The Ohio U.S. Senate race in 2018 is on track to get expensive. Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci of Ohio appears to be on the path to run for governor. New Ohio GOP Chairwoman Jane Timken said she won’t retaliate against those who didn’t support her bid to become party leader.
Read more in today’s Ohio Politics Roundup.
Politicking gets pricey: The 2018 U.S. Senate race in Ohio looks like it will be a high-dollar campaign.
The race “is gearing up to once again be one of the most expensive races in the country, according to early numbers reported on Tuesday by the candidates for the seat,” cleveland.com reporter Andrew J. Tobias writes. “In a federal elections disclosure filed Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, reported having $3.18 million in his campaign account as of Dec. 31. That’s more than twice as much as he reported at the equivalent time leading up to the last time he ran in 2012. He also reported raising about $543,000 between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, the most recent period for which numbers are available.”
“Meanwhile, Brown’s possible Republican challenger, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, has more than $1.6 million in his senatorial campaign account, according to a federal disclosure filed Tuesday. Mandel’s campaign committee, as well as two related elections committees, raised $492,000 between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, his campaign said,” Tobias reports. “A detailed breakdown of donors to Brown and Mandel have not yet been made available, although cleveland.com obtained documents summarizing their fundraising numbers.”
Renacci’s run? “Evidence continues to mount that Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci plans to try to break into the already crowded field to be the next governor of Ohio,” Tobias writes. “Renacci on Monday hosted a group of lobbyists, donors and other Capitol Square insiders at the exclusive Columbus Club just minutes from the Ohio Statehouse. An invitation billed the event as Renacci sharing what he ‘plans to do over the next couple of months for the state of Ohio.'”
And according to a memo Tobias obtained, a political consultant has field tested some lines of attack Renacci could use against Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, a fellow Republican planning a gubernatorial run.
Timken talks: New Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Timken said Wednesday that she won’t hold grudges against those who did not support her bid to become party chair, cleveland.com reporter Henry J. Gomez writes.
“I have spoken to several members of my party and made it very clear — I’m not in the business of keeping score,” Timken told reporters at an Associated Press forum in Columbus. “If I’m going to be an effective chairman, I can’t do that. … I’m going to stay above that. I will not keep score.”
Speaker rents donor’s digs: Republican Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger rents a luxury condo in downtown Columbus from a top GOP donor, Laura A. Bischoff of the Dayton Daily news reveals. The donor, Ginni Ragan, has contributed $1.5 million to Ohio GOP campaigns since 2010, according to Bischoff’s report.
“Rosenberger says he pays a nightly rate that Ragan and her attorneys calculated to be the fair market rent, but he declined to disclose the rate or provide documentation of his payments,” Bischoff writes.
That was a mistake: U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot used an image from an anti-Semitic website in an attempt to demonstrate media bias against President Donald Trump, Cincinnati Enquirer reporters Deirdre Shesgreen and Jessie Balmert write.
“The image appeared Wednesday morning, as part of Chabot’s regular political blog posted on his campaign website. It depicted a quotation from President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and his photo,” Shesgreen and Balmert write. “The Bannon quotation included three parentheses – which has become an anti-Semitic symbol – around the words “media” and “elite media.” The image bore the web address for a site that features anti-Semitic content that is registered to a Youngstown man. Chabot spokesman Brian Griffith said the Republican congressman from Westwood found the image in a Google search, had no idea it included anti-Semitic symbols and never visited the website where it was stored.”
“Rep. Chabot doesn’t have an anti-Semitic bone in his body, and anybody that has followed his record over the years knows that,” his spokesman Brian Griffith told the Enquirer. “He’s been one of the staunchest defenders of Israel in Congress. This unfortunate error shouldn’t be detracting from that.”
Trump’s cabinet: Democrats boycotted U.S. Senate Finance Committee meetings to confirm Trump’s nominees for secretary of treasury and secretary of health and human services. But Republicans moved forward, cleveland.com reporter Stephen Koff writes.
“Republicans on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee today held an executive session and approved two of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees: Tom Price as secretary of health and human services and Steve Mnuchin as treasury secretary,” Koff writes. “The vote moves the nominees a step closer to full Senate confirmation. This broke a standoff that started Tuesday when Democrats, including Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, refused to attend a Finance Committee meeting at which votes were expected. Democrats said they had too many unanswered questions about the nominees.”
Portman’s vote: U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, of Ohio, decided to vote to confirm Trump’s pick of secretary of education Betsy DeVos after two other Republicans said that they would vote no, Politico reporter Burgess Everett and Kimberly Hefling write.
Trump’s travel ban: A federal judge in New York will decide whether a Cleveland Clinic doctor barred from entering the United States under Trump’s temporary travel ban will be allowed to return.
“In an order issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon also ordered the government to show why it should not restore Dr. Suha Abushamma’s visa and allow her to re-enter the country,” cleveland.com reporter Eric Heisig writes. “Abushamma, an internal medicine resident at the Clinic since July, said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday evening that she was “misled and coerced” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents into signing forms that withdrew her work visa when she arrived in New York on Saturday. Abushamma, who has a passport from Sudan, was put on a plane back to Saudi Arabia after signing the forms.”
Fannie Lewis Law: A Cuyahoga County judged on Tuesday blocked a state law that attempted to impede local hiring ordinances like the Fannie Lewis Law: “Cleveland’s requirement that city residents get to work on public projects,” cleveland.com reporter Bob Higgs writes.
“The law, known as HB 180, was enacted by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. John Kasich last May. It would have barred cities from establishing local hiring regulations in contracts for public improvements such as those in Cleveland’s Fannie Lewis Law,” Higgs writes. “Cleveland sued the state last August, shortly before the law was to take effect, claiming it violated home rule powers guaranteed in the Ohio Constitution. On Tuesday, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Michael J. Russo granted the city’s request for a permanent injunction that blocks the state from ever enforcing the law.”
The state plans to appeal the decision.
Saving for a rainy day: Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, a Democrat, continues to raise money, “even though he is not up for re-election until next year and has not indicated if he will seek a second term,” cleveland.com reporter Karen Farkas writes.
“Budish, who raised about $1.4 million in his successful bid for the county’s highest office in 2014, raised $297,550 from four fundraising events in the last six months of 2016, according to campaign finance reports filed Tuesday with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections,” Farkas writes. “Friends of Armond Budish now has $458,205 on hand, according to the report.”
Hardline immigration stance: Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley on Monday announced that the city was a sanctuary city, or a place that chooses not to help enforce federal immigration law. In response, Mandel, the Ohio treasurer who’s running for U.S. Senate in 2018, wrote a scathing critique of sanctuary cities and in the Cincinnati Enquirer on Wednesday.
“Sanctuary cities will undermine our national security,” Mandel wrote. “Today they demand you can’t enforce long-standing immigration law in our cities, but where does this end? Once we accede the principle that cities can snub their nose at federal laws with which they disagree, we’ve lost our nation. What kind of message do sanctuary cities send to our nation’s legal immigrants? … Sanctuary cities will only discourage legal immigrants.”
Right to work: Congressional Republicans are considering a national “right to work” law, but the idea is unlikely to gain traction in Ohio, state lawmakers said.
“Right to work laws prohibit employment contracts that require employees join a labor union or pay a “fair share” fee to cover collective bargaining and other company-wide benefits. Twenty-seven states have passed such laws, including neighboring Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky,” cleveland.com reporter Jackie Borchardt writes. “Two congressional Republicans planned to introduce a national bill on Wednesday, and supporters are emboldened by President Donald Trump’s support for right-to-work laws. Ohio legislative leaders from both parties said Wednesday that Ohio voters made their views clear on unions in 2011, when voters repealed Senate Bill 5. The law would have curtailed collective bargaining rights for public unions.”
Celebrating the Stokes brothers: Cuyahoga Community College plans to spend this year honoring the legacies of Louis and Carl Stokes.
“Dozens of community events have been scheduled to mark the 50th anniversary of Carl Stokes’ historic election as mayor of Cleveland and the accomplishments of Congressman Louis Stokes,” Farkas writes. “A calendar of events for Stokes: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future can be found at stokes50cle.com.”
Ice cream and alcohol? “Newly introduced Ohio HB 23 ‘To allow A-4 liquor permit holders to manufacture and sell ice cream containing between 0.5% and 6% of alcohol,'” Columbus Dispatch Public Affairs Editor Darrel Rowland wrote on Twitter.
This isn’t the first time the Ohio Legislature has considered boozy ice cream.
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