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For Immediate Release:

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Columbus, OH — Following passage of extreme legislation that would put Ohioans and law enforcement at risk of increased gun violence, Mike DeWine needs to decide if he’ll keep his promises to ‘do something’ and veto this dangerous bill or cave once again to radicals in his own party.

After a tragic mass shooting in Dayton in 2019, Mike DeWine promised Ohioans that he would ‘do something’ to address the threat of gun violence. Now, DeWine has an opportunity to do just that and veto this dangerous bill.

“Mike DeWine has a choice to make: Will he stand with Ohio families and law enforcement officers, or will he cave once again to extremists in the legislature? DeWine has an opportunity to lead here, but he’s shown time and again he’s too weak to stand up to his own party and do the right thing. We’re calling on DeWine to put Ohioans above politics and keep his promises. There’s a first time for everything,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes.

Senate Bill 215, known as Ohio’s permitless carry bill, would allow anyone over 21 to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, ultimately avoiding a background check in the process. The legislation has been widely opposed by groups across Ohio, including the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, the Ohio Mayors Alliance and many others.

As WEWS-TV reports, Michael Weinman, Director of Government Affairs for the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police testified: “The [Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio] strongly opposes substitute senate bill 215. We feel the changes in the bill create a threat for officer safety.”

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Columbus, OH — Today, U.S. Senate candidate Jane Timken will campaign alongside Rob Portman – one of the most establishment, Mitch McConnell-friendly, and Trump-skeptical Republicans in the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, a new report from Politico underscores how Timken is trying to have it both ways – as both a “real MAGA conservative” and a squishy establishment pick – and failing spectacularly, languishing at the back of the field while GOP primary voters reject her as a phony and “Trumpworld notice[s]” the “sign of desperation” coming from her campaign. 

“Jane Timken is a political fraud who is so desperate to stay relevant in Ohio’s nasty and chaotic GOP Senate primary that she’ll claim the Trump mantle one day and celebrate the endorsement of Rob Portman—one of the Senate’s most Trump-skeptical Republicans—the next. Timken’s campaign has failed to gain traction because Ohioans see straight through her never-ending and blatantly self-serving political calculations,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.  

Politico: Trump endorsement casts long shadow over Ohio Senate race

Natalie Allison

March 3, 2022

• Since becoming Donald Trump’s handpicked state party chair in 2017, Jane Timken has straddled the line between Ohio’s traditional GOP and MAGA spheres.
• Now, as she bids for the Republican Senate nomination, Timken is still betting she can have it both ways. It’s a risky wager.
• Timken’s continued touting of her endorsement from retiring Sen. Rob Portman, an old-school Republican whose brand of statesmanship and bipartisan compromise is nearly the opposite of Trump’s approach, could jeopardize her chances of winning the former president’s endorsement in a crowded primary where it looms large.
• “She has to do a pretty effective juggling act to make those issues sound like they square,” said Doug Preisse, a Republican strategist and former chair of the Franklin County Republican Party, referring to Timken’s invocation of both Portman and Trump on the campaign trail. “She’s a smart, accomplished professional. But when you’re communicating two or three contradictory sounding messages, it doesn’t matter how good of a communicator you are.”
• A Harvard-educated attorney who married into a wealthy family of global steel manufacturers, Timken has closely toed the MAGA line since joining the race a year ago. After initially defending GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez for his vote to impeach Trump last year, she turned around and renounced her support for the embattled congressman, then called for him to resign.
• More recently, Timken hired lightning-rod Trump world advisers who have generated controversy within the party. And in a new ad Thursday, Timken decried the “pretenders” in the Senate primary, flashing photos of herself with Trump as a narrator called her “the real Trump conservative.”
• At the same time, Timken, a longtime friend of Portman, has enthusiastically embraced the retiring senator’s support. As her campaign scrambles to set itself apart in a packed field of Republicans purporting to be the most authentically MAGA, it’s caused some awkward dissonance.
• Portman voted to certify the election results, something Timken said she wouldn’t have done. He championed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, while Timken bashed it. Describing the events of Jan. 6 as “an attack on democracy itself,” Portman excoriated Trump, saying the president “showed sympathy for the violent mob” and bore some responsibility for what took place.
• On Tuesday, the Timken campaign performed its balancing act again. It sent out a press release announcing the hiring of Corey Lewandowski — who was let go from Trump’s super PAC this fall after facing allegations of sexual assault — and David Bossie, a former Trump campaign official who was behind a recent RNC resolution declaring that the events surrounding Jan. 6 amounted to “legitimate political discourse.”
• Then, hours later, the campaign put out another announcement: Portman would headline their campaign stops this weekend.
• Trumpworld noticed.
• “If you’re attempting to go after grassroots voters that are frustrated with the political process, that are frustrated with career politicians, that want some new blood — usually you don’t go campaigning with a career politician that’s retiring,” said a person in Trump’s orbit who is familiar with the former president’s thinking.
• Timken’s GOP opponents Josh Mandel, Mike Gibbons and JD Vance have all made a determined effort to win the Trump endorsement, while Matt Dolan is seeking to appeal to moderate Republicans who are less sold on Trump.
• The Trump ally described Timken’s hiring of Lewandowski and Bossie as “a sign of desperation” and a way to “throw money at” the exercise of securing an endorsement from the former president.
• Trump held separate meetings recently with Mandel and Vance. Last week, Gibbons paid to attend a fundraising event for Trump’s super PAC at Mar-a-Lago, though he did not gain a one-on-one meeting.
• Trump is expected to “eventually” make a decision on who to endorse in the Ohio primary, which is now two months away. But no decision is imminent, said the person familiar.
• Dueling internal polls have shown the primary’s top five candidates in a range of positions in recent months. While January polling from Timken’s campaign put her in second place, just behind Mandel, in recent weeks independent polls have put Timken at the back of the pack.
• The Emerson poll, conducted this past weekend, found that 39 percent of GOP primary voters remained undecided in the Senate race. It also suggested that Portman’s endorsement may not provide a significant boost for Timken with primary voters: 38 percent said the senator’s endorsement made them less likely to vote for her, while 43 percent said it would make no difference.
• Portman’s office declined to answer questions about whether he has any concerns with Timken’s hiring of Lewandowski and Bossie — or if the senator would mind campaigning alongside them. Instead, a Portman spokesperson provided a general statement about Timken being “the best candidate to advance conservative Republican policies” and having the ability to win both the primary and general election.
• While Timken is scheduled to campaign again this month with former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerik — a key member of a Trump command center that worked to overturn the 2020 election results — it’s unlikely Portman will share the stage with some of Trump’s top acolytes.

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Columbus, OH — Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Jason Williams shredded J.D. Vance’s campaign, calling it a “creation of political consultants,” that’s “not going well” and “not ready for primetime,” and urging Vance to salvage whatever dignity he has left (if any) by dropping out of the U.S. Senate race. 

Read Williams’ brutal assessment of Vance’s “disastrous” campaign here:  

Cincinnati Enquirer: Jason Williams: ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ author J.D. Vance should drop out of U.S. Senate race

March 2, 2022 

•  We’ve seen enough of J.D. Vance on the campaign.
• Ohio’s Fox News-created Republican U.S. Senate candidate is now pissing off Fox News commentators. That should tell you all you need to know about Vance’s disastrous campaign.
• It’s not going well, and it never has. And after the worst week of a weak campaign, Vance needs to drop out. The Cincinnati resident’s poll numbers remain in the single digits. Vance is looking at a best-case scenario of a third-place finish in the May primary.
• Bow out now and Vance could salvage some of the goodwill he’d built up for telling the world his rags-to-riches story in the bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy.”
• The 37-year-old political amateur has proven that he’s not ready for prime-time politics. First, Vance needs a basic civics lesson after repeatedly making callous comments about Ukraine and its people. A United States senator must be adept at foreign policy and diplomacy, especially in times of crisis.
• Never would the late, great Voinovich have said: “I think it’s ridiculous that we’re focused on this border in Ukraine. I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
• But that’s what Vance recently told Steve Bannon for his show on some two-bit cable network called Real America’s Voice.
• In Ohio, we’re used to statesmen holding the seat Vance is so desperately seeking – Rob Portman, George Voinovich, John Glenn, Robert A. Taft.
• Vance then went to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida last weekend and told attendees: “I’m sick of being told that we have to care more about people 6,000 miles away than we do people like my mom and my grandparents and all the kids who are affected by this (U.S.-Mexico border) crisis.”
• You mean, the mom and grandparents who live in the safest nation in the universe and aren’t having their homes bombed by Russians?
• It shouldn’t be an either/or thing. You can simultaneously care about the crises in Ukraine and at the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, it’d be Vance’s job to concern himself with both matters if he were elected.
• The CPAC comments drew sharp criticism from Fox News political analyst Brit Hume.
• “I have rarely lost as much respect for a person in a short a time as I have for J.D. Vance,” Hume tweeted.
• Ouch. That one stings.
• I wrote last summer ahead of Vance launching his campaign that it wouldn’t go well. The national press soon piled on. Vance was a creation of political consultants who thought Ohio voters would know and love him because he goes on Fox News regularly and wrote a bestselling book about overcoming a rough upbringing in Middletown.
• But Vance and the political lab rats who created him didn’t factor in perception, which is critical in a campaign.
• Vance is an outsider all right, but not the one he’s trying to portray. He had spent most of his adult life living on the coasts before returning to Ohio in 2018 and buying a big house overlooking the Ohio River in Cincinnati’s upscale East Walnut Hills neighborhood.
• No wonder Vance told the Wall Street Journal in 2016 that he felt “out of place” in Ohio. He ran with the wine-and-cheese crowd for too long, far removed from Middletown’s ham-and-eggers. I can’t fault a guy for bettering himself. Vance is truly an American success story.
• On the campaign, however, Vance has never pivoted back to show he’s one of us. He’s made things worse for himself by trying to be someone he’s not politically. He’s gone from a principled, Never Trump conservative to licking the former president’s boots.
• It’s not working. Trump is never going to endorse a guy who repeatedly spoke out against him.
• Ohioans, as I predicted, have seen right through it. Vance’s campaign has gained little traction.

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For Immediate Release:

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Ohioans’ Data, Personal Information at Risk as BMV Can’t Answer Questions about Where Ohioans’ Personal Information Goes Once They Sell It

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is the latest state agency under Mike DeWine’s leadership that finds itself in the middle of a scandal that could cost Ohioans. WBNS-TV in Columbus published an investigation earlier this week raising questions about whether the Ohio BMV is in violation of federal law as Ohio drivers find their information being used by direct mail solicitors right after they have dealings with the BMV.

In 2020, the agency made more than $40 million selling Ohioans’ personal data to third parties, and as WBNS reports, many of those Ohioans’ personal data is being used to send direct mail solicitations. Similar mailers are often aimed at coercing Ohioans into paying for things they don’t need. Ohioans in the story also raise concerns with how widely their personal data is being shared once the BMV sells it to third parties.

“It’s a day that ends in Y, so Mike DeWine finds his administration at the center of another scandal. As scandal after scandal piles up, it’s clear that Ohioans are paying a steep price for the corruption coming out of Mike DeWine’s statehouse. Ohioans can’t afford four more years of Mike DeWine,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes.

Interestingly, current BMV registrar Charlie Norman has strong ties to the DeWine family, having served as Chief of Staff to Justice Pat DeWine when he served as Hamilton County Commissioner and as Regional Director for then-Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.

This is only the latest scandal Mike DeWine’s administration finds itself at the center of, including the largest public corruption scandal in state history, a state unemployment fraud scandal, and a state Medicaid scandal.

Read more about the latest scandal involving the BMV here and below:

• A months-long experiment by 10 Investigates is now helping the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles determine if there has been any illegal misuse of drivers’ personal information.
• Since 2010, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles has made more than $250 million selling drivers’ personal information to third parties.
• But 10 Investigates wanted to know what happens to drivers’ information after that sale? What are those third parties doing with that information?
• Why does that matter?
• If those mailed solicitations – like those offers for the extended auto warranties – were the result of the Ohio BMV’s sale of driver’s personal data, it could be a violation of a federal law – known as the Drivers Privacy Protection Act.
• As part of our experiment, 10 Investigates tried to narrow the scope of potential leaks of Haeberle’s personal data. His insurance company told him prior to the vehicle purchase that it would not sell his data for direct marketing or solicitations. And there was no dealership involved – Haeberle bought the car in a peer-to-peer sale with the station WBNS-TV.
• That would leave only one entity – the Ohio BMV – which would’ve known that he had recently purchased a vehicle.
• 10 Investigates also found Ohio drivers with similar experiences.
• “None of this was happening until I registered my car,” said Barb Woodruff. “I was looking for ways to opt-out and when someone tells me there is no way to opt-out, I have a problem with that.”

• John Kaminsky got similar mailers weeks after buying car and titling it with the Ohio BMV. He said his dealer assured him they didn’t sell his personal information.
• “I expect the state to have some discretion and have my best interests at heart,” he said.

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For Immediate Release:

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democratic Party (ODP) Chair Elizabeth Walters issued the following statement after Republicans yet again released gerrymandered congressional maps that show us all how unserious Republicans on the commission are taking the process.

“The map released by Republicans today is a joke, and one that’s being made at the expense of Ohio voters.”  

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