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Intel CEO: “It’s such a pivotal moment if we don’t act now. Please don’t dither in Congress over petty partisanship.”

Columbus, OH – Yesterday, Mitch McConnell blew up bipartisan negotiations on urgently-needed legislation to invest in American semiconductor manufacturing – including vital funding for Intel to create 3,000 jobs in Licking County. 

The delay in passing this bill is already taking its toll on Ohio. Last week, Intel sounded the alarm, saying, “Unfortunately, CHIPS Act funding has moved more slowly than we expected and we still don’t know when it will get done. It is time for Congress to act so we can move forward at the speed and scale we have long envisioned for Ohio and our other projects to help restore U.S. semiconductor manufacturing leadership and build a more resilient semiconductor supply chain.” This funding is essential to help level the playing field for American companies and workers to compete with countries around the world that are dominating the semiconductor industry. 

Mitch McConnell standing in the way of Ohio jobs could put J.D. Vance and Mike DeWine in a precarious political position. J.D. Vance has already proposed giving up on bringing manufacturing jobs back to Ohio. He said, “A 55-year-old worker in Dayton, Ohio who spent his entire life in manufacturing… he may not be able to find a good-paying job for the rest of his working life.” Mike DeWine has touted the Intel plant coming to Ohio in a campaign video but refused to take on Mitch McConnell who is standing in the way of Intel breaking ground on a new plant in Ohio. 

“J.D. Vance and Mike DeWine must demand that Mitch McConnell stop holding Ohio jobs prisoner to his political games. Instead of searching for photo ops and scoring cheap political points, it’s time for them to step up and take meaningful action to protect Ohio jobs and help workers here compete with countries around the world,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

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For Immediate Release:
Thursday, June 30, 2022

Columbus, OH —  Earlier this week, State Representative Jean Schmidt – who once called pregnancy from rape “an opportunity” – went on a Cincinnati radio station and laid out the Republican playbook for ripping away Ohioans’ reproductive rights. Schmidt is seen as a leader in the Republican caucus on the anti-abortion movement – having introduced a trigger ban bill that Mike DeWine has indicated he will sign and that will make Ohio one of the most extreme anti-choice states in the entire country.

Here’s a sampling of the comments Schmidt made:

The Trigger Ban Bill: 

• “When we get back into session, we’ll probably have one or two more hearings on it, and then, it will go before our body and the Senate for a concurrent vote, and I do believe we have the votes in both chambers, and we have the full support of the Governor on this bill.”
• “[The only exception will be for] the life of the mother. It will have to be something like an ectopic pregnancy. If the physician determines that the life of the mother is truly at risk, that physician needs to seek an alternate opinion outside of their practice to concur with it.”
• “At the time that the abortion will be provided… a second attending physician will have to be there, in case the baby is born alive, so that that baby can be taken care of.”

Penalizing Companies for Paying for Women to Get Abortions Out of State 

• “If those companies want to do that, they better make sure that they’re complying with the laws of the state that allow them to do that because in House Bill 598, it says that anybody that promotes an abortion will be under the issues of criminal activity. They might have a problem with sending somebody outside the state with a paycheck in hand because that would be, in some legal eyes, promoting abortions.” 

Open to Debate on Birth Control: 

• “I’m gonna have to listen to both sides of that debate.”

“Jean Schmidt just said it loud and clear: Ohio Republicans are coming for your reproductive rights. Politicians like Mike DeWine are ready to insert themselves into a decision that should be made between a woman and her doctor and are working on legislation that will make Ohio one of the most extreme anti-abortion states in the entire country,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

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After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, conservative talk radio hosts are sounding the alarm on J.D. Vance’s toxic stance on banning all abortions, including for victims of rape and incest. Yesterday, on the Mark Blazor Show, Jack Windsor said, “Vance took a hit last year from major media outlets when he talked about rape and incest, and I think he and Jean Schmidt are on the same page.”

Jean Schmidt, who made national news for calling rape “an opportunity,” and J.D. Vance, who called rape “inconvenient,” are two extreme peas in a pod who want to force survivors of rape and incest to give birth.

Read more below about Vance’s out-of-touch position:

For Immediate Release:
June 21, 2022

Does Vance Really Think Rape And Incest Are “Blessings To Be Cherished?”

Columbus, OH — In an interview yesterday on Fox News, J.D. Vance was asked three times to clarify whether he truly believes survivors of rape and incest should be forced to give birth.

When trying to explain his position, Vance said (at around 5:30) that if Roe is overturned, “We have an opportunity, whatever the Supreme Court does on Roe, to really redefine the terms of the debate and to think of children as blessings to be cherished…” Does Vance think that rape and incest are “blessings to be cherished?”

This is just Vance’s latest in a series of dangerous and out-of-touch broadsides against abortion rights.

• Vance has said that overturning Roe v. Wade would be an “amazing victory,” despite the 53 percent of Ohio voters who want to see abortion rights protected according to a recent Suffolk University poll.
• In the past, Vance said that “two wrongs don’t make a right,” when defending his calls to deny abortion care to victims of rape and incest.
• Vance then downplayed sexual assault, saying that “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’s position is even out-of-step with Donald Trump, who supported exceptions for rape and incest.

“J.D. Vance has already made clear he wants to punish women for trying to get an abortion – even in cases of rape and incest. Now Vance must explain to survivors of these crimes in what universe he thinks rape and incest could conceivably be ‘blessings to be cherished,’” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

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For Immediate Release:
Thursday, June 30, 2022

Columbus, OH —  Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters released the following statement after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in to the nation’s highest court, the first Black woman to serve on the bench in its 230+ years:

“Justice Jackson taking her seat today on the nation’s highest court is an important step forward for our country and a much-needed moment of celebration in an otherwise dark moment in our history. We’ve seen in the last days and weeks how important her voice, perspective and life experiences will be as conservatives on the Supreme Court continue to methodically insert themselves into our rights and rip away our freedoms. We’re confident Justice Jackson will rule with fairness, integrity and justice and act as an important check on the extremism coming out of our current Court.”

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For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Cleveland.com Editorial Board took Frank LaRose to task for criticizing the Ohio Supreme Court for doing the job he failed to do. In another political stunt meant to appease Republican voters who don’t trust him, LaRose went after Supreme Court Justices last week for correctly allowing qualifying candidates on the ballot ahead of the upcoming primary.

The Cleveland.com editorial points out that had LaRose chosen to follow the will of Ohio voters and create a map with bipartisan support in the first place, these candidates wouldn’t have had to go to the Court to sue to get their names on the ballot and voters wouldn’t face a multi-million dollar bill for the chaos and confusion created by the Redistricting Commission’s failure to do its job.

But LaRose is more concerned about losing a Senate race in 2024 than anything else, so he’s going to continue placating extremists in his own party and fail to do the job he was elected to do in the process.     

“In intemperately blasting Ohio’s Supreme Court in a Sunday night statement for (correctly) ruling that six Democrats LaRose had refused to allow on Ohio’s Aug. 2 primary ballot had met Ohio’s legal deadline for candidate filings, LaRose helped expose his own partisan maneuverings. The blatant politicking over elections LaRose is supposed to be overseeing is deeply troubling,” writes the Cleveland.com Editorial Board.

Read more from Cleveland.com HERE and below:

• In his partisan and impolitic zeal to wrest GOP advantage in upcoming elections, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Ohio’s chief elections officer, has shown exactly how far he’s strayed from proper stewardship of the state’s elections and its election laws.
• In intemperately blasting Ohio’s Supreme Court in a Sunday night statement for (correctly) ruling that six Democrats LaRose had refused to allow on Ohio’s Aug. 2 primary ballot had met Ohio’s legal deadline for candidate filings, LaRose helped expose his own partisan maneuverings. The blatant politicking over elections LaRose is supposed to be overseeing is deeply troubling.
• LaRose’s harsh words — that the Ohio Supreme Court justices who ruled 4-3 against him “are either ignorant of election law and administration or indifferent to the confusion they continue to create” — reveal just how low LaRose is willing to go to achieve GOP advantage in upcoming votes. That applies not just in the Aug. 2 state legislative primary, but also in all-important Ohio Supreme Court contests in November where partisan control of the court is on the line.
• The irony in LaRose’s diatribe is, of course, that had he been acting responsibly, properly and according to the law in supervising Ohio elections, and in serving on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, Ohio might have achieved fair 10-year redistricting maps long ago and there would have been no need to bifurcate the state’s primaries, at multimillion-dollar cost, into a May 3 and an Aug. 2 primary.
• Nor would there have been a need for the latest Ohio Supreme Court ruling on ballot access, because LaRose would have recognized that Ohio law retains primacy over his own partisan wish list on who belongs on the ballot.
• But thanks to the partisan intransigence of the GOP-run state Redistricting Commission – on which LaRose sits -– the Supreme Court repeatedly rejected districts the commission drew, forcing state legislative races off the May 3 ballot to a later date. Eventually, a panel of federal judges, in a 2-1 ruling, chose one of the rejected state legislative maps, and ordered a primary for General Assembly and state central committee members be held Aug. 2. Applying the 90-day deadline to the Aug. 2 date made the filing deadlines May 4 and May 23 for write-ins, the Supreme Court majority found – and it ruled that six Democrats met those deadlines for Aug. 2′s ballot.
• Yet, if LaRose had fairly overseen ballot access based on what Ohio law actually requires, there would have been no need for the Ohio Supreme Court to step in.
• The four-justice majority did just what conservatives say all judges should do – they followed the law’s plain English. That amounts to plain justice — not chaos, or politicking.

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