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Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democrats held a virtual press conference to mark President Biden’s first 100 days in office and talk about the victories for our state since Biden has taken office. The press event follows the President’s address to Congress on Wednesday and comes ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Ohio on Friday.

“President Biden’s presidency has made a critical difference in getting Ohio back on the road to recovery as we look to move past the status quo, COVID, and to build back better. Thanks to President Biden’s leadership and the American Rescue Plan he signed into law, help is here, more is coming and the Ohio Promise of better lives and brighter futures is on the horizon,” said Ohio Minority Leader Emilia Strong Sykes.

“Ohio knows all too well how badly infrastructure improvements are needed in our state. We look forward to the Vice President’s visit to southwest Ohio tomorrow and hearing more about the infrastructure planning that’s already under way as we look to build back better in Ohio under President Biden and Vice President Harris’ leadership,” said Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus.

“I was excited to hear President Biden announce his American Families Plan last night. President Biden’s plan includes funding for child care, paid family and medical leave, free universal preschool and funding for higher education. These are the kinds of investments that Ohioans have been calling for and now they have a champion in the White House who’s committed to fighting for them,” said Chillicothe Mayor Luke Feeney.

Since President Biden took office, Ohio is back on the road to recovery. Examples of important wins for Ohio include:

• The passage of the American Rescue Plan, which has helped millions of Ohioans get vaccinated, provided $1,400 stimulus checks for Ohioans to make ends meet and included critical help for small businesses to reopen and stay open. 
• President Biden has also outlined an infrastructure package that will not only fix Ohio’s roads and bridges, it will put Ohioans back to work by investing in American workers. 

And for President Biden, this is only a start, after he previewed his American Families Plan last night, which will include funding for child care, paid family and medical leave, free universal preschool and funding for higher education.

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Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters released the following statement praising President Joe Biden’s address to Congress, in which he outlined a number of priorities that will help Ohioans.

President Biden discussed the success of the American Rescue Plan — passed into law with the help of Sen. Brown and Ohio Democrats — which has helped millions of Ohioans get their COVID-19 vaccines, helped small businesses reopen and put money back in the pockets of working Ohioans. President Biden also outlined the American Families Plan, which will help Ohio families make ends meet by investing in child care, universal preschool, higher education funding, paid family and medical leave, as well as providing middle-class tax cuts.

“In just 100 days, President Biden has already put Ohio back on the path to prosperity as we work to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and build back better. It’s clear that President Biden’s steadfast commitment to working families is paying off, as we’re seeing shots in arms and money in pockets all across our state. And President Biden is just getting started, as Ohio gets set to benefit from the plans he outlined tonight to rebuild our state’s infrastructure and invest in Ohio families,” said Chair Walters.

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In Case You Missed It, the GOP-led Ohio Supreme Court embarrassed Frank LaRose today as his attempts to once again overexert himself for his own political purposes backfired. LaRose has a long record of overstepping and harming Ohioans in the process, like when he arbitrarily decided ballot dropboxes would be limited to one location per county and when he waited until the last minute to postpone Ohio’s primary last year, causing confusion for voters and local Boards of Elections alike. Keeping with that theme, the Ohio Supreme Court wrote in its rejection of LaRose’s latest move that he “abused his discretion.”

“Even his fellow Republicans are calling out Frank LaRose for playing politics rather than doing the job he was elected to do. LaRose isn’t just embarrassing himself, his laser-like focus on his own political interests comes at the expense of Ohioans who are paying him a generous salary while he spends his time planning his next political run. LaRose should get back to the job at hand, and he can start by rejecting the anti-voter legislation his fellow Republicans are circulating now,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Read more about the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision from Cleveland.com HERE and below:

• The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Secretary of State Frank LaRose to reappoint Summit County GOP Chair Bryan Williams to the Summit County Board of Elections.
• “The committee has met its burden of proof to show that LaRose’s reasons for rejecting Williams’ appointment were not valid and that he abused his discretion,” the court order reads. “We therefore grant a writ of mandamus ordering LaRose to reappoint Williams to the Summit County Board of Elections.”
• Justices O’Connor and Kennedy penned the court order, with Justices Fischer, DeWine, Stewart and Brunner concurring and Donnelly concurring with an opinion.
• At issue was LaRose’s March 3 letter rejecting the reappointment of Summit GOP Chair Bryan Williams to the Summit County Board of Elections. The same day, Elections Director Amanda Grandjean wrote a letter notifying the board it was placed under “administrative oversight.”
• The court’s opinion Tuesday states that “LaRose’s concerns about a dysfunctional board culture remain the product of rumors and suspicions,” since the claims were based partially on a years-old complaint that was not investigated or confirmed by LaRose’s office.
• The party claimed that LaRose’s motivations were “based on improper, political reasons that are unrelated to whether Williams has the qualifications to serve.”

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Columbus, OH — As President Biden nears his first 100 days in office, Ohioans are benefitting from the President’s focus on helping Ohio recover economically from the pandemic and from the American Rescue Plan he signed into law with the help of Ohio Democrats. After Ohio was hit hard by the economic consequences of the pandemic, under Biden’s leadership, the state’s unemployment rate is falling and small businesses across the state are getting the help they need to open back up.

“Thanks to the steadfast commitment of President Biden, Sen. Brown and Reps. Beatty, Kaptur and Ryan to help working families in Ohio recover from the pandemic, Ohio is building back better and on the road to recovery. We’re not out of the woods yet, but after a terrible year for our state, Ohioans are finally getting the help they need to take care of themselves and their families thanks to President Biden’s leadership,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, Ohio has received:

• Economic impact payments of up to $1,400 per person (above the $600 per person provided in December) for more than 7.4 million adults and 2.8 million children. This is 89% of all adults in the state and 87% of all children in the state.
• Additional relief of up to $1,600 per child through the Child Tax Credit to the families of 2,372,000 children, lifting 132,000 children out of poverty.
• Additional relief of up to nearly $1,000 through the Earned Income Tax Credit to 695,000 childless workers, including many in frontline jobs.

Since President Biden took office, more than a million jobs have been created across the country and weekly unemployment claims fell last week to the lowest level since March of last year, when the pandemic began. The U.S. economy is headed for its best year since 1984, and retail sales have surged by nearly 10 percent last month as small businesses open up and families have money in their pockets again, surpassing the expectations of Wall Street analysts.

Here in Ohio, state unemployment rates have fallen roughly 15% since from their height at the start of the year.

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In Case You Missed It, a Cleveland.com analysis of the Ohio House budget outlines the ways in which Gov. Mike DeWine is losing his grip on power in Columbus as he continues to cede ground to an extreme group of Republicans in the legislature. As GOP factions deepen, DeWine is losing the ability to get anything done and becomes vulnerable to the same kind of messy primary Ohio is seeing play out in the Republican Senate primary.

“Before Ohio House Republicans put the final touches on their version of the state budget approved this week, they stripped out many of Gov. Mike DeWine’s top priorities. It was just the latest example of the legislature’s lack of deference to DeWine, who’s ostensibly the leader of the state party and heading into what could be a tough re-election campaign year in 2022,” writes Andrew Tobias of Cleveland.com.

In their budget, far-right House Republicans rejected a number of DeWine’s priorities, including even the most modest of gun violence prevention measures, and forced the administration to pay back fines issued to bars and restaurants who violated COVID-19 safety measures. This comes on the heels of statehouse Republicans overriding DeWine’s veto of legislation that limited the Governor’s power in a public health emergency.

And as the GOP continues to attack each other, Ohio voters are left out to dry as legislating and governing takes a backseat to political posturing.

Read more from Cleveland.com HERE and below:

• Before Ohio House Republicans put the final touches on their version of the state budget approved this week, they stripped out many of Gov. Mike DeWine’s top priorities.
• It was just the latest example of the legislature’s lack of deference to DeWine, who’s ostensibly the leader of the state party and heading into what could be a tough re-election campaign year in 2022.
• In a slap at the governor’s coronavirus safety orders, the House budget bill also would force the DeWine administration to refund fines issued against bars and other restaurants for COVID-19 safety violations, and also would reinstate liquor licenses for bars that lost them for the same reason.
• Besides rejecting DeWine’s priorities in the operating budget, they also removed a DeWine-backed proposal from the state transportation budget in March that would have strengthened penalties for people convicted of distracted driving. And weeks later, they took the extraordinary step of overriding a DeWine veto of a bill that limited the governor’s power to issue health orders.
• While DeWine didn’t ask for it, the operating budget bill includes a 2% income-tax cut that will cost the state $380 million over two years, while saving a taxpayer who makes a $60,000 salary only $29 a year.
• Republicans in general have tended to dismiss the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic or criticize the government response as overblown. At several campaign events for then-President Donald Trump last year, DeWine and his Lt. Gov. Jon Husted were criticized or booed when their names came up. DeWine has implored Ohioans to wear masks to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, but many lawmakers have refused to wear them.
• DeWine’s challenges with the legislature show no sign of easing up heading into the 2022 election campaign. From the right, former U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, a possible Republican challenger, praised the legislature for taking DeWine’s gun reforms out.

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