From the monthly archives: October 2011
Congratulations, Jennifer Brunner, you’ve now become part of Governor Kasich’s talking points in support of Issue 2:
At the Roundtable [discussing Issue 2], the governor championed the “need to work together to fix the problems in this state,” adding: “No more politics. I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat. … I don’t care because Ohio is dying and we need to get it healed.” He cited his appointment of Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat and former secretary of state, to the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission. [Source: Akron Beacon Journal].
Jennifer Brunner got played by Kasich, just as we [...]
Full Story... →Up until a month ago, Representative Steve Stivers and his wife lived on 2nd Avenue in the Victorian Village neighborhood of Columbus. According to the Franklin County auditor’s site, the couple bought a new house (for $535,000!) a few miles down the road in Upper Arlington on September 2nd, 2011.
Stivers currently represents Ohio’s 15th district in Congress and, under the current congressional district map, both of his homes would be included in the 15th district. But as we mentioned earlier today, the 15th is one of the districts that has been completely redrawn under the new redistricting [...]
Full Story... →If you were looking for an example of a high-competitive swing district, you’d be hard-pressed to find one better than Ohio’s 15th, which currently takes up a good portion of the Columbus area and also happens to be where I live.
In 2006 Mary Jo Kilroy narrowly lost the 15th congressional district to incumbent Deb Pryce by about a thousand votes (out of over 220,000 votes cast). That’s less than .5%. In 2008 Kilroy came back and beat Steve Stivers by about .8%. And in 2010, Stivers rode the wave of Republican turnout to beat Mary Jo by less than [...]
Full Story... →Kasich and other supporters of Senate Bill 5/Issue 2 claim that it gives local communities the tools they need to control costs. They like to use the banning of pension pick-ups as an example, primarily because this is one of the few parts of the bill that tends to poll well.
Politifact does a good job of describing pension pick-ups:
Many public workers contribute 10 percent of their salary toward their pension while the employer contributes 14 percent of the a worker’s salary. Some unions, however, have negotiated deals where the employer pays a portion of the employee contribution. [...]
Full Story... →On September 18, we posted a letter that we sent to the Governor’s office, specifically Barb Mattei-Smith, requesting that she “cease the spreading of misinformation regarding the Teacher Retesting provision of HB153, especially your repeated statements that a similar program has had a measurable impact in the state of Massachusetts.”
Today, two weeks later, we got a response from Robert Sommers, the Director of the Governor’s Office of 21st Century Education. He politely disagreed with the information we provided:
Greg,
I appreciate your careful analysis of information being shared from our office. We always strive to be accurate about our communications [...]
Full Story... →I’m not sure which disappoints me more, an uninformed individual praising the virtues of Issue 2 or an educator spreading misinformation while pretending to be a representative of the profession. Since the second Better Ohio video featuring a teacher covers both, I guess I don’t have to choose. In the video is Columbus West High School teacher Jim Murray [no secret; check his Twitter account] from Better Ohio’s mindlessly named “Teacher Resource Center.”
How do I know he is uninformed? Because he shared as much with me on Twitter about a month ago where he showed that he [...]
Full Story... →Fairfield County Republican Party Chairman Kyle Farmer is the star of Better Ohio’s latest commercial that squarely attacks hardworking teachers head on by insinuating much and providing no semblance of anything that could be termed “factual.” In the most ironic moment of the clip, the chairman mentions that he tells his students “you can’t believe everything you hear” and proceeds to back up that statement expertly for the remaining two-thirds of his time on-screen.
Here’s the skinny on the main talking point in the ad, teacher compensation:
“Good teachers will be rewarded for the job they do and the [...]
Full Story... →Budget Watch
