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Monday, March 24, 2008
Lobbying expenses shot up 52 percent last year
Lobbyists were busy in Columbus last year as legislators and Gov. Ted Strickland hammered out the $52.3 billion two-year state budget.
Overall lobbying expenditures shot up by more than 52 percent from 2006 - from $349,756 to $533,150, according to a report released last Tuesday, March 18, by the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee.
The amount spend on lobbying usually goes up in budget years, said Tony Bledsoe, legislative inspector general.
The totals include money spent on receptions, meals, awards and similar items but does not include direct contributions to candidates and legislative caucuses or the actual fees paid to lobbyists.
The top three spending groups were: the Wholesale Beer and Wine Association, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and Equality Ohio, which advocates for fair treatment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens.
The Top Ten groups in spending in 2007 were:
Wholesale Beer and Wine Association - $31,270
Ohio Chamber of Commerce - $26,946
Equality Ohio - $20,845
Ohio Library Council - $19,107
Ohio Association of Realtors - $17,685
Ohio Children’s Hospital Association - $12,063
Ohio Environmental Council - $10,951
Ohio Chemistry Technology Council - $10,776
PolymerOhio Networks, Inc. - $9,502
Ohio Aggregates & Industrial Minerals Association - $8,724
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Boehner visits Israel
House Minority Leader John Boehner spent Easter weekend in Israel.
Boehner, R-West Chester, leads a five-member congressional delegation to the country, which is timed two months before the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel as a Jewish state.
He said in a statement the visit will give members and Israeli government officials “the opportunity to discuss important issues of mutual concern between our two countries, the peace process and regional security, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.”
“Since its first day as a nation, Israel has lived under a threat of aggression from militant extremists and hostile neighboring governments,” he said. “No country understands the threat of terror and the vigilance necessary to confront it better than Israel, and that danger remains today.”
Boehner landed Saturday. He is the lone Ohioan on the trip.
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Strickland hits the campaign trail
Gov. Ted Strickland’s back on the campaign trail but he’s not pushing Hillary Clinton for president this time.
Today, March 24, Strickland has scheduled three stops in northwest Ohio to gin up support for his proposed $1.7 billion bond package that he says will create 80,000 new jobs.
The legislature so far hasn’t agreed to put the plan - which basically calls for borrowing the money - on the November ballot. If legislators don’t act, Strickland says backers of the bond proposal will gather signatures from more than 400,000 voters to get the issue on the ballot that way.
Today Strickland is scheduled to be in Lima at the Greater Ohio Ethanol facility, in Defiance at American Ag Fuels, a biodiesel processing facility and at the Toledo Museum of Art to view a solar cell installation.
Money from the bonds would be invested in energy projects, infrastructure, biomedicine, bioproducts, public works, downtowns and the Clean Ohio Fund.
