Take Back Ohio by Voting for Fairness and Truth This Election Season: Thomas Suddes

This election season, campaigners have developed a new strategy to win the support of Ohioans: Insult their intelligence. Then ask for their votes.

Republican entrepreneur Bernie Moreno, who is challenging the re-election of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Cleveland, recently provided a prime example. Here’s what Moreno said at a campaign rally in Warren County:

“Sadly, by the way, there are a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women who say, ‘Listen, abortion is the right thing to do.’ If I can’t get an abortion at any time in this country, I’ll vote for anyone else.” OK. It’s a little crazy, by the way, but – especially for women who are over 50, I’m like, ‘I don’t think that’s a problem for you.’”

Amid the resulting firestorm, a Moreno spokesman said the candidate had “apparently made a tongue-in-cheek joke about how Sherrod Brown and members of the left-wing media like to pretend that the only issue that matters to female voters is abortion… “Bernie’s view is that female voters care just as much about the economy, rising prices, crime and our open southern border as male voters.”

Moreno might also be getting the idea that women voters, regardless of their views on abortion, also value respect.

Another example: the brazen distortions being promoted by Republicans in the Statehouse, particularly Secretary of State Frank LaRose of Upper Arlington, about the November statewide ballot question, Issue 1.

If voters pass it, Item 1 would ban gerrymandering – political manipulation – of Ohio’s congressional and general assembly districts. Gerrymandering has produced a legislative session in which Republicans hold 68% of the seats in the Ohio House of Representatives and 78% of the seats in the Ohio Senate, in a state that cast 53% of its presidential votes in 2020 for Donald Trump.

GOP insiders, with the help of the Ohio Supreme Court’s Republican majority, have the audacity to claim that Issue 1 is in some way pro-gerrymandering. This is a blatant lie. And it’s being spread by the very Republicans who have entrenched themselves in Ohio’s ridiculous legislature, a playground for big business and Capitol Square busybodies obsessed with Ohioans’ sex lives.

As noted, the state Supreme Court has been a willing accomplice to the antics of LaRose and Republican lawmakers who value the status quo in Columbus.

For example, LaRose, with the approval of the Supreme Court, changed the official voting language for Issue 1 to encourage Ohio voters to vote against it. LaRose is term-limited and eager to secure a spot on the statewide GOP ballot in 2026. Clearly there is no line he won’t cross to achieve this goal, as he showed by abjectly obsequiously seeking Trump’s support for the Senate earlier this year, support that Trump gave to Moreno instead.

Three Supreme Court seats are up for election in November. Democratic judges Michael P. Donnelly and Melody J. Stewart are seeking re-election. Democratic Judge Lisa Forbes of Ohio’s 8th Circuit Court of Appeals is seeking an open seat on the Supreme Court. Republican candidates are:

* Hamilton County (Cincinnati) Common Pleas Judge Megan E. Shanahan, v. Judge Donnelly;

* Acting Supreme Court Justice Joseph T. Deters, once Hamilton County prosecutor, defies Judge Stewart in an extremely rare case of litigation in Ohio; And

* Franklin County (Columbus) Common Pleas Judge Daniel R. Hawkins, who is vying with Judge Forbes for the Supreme Court seat, is leaving Deters to challenge Stewart. Deters was originally appointed to the Supreme Court by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, whose son, R. Patrick (Pat) DeWine, is also a justice.

Ohio voters’ approval of Issue 1, anti-gerrymandering reform, and the election of a balanced state Supreme Court that doesn’t march in lockstep with the legislature’s GOP clique are the best hope for moving Ohio forward: Otherwise, this will Statehouse remains a backlog of yesterday’s ideas and blatant bias against law-abiding Ohioans who dare to be themselves.

Whether positive change can take place in Columbus depends on which and how many Ohioans vote. Early in-person voting begins Tuesday, October 8th. Election day is Tuesday, November 5th.

If you need encouragement to vote this year, remember: The powers that be in Columbus, lounging in their state-provided hammocks, really wish you wouldn’t. Things are fine the way they are. For her.

Thomas Suddes, member of the editorial team, writes from Athens.

How to contact Thomas Suddes: [email protected], 216-408-9474

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