Prepare for an unusual primary

April 3, 2020

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio and several other states are experiencing the most unusual primary election in our lifetime. With a few exceptions, everyone in Ohio is going to vote by mail or drop off their ballots at county boards of elections. This has already been a confusing election with the state canceling the March 17 in-person primary late the night before after failing to get a judge to do so. Dr. Amy Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Health, issued an order at the request of Gov. Mike DeWine because of the pandemic. DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose ...

Manning’s determination worked

March 27, 2020

My routine each morning is to check my phone for any news overnight. Saturday morning, to my shock, my Twitter feed contained a post from Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder about the sudden death of state Rep. Don Manning the previous night. Within about two minutes, Editor Brenda Linert texted me asking if I saw that news about Manning. I sent her Householder’s statement and got to work on an article about Manning. While it was difficult to write because of how sad Manning’s passing is, it was also somewhat easy as I’ve known him for several years. I first met Manning when ...

Ohio bungled election delay

March 20, 2020

Not having a primary election Tuesday was the right decision. But there are plenty of concerns about how it was handled. State executive-branch officials — particularly Gov. Mike DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Health — have received a lot of credit for how they’ve addressed the COVID-19 outbreak and efforts to contain it. But that cannot be said for the election delay. DeWine has said he decided early Monday to cancel Tuesday’s primary after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended no gatherings of more than 50 people to stop ...

Group spends big in GOP race

March 13, 2020

Advertisements criticizing Louis G. Lyras, a Republican candidate in the 13th Congressional District primary, and praising Christina M. Hagan, who’s also seeking the GOP nomination, are not being funded by Hagan, but by the Ohio Freedom Fund, a group that has spent $75,000 on media buys and production in the past week-plus, according to a recent document filed with the Federal Election Commission. Where is the Ohio Freedom Fund getting its money? That’s a good question, and documents don’t provide that information. There’s nothing illegal or improper about the independent ...

Secretary of state urges caution

March 6, 2020

“Instead of trying to hack the elections, they’ve tried to hack our minds.” That’s what Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said this week about “foreign adversaries,” particularly those from Russia, trying to interfere in U.S. elections. They’re particularly active during presidential elections as we saw in 2016. LaRose, a Republican, said they’re continuing. “The very institution of democracy is under attack,” he said. Russia uses social media to alter images to confuse voters or set up protest rallies on Facebook to incite people. “They’re trying ...

Sherrod Brown is blunt about Biden

February 28, 2020

When I asked U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown about the state of the Democratic presidential race, he seemed hesitant to say anything specific about most of the candidates. But that wasn’t the case with former Vice President Joe Biden, who was the front-runner before the primary / caucus season started. If Brown’s comments about Biden were a movie title, it would be “He’s Just Not That Into You.” I asked Brown, a Cleveland Democrat who explored running for president in late 2018 and early 2019, if he was surprised with Biden’s slow start. “No, no surprise,” he ...