May 5 – 11, 2018
Attorney General Mike DeWine might have spent almost $7 million beating back Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but that number doesn’t even include the millions of taxpayer dollars DeWine has spent to support his political ambitions.
Ohio GOP Can’t Escape Themselves 
Eventually, a decade of using your elected offices to give you and your pals fat paydays catches up with a political party. That’s what the Youngstown Vindicator attacks, pointing out that Chartergate and the payday lending pay-to-play scheme that’s caused the FBI to investigate former Speaker Cliff Rosenberger will drag all Republicans down with them in the fall.
Trump’s Lawyer Peddles Access To Prez
Secret deals between corporations and Trump attorney Michael Cohen expose how multinational corporations buy access to politicians. But don’t worry: if you have $500,000 lying around, you too can get a meeting with the president’s lawyer.
ECOT Misuses Public Dollars (Again)
Investigators continue to find even more egregious abuses of the public trust. But the school operated for almost two decades, leading to the question: what took Ohio officials so long (hint: it’s $$$)?
Perpetrators Caught Sneaking Into Ohio Schools
Project Veritas – the notorious right-wing group that pioneered lying through video editing – has officially crossed the line into creepy after two of their staff were caught trying to sneak into Cleveland schools. This *facepalm* situation follows Veritas staff getting caught trying to lie to the Washington Post.
Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed Issue 1, paving the way for new, fairer legislative districts in 2021. The new method will give the minority party much more of a say in how maps are drawn and end the painfully-obvious map distortions Ohio currently has.
Cincinnati joins Massachusetts, Florida, and Connecticut, as well as Columbia and Denver, in banning the devices used in the 2017 Las Vegas massacre. When will the rest of Ohio join them?
With an EPA-mandated $500 million bill, Toledo is looking for any way to mitigate the costs to upgrade its seven-decades-old water treatment plant. The Toledo Blade Editorial Board comes out strongly in favor of cooperating with surrounding suburbs, but former mayor Carty Finkbeiner may have something to say about that…
Cordray, DeWine Handily Win Primaries
Cordray is coming off a relatively civil primary win with a unified progressive movement behind him, while DeWine and his Super PAC pals had to spend over $9 million to fend off the Republican base. But all those ads about building walls and wasting all that taxpayer money with pointless lawsuits seems to have ticked off some “moderates” in the GOP…
Not Even Kasich Not Supporting DeWine (Yet)
Governor John Kasich, somehow seen as a moderate RINO by Ohio’s conservative base, isn’t backing DeWine — yet. DeWine’s notorious refusal to commit to the Medicaid expansion seems to have soured Kasich on his attorney general, though the ads he ran attacking Mary Taylor for supporting the expansion certainly suggest DeWine would scrap it.
Tuesday made one thing very clear: the Ohio GOP is in shambles. Not only will the Republican governor refuse to endorse the Republican nominee for governor, but former House Speaker Larry Householder just spent massive amounts of money primarying Republicans so that he could become Speaker again. Remember, last time he was in the Speaker chair, he was investigated by the FBI for blackmail and favoring special interests who donated to his campaign…remind you of any other former Speakers?
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