‘It Boggles the Mind:’ Mike DeWine Putting Politics Above the Health & Safety of Ohioans
September 2, 2021
Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, Howard Wilkinson yesterday eviscerated Mike DeWine for his monumental shift on handling the COVID-19 pandemic in the face of increasing political pressure within his own party. Amid a messy primary, DeWine is looking out for himself and his own interests, and leaving Ohioans to fend for themselves as cases of COVID-19 are on the rise. As Thaddeus Hoffmeister observes in Wilkinson’s column: “(DeWine) seems to have his eyes in the primary and not on the ICU units.”
“In case Mike DeWine needs a reminder, the health and safety of Ohioans is more important than a political campaign. Instead of a governor who caves again and again to extreme members of his own party, Ohioans deserve a strong governor who is willing to stand up and do what’s right for the people of our state. It’s clear that Mike DeWine is not that governor,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.
Read more from Wilkinson HERE and below:
- The anti-vaxxers. The Trump acolytes. The so-called free market conservatives who don’t believe a private business or a public institution should be able to require masks be worn in their facilities to help stop the spread of the delta variant.
- And, most of all, the Republican majority in the Ohio General Assembly, both House and Senate, who have been busily stripping DeWine of the executive authority he used freely in the first half of 2020 to break the spread of COVID-19.
- It has left the governor – who says he is running for reelection, at the age of 75 – frustrated at every turn. And, most likely, impotent in the face of some deadly serious challenges.
- And he admitted he is powerless now even to mandate masks be worn in schools.
- “I made the decision not to do that,” DeWine said. “As you know, the law provides that if the state legislature does not like a health order, they can repeal it – get rid of it – instantly.
- All of this comes at a time when Ohio’s COVID-19 cases have hit their highest level in seven months.
- “The legislature has effectively made themselves into the executive branch,” said David Niven, professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati.
- “It seems as if he is now saying, ‘I’m going to put partisan politics above the health and welfare of 12 million Ohioans,’ ” Hoffmeister said. “He seems to have his eyes in the primary and not on the ICU units.”