A surprise candidate emerges in the Cleveland mayoral race. Ohio’s senators are seeing their switchboards light up. And Ohio Republicans share their thoughts on the Ohio press. Read more in today’s Ohio Politics Roundup, brought to you today by Andrew J. Tobias.
It’s getting hotter in the kitchen: A political outsider and prominent local do-gooder has entered the Cleveland mayor’s race, according to my Thursday report.
Brandon Chrostowski, the 37-year-old president and CEO of the renowned Edwins Leadership and Restaurant Institute (best known to Clevelanders as a fancy French restaurant in Shaker Square) made the surprise announcement on Thursday. He said he plans to take his restaurant’s mission — which trains ex-inmates for jobs in the culinary industry — and take it citywide.
He had nothing to say about Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who announced he would run for a fourth term earlier this week.
“I just want to make it clear, I’m not going to run some shameless campaign,” he said in an interview. I’ve got true admiration for the man. I think he’s done a great job. But I’ve just got a different idea of what should work.”
Chrostowski is not politically involved, per se, but his work has helped him meet prominent local and state politicians — Sen. Rob Portman toured his restaurant last year — and has brought him national acclaim. Cleveland’s political culture tends to emphasize paying one’s dues. It will be interesting to see what kind of reception he gets.
Why this is an interesting development: Cleveland.com columnist Mark Naymik sums it up: Chrostowski’s entry complicates Jackson’s reluctant candidate shtick.
Naymik writes that Jackson earlier this week announced he “reluctantly will seek an unprecedented fourth four-year term as mayor because no one has stepped forward whom he believes is as committed as he is to Cleveland…[but] Jackson will not likely question Chrostowski’s commitment to the city given his institute’s work to transform the lives of formerly incarcerated individuals through employment.”
Reed between the lines: Cleveland City Councilman Zach Reed says he’s still thinking about running for mayor, according to WSKU’s Kevin Niedermier.
“We think we put ourselves in a position to at least be a viable candidate. But are we a viable winning candidate,” Reed said. “…Willie Brown always taught me not to run a race you can’t win. He’s my mentor out in San Francisco and he said don’t run a race you can’t win. So we want to look at and evaluate the race from start to finish.”
A refugee’s tale: Cleveland.com’s Mary Kilpatrick interviewed Ayham Oubeid, a 34-year-old North Olmsted resident whose brother and his family were to have moved from Dubai to join him this month.
But following President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning citizens of seven countries, including Syria, from entering the United States, the family — which is Syrian — now is left in limbo.
“The family had already sold their car. He pulled his daughter out of school. George had quit his job. His visa in Dubai expires later this month, and if he can’t get it back, he will be forced to return to war-torn Syria.”
On that note: Trump’s Friday meeting with a “kitchen cabinet” of economic advisers– including Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove, could be a little more tense than initially thought, cleveland.com’s Stephen Koff writes.
“Politics are not directly on its agenda. Regulation, taxes, trade and women in the workforce are. But some of the executives, including Cosgrove, find their employees on the receiving end of a presidential order that last week denied foreign workers entry to the United States and raised employee protests from Cleveland to Seattle. Other members of the council include top executives of Uber and Tesla — or did, until Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick quit the Trump group.”
Call me maybe: Ohio’s two senators have their minds up when it comes to Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, Koff writes.
Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is a definite ‘no’ vote, while GOP Sen. Rob Portman has said he will vote to confirm her.
Nonetheless, Senate phone lines are jammed with people urging votes for and against DeVos.
If you still would like to call, both senators say they’re happy to hear from constituents, despite what Portman staffer Emily Benavides called a “higher than normal amount of calls.”
Speaking of DeVos: She contended in a letter to Brown and others this week that she does not have to pay $5.3 million in Ohio elections fines that were assessed to a pro-charter group she previously chaired, The Plain Dealer’s Patrick O’Donnell writes.
“Your assertions that I should personally pay the fine or that I am using a ‘legal loophole’ to avoid personally paying the fine are both incorrect and unfair,” DeVos wrote. “As you know, I was never a party to the lawsuit, and the trial court judge expressly ruled an ACM officer could not be held personally liable for the fine. A Court’s ruling is not a loophole.”
Going nuclear 101: Trump has urged the GOP-controlled Senate to use the so-called ‘nuclear option’ if necessary — that is, changing Senate rules so that nominees like prospective Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch require only a simple majority vote, rather than 60 votes in the 100-senator chamber. Koff explained on Thursday why Republicans, if they end up going that route, may regret doing so down the road.
“[L]et’s say Democrats win back a Senate majority in four or eight years and a different president is in office. Let’s say there are additional Supreme Court vacancies then, and plenty of policies Democrats want to enact without any Republican obstruction. Payback could be unpleasant to those on the receiving end.”
Whoops: Cleveland Heights pastor Darrell Scott, who has emerged as a highly visible figure in Trump’s orbit, made an interesting walkback on Wednesday.
Scott had said during an event at the White House earlier that day that Chicago’s “top gang thugs” had contacted him, offering to meet to discuss “lowering that body count.”
“They’re gonna commit that if they lower that body count, we’re gonna come in and do some more social programs,” Scott had said.
But in an interview with Chicago television station WLFD, Scott clarified that a former gang leader had contacted him, not a current “gang leader.” He attributed the misstatement to a “lack of sleep.”
Ohio Republicans review the press: During a Wednesday meeting with reporters in Columbus, Ohio’s top Republican officials offered their thoughts on the media, which a top Trump adviser has dubbed the “opposition party,” cleveland.com’s Henry J. Gomez reports.
Most drew a distinction between the coastal media and humble local reporters like your Ohio Politics Roundup author.
Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, a former newspaper reporter, had this to say: “So my message to the working press, the people in this room … please don’t go tribal. Please don’t assume that everything that’s said out there is an attack on you and going full bore. … The press is not obsolete. The media are not obsolete. Freedom of the press is bedrock.
From new Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken: “I am a firm believer in the right of a free press. …. I think that local reporters have better connections with what’s going on on the ground. And I have great respect for that. I think that comments about the press being the opposition party, I think that goes to an understanding that there was some unfair treatment of Republicans in a lot of the races in 2016. The press should be fair. I know you’re tough. But be fair — and that’s my philosophy about that.”
And Ohio’s top Democrat? Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper, a former editor at his college newspaper, said he wasn’t trying to plug his book… and then he went ahead and plugged his book.
“I’m a big fan of local press. Not to pitch my [novel], but the narrator of my book is the Youngstown Vindicator political reporter, if that tells you anything. But the national press, as you all know, in some cases has more resources to do the kind of digging that it’s going to take,” Pepper said.
The view from oblivion: Youngstown-area Congressman Tim Ryan was asked by Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday about an article that described House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as leading the Democratic Party into “oblivion.”
His response?
“Well, I mean, Democrats, not to be too frank, we are in oblivion as we speak now. We got completely wiped out in the election, and we’re trying to work our way back,” Ryan said.
He then pivoted to a critique of Trump, saying his actions since taking office are destabilizing the world and U.S. diplomatic relationships.
Watch the video, clipped by the Washington Free Beacon, here.
Rep. Ryan Describes Democratic Party As ‘In Oblivion As We Speak’
Latest round in Frank vs. Kasich: Ohio Gov. John Kasich has proposed changes in how the state funds local governments that could hurt Cleveland’s bottom line, cleveland.com’s Jackie Borchardt writes.
That’s because Kasich has proposed tying funding allocations to local governments based on “need” as established by a state formula. That formula could work against more urbanized areas like Cleveland, which, the Kasich administration’s thinking goes, has more capacity to generate local taxes than less developed areas.
Jackson, the Cleveland mayor, criticized the plan as another cut for cities.
“So it’s not based on who pays into the pot and an equitable redistribution back,” Jackson said. “They’re talking about based on needs — whose needs?”
If it’s any consolation… U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, a Columbus-area Republican, is part of a bipartisan group in Congress that has proposed allowing investors to defer capital gains tax payments on “investments channeled into “opportunity zones” in census tracts with high levels of poverty, unemployment and vacant housing,” cleveland.com’s Sabrina Eaton writes.
This could help encourage investment in impoverished inner cities in places like Cleveland, according to Tiberi.
“Data released last year by the Economic Innovation Group ranked Cleveland as the nation’s top city with residents living in economically distressed zip codes, Tiberi said. He said Appalachian sections of Ohio need similar help.”
Timbit: Remember Franklin County Appellate Judge Timothy Horton? He pleaded guilty on Thursday to three misdemeanor charges, admitting he improperly spent campaign funds when he ran for office in 2014, the Columbus Dispatch’s John Futty writes
Horton admitted to spending $2,000 on two expensive restaurant outings — one to celebrate his opponent dropping out, and another “fundraiser” in which only one person who wasn’t on his campaign staff attended — and $173 on cigars for supporters in a race in which he was unopposed.
Since he was convicted of misdemeanors, not felonies, Horton should be able to keep his law license. However, there’s still the possibility the Ohio Supreme Court’s grievance committee or disciplinary counsel could take the matter up.
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