ballot, reproductive rights and abortion access are on the line this November. Justices Kennedy, DeWine and Fischer have shown Ohioans that they will eagerly rubber stamp efforts by extreme politicians to rip away our rights instead of doing their jobs and upholding the law fairly and impartially,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes.

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For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Columbus, OH — After the Supreme Court ruled to strip reproductive rights from millions of women across the country, Ohio is now poised to be one of the most radical states in the country when it comes to anti-abortion laws. The contrast in this race couldn’t be clearer: Nan is fighting every day to protect the right to choose and abortion rights in this state. Mike DeWine is fighting every day to rip them away.

DeWine: 

DeWine has said he would “go as far as we can” to attack women’s reproductive rights in Ohio, proved by his signature on an executive order to instate the six-week abortion bill just hours after the Supreme Court ruling. DeWine has said he is ready to sign radical legislation into law after the Supreme Court ruled, including a ban that would make no exception for rape or incest. DeWine fought to defund Planned Parenthood and pushed for the closure of clinics around the state. He also voted to prohibit military women and female military dependents from obtaining privately-funded abortions on overseas military bases.

Whaley: 

Meanwhile, Nan Whaley just this week announced that, as Governor, she would support and help pass a ballot initiative to codify the protections afforded by Roe v. Wade into the Ohio Constitution. Whaley has also pledged to veto any anti-choice legislation that reaches her desk and appoint a pro-choice director of the Ohio Department of Public Health.

Nan also has a proven track record on choice issues: When she was Mayor, she led the fight against Ohio’s medically unnecessary transfer agreement that threatened to shutter a regional women’s medical center. Her strong record on choice is why groups like Pro-Choice Ohio, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, EMILY’s List and the Ohio Democratic Women’s Legislative Caucus have all endorsed her.

“The contrast in the Ohio governor’s race on a woman’s right to choose could not be more clear: Nan Whaley is doing all she can to protect reproductive rights while Mike DeWine is doing all he can to strip them away. Ohio deserves a governor who takes a stand. Ohio needs a leader, not a coward. Ohio deserves Nan Whaley,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

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For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Columbus, OH — In a wild interview with Taylor Popielarz of Spectrum News, Frank LaRose continued his never-ending balancing act, embracing obvious election lies as a way to wink and nod to MAGA Republicans while he pretends not to know better – all so he can lose a Senate race in two years. LaRose earlier in the interview called himself a ‘referee’ when it comes to elections in Ohio and then turned around and embraced radical conspiracy theories even though he knows these lies are untrue.

In the interview, LaRose says “I’m not an expert on this” when asked his opinion about the former president asking secretaries of state to find votes and said “there were things that went wrong” & “it’s an unknowable thing” when asked about claims the 2020 election was stolen. And when asked about J.D. Vance’s embrace of the dangerous Great Replacement Theory said: “I don’t know exactly what J.D. meant by that.”

“Frank LaRose knows the election wasn’t stolen and what MAGA Republicans did to overturn the election was wrong, but he’s so focused on running for U.S. Senate in two years, he’s pretending not to know better. Frank LaRose’s political phoniness reaches new heights by the day, and he can no longer pretend to play ‘referee.’ He’s clearly chosen his team and is pulling for them any way he can,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

You can see the full interview here as well as key remarks below:

Claims of Elections Tampering: 

• Taylor Popielarz: What do you make of the former president asking election officials to find votes to be, you know, propose fake sets of electors?
• LaRose: Yeah, I’m not an expert on this. The things that I’ve heard, sound, in some ways unclear to me. What was being asked for, right?

On the 2020 Election Being Stolen:

• Taylor: When you and I last sat here last September, I had asked you point-blank if you thought the 2020 election was stolen, and you said, “I won’t say stolen but I will say this, there were some states that didn’t do the right thing.” And then I asked you a little bit after that if there was any scenario that you saw, looking back at it, where Trump could have won the Electoral College, and you said quote, “probably not.” Do you still stand by both of those statements?
• LaRose: I think it’s unlikely that there would have been anything that would have put one candidate over 270 electoral votes versus another, but there were things that went wrong…So the question comes up, would that have- if any of those things had been done differently, would that have changed the results of the election? It is, technically speaking, an unknowable thing.

On J.D. Vance and His Embrace of Great Replacement Theory:

• Taylor: After the awful mass shooting in Buffalo, I saw when you were asked by some reporters about the concept of the Great Replacement Theory and comments JD has made that seem to line up with that. He has said on Fox News earlier this year and a broader sentence about who he feels is engaging in this that Democrat politicians who have decided that they can’t win reelection in 2022 unless they bring in a large number of new voters to replace the voters who are already here, and he called it an invasion. So I know you said at the time you weren’t aware of what he was saying about it and what he was being accused of. That was the main statement and I saw what you said on Twitter afterward, where you said “like most Ohioans, I’m with JD Vance on this issue, lawful immigration matters.” But you also said what happened in Buffalo was racist murder. So my question for you is: Do you agree with Vance that Democratic politicians are bringing in a large number of new voters in an invasion to replace voters that are already here?”
• LaRose: Yeah. So I don’t know exactly what JD meant by that. I can tell you that I know the man. I know that he’s not a racist. That’s not who he is. In fact, his wife is- is a person of foreign descent and he’s got people on his campaign that are of all different ethnical backgrounds. And so you know, it’s up to him to- to answer what it means for that.

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