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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2009 > May > 07
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Austria introduces bill to bar Guantanamo detainees from Buckeye state
U.S. Rep. Steve Austria does not want former prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba sent to Ohio - and he’s introduced a bill to keep it from happening.
Austria, R-Beavercreek, introduced a bill Thursday, May 7, to keep enemy combatants currently housed at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from being transferred to prisons in Ohio. The bill also bars the use of federal dollars to build facilities in Ohio to house enemy combatants from Guantanamo.
Austria’s bill - cosponsored by U.S. Reps. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, Jim Jordan, R-Urbana and Pat Tiberi, R-Columbus - comes after a handful of lawmakers from other states, including Minnesota and California, introduced similar bills to keep Guantanamo prisoners from being sent to their state.
Austria said he and other members of Congress are worried that President Obama, who promised during the presidential campaign to close Guantanamo, hasn’t crafted a plan for where to send the approximately 245 detainees currently located there.
Obama earlier this year issued an executive order to close the Guantanamo detention center. On Monday, the House Appropriations Committee turned down Obama’s request for about $80 million to move prisoners from Guantanamo because he had yet to release a plan for where he intended to send them.
“I don’t believe Congress should approve the administration’s request for funds until they have a clear plan in place of how they’ll be relocated and where they’ll be relocated that ensures the safety of all Americans,” he said.
This bill is Austria’s first standalone bill since he came to Congress in January, although he has also attached an amendment supporting greater military pay raises to an earlier bill.
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AP: Joe the Plumber makes negative comments about gays
This comes from the Associated Press about an Ohioan who made big news during last year’s presidential campaign:
Samuel Wurzelbacher, the Toledo man hailed as “Joe the Plumber” by Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign last year, said he believes gays are “queer” and said he won’t allow them near his children.
Nevertheless, Wurzelbacher said the decision about whether to allow same-sex couples to marry should be left to states.
“People don’t understand the dictionary — it’s called queer,” Wurzelbacher told Christianity Today in an interview published this week. “Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do — what man and woman are for.”
He added, “I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.”
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization based in Washington, dismissed Wurzelbacher’s comments.
“It would matter if Joe the Plumber mattered,” Solmonese said. “One thing among many things we learned in the 2008 campaign is that he doesn’t.”
Wurzelbacher, regarded as a folk hero to many conservatives after challenging then-Democratic nominee Barack Obama about his tax policies, said neither political party was sufficiently Christian.
“They use God as a punch line,” Wurzelbacher said of Republicans. “They use God to invoke sympathy or invoke righteousness, but they don’t stay the course.”
Wurzelbacher said he considered McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, one of the GOP’s emerging stars. But he said the party would have a difficult time recasting its image to appeal to younger voters.
“You got the RNC talking about repackaging principles and values to make them hip and cool to the younger generation,” Wurzelbacher said. “You can’t repackage them. They are what they are. You can’t make what they are.”
Since the election, Wurzelbacher has spoken at conservative rallies around the country and traveled to Israel as a rookie reporter to cover the Gaza conflict.
Wurzelbacher told the magazine he might consider running for office someday. “Not right now,” Wurzelbacher said. “God hasn’t said, ‘Joe, I want you to run.’ I feel (it’s) more important to just encourage people to get involved, one way or another. If I can inspire some leaders, that would be great.”
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Crticics: Strickland school plan “separate and unequal”
Invoking the language of the civil rights era, charter school advocates on Thursday, May 7, unveiled a print and radio ad campaign blasting Gov. Ted Strickland’s school funding plan as “separate and unequal.”
“This is not the time to reignite the battle over separate or unequal education for Ohio students,” Tracie F. Craft, the Dayton-based state director of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, said at a news conference.
Craft said Strickland’s plan hurts black students because it cuts funding for charter schools that are disproportionately black.
State Rep. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton, lashed back. Luckie said the House-passed version of Strickland’s plan adds money to charter schools that perform well but reduces funding for those that don’t.
Strickland spokeswoman Amanda Wurst said in an e-mail that “rhetoric like this tends to perpetuate the toxic environment that has plagued our education discussion in Ohio for too long, pitting community schools against traditional public schools.” Strickland “supports charter and public schools that are providing a high-quality education to Ohio’s young people,” she added.
The print ad will run in the Columbus Dispatch on Friday and radio ads will run in Columbus, Cleveland and Akron, said Sue Westendorf, former state school board president and now executive director of My School, My Choice, a charter school group. She declined to say how much the ad campaign costs.
The ads come as Strickland and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan prepare for a rally on Friday at Ohio State University in support of Strickland’s school plan.
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Space endorses Fisher for US Senate
U.S. Rep. Zack Space, D-Dover, endorsed Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in the race for U.S. Senate. Space, who had considered running for Senate, also announced that he would seek re-election to the House of Representatives.
Fisher is facing Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and state Rep. Tyrone Yates in a Democratic primary for the 2010 U.S. Senate race.
“I have a high degree of respect and admiration for Jennifer Brunner. I think she’s done an excellent job as secretary of state. My endorsement of Lee is meant to be no reflection on her whatsoever,” Space said. “Lee has simply proven his commitment to the people of southeastern Ohio through his hard work on as the director of the Department of Development. I’ve seen his successes time and time again.”
Fisher, who served 10 years in the general assembly and one term as attorney general, lost the governor’s race to Republican Bob Taft in 1998 and was elected lieutenant governor in 2006 on the ticket with Democrat Ted Strickland. He served as development director under Strickland until he announced his candidacy for Senate.
Fisher has outpaced Brunner five to one on the fund-raising front.
Brunner, an elections lawyer and former Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge, was elected statewide for the first time in 2006.
On the GOP side, former Congressman and former White House budget director Rob Portman is considered a front-runner in the Senate race. State Auditor Mary Taylor, a Republican, is expected to announce soon whether she’ll join the race.
U.S. Sen. George Voinovich announced he would not seek re-election in 2010.
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$1 billion in Ohio biz loans in the pipeline
Columbus-based Huntington Bancshares Inc. is teaming with the state of Ohio to loan a total of $1 billion over three years to small and medium size businesses in an effort to attract and retain jobs.
Huntington is already the nation’s third largest lender in the federal Small Business Loan program.
The bank plans to work with the state Department of Development and state Treasurer Kevin Boyce to pair the loans with state programs when needed. For example, if a business needed $500,000 for an expansion but a state program could only loan $350,000, Huntington would fill the gap, according to Huntington President and Chief Executive Steve Steinour.
Gov. Ted Strickland applauded the new program, saying that access to credit is key to business retention and expansion.
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Ohio ranks 3rd in US for hunger among young kids
A new national study ranks Ohio third in the nation when it comes to the percentage of children under 5 who are likely “food insecure” because they don’t have consistent access to enough nutritious food.
The study found that 23.8 percent of Ohio children under 5, more than 170,000, are on the brink of hunger. Only Louisiana and North Carolina ranked higher on the hungry kids scale.
Ohio ranks 16th in the nation when it comes to food insecurity for children under 18.
“In any given week, 207,000 different Ohioans receive emergency food assistance,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks. “Hunger continues to be at the center of the lives of large numbers of Ohioans, with nearly one in three Ohioans lives in a household that doesn’t earn enough to pay for housing, food, health care and other necessities.”
The report, Child Food Insecurity in the United States: 2005 - 2007, found that 3.5 million American children, ages five and under, are food insecure.
Hamler-Fugitt said although the new data is cause for concern, what is even more alarming is that the data predates the current recession, which already is causing dramatic increases in demand at the state’s food pantries and soup kitchens.
“Without question, the current economy is causing unprecedented strain on the emergency food network,” she said.
The Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks represents 12 foodbanks and 3,000 member charities including food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters, which serve more than 1.8 million Ohioans and distribute more than 97 million pounds of groceries annually.
