Everyone has a “junk drawer” in the kitchen — a place to stow scissors and other odds and ends that you just don’t know what else to do with.
The Ohio House of Representatives has a junk drawer, too — House Bill 153. You think that’s Ohio’s next budget. But tucked between the 4,000-page budget’s dollar amounts and Revised Code bafflegab is a slew of ideas that, on their own, might never pass.
That fact is inconvenient to (supposedly) small-government Ohio Republicans, who for generations railed against Democratic “logrolling” — that is, winning votes for tough bills by slipping them into politically sweeter measures.
And make no mistake, even HB 153′s purported austerity is plenty sweet for the army of spenders that swarms the Statehouse like an 11th Plague of Egypt. [Read more]
An Ohio House panel approved a measure Tuesday curbing collective-bargaining rights for 350,000 state public workers, softening several measures that some Republicans opposed while strengthening other restrictions.
The most controversial amendment would enable public workers to opt out of paying union dues. Currently, workers who don’t want to join a public-employee union can pay a lower dues rate. Public unions would also have to obtain consent from members in order to use dues for political purposes.
A third measure would enable local voters to veto a labor contract that results in a taxpayer-funded spending increase. The bill moves to the full House for a vote Wednesday and the Senate later this week. Republicans hold majorities in both chambers.
Mike Dittoe, spokesman for Republican House Speaker William Batchelder, said the bill “is about being fiscally responsible,” and that lawmakers sought input from public unions on the amendments. “This isn’t about busting unions.” [Read more]
While Ohio public employees’ rights to bargain collectively are under siege, the Ohio Republican Party executed a perfect sleight of hand by disenfranchising nearly 900,000 Ohio voters. In the most vicious and direct attack on voting rights since Bull Connor ran amok in the deep South, Ohio House Republicans passed HB 159 that requires Ohio voters to produce one of four state photo IDs at the polls.
The only IDs that will be accepted in Ohio if this bill passes the overwhelming Republican State Senate are a U.S. passport, a U.S. military ID, an Ohio driver’s license, or an Ohio state ID. This is the most restrictive standard in the nation.
The Republican Party’s target is obvious. Studies indicate that 25% of African Americans nationwide do not have a government-issued photo ID, 18% of voters over age 65 do not have a photo ID, and 15% of voters with incomes under $35,000 lack the ID as well. Besides going after blacks, the elderly and the poor, the bill also sets its sights on college students. What do these people have in common? They tend to vote Democratic.
The Republicans refuse to discuss an amendment that would have accepted a college student ID with a photo from their own state-funded university, including The Ohio State University, one of the nation’s largest institutions of higher education. [Read more]
On the heels of their 18-1, Democratic Senator-free vote to roll back collective bargaining rights for thousands of state workers, Republican leaders of the Wisconsin state Senate will head to a high-price fundraiser in their honor in DC.
According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel key players in the Wisconsin GOP will gather at the downtown DC headquarters of lobbying firm BGR Group March 16 for an event that donors “are asked to give at least $1,000 to the state Republican Party’s federal account” to attend.
It takes $1,000 to get you in the door, but “sponsors” are asked to pony up $2,500 and “hosts” 5,000. [Read more]
COLUMBUS – According to sources at the Statehouse, thousands of Ohioans who travelled from all parts of the state are being shut out and not allowed to make their voices heard. Sources say that only 750 people have been allowed in.
“This is the people’s house. Ohioans came from all over the state today to make their voices heard,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said. “To make them stand in the freezing cold and snow today is an unfathomable and unprecedented step. Thousands and thousands of people were allowed in the Statehouse last week to voice their opposition to Senate Bill 5, and they must be let in today. I call on John Kasich to immediately instruct the Highway Patrol to open the Statehouse and let these people in.”
Redfern is a former member of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board. “I’ve seen more than 750 people in the Statehouse for a wedding,” Redfern added. “We routinely received and approved requests from associations and organizations that numbered in the thousands. What is happening now is intimidation, plain and simple. The people’s house has suddenly been closed.” [Read more]
Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose bill to kill collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions has caused an uproar among state employees, might not be where he is today without the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch are conservative titans of industry who have infamously used their vast wealth to undermine President Obama and fight legislation they detest, such as the cap-and-trade climate bill, the health care reform act, and the economic stimulus package. For years, the billionaires have made extensive political donations to Republican candidates across the country and have provided millions of dollars to astroturf right-wing organizations. Koch Industries’ political action committee has doled out more than $2.6 million to candidates. And one prominent beneficiary of the Koch brothers’ largess is Scott Walker.
According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker’s gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election. That donation was his campaign’s second-highest, behind $43,125 in contributions from housing and realtor groups in Wisconsin. The Koch’s PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used politicial maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits. The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker’s opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly. [Read more]
As the political showdown between Republicans and labor unions in Wisconsin continues unabated, an anti-union bill in Ohio has also begun inflaming similar tensions. Thousands of protesters descended upon Columbus on Thursday to register their opposition to a Republican bill that would abolish or weaken collective bargaining rights for public-sector union members, ban public worker strikes, and weaken bargaining rights for police and firefighters prohibited from striking, according to the Lancaster Eagle Gazette. In addition, the Ohio paper adds, “Local unions’ right to bargain for health insurance would be limited, automatic pay increases for public employees would be eliminated and teachers would lose their right to pick their classes or schools if the bill passes.”
In one of the most prominent union strongholds in the country, the crowd—”estimated between 3,800 and 5,000″—was the biggest turnout that Columbus had seen for any legislation in a decade. As in Wisconsin, partisan tensions are exceedingly high in wake of the 2010 election results. In both states, the governorship and the statehouse flipped from Democratic to Republican control last year in highly contested races with heavy union involvement. In Ohio, the ousted former governor, Democrat Ted Strickland, even showed up at the Capitol to display solidarity with the thousands of protesting union members. “This has little to do with balancing this year’s budget,” he told the AP. “I think it’s a power grab. It’s an attempt to diminish the rights of working people. I think it’s an assault of the middle class of this state and it’s so unfair and out of balance.” [Read more]
The billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch no longer sit outside Washington’s political establishment, isolated by their uncompromising conservatism. Instead, they are now at the center of Republican power, a change most evident in the new makeup of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Wichita-based Koch Industries and its employees formed the largest single oil and gas donor to members of the panel, ahead of giants like Exxon Mobil, contributing $279,500 to 22 of the committee’s 31 Republicans, and $32,000 to five Democrats.
Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the panel signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group — Americans for Prosperity — to oppose the Obama administration’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. Of the six GOP freshman lawmakers on the panel, five benefited from the group’s separate advertising and grass-roots activity during the 2010 campaign.
Claiming an electoral mandate, Republicans on the committee have launched an agenda of the sort long backed by the Koch brothers. A top early goal: restricting the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the Kochs’ core energy businesses. [Read more]
The House today approved legislation that would end public financing of presidential campaigns by eliminating the option taxpayers have to donate $3 of their tax payments to a presidential campaign fund.
A day after President Obama asked both parties to work together during his State of the Union address, the bill, H.R. 359, was approved by party-line 239-160 vote following some very contentious debate.
Ten Democrats voted with Republicans: Reps. Jason Altmire (Pa.), Dan Boren (Okla.), Ben Chandler (Ky.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Jim Matheson (Utah), Nick Rahall (W.Va.), Mike Ross (Ark.), Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Heath Shuler (N.C.).
Republicans said the issue is simple. Eliminating the $3 checkoff option on tax returns would mean $617 million over 10 years could be directed to the general fund of the Treasury. They also said it would still give people the option of donating money to any presidential campaign of their choice. [Read more]
The Republican Party’s triumph in the 2010 congressional elections, coupled with the rapid depletion of the earth’s natural resources, signaled the impending collapse of human civilization, according to a world-renowned scholar known for his left-wing politics.
“You could almost interpret [the election] as a kind of a death knell for the species,” Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a recent interview.
But he’s not the only one worried; the US business press is, too.
Chomsky continued, “There was an article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, you know – not a radical rag exactly. They’re running through the new Republicans coming to Congress, and they’re worried about them.”
The cause for concern is that these newly-elected conservative members that now comprise the majority in Congress believe that global climate change is not the result of human industrial activities. [Read more]
Private donors are helping Republicans bankroll their efforts to revise political maps that could determine which party controls the Legislature and the New Jersey delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives over the next decade, but the public may never know who they are.
By accepting donations through an outside group not legally bound to disclose its contributors, Democrats charge the GOP is skirting New Jersey’s pay-to-play law, which limits political contributions from those doing business with the state. Republicans say they are doing nothing improper.
A similar group called Reform Jersey Now raised $624,000 to fund ad campaigns that pitched Republican Governor Christie’s legislative initiatives. When the group voluntarily disclosed its donors, it was revealed some were firms that hold hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts.
Republicans are revealing few details about their other fund-raising group, called the Center for a Better New Jersey. [Read more]
WASHINGTON — Two House Republicans have cast votes as members of the 112th Congress, but were not sworn in on Wednesday, a violation of the Constitution on the same day that the GOP had the document read from the podium.
The Republicans, incumbent Pete Sessions of Texas and freshman Mike Fitzpatrick, missed the swearing in because they were at a fundraiser in the Capitol Visitors Center. The pair watched the swearing-in on television from the Capitol Visitors Center with their hands raised.
“That wasn’t planned. It just worked out that way,” said Fitzpatrick at the time, according to local press on hand, which noted that he “happened to be introducing Texas Congressman Pete Sessions while glad-handing his supporters in the Capitol Visitor Center that he secured for them when the House swearing in began.”
House ethics rules forbid fundraising in the Capitol. [Read more]
A small network of hedge fund executives pumped at least $10 million into Republican campaign committees and allied groups before November’s elections, helping bankroll GOP victories that this week will change the balance of power in Washington, according to a review of campaign records and interviews with industry insiders by the Center for Public Integrity and NBC News.
Bitterly opposed to President Barack Obama’s economic and regulatory policies — including proposals to increase taxes on some of their profits — top Wall Street hedge fund moguls were unusually energized during last year’s election. They held multiple fundraisers and coordinated strategy to direct what appear to be unprecedented sums into the coffers of GOP and allied political committees, according to industry and GOP fundraising sources.
Many substantial donations from the hedge fund executives escaped public notice either because they were made late in the campaign (and therefore weren’t reported until after the election) or were funneled through third-party groups, obscure “joint fundraising committees” and newly created political nonprofits that are not required to disclose donors.
The net effect has been to give the hedge funds important new allies at a time they are fending off regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and an aggressive Justice Department investigation into insider trading. [Read more]
A group of lawmakers and election lawyers called Tuesday for tighter state regulations on giving by political slates and limited-liability corporations, two-oft criticized ways that donors may flood candidates with money.
The recommendations are among 25 proposed by the group convened by Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler last fall to study the state’s campaign finance system.
Many of the changes would require legislative action. Top lawmakers have said they expect to entertain many bills this year aimed at reforming campaign finance, a hot topic after the Nov. 2 gubernatorial election.
Gansler, who did not participate in the committee’s work, called the 53-page report “more than food for thought for legislators.” He said political slates, which can transfer unlimited amounts of money to and from anyone on them — in effect circumventing limits on donations — are “particularly crying out for reform.”
The group also suggests closing the “LLC loophole,” which now allows donors to evade limits by giving through multiple limited-liability corporations. [Read more]
There’s the guy who became a billionaire selling dog food, a couple of sports-team owners and the developer of an international spy museum.
That’s not to mention the convicted felon, the business leader who was the main financier of Bob Ney’s defense fund before the former Heath congressman went to federal prison, or the cowboy-hat-wearing industrialist who supports a mysterious out-of-state entity now delinquent in paying a record $5.2 million election fine in Ohio.
They are among an esoteric baker’s dozen of individuals and families who have led the way in bankrolling Ohio political campaigns during the past decade. Together, those 13 deep-pocketed donors poured more than $25 million into state races since 2000.
Despite limits placed on campaign contributions in the mid-1990s, Ohioans just witnessed the most expensive gubernatorial campaign in state history. In fact, every statewide nonjudicial race this year broke spending records, some of which had stood for 20 years.
When he signed legislation capping donations to candidates, parties and political-action committees in May 1995, Gov. George V. Voinovich said, “I’m confident there’ll be a substantial reduction in the amount of money spent on campaigns.” Others readily agreed.
Instead, the price tag for statewide campaigns in the past decade leaped almost 73 percent from the total for the 1990s, most of which had no limits on political contributions, according to a Dispatch computer analysis of more than 4.3 million state campaign-finance records involving more than $1.7 billion in transactions.
[Read more]
WASHINGTON – The 2010 census report coming out Tuesday will include a boatload of good political news for Republicans and grim data for Democrats hoping to re-elect President Barack Obama and rebound from last month’s devastating elections.
The population continues to shift from Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, a trend the Census Bureau will detail in its once-a-decade report to the president. Political clout shifts, too, because the nation must reapportion the 435 to make them roughly equal in population, based on the latest census figures.
The biggest gainer will be Texas, a GOP-dominated state expected to gain up to four new House seats, for a total of 36. The chief losers — New York and Ohio, each projected by nongovernment analysts to lose two seats — were carried by Obama in 2008 and are typical of states in the Northeast and Midwest that are declining in political influence.
Democrats’ problems don’t end there.
November’s elections put Republicans in control of dozens of and governorships, just as states prepare to redraw their congressional and legislative district maps. It’s often a brutally partisan process, and Republicans’ control in those states will enable them to create new districts to their liking. [Read more]
WASHINGTON — The Fox News network has solicited the services of a prominent D.C. law firm and an equally prominent campaign finance lawyer to ward off a suit alleging that it made illegal in-kind contributions to a Republican gubernatorial candidate.
The conservative-leaning network has hired Larry Noble, a well-known attorney at the firm Skadden Arps, to defend itself against a suit filed during the height of the 2010 campaign by the Democratic Governor’s Association.
In a filing with the Ohio Elections Commission in late November, Noble argued that the allegations leveled by the DGA were not just baseless but also designed to have a “chilling effect” on future press coverage.
In early August, the Democratic campaign arm accused Fox of illegally helping to raise money on behalf of incoming Ohio Governor John Kasich (R-Ohio) by running a chyron featuring his website at the same time that he was soliciting donations during an interview on Bill O’Reilly’s show.
Filed shortly after it was reported that Fox’s parent company, NewsCorp. had made a million dollar donation to the Republican Governor’s Association, the DGA’s complaint seemed politically-motivated. And in his response, Noble makes the case that there was little precedent to interpret campaign finance law with such sweeping conclusions. [Read more]
WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Dina Titus has outraised her Republican challenger, Nevada physician Joe Heck, by more than $1 million.
But the millions collected by the candidates in their battle to represent Las Vegas still fall well short of the nearly $6.8 million that special-interest groups and political parties have pumped into the race, making it one of the House contests attracting the most outside spending. Much of the money is flowing into negative advertising. [Read more]
WASHINGTON – A year ago, two top Republican strategists sat down for lunch at the venerable Mayflower Hotel, five blocks from the White House, calculating how to exploit the voter anger they had seen erupt at Democratic town hall meetings that summer.
Today, the money-raising success of the GOP-allied attack led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Karl Rove-inspired American Crossroads has stunned opponents and even its own architects. It’s one big slice of the estimated $3.5 billion expected to be spent on this year’s campaigning, a record for a midterm election.
Financed to a great degree by undisclosed donors — and helped by a new Supreme Court ruling — the deep-pocketed groups have become a dominant part of this election’s narrative. They have reversed past pre-eminence by Democratic outside groups. And they have become a prototype for elections to come.
Their effort has been a major factor in the $264 million in spending so far in this election by outside groups — organizations separate from the political parties and candidates. [Read more]
“The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.”
So reports a headline story in the New York Times yesterday about the Chamber of Commerce’s increasingly secretive and partisan fundraising and lobbying efforts. The Chamber, once an institution that supported small and family businesses, increasingly does the bidding of a few large corporations, and in the first part of our GRITtv Digs investigation, Harry Hanbury starts to open up the Chamber’s secrets for you.
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