September 6

Good compromise on absentee ballot requests: editorial

Published: Sunday, September 04, 2011, 8:54 PM

By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board The Plain Dealer

After their clear-the-air meeting in Columbus, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald were able to resolve their absentee-ballot dispute in a way that allows both to save face and, far more important, represents a major breakthrough for voter access in Ohio.
The deal announced Friday does mean that Cuyahoga County voters will have to take an extra step, this year only, to get their vote-by-mail ballots: FitzGerald agreed to shelve plans for his mailing to every county voter. Instead, he plans a major public education campaign on how to apply for a mail-in ballot.
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/09/good_compromise_on_absentee_ba.html

New legislative district lines in Ohio can be drawn fairly

Published: Sun, September 4, 2011 @ 12:00 a.m.

Youngstown Vindicator

Before Republican legislative leaders in Columbus dismiss offhand a map that won first place in the Ohio Redistricting Competition sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund, the Midwest Democracy Network and Ohio Citizen Action, we would point out that the individual who came up with the new boundaries for the Senate and House districts is a Republican state representative, albeit from Illinois.

Mike Fornter, who represents the 95th District, is former mayor of West Chicago and an associate professor of physics at Northern Illinois University in West Chicago. He isn’t some flaming liberal out to reverse the political fortunes of the GOP in Ohio by producing a map that gives Democrats any kind of an advantage.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/04/new-legislative-district-lines-in-ohio-c/?newswatch

Speaker Bill Batchelder represents all of Ohio

Wadsworth Post

To the Editor:

Bill Batchelder was born in Medina and has served our state with honor and distinction all of his working life. He grew up in Medina and attended Medina High School. He has been an advocate for Medina and the rest of our nation all of his life.

He has distinguished himself in many ways, not the least of which is to assist Gov. John Kasich in taking Ohio out of a depression-bound economy and putting Ohio on a stable economic course.

Bill Batchelder, like his sister Republican Sarah Palin, does not show any favoritism to wrong doers, Republican or Democrat. During the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, Batchelder worked with Democratic Gov. Dick Celeste to draft legislation to save depositors' savings at stricken savings and loan associations, causing Celeste to thank Batchelder during his state of the state speech. During the pay-to-play scandal of the mid 1990s, as chair of the Joint Committee on Ethics, Batchelder referred both the Republican President of the Ohio Senate and the Democratic Ohio Speaker of the House to a prosecutor; both were convicted. He is the only ethics committee chair ever to have referred the heads of both legislative chambers to a prosecutor.

http://thepostnewspapers.com/wadsworth/letter-russell-wadsworth-9-3

First TV ad of SB5 campaign released

By  Jim Seigel

The Columbus Dispatch Friday September 2, 2011 1:44 PM

The first ad of the Issue 2 fight features firefighters and highlights a message likely to be prominent among those advocating repeal of Ohio’s new collective bargaining law — they say it makes communities less safe.

“Fewer firefighters mean slower response times, and that can mean the difference between life and death,” Cincinnati firefighter Doug Stern says in the ad, which focuses on the inability of public unions to negotiate over staffing levels under Senate Bill 5.

The ad from We Are Ohio started running this morning across the state and is the first in what is likely to be an expensive and hard-fought battle over whether Ohio should significantly weaken collective bargaining power for state and local government workers.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/09/02/first-ad-of-the-issue-2-fight-is-released.html

Husted, FitzGerald Strike Deal to End Feud

Hannah Report

After publicly feuding over whether one county could send out unsolicited absentee ballot applications in defiance of a state directive, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald and Secretary of State Jon Husted buried the hatchet Friday, announcing a deal that would end the county’s attempts to send out applications and allow for a statewide mailing in 2012.

FitzGerald had been challenging a directive from Husted that said county boards of elections could not send out unsolicited absentee ballots because it would cause confusion and be unfair to voters in counties that could not afford to send applications. The Cuyahoga executive instead sought, and later received, permission from the Cuyahoga County Council to send the applications through his office instead of the Board of Elections, a move Husted criticized as undermining the "principles of election fairness." (See The Hannah Report, 8/26/11.) http://www.hannah.com/DesktopDefaultPublic.aspx?type=hns&id=187000

Hannah Report

ELECTIONS 2012

Speaker of the Ohio House William G. Batchelder (R-Medina) and House Minority Leader Armond Budish (D-Beachwood) late Thursday issued a joint statement announcing their support for moving the date of the 2012 primary election to the month of May, as specified in HB194. However, because of the possible referendum on HB194, they said legislation effecting this change will be introduced soon.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY/STATEHOUSE

House Speaker William Batchelder (R-Medina) named Rep. Matt Huffman (R-Lima) the new chairman of the House State Government and Elections Committee, replacing former Rep. Robert Mecklenborg (R-Cincinnati), who resigned after a drunken driving incident. Huffman announced the committee will have hearings on congressional redistricting Sept. 6, 13 and 14.

The House GOP is taking applications until 5 p.m. Sept. 8 for those interested in filling the vacancy created by Rep. Robert Mecklenborg's (R-Cincinnati) resignation from the 30th District seat.
http://www.hannah.com/DesktopDefaultPublic.aspx?type=hns&id=187015