Posts by: Joseph
Last year’s battle for control of the Ohio Republican Party divided Republicans throughout the state. Ultimately, Kasich was able to gather enough votes on the Central Committee to oust then-Chairman Kevin DeWine, partially with the support of the Tea Party. He pissed off quite a few Republicans in the process, and the way he’s chosen to lead the party is likely to anger a heck of a lot more.
While power and control of party resources was clearly the reason for the coup, Kasich supporters gave many other reasons for wanting DeWine out. The Kasich cheerleaders over at ThirdBasePolitics [...]
Full Story... →Teachers in Strongsville, Ohio have been on strike for over seven weeks now, facing down a school board that seems more focused on breaking the union than on getting teachers back in the classroom. According to the Strongsville Education Association (SEA), the group representing the teachers, the Strongsville School Board is also refusing to accept arbitration.
On April 2nd, SEA made an offer for binding interest arbitration that would have immediately reunited teachers with their students. The board has so far refused to accept the offer, instead complaining that arbitration would put taxpayer dollars in the hands of an “outsider”.
Democrat Ed FitzGerald officially announced his campaign to unseat John Kasich today. Below is the text of his announcement:
As I’ve traveled across our state these past few months, I’ve listened to what people are saying. I’ve found that everywhere I go, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, in cities, suburbs, and small towns- people are frustrated. They’re struggling. Too many are barely hanging on by their fingernails to the middle class. And when you talk to the workers, the small business owners, the parents, the cops, the nurses, the firefighters, and the teachers who make up the [...]
Full Story... →After a year of speculation, Ed FitzGerald made it official today, launching his campaign to unseat John Kasich as Governor of Ohio.
FitzGerald, the former mayor of Lakewood and current Cuyahoga County Executive, came out swinging, accusing Kasich of using counties, towns and cities like an ATM to balance his own budget.
The impacts of Kasich’s cuts to local government have been widely felt around the state, resulting in police, fire and teacher layoffs. Ohioans have also seen an explosion of new levies and taxes as local governments try cope with the loss of state funds while [...]
Full Story... →According to Policy Matters Ohio, local governments lost nearly $800 Million in Kasich’s first budget. And his 2014/2015 budget deepens those cuts, with locals seeing a loss of an additional $1.4 Billion compared to 2010/2011.
In Fairfield County, Policy Matters puts the total loss at $18.5 Million, with county operations losing $3.9 million.
To compensate for the loss of revenue, Fairfield County commissioners have opted to adopt a permanent 0.25 percent sales tax. The Lancaster Eagle Gazette estimates the tax would bring in between $3.5 and $4 Million per year, money county commissioners say is [...]
Full Story... →On Tuesday Ohio House Republicans introduced a substitute budget bill that included a provision specifically aimed at allowing a state takeover of the Columbus City Schools. The amendment, HC1622-1, ”Allows the Superintendent of Public Instruction to create an academic distress commission for any district found by the State Auditor to have knowingly manipulated student data with the intent to deceive.”
Steve Dyer describes it this way:
So let me get this straight. If you manipulated data, you will be assumed to have been in Academic Emergency (an F on the state report card) for several years. And as punishment, we’re going [...]
Full Story... →Republicans are always looking for new and creative ways to keep Ohio’s college students from voting. Last year True the Vote tried to intimidate hundreds of students simply because they tend to vote for Democrats. This year, Republican legislators have decided to use the budget bill to intimidate universities into keeping their students away from the polls.
The substitute budget bill introduced by House Republicans yesterday (Sub. H. B. No. 59) contains an unbelievable change to Ohio law that make it increasingly difficult for Ohio’s students living on campus to prove they are residents [...]
Full Story... →Imagine a society in which a teacher is on trial for corrupting the youth of the community by teaching them about the existence of contraception to protect against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.
Imagine being sixteen years old, being hauled in front of a judge, maybe even a jury, and having attorneys ask you personal, private questions about which specific sexual acts you have or have not engaged in with your boyfriend or girlfriend, under oath, while a court reporter feverishly takes down your testimony. All while your parents sit at one table, listening to every sordid detail, and representatives from your school sit [...]
Full Story... →David Pepper officially announced his candidacy for Ohio Attorney General yesterday, filing paperwork and telling reporters: “Ohioans deserve better.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Since taking over as Attorney General, Mike DeWine has used his position to push his own religious agenda while making mistake after mistake on important legal issues, like assuming witnesses of the Steubenville rape couldn’t be charged with a crime.
In the case of Steubenville, DeWine’s AG’s office actually sent letters to the three most complicit witnesses of the rape, effectively letting them off the hook for prosecution months before the trial even started. One [...]
Full Story... →In September we contacted the Ohio State Highway Patrol and requested copies of investigations into threats against the governor. We wanted to see how many actual threats had been made against Kasich and if these threats coincided with schedule records the Governor’s office was refusing to release over “security” concerns.
Our request was forwarded to the Ohio Department of Public Safety, who proceeded to deny the request claiming the documents constituted “security records” which could not be released “out of concern for the safety of public officials, their families and those with whom they work.”
After multiple revised requests, and [...]
Full Story... →On Thursday we wrote about John Kasich’s lack of enthusiasm in defending his own budget, specifically the now-cut Medicaid expansion, which was removed and/or altered along with his sales tax hike, income tax break and school funding plan, by members of his own party in the Ohio House.
Today three Ohio papers followed up with similar stories.
My favorite was from the PD’s Brett Larkin.
You really never know what you’re going to get from Larkin these days, but today his piece about Kasich’s lack of “leadership prowess” was some great reading, mainly because he unearthed [...]
Full Story... →Get Email Updates
PB Twitter Feed
- No public Twitter messages.
Advertisement
Advertisement
