“Not My Job,” “Double Corruption,” “Renacci’s Jungle” and “‘Wrighting’ a Wrong:” What’s Making Headlines With Republican #OHGOV Candidates This Week
October 25, 2021
Good Monday afternoon, and welcome to the first edition of 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.
As the gubernatorial race heats up, Republicans are in disarray with Mike DeWine’s popularity dropping by the day, facing attacks both inside and outside of the Republican Party, and having to answer for the largest public corruption scandal in state history. It’s hard to keep up with all of the corruption and mess surrounding Mike DeWine and the GOP gubernatorial primary, so here are some stories you may have missed:
WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? That’s the big question this week when it comes to state redistricting maps. Mike DeWine, in a sworn deposition, ducked questions and denied any involvement in the map-making process. Admitting under oath they couldn’t be bothered to do the jobs they were all elected to do, DeWine joined Frank LaRose and Keith Faber to all say they “had no involvement” in the mapmaking process, yet decided to vote for the unconstitutional maps anyway, because once again, they’re only looking out for themselves. We can’t imagine many hard-working Ohioans get to duck their jobs and then shift the blame to someone else, neither should their elected officials.
DEWINE’S CORRUPT FAMILY TREE. Mike DeWine’s son and Ohio Supreme Court Justice, Pat DeWine, took a page out of dear old Dad’s political playbook this week by following his own ambitions instead of doing what’s right for Ohio. In case you missed multiple news reports, Pat DeWine continues to refuse to recuse himself from lawsuits surrounding blatantly gerrymandered redistricting maps that directly involve his father. It’s a move so outrageous, Cleveland.com (among others) said the refusal to act may even be “unprecedented.”
SMELLS LIKE STATEHOUSE CORRUPTION. The overarching question for the week: Does Mike DeWine still think Sam Randazzo ‘did a great job?’ Last Thursday, text messages obtained by the Ohio Consumers’ Council show DeWine’s good buddy overruled others on the Public Utilities Commission to secure policies that benefited FirstEnergy. Yes, the same FirstEnergy that admitted to bribing Randazzo with $4.3 million for friendly administrative rulings. Oh, we almost forgot, the messages also show Randazzo successfully “burned” a final PUCO audit into a FirstEnergy customer charge the Ohio Supreme Court ruled should never have been approved by Randazzo and PUCO in the first place. Doesn’t sound so much like a ‘great job’ to us.
RENACCI ON THE ATTACK. We had to watch this ad several times just to tell you it might be one of the “wildest” we’ve seen in a few campaign cycles.
JUST ONE MORE THING TO MAKE ‘WRIGHT’. We couldn’t let the newsletter end without mentioning yet another major blunder for the DeWine administration, as the governor and his team had to find a way to ‘Wright’ a pretty big wrong on Ohio’s new license plates. In what should have been a fun event Thursday, DeWine took the wraps off of a new license plate design. Yet, anyone who has been to the Smithsonian or read a history book realized something wasn’t quite ‘Wright’ with the first design, with the iconic Wright Flyer facing the wrong direction. The DeWine administration had to embarrassingly and quickly try to fix their mistakes, walk back the design and reissue a new license plate. Here’s hoping they’ll do PUCO next.
Thanks for catching up with us, that’s all the Mike Check we’ve got for this week. If you have questions my email is [email protected]. Have a great week!
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