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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2009 > October > 20
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Candidate for AG hires man with expunged record
Delaware County Prosecutor David Yost, a Republican running for attorney general, hired political consultant Matt Borges to help with the campaign.
In 2004, Borges, who had been State Treasurer Joe Deters’ chief of staff, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of improper use of a public office, according to media accounts at the time.
The case has since been expunged and the record sealed, Borges said on Tuesday, Oct. 20.
Borges said he and Yost have been friends for 20 years.
“We did have a long conversation about it. Like I said, he’s known me for a long time,” Borges said. “I think he was comfortable and confident in my abilities.”
Borges also worked on the 2008 John McCain campaign for president.
Brunner lags far behind in campaign cash for U.S. Senate race
For the second straight reporting period, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner spent more money than she raised in her bid for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010.
Campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate showed Brunner’s campaign spent $200,579 during the reporting period ending Sept. 30 and took in $147,204. The reports were due Oct. 15.
She was left with cash on hand of $111,896, putting her far behind her opponent for the Democratic nomination, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher who had about $1.6 million on hand.
In an interview with the Dayton Daily News on Oct. 15, Brunner said she raised less in the most recent reporting period than in the previous quarter but vowed to stay in the race.
Both Fisher and Brunner are far behind Republican Rob Portman, who had $5.14 million on hand at the end of the reporting period. Portman, a former Cincinnati-area U.S. House member, is competing against Cleveland-area car dealer Tom Ganley for the GOP nomination.
Portman also served as budget director and trade representative under former President George W. Bush.
Ganley has said he plans to personally finance most of his campaign and so far has made or guaranteed loans of more than $100,000 to his campaign, according to his campaign finance report.
He finished the reporting period with $22,884 in cash on hand but with debts of $150,969.
Former Buckeye QB Art Schlichter to cochair anti-casino group
Art Schlichter, the former Ohio State quarterback whose pro career was destroyed by gambling problems, is the honorary co-chair of “Families Against Issue 3” a group formed to oppose the four-casino plan on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Schlichter’s mother Mila also was named as an honorary co-chair, according to a press release issued on Tuesday, Oct. 20.
“If you understand the nature of gambling addiction, you know Issue 3 will bring a blight on Ohio,” Schlichter said in the press release. “We’re proof positive: four full-blown casinos here will wreck many Ohio families.”
Schlichter was released from prison in 2006 after spending 10 years in prison for gambling-related crimes, the press release said.
Robert Tenenbaum,spokesman for the pro-casino Ohio Jobs and Growth Pllan responded:
“Art Schlichter’s story is tragic and we recognize that the are some people who are susceptible to gambling addictions and that’s the reason Issue 3 includes $13 million a year for the state to use for research into and treatment of problem gambling.”
Schlicter also recently published “Busted: The Rise & Fall of Art Schlichter” (Orangefrazer Press) detailing his battle with gambling addiction. He and his mother reside in central Ohio, the release said.
The proposal calls for casinos in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo.
House Finance Committee OKs bill to postpone tax cuts
The House Finance committee on Tuesday, Oct. 20, approved House Bill 318, the proposal to postpone for two years the fifth year of state income tax cuts to fill a $851 million hole in the state budget.
The full House will vote on the plan on Wednesday, which then will go to the Republican-controlled Senate.
Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has called for speedy action, to protect spending for K-12 education.
The 17-13 committee vote was along party lines, with majority Democrats voting “yes” and Republicans, in the House minority, voting “no.”
The bill also includes 5 percent pay cuts for legislators, which won’t take effect until 2011 because the Ohio Constitution forbids salary adjustments during members’ terms. The cut would be $3,092 for lawmakers earning the basic salary of $60,584. It also applies to legislative leaders who earn more.
The committee tabled several Republican amendments, including one from Rep. Seth Morgan, R-Huber Heights, that would have kept the legislative pay cuts but removed the delay in the tax cuts.
The budget hole was created when the Ohio Supreme Court last month ruled that a plan to put video lottery terminals at Ohio’s racetracks was subject to a vote of the people in 2010, delaying expected income from VLTS for schools.
The bill will delay tax cuts that would have seen a family of four earning $60,000 paying $85 less in income taxes this year than in 2008. With the postponement, families still would pay slightly less in 2009 than in 2008 because the value of the personal exemption - available to all taxpayers and their dependents - is indexed to inflation. The personal exemption will grow from $1,500 to $1,550.
The vote came after sometimes passionate debate, sparked partly by testimony from Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.
Hamler-Fugitt questioned whether making K-12 a spending priority- which Strickland and Democrats said the bill did - makes sense when youngsters across the state are facing the loss of after-school programs and other problems as the result of spending reductions in the two-year state budget bill.
“Somehow, I can’t reconcile how funding education at the peril of after school programs will help improve test scores or lower high school dropout rates,” Hamler-Fugitt said.
Rep. Stephen Dyer, D-Green, an architect of the school funding plan in the budget, defended making education the top priority, calling it the “greatest human service” that government provides.
Hamler-Fugitt called for several tax increases to raise money to “protect Ohio’s most vulnerable citizens.” They included rolling back state income tax rates to their 2005 levels. She also called for the House Ways and Means Committee to hold hearings on the effect of the 2005 overhaul of the tax code, including the income tax cuts.
