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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, Ohio Medicaid Director Maureen Corcoran appears to be in the back pocket of major health contractors and drug distributors while running the department, she just won’t admit how extensive her ties really are. 

In an Ohio Capital Journal report Wednesday, Marty Schladen outlines yet another potential corruption scandal within the DeWine administration, as Corcoran refuses to admit how deep she’s invested in CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Express Scripts, several of the state’s largest health contractors. In fact, each of those companies handled billions of dollars in state business since Corcoran took over the Medicaid department in 2019. If this sounds familiar, it’s because there’s a long pattern of the DeWine administration tapping “regulators” who have deep ties to the industries they’re supposed to oversee (Sam Randazzo, anyone?). 

“Since she became director of the Ohio Department of Medicaid in January 2019, Maureen Corcoran has owned stock in some of the department’s biggest contractors. Given the size of those contracts, they could have increased the value of the stock Corcoran owned,” writes Schladen. 

“This is yet another prime example of how untrustworthy DeWine and his allies are while showing there is a complete lack of leadership in Ohio. Once again, we see people with close ties to industry minding the store within the DeWine administration. Corcoran needs to stop dodging questions, and do the right thing for Ohio by fully disclosing her business dealings,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

You can read more from the Ohio Capital Journal report here and below: 

• Since she became director of the Ohio Department of Medicaid in January 2019, Maureen Corcoran has owned stock in some of the department’s biggest contractors. Given the size of those contracts, they could have increased the value of the stock Corcoran owned.
• But while she complied with one set of state disclosure requirements, Corcoran won’t say just how much stock she owns in such companies as CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Express Scripts — each of which has done billions of dollars worth of business with the Medicaid department since Corcoran started running it.
• In addition, Corcoran won’t say if she filed legally required affidavits disclosing that she had an ownership stake in corporations the department hired earlier this year as part of its $20 billion managed-care re-procurement or the company the state hired to run its $1 billion OhioRISE program. Should they be found, violations of the law could carry criminal penalties and invalidate contracts signed without proper disclosures.
• When Corcoran took the reins of the Medicaid department, she held a stake in some companies that were getting a lot of scrutiny over their business with the state. Two were CVS Caremark and OptumRX, pharmacy middlemen that together were handling more than $2 billion a year in prescription-drug transactions for the department.
• “There are two things Maureen Corcoran could do,” [Catherine] Turcer said. “One would be to publicly identify how much over the $1,000 she owns and allow the public to weigh in. The other thing she could do so the public didn’t worry about the conflict of interest is actually divest herself of these stocks.”
• Potentially more ominous for Corcoran and her department is another question they haven’t responded to: Whether Corcoran filed affidavits disclosing her interest in companies with whom the department recently entered into huge contracts.
• It’s unclear whether Corcoran continues to own stock in UnitedHealth or CVS, or whether she disclosed any ownership when contracts were let this year. But the state law governing such disclosures spells out potential criminal penalties for violations and it says any contract so made “is void and unenforceable.

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Columbus, OH —  According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, five of the leading millionaire Republican Senate candidates admitted they need to spend $10 million each in order to stand out in this crowded primary. The leading candidates are spending millions to try to prove they’re the biggest Trump lapdog – and Trump continues to encourage the candidates to chase down his endorsement.

A primary with this many well-funded candidates who could spend $10 million each would be “unprecedented” in Ohio, with many of the Republicans having a “fully loaded war chest.” These Republican millionaires are sitting on a pile of money – and once they start spending it will only escalate the attacks in this race to the bottom as Ohio voters and their interests continue to get left behind.  

“These Republican millionaires are willing to spend massive amounts of money that will only inject more nasty and personal attacks that will deepen the divisions in this crowded field and turn Ohio voters off. With each dollar spent, these out-of-touch millionaires will spotlight their weaknesses and leave whoever hobbles out of this primary deeply damaged heading into the general election,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

Key points below:

Wall Street Journal: How Tight Is Trump’s Grip on the GOP? Take a Look at the Ohio Senate Primary

Michael Bender

October 6, 2021

• Until recently, Portman-style candidates typified the party in the state, fending off opposition from socially conservative or Tea Party activists. No more. With Mr. Portman retiring, the fight to succeed him revolves around one question only: Which flavor of Trump is best?
• The Ohio contest is one of a handful likely to determine control of the Senate, and what happens there could be a leading indicator of the viability of Trumpism without Mr. Trump on the ballot. The outcome will provide essential data points on Mr. Trump’s own decision about whether to run for president again in 2024 and what it will mean if he does.
• “I’m watching Ohio very, very closely,” Mr. Trump said in an interview. “They’re all for Trump—it’s a wonderful thing.”
• “Democrats can still win here, especially if the Republican nominee is nothing but a Trumper,” said Aaron Pickrell, who oversaw former President Barack Obama’s 2008 victory in the state.
• Though Mr. Trump hasn’t yet endorsed a candidate in Ohio, he told the Journal he is impressed by the “very good candidates in line with my thinking.” In his view, “The single biggest issue is the election fraud of 2020,” he added. There was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
• By keeping the party under his thumb, Mr. Trump is maintaining his relevance for a potential rematch with President Biden. Mr. Trump has privately described his concern that his prominence as party kingmaker would fade if he stopped tending to his supporters, said people who have spoken to him.
• Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel has coordinated private meetings with Mr. Trump for two Senate candidates the PayPal co-founder is backing—Mr. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona. Mr. Thiel has put $10 million into each race but said at a Sept. 10 meeting with Mr. Trump and Mr. Masters that the former president’s endorsement was more valuable, according to people briefed on the meeting.
• Other Trump endorsements aim at unseating two types of Republicans: election officials in 2020 battleground states he lost but contends he won; and federal lawmakers who backed an impeachment charge related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Ten Republicans voted yes when the House impeached Mr. Trump in January, before the Senate acquitted him.
• In Ohio, the quintet of pro-Trump Senate candidates are scrubbing past criticism of Mr. Trump from social media, hiring former Trump campaign officials and seeking endorsements from former officials of his administration.
• Each has the means to assemble a fully loaded war chest for the primary battle. In interviews, all five said they expected to raise—from individual contributions or their own bank accounts—the $10 million that political operatives estimate a successful primary contest would cost.
• That would give them all the ability to pitch to the two million Republican voters in the state’s 12 media markets. A primary with so many well-funded candidates would be unprecedented, political operatives said.
• An early fundraising surprise is Mr. Moreno, a 54-year-old car dealer and tech entrepreneur who raised $2.2 million in the first three months of his campaign, roughly double what anyone else in the race collected in individual contributions.
• In another era, his biggest liability might be his relatively short 16 years living in the state. Instead, it is having referred to Mr. Trump in 2016 as a “lunatic invading the party.”
• Mr. Gibbons, the investment banker, who has put $5.7 million into the race, is also running on his business experience, but in a way that mirrors more closely Mr. Trump’s unpolished approach. In an interview, Mr. Gibbons, 69, referred to the 43-year-old Mr. Mandel as “a boy.”
• Mr. Mandel has done his best Trump impression with his social-media presence. Allies and opponents alike privately speculated he was trying to get himself banned from the same platforms that have barred Mr. Trump.
• Mr. Mandel’s latest focus is Mr. Vance, who has started to rise in candidates’ internal polls.
• Mr. Mandel has attacked him as a “Never Trumper” and promoted video clips from 2016 showing Mr. Vance referring to some Trump voters as racists. Mr. Vance also referred to the party’s standard-bearer as “cultural heroin” in 2016, and he has deleted tweets critical of Mr. Trump, including one that called him “reprehensible.”
• Mr. Mandel’s first target was Ms. Timken, a 55-year-old lawyer with experience in civil litigation and business disputes. She became chairwoman of the state Republican Party in 2017 when Mr. Trump helped her oust a chairman he deemed insufficiently supportive.
• Trump advisers said the president was on a path to backing Ms. Timken for Senate bid but reconsidered after remarks she made after Rep. Gonzalez’s January vote to impeach. In an interview with the Plain Dealer, Ms. Timken called Mr. Gonzalez “an effective legislator” and a “very good person” who had “a rational reason” for his vote. 

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Columbus, OH — After all the leading candidates in the Ohio Republican Senate primary opposed the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Senator Rob Portman – the senator they are vying to replace – helped to negotiate, Portman today took a shot when asked about their stance, saying, “politics… tends to overshadow the substance.” 

In a new interview with Spectrum News, Portman touted the benefits of the bipartisan infrastructure bill for Ohio and chided the GOP Senate field, saying, “unfortunately, some have decided on a political basis that they can’t support it. But they’re not talking about the substance.”

This follows a report last week that only one of the GOP Senate candidates would even think about accepting Portman’s endorsement, which is a far different approach than the field’s single-minded effort to chase Trump’s endorsement. The gap between the GOP Senate candidates and Rob Portman continues to grow and will continue to spotlight just how divided Republicans really are headed into next year’s election. 

“Even Rob Portman has noticed all of the leading GOP Senate candidates to replace him have put politics ahead of creating jobs and building roads and bridges in Ohio. As these out-of-touch millionaires focus on their own petty and short-sighted feuds, it’s clear this out-of-control primary will remain a race to the bottom with Ohioans and their interests getting left behind,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.   

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Ohio Capital Journal slammed Governor Mike DeWine this week for putting his desire to win reelection over doing the job he was elected to do and serve the interests of Ohioans. The editorial released Monday by Marilou Johanek does not mince words, calling DeWine ‘feckless,’ and pointing out the ways DeWine is putting the needs of our state behind the needs of his reelection campaign.

“[T]he 74-year-old multi-millionaire, with a slew of state and federal elected offices behind him, won’t risk a backlash from the red hats in the base. He won’t mount a fortified offense to the extreme, damaging policies being foisted on Ohio. He won’t do something that compromises his relationship with the far right. Ambition trumps courage,” writes Johanek.

“With so many critical issues facing our state right now, Mike DeWine’s partisan pandering is not only wrong, it’s irresponsible. Amid rising numbers of COVID-19, unconstitutional gerrymandering by the Ohio GOP and the biggest public corruption scandal in state history, the consequences of DeWine’s lack of leadership could not be more clear,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

You can read more from the Ohio Capital Journal here and below:

• Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is in trouble. He’s in full reelection mode, and nothing is going as planned.
• We’re still waiting for DeWine to “do something” about the explosion of COVID cases in the state overwhelming our hospitals.
• But as the delta variant rips through Ohio — still ranked near the bottom nationwide in COVID vaccinations — and infected children fill up intensive care units, the governor sits on his hands.
• [T]he 74-year-old multi-millionaire, with a slew of state and federal elected offices behind him, won’t risk a backlash from the red hats in the base. He won’t mount a fortified offense to the extreme, damaging policies being foisted on Ohio. He won’t do something that compromises his relationship with the far right. Ambition trumps courage.
• DeWine picked winning over us. He picked partisan extremism over evenhanded stewardship in the public interest. He chose the same disingenuous posturing he copped on COVID with his vote on gerrymandered legislative districts that give built-in advantage to Republicans. A leader who truly honored the overwhelming will of voters for fair, competitive districts that represent the actual balance of statewide voters, would have rejected the opposite. But DeWine didn’t.
• A “moderate” Republican might balk at signing a bill with an anti-LGBTQ provision slipped in that allows discrimination in health care. But a governor in the extreme camp, like DeWine, was fine with allowing health professionals to refuse service to LGBTQ patients and others.
• He remained squarely in the extreme lane when, instead of following through on his promise to “do something” to curb gun violence after Dayton, he signed expanded gun rights laws vigorously opposed as dangerous by law enforcement but supported by (surprise!) the gun lobby.
• DeWine is knee-deep in the largest bribery scandal in Ohio history that involved the fleecing of Ohio ratepayers by influential utilities with help from Republican friends in high places.
• DeWine couldn’t sign House Bill 6 — the bailout bill written for and by First Energy at the heart of the unparalleled corruption case — fast enough. This won’t end well for the governor, whose top lieutenants with close ties to First Energy have already slunk away.

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, former Republican Governor Bob Taft slammed members of his own party late last week, saying proposed anti-voter legislation would take Ohio backward and deny democracy to Ohio voters. In an op-ed published by the Columbus Dispatch, Taft insists every Ohioan deserves to have their voice heard, and no state lawmaker should support policy allowing election tools to leave any Ohio voters behind.

The editorial, authored by the former governor, shows just how out of touch Ohio’s Republican Party truly is, just as current Secretary of State Frank LaRose continues pushing regressive legislation that directly attacks voting methods that made the 2020 election successful. You can read more from Taft here, and below:

• Unfortunately, some measures introduced in the legislature this year would take us backward when it comes to election policy.
• Creating new hurdles to vote by mail or vote early would impact many often-overlooked communities, including voters with disabilities and voters in rural areas.
• A large majority of voters (60%) in Ohio’s rural areas voted by mail or voted early in-person in the 2020 election.
• Voters in rural areas may live far away from a polling place or need the flexibility to vote early due to work or medical conditions, so it makes sense they would rely on vote by mail and early voting methods.
• Giving voters secure options should not be a partisan issue.
• Instead of trying to make it harder to cast a ballot by mail or early, we should keep Ohio’s mail voting system strong, allow counties to expand early voting opportunities, let voters request a mail ballot online, and give counties more flexibility to provide secure drop boxes.
• We shouldn’t leave any voter behind when we are creating election policy, whether they live in Dayton or Zanesville.
• My hope is that our leaders in Columbus will work together to come up with policies that protect every Ohioan’s ability to participate in our democracy and have their voice heard.

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