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Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D) said on The Ed Show Thursday that "people are outraged," adding that "no one should have to beg to vote, and that is exactly what is happening in Ohio in the predominantly urban areas."
"It is absolutely shameful that Jim Crow has been resurrected in this country," Turner continued, "particularly in the state of Ohio. He has packed his bags and he has moved north. He is in Ohio, he's in Pennsylvania, he's making repeat performances in Florida."
The restrictions are expected to disproportionately affect African-American voters, who tend to turn out in high numbers for early voting, as well as working class voters in general, who can find it difficult to get to the polls on Election Day.
Republicans in the state have said that they cut the hours to save money. But Ari Berman ofThe Nation said that line doesn't hold up.
"It's funny that the Republicans are saying they don't have the money to extend early voting, when they spent millions and millions and millions of dollars on unnecessary and costly voter ID laws."
"The Democrats were willing to pick up the tab in these counties to pay for early voting," Berman added, "and Republicans didn't even give them the option to have early voting."
Minutes later on The Rachel Maddow Show, the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne put what Republicans are doing in perspective.
"This is much bigger than a partisan story," Dionne said. "We passed a great law in our country in 1965 called the Voting Rights Act. And the Voting Rights Act was designed to tear down illegitimate barriers to voting in our country, particularly for African-Americans. What's happening this election year—Ohio is an excellent example—is, I think, the most fundamental attack on the right to vote in the country since the Voting Rights Act was passed."
LP: Republican politicians continue to pick the voters rather than allowing the voters to pick the politicians.
On Election Day 2004, long lines and widespread electoral dysfunctional marred the results of thepresidential election in Ohio, whose electoral votes ended up handing George W. Bush a second term. “The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters,” found a post-election report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. According to one survey, 174,000 Ohioans, 3 percent of the electorate, left their polling place without voting because of the interminable wait. (Bush won the state by only 118,000 votes).
After 2004, Ohio reformed its electoral process by adding thirty-five days of early voting before Election Day, which led to a much smoother voting experience in 2008. The Obama campaign used this extra time to successfully mobilize its supporters, building a massive lead among early voters than John McCain could not overcome on Election Day.
In response to the 2008 election results, Ohio Republicans drastically curtailed the early voting period in 2012 from thirty-five to eleven days, with no voting on the Sunday before the election, when African-American churches historically rally their congregants to go to the polls. (Ohio was one of five states to cut back on early voting since 2010.) Voting rights activists subsequently gathered enough signatures to block the new voting restrictions and force a referendum on Election Day. In reaction, Ohio Republicans repealed their own bill in the state legislature, but kept a ban on early voting three days before Election Day (a period when 93,000 Ohioans voted in 2008), adding an exception for active duty members of the military, who tend to lean Republican. (The Obama campaign is now challenging the law in court, seeking to expand early voting for all Ohioans).
The Romney campaign has recently captured headlines with its absurd and untrue claim that the Obama campaign is trying to suppress the rights of military voters. The real story from Ohio is how cutbacks to early voting will disproportionately disenfranchise African-American voters in Ohio’s most populous counties. African-Americans, who supported Obama over McCain by 95 points in Ohio, comprise 28 percent of the population of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County but accounted for 56 percent of early voters in 2008, according to research done by Norman Robbins of the Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates and Mark Salling of Cleveland State University. In Columbus’s Franklin County, African-Americans comprise 20 percent of the population but made up 34 percent of early voters.
Now, in heavily Democratic cities like Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Toledo, early voting hours will be limited to 8 am until 5 pm on weekdays beginning on October 1, with no voting at night or during the weekend, when it’s most convenient for working people to vote. Republican election commissioners have blocked Democratic efforts to expand early voting hours in these counties, where the board of elections are split equally between Democratic and Republican members. Ohio Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has broken the tie by intervening on behalf of his fellow Republicans. (According to the Board of Elections, 82% of early voters in Franklin County voted early on nights or weekends, which Republicans have curtailed. The number who voted on nights or weekends was nearly 50% in Cuyahoga County.)
"I cannot create unequal access from one county board to another, and I must also keep in mind resources available to each county,” Husted said in explaining his decision to deny expanded early voting hours in heavily Democratic counties. Yet in solidly Republican counties like Warren and Butler, GOP election commissioners have approved expanded early voting hours on nights and weekends. Noted the Cincinnati Enquirer: “The counties where Husted has joined other Republicans to deny expanded early voting strongly backed then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, while most of those where the extra hours will stand heavily supported GOP nominee John McCain.” Moreover, budget constraints have not stopped Republican legislators from passing costly voter ID laws across the map since 2010.
The cutbacks in early voting in Ohio are part of a broader push by Republicans to restrict the right to vote formillions of Americans, particularly those who voted for Obama. “The Republicans remember those long lines outside board of elections last time in the evenings and on weekends,” Tim Burke, Democratic Party chairman in Cincinnati’s Hamilton County, told the Enquirer. “The lines were overwhelmingly African-American, and it’s pretty obvious that the people were predominately—very predominately Obama voters. The Republicans don’t want that to happen again. It’s that simple.”
Ohio in 2012 is at risk of heading back to the dark days of 2004. “Voting—America’s most precious right and the foundation for all others—is a fragile civic exercise for many Ohioans,” the Enquirer wrote recently.
The Ohio House, dominated by Republicans, is trying to pull a fast one on Ohio voters, and still keep Democratic-leaning voters away from the polls in this critical election in a decisive state.
Last June, the legislature passed House Bill 194, to restrict early voting, prohibit counties from sending absentee ballot applications to registered voters, and eliminate the requirement for poll workers to help voters find their correct polling place, among other restrictions. In September of last year, Fair Elections Ohio succeeded in getting enough signatures to get a referendum on the new law on November's ballot, effectively nullifying the law for the 2012 election.
The Republican-dominated legislature didn't want its voter suppression work entirely undone, so it has now passed a repeal of the law to prevent voters from killing it entirely.
"By taking the action that we're proposing to take today, we discourage people in the future from taking advantage of the initiative and referendum right," Rep. Dennis Murray, a Democrat from Sandusky, said on the House floor. "This goes fundamentally to the question of who it is in this state that holds the power of government. I think that's the people of this state, and I think the action we're taking today violates the constitution." [...]
Democrats and voting rights advocates argued the legislation is not a "clean" repeal of HB 194 because it leaves in place a prohibition on in-person early voting the weekend before an election. The restriction will remain in effect because it was duplicated in a separate bill.
LP - Why does one side consistently want to block the franchise.
Facing an avalanche of negative advertisements, labor’s most outspoken and visible champion in the Senate has, so far, been left to fend for himself.
With seven months left in the campaign, no candidate running for reelection -- save President Barack Obama -- has been targeted by outside interests more than Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Over $5.1 million has been spent on television ads opposing Brown in the 2012 cycle, according to data provided by a Senate Democratic campaign operative. The top spenders are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent $2.7 million, and 60 Plus Association, the conservative group that opposes health care reform, which spent another $1.4 million. Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee have also spent heavily in the race.
Brown isn't the only candidate these groups are targeting, but he has consistently been at the top of their list. The Missouri Senate race has attracted the second-highest amount of spending, with Republicans purchasing $3.45 million worth of ad buys against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
The bullseye on Brown's back, however, has been largest and most inviting, and it's forcing officials to confront -- much sooner than envisioned -- one of the more critical questions they will face this cycle. How long can an out-gunned network of Democratic-allied interest groups wait to get involved?
Earlier today, we highlighted Rachel Maddow's latest report on the "GOP War on Voting" which, among many other important things, referenced the ridiculously close results from Ohio's GOP Presidential Primary last Tuesday as currently reported, and the fact that there are still a bunch of untallied votes there even today for some unknown reason. Her point in noting the slim margin is to underscore the very serious effect that new Republican voter-suppression laws are likely to have on not just the Presidential race this year, but also on State and local races as well.
But one of the items she does not note about Ohio's reported tally, and which I've been trying to get more information on since Tuesday night, is some of the actual reported numbers out of the U.S. House Primary race between progressive Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich. Their Congressional Districts were combined by the recent Republican redistricting there, so they were forced to face off in last Tuesday Democratic primary.
Kaptur reportedly won the race, according to the numbers posted on the Ohio Sec. of State's website. Those results, summarizing the numbers in each of the five districts which now make up Ohio's new 9th Congressional District, include these reported results out of Lucas County (Toledo):
Though the race in Ohio’s 9th District received scant attention compared with the Republican presidential contest in the state, the result will have national consequences.
A Congress without Dennis Kucinich will be a lesser branch. It’s not just that the loss of the former leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus will rob the House of its most consistent critic of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and one its steadiest critics of corporate power.
Since he arrived on the Hill in 1997, Kucinich has been one of a handful of absolutely engaged members. When issues have arisen, be it domestic or international, low profile or high, Kucinich has been at the ready—often with the first statement, the strongest demand and the boldest plan.
A master of parliamentary procedure, and a Constitutional purist, Kucinich has given Democratic and Republican congressional leaders their share of headaches. And he has been more than willing to break with Democratic and Republican presidents on matters of principle. But even as he frustrated the most powerful players in Washington, Kucinich won an enthusiastic base of supporters who backed him for the Democratic presidential nominations in 2004 and 2008.
Though he never got near the nomination in either year, Kucinich earned high marks for forcing the other contenders to address fundamental issues of war and peace, civil liberties and trade policy. At the same time, he remained sufficiently in touch with his blue-collar Cleveland-area district—turf that had previously elected a Republican—to keep his seat in the face of primary and general election challenges from candidate backed by the political and media elites that had been after Kucinich since his days as the uncompromising “boy mayor” of Cleveland.
Unfortunately we lost Dennis Kucinich redistricted out of job. It's always nice to have a pol who is not afraid to take an unpopular stand. Unfortunately, it cost him his job.
The drubbing Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) took over the repeal of SB 5, his signature legislative initiative that striped collective bargaining rights from public unions as a way to curtail state and local budgets, has effectively crushed his personal standing in the state. A new Public Policy Polling (D) survey shows only 33 percent of Ohio general election voters approve of his job performance, while a majority of 53 percent are disappointed with it. Those numbers translate into a serious case of buyer’s remorse on the behalf of Ohioans, as Kasich would lose a rematch against former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) by twenty points in the poll.
“Ohio voters sent John Kasich a strong message in November by repealing Senate Bill 5 and his numbers haven’t improved any since then,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling in a release. “He remains one of the least popular Governors in the country and that could help Democratic prospects in the state this fall.”
Donning a cowboy hat and boots, Country music icon Willie Nelson stepped out
Saturday and sang in support of an old friend, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
Ohio’s Fox8 reports that Nelson performed a sold-out benefit for the
congressman on Sunday in Lorain, about 25 miles west of Cleveland. Willie
previously campaigned for Kucinich during his long-shot bids for president.
Populist rage pulses across the nation. Class warfare is in the air. So, as the GOP presidential primary heads to blue-collar, Bible Belt South Carolina, it seemed like a good time to check in with everybody’s favorite 2008 everyman icon, Joe the Plumber, now running for Congress as a Republican in Ohio, the mother of all swing states.
“The media throws up somebody and says this could be it. They give him a week, he raises money and then they tear him down,” Wurzelbacher laments, recalling Cain’s come-from-nowhere, go-back-to-nowhere trajectory.
Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Dan Heaton
Found the ore that was linin' Yellow Creek
They built a blast furnace
Here along the shore
And they made the cannonballs
That helped the Union win the war
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
Well my daddy worked the furnaces
Kept 'em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite coke and limestone Fed my children and make my pay
Them smokestacks reachin' like the arms of God
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
Sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
Well my daddy come on the Ohio works When he come home from World War Two
Now the yard's just scrap and rubble
He said "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do."
These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
From the Monongahela valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalachia The story's always the same
Seven hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name
And Youngstown
And Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heaven's work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell
The sixth installment of everyone’s favorite government employee who hates other government employees is Ohio governor and TV personality John Kasich. Kasich is another Republican who ran as an outsider, ready to bring new ideas to Ohio. He did so after serving nine terms in Congress (Washington), seven years as an investment banker for Lehman Brothers (Wall Street, New York) and seven years as a paid talking head for Fox News (Atlanta’s Propaganda Ministry).
It takes a special person to destroy the institutions that created them. Kasich is a person trained by public employees and who has worked as a public employee for over 20 years, with a couple of short breaks where private companies have paid him to get the public to influence other public employees. Kasich went to Sto-Rox high school, a Pennsylvania public school. He went on to the public university, Ohio State. He worked for the Ohio government in the Senate from 1979-1983, and then again for the federal governments as a US representative 1983-2001. Kasich ran for president in 2000. Kasich retired from the congress in 2001 leaving him eligible for a public pension and public “government” healthcare, all on the public’s dime.
Stereotypical lazy government worker which Kasich appears to be one of:
After leaving Washington, Kasich went to work on Wall Street in his first private sector job in twenty years Lehman Brothers, until the firm collapsed in 2008. One can wonder if the connections the public school kid made in Washington helped Kasich land his job. He worked for the firm until Lehman’s filed for bankruptcy in 2008. According to Mother Jones, “While Ohio was suffering through the Bush years and into the "Great Recession," Kasich was on Wall Street, raking in the dough from a firm that participated (as almost all of them did) in the enormously risky bets that drove the economy to ruin. It's not that Kasich profited from Lehman's collapse. He wasn't short-selling his own bank's stock (as far as we know.) It's that he made his fortune and got out while everyone else paid the price for his firm's bad behavior… Kasich claims he was not a top decision-maker at Lehman. So was he the classic ex-politico at the investment bank, a la Harold Ford, basically a lobbyist in disguise?” (Mother Jones 4/5/10)
During these years, when Kasich wasn’t on Wall Street, he was worked for Fox News trying to influence public opinion. He hosted his own show on Fox “Heartland with John Kasich” from 2001-2007. He also was a guest host on the O’Reilly Factor. When Kasich decided to spin his television gig into another stint on the public dole, he was able to use his parent company’s free publicity to run for governor. By February 2008, Kasich had already appeared on Fox News at least 25 times. O’Reilly had even introduced Kasich as “John Kasich, our man in Ohio” and Sean Hannity, whose show he was a constant guest on, called Kasich the “future governor of the great state of Ohio.” Even Newt Gingrich was able to scoop the local Ohio papers the night before, from his perch on Fox, when he announced that Kasich was filing papers to raise money. Kasich’s opponent then- governor Ted Strickland did not have access to Fox. He had not appeared on network since 2008. A Strickland representative once described Kasich’s campaign as being “vague sound bites on friendly national cable new shows and in heavily edited Web videos.” (Politico 3/2/10)
Kasich letting you know what Fox News would like you to know:
Swing voters supported the Republicans in 2010. In it they surrendered total power to a closer Republican majority, in Columbus, in order to keep a distant Democrat controlled federal government, in Washington, in check. Kasich promised to turn around Ohio, which had the second highest debt in the country according to the three major credit rating agencies and had lost 610,000 jobs during the past decade. Only Michigan and California lost more jobs. Kasich eked out an election night victory 49-47%. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce broke its 117 year tradition of not backing candidates in local elections in order to endorse Kasich. Kasich, in term, rewarded the chamber with laws which curbed collective bargaining and reduced regulation on business. He even talked about privatizing jails and leasing out the state’s toll roads. Kasich has talked about cutting taxes while taking aim at the usual suspects: education, poor kids, and the elderly. Some of his ham-handed tactics even have angered some in his own party. Ohio has continued to lose 18,000 more jobs under Kasich even though every action he’s made is allegedly to create jobs.
Kasich like many Republican governors claims to love his state’s working class. He does so even when berating them and trying to destroy their lifestyle. Kasich has on occasion said he is “not anti-union” but “it’s a matter of restoring balance” between public and private workers. Kasich who appears to have gotten through the recession without much sacrifice said, “The taxpayers have sacrificed enough. 401ks have been shredded, rising healthcare costs, 9% unemployment…We’re not raising taxes.” (Fox News 2/27/11)
Another way to look at Kasich’s statement is Kasich, a career politician who has helped oversee the destruction of half the economy, feels it is only equitable to oversee the destruction of the other half. Kasich said of the people who protest “they’re nice people, they’re our neighbors. God bless them, they’re worried.” (Ibid)
If you can’t screw over the people you’re blessing, who can you? In a Youtube video Kasich described a 2008 traffic stop with one of those “nice people” a policemen on a state highway, who was only doing his job. Kasich went on to describe the cop as “an idiot. You just can’t act that way.” At the same time he’s cutting back on all the pay of these state employees he’s demanding they should provide better services for significantly less money.
Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfem said in a state, “I never thought I’d see the day when a governor of this great state would call a police officer an ‘idiot’ simply for doing his job. Even worse, he wants to eliminate the right of law enforcement workers to collective bargaining to provide a better life for his families.” (Fox News 2/17/11)
Ohio Governor Kasich’s approval rate seemed to bottom out at 30%. Since that time he has bounced back to 38%, with 49% disapproving. He has had an even more difficult time with the women in his state who have rejected his message. Ohio citizens have been collecting signatures to change to law so they can recall Kasich, as there was no recall law on the Ohio books. They have also blocked Kasich’s union stripping measure by getting enough signatures to put a question on the ballot. By law the bill can’t go into effect until the ballot question is resolved.
