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Columbus, OH — Today, the Ohio Democratic Party released the following statement after a Gannett news story detailed how Mike DeWine and Jon Husted, ‘state official 1’ and ‘state official 2,’ were working behind the scenes to help FirstEnergy move forward the scandal-ridden HB 6, legislation at the center of Ohio’s largest public corruption scandal.

“Today’s story only raises more questions about what Mike DeWine and Jon Husted knew about the $80 million bribery scandal and when they knew it. Ohio Democrats have been working for months to get DeWine and Husted to give a full accounting of their role in the scandal as Ohioans continue to pay $287,000 every single day for Republican misdeeds. Today’s reporting only makes that full accounting more important and we’ll continue to press for answers,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

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“Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s rhetoric about some of the most vulnerable Ohioans doesn’t appear to match the reality”

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Ohio Capital Journal’s Marty Schladen pointed out the wide gap between Mike DeWine’s rhetoric and the reality when it comes to investing in Ohio families. Since DeWine took office, Ohio has fallen when it comes to assisting Ohio’s most vulnerable families in each major category tracked by the Kids Count Data Book. Bottom line, numbers don’t lie and Ohio voters are taking notice.

“But as DeWine nears the end of his first term as governor, Ohio continues to decline, according to a number of indices regarding the state’s most vulnerable. The 2022 Kids Count Data Book released last week by the Annie E. Casey Foundation said that Ohio has fallen in every measure in which it compares states since DeWine has been governor. In addition, Ohio is now in the bottom half of states for each of the categories in which the foundation rates the states,” wrote Schladen.

“Mike DeWine’s empty rhetoric doesn’t match reality. As DeWine focuses all of his time and energy on attacking women, Ohio families are falling further and further behind. The reality is Ohio families can’t afford four more years of Mike DeWine, they deserve better,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Read more from the Ohio Capital Journal here and below:

• Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s rhetoric about some of the most vulnerable Ohioans doesn’t appear to match the reality if data released last week are any guide.
• The governor has been refusing to talk about some of the most controversial aspects of strict new abortion restrictions that he signed into law in 2019 and which took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade on June 24. Instead, his staff has been referring the press to comments the governor made just after he signed the law, Senate Bill 23, and just after the high court issued its decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health.
• In neither speech did DeWine address the fact that S.B. 23 doesn’t make exceptions for victims of rape, people with intellectual disabilities or children who become pregnant. And while he spoke in both speeches about the importance of protecting the “vulnerable,” DeWine still hasn’t answered publicly when asked if he supports a provision in the law that forced a 10-year-old rape victim to go out of state for an abortion.
• The law also requires the vast majority of women and girls to carry pregnancies to term after about six weeks of pregnancy — a point at which as many as a third don’t yet know they’re pregnant. In 2020, for example, 70% of girls and women — or more than 14,000 — who got abortions in Ohio got them after six weeks of pregnancy.
• There are widespread worries that by requiring unwanted pregnancies to be carried to term, it only will add to the number of Ohio women and children living in poverty and suffering poor health outcomes. But in his June 24 speech, DeWine claimed “great progress” in helping those populations.
• When DeWine took office at the beginning of 2019, progress needed to be made — badly.
• The Ohio Department of Health reports that between 2008 and 2016, Black women in the state were two-and-a-half times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts. Meanwhile, in 2019, Black infants died at nearly three times the rate of white infants. 
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2020, Ohio had the 10th-highest rate of infant mortality, the 19th-highest rates of teen and preterm births, the 18th-highest rate of low birthweight babies and the 16th-highest rate of babies born to unmarried mothers.
• But as DeWine nears the end of his first term as governor, Ohio continues to decline, according to a number of indices regarding the state’s most vulnerable. The 2022 Kids Count Data Book released last week by the Annie E. Casey Foundation said that Ohio has fallen in every measure in which it compares states since DeWine has been governor. In addition, Ohio is now in the bottom half of states for each of the categories in which the foundation rates the states.
• In terms of education, Ohio dropped from 27th in 2019 to 31st in 2022, the report said. For relative economic well-being, it fell from 16th to 28th, and the group’s rating of family and community support fell from 31st to 33rd over the same period.
• Perhaps most distressingly, overall child well-being fell from 27th in 2019 to 31st this year, the report said.

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Columbus, OH — For the second time in less than a month, radical Republican Justice Pat Fischer compared abortion to slavery, this time in a Columbus Dispatch opinion column penned by Fischer himself. In the column where Fischer attempted to defend his earlier comments, he did nothing more than repeat his earlier points – comparing Roe v. Wade to decisions like Dred Scott.

Today’s comments come after Fischer first compared abortion to slavery early in July at a Delaware City Republican Club event. Fischer was widely panned for his comments, and there were several calls for the Justice to apologize. Instead, he’s doubled down.

“Instead of apologizing, Justice Fischer has chosen to double down on his extreme and out-of-touch comments comparing abortion to slavery. Pat Fischer once again reminded Ohio why he belongs nowhere near our state’s highest court and why removing the extreme Republicans running for reelection is so important to the future of our state,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes.

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August 8, 2022

Good Monday afternoon, and welcome back to Mike Check, your weekly source of all the infighting, conspiracy spewing and corruption that’s making headlines in and around the Republican governor’s race and Mike DeWine’s statehouse, courtesy of the Ohio Democratic Party.

Here are some stories you may have missed:

CAVING ON VIOLENCE. Ohio is fed up with Mike DeWine’s lack of action on gun violence. Just as Dayton marked the somber third anniversary of a mass shooting that took the lives of nine Ohioans, downtown Cincinnati was marred by violence over the weekend where a mass shooting injured nine people. And nothing but radio silence from DeWine. Three years after Ohioans shouted at DeWine to “do something,” the only something we’ve seen from DeWine is caving to the gun lobby and signing bills that make Ohioans less safe, including permitless carry legislation and a bill that would put more guns in schools, both over the objections of Ohio law enforcement. When it comes to standing up for Ohioans or caving to the gun lobby, DeWine will cave every time.

SECRETS ARE NO FUN. Mike DeWine is doing everything in his power to keep Ohioans in the dark when it comes to the FirstEnergy scandal, including using a non-governmental email address to conduct business. In new records and emails released as part of the ongoing investigation, we learned DeWine used a private email address to communicate with shady Sam Randazzo as the former Ohio energy head’s influence grew in DeWine’s inner circle. We know DeWine and Randazzo were in regular contact around the time House Bill 6 became law, but DeWine still wants to dodge questions on the scandal and pretend he didn’t know anything by only sharing heavily redacted calendars with the public. We also know Randazzo was heavily involved in the creation of the law that is still costing Ohioans to this day after he was hand-picked by DeWine to head PUCO. Secrets are no fun DeWine, it’s time to tell us what you knew and when.

KEEP FOLLOWING THE MONEY. Once again, critical funding is on the way to Ohio law enforcement thanks to Ohio Democrats, and once again, Mike DeWine is trying to take all the credit. But if it were up to DeWine, they would never see a dollar of that funding. Why? Because DeWine (and every other Ohio Republican on the ballot this fall) opposed the American Rescue Plan championed by Ohio Democrats. But Mike DeWine is so desperate to stay relevant, he’s once again touting funding he opposed and that Democrats passed. Bottom line, DeWine is in trouble, he knows it and he’s ready to stoop to any level to come off as likable both inside and outside of his own party.

WE’RE NUMBER 31.  A recent study ranked Ohio 31 in child well-being, including rating in the bottom half on critical categories including health and economic well-being. While DeWine is busy rubberstamping statehouse Republicans’ agenda of cutting taxes for the wealthy and well-connected, Ohio kids are paying the price. Instead of investing in working families and helping Ohio children get ahead, DeWine has prioritized attacking women and implementing some of the most anti-choice legislation in the nation. Pro-life, indeed.

Thanks for catching up with us, that’s all the Mike Check we’ve got for this week. Have a great week!

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Business Insider reports that radical QAnon conspiracist J.R. Majewski is breaking federal law by refusing to file his personal financial disclosure forms, raising questions about where Majewski gets his money and what he might be trying to hide. Majewski’s failure to file this most basic paperwork only reinforces the unseriousness of his campaign. Voters in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District deserve better.

“Majewski, who is running against Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur to represent Ohio’s newly re-drawn 9th Congressional District, is more than a year late in revealing information about his personal income, investments, debts, employment, and any side jobs, according to an Insider analysis of congressional records,” writes Dave Levinthal for Insider.

Read more on Majewski missing key financial disclosures here and below:

• Republican J.R. Majewski, a Donald Trump-endorsed candidate in one of the nation’s most competitive congressional races, is violating a federal conflicts-of-interest and public transparency law by failing to disclose details about his personal finances.
• Majewski, who is running against Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur to represent Ohio’s newly re-drawn 9th Congressional District, is more than a year late in revealing information about his personal income, investments, debts, employment, and any side jobs, according to an Insider analysis of congressional records.
• Federal law requires all congressional candidates to file a certified financial disclosure with the US House shortly after raising or spending $5,000 in campaign cash, according to House ethics guidelines and federal law.
• But Majewski, who’s been running for Congress since February 25, 2021, surpassed this threshold sometime before June 30, 2021, according to FEC records.
• A congressional candidate who “knowingly and willfully falsifies a statement or fails to file a statement” disclosing his or her personal finances may be subject to investigation by the Department of Justice.
• While such investigations are rare, the maximum civil penalty for such an offense is $66,190 while the maximum criminal penalty is one year in federal prison plus a fine of up to the same amount, according to the federal Ethics in Government Act.
• Reached by phone Wednesday, J.R. Majewski for Congress campaign treasurer Sean Tarnowski declined to comment and referred questions to campaign staff.
• Majewski’s spokesperson, Melissa Pelletier, said by phone Thursday she’d “do my best” to answer several questions Insider had sent the Majewski campaign. Pelletier did not respond to subsequent phone and email messages.
• Majewski listed “honesty,” integrity” and “the ability to communicate” among the characteristics or principles most important for an elected official, according to a Ballotpedia candidate survey.
• He also indicated in various statements and tweets that he supports transparency and following rules.
• Majewski, however, has not provided a detailed, certified, public accounting of where he’s earned his money, and when, or how he invests his money. 
• Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization, said all congressional candidates should follow the law about personal financial disclosures — especially in a race as close as the one for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District.
• “It allows voters to consider the statements the candidates make, it allows voters to consider any conflicts of interest,” Turcer said. “Transparency allows voters to be educated … and to know what each of the candidates are all about and how responsible they are.”

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