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Special interests fuel 60% drive

There’s much debate at the Statehouse over the 100-year-old law giving Ohioans freedom to amend our sacred Ohio Constitution. With help of out-of-state interest groups, like Save Our Constitution PAC, my Republican colleagues are publishing op-eds in newspapers everywhere hoping to influence public opinion on their proposals (House Joint Resolution 1 and Senate Joint Resolution 2). Their proposals make it harder for citizens to get amendment ideas on the ballot and raise voter approval threshold for those ideas from the majority of Ohioans (50 percent plus 1) to a supermajority (60 ...

Primaries should be limited to party

As the chairman of the Portage County Republican Party, nothing is more important to me than protecting the integrity of our county’s primary elections. I have overseen Republican primary elections in our county for dozens of races over the years, from president to state legislature to school board. Giving Republican voters a chance to judge the candidates for themselves and decide who should represent our party in the general election is one of the most incredible processes of our democracy. It’s critical that we protect that process from outside interference, which is why I ...

Drivers share the responsibility for safer work zones

This year, the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission is investing up to $226 million for capital improvement projects, which includes roadway safety improvements, such as pavement replacement, resurfacing, bridge renovations, and the continuation of the toll collection system modernization program, and more. The start of the roadway construction season, which occurs every spring, is an opportunity to remind motorists to drive cautiously through work zones on the Ohio Turnpike and elsewhere. In 2022, nearly 49.6 million motorists — both passenger car and commercial truck ...

Vouchers empower families, don’t harm schools

For more than two decades, private-school vouchers have unlocked educational opportunities for thousands of Ohio students. In just the past year, more than 70,000 pupils —most of them low-income, minority or students with disabilities — used a state-funded voucher to attend private schools. In Youngstown, more than 1,700 pupils — about a fifth of the city’s students — did so. Unfortunately, some critics want to rip these opportunities away from Ohio students and their families. A recent op-ed in this newspaper written by a local superintendent, A.J. Calderone, boasts that ...

Charter could remove voter input in gov’t

Charter government has been adopted by many municipalities across the United States, but an equal number have chosen not to adopt a charter. Adoption of charter government is not without its disadvantages, and this is particularly true in the case here in Warren. Let me outline some of the most significant disadvantages of charter government. A huge disadvantage of charter government is that it potentially creates a city where the voters will have less representation. Right now, there is one city council person representing approximately 4,000 Warren citizens. The group driving ...

Charter can help fix Warren’s problems

“A charter is roughly comparable to a constitution, but its primary focus is the operation and procedure of municipal governance. Charter governance allows citizens to choose their own form of government.” — Paul Rutter, Bricker & Eckler law firm Home rule charter / charter government were first passed in Ohio in 1913. Charter government is the most common form of government for cities in Ohio. The city of Warren’s current form of government follows Ohio Revised Codes written by the state legislature in Columbus. Many statues have not been updated since the 1950s (before the ...