Will the person in charge of education in Ohio be an educator or someone with an agenda? Today in Ohio – cleveland.com
Today in Ohio, the daily news podcast of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Ohio State Board of Education has whittled its list to seven candidates to be the next superintendent of public instruction.
That includes a former board member who resigned shortly before submitting his application and an ex-U.S. Department of Education official whose agency quashed an effort to address racial disparities in school discipline. We’re talking about the partisanship of some picks on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here. See the automated transcript at the bottom of the post.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
How big of a jail should we build?
How likely does it appear Ohio will get a state school superintendent more bent on conservative politics than on educating the state’s children, based on the finalists for the job?
Why is Cuyahoga County putting its new jail on a contaminated brownfield for which a deed restriction currently prohibits buildings such as jails?
We’ve lost so many ash trees in Ohio to an invasive attack. Are we now going to lose Ohio’s beech trees as well?
Early voting in Ohio’s embattled primary starts this week, and today is the last day to register to vote in a very odd year. The ballot is not complete. Let’s help the voters here, Lisa. Where do we stand on this year’s primary election?
Frank Russo is among the most corrupt figures ever in Cuyahoga County, doing immeasurable damage to the county’s economic well-being. He died over the weekend, and while friends will speak well of him, let’s remind everyone about just how monstrous his corruption was.
Republican politicians like to blame the nation’s leaky southern border for much of the drug problem in Cleveland and Ohio. Is that claim legitimate?
Is Jim Renacci a big beneficiary of fake news outlets in his bid to unseat Mike DeWine in the Republican primary for governor?
Did Secretary of State Frank LaRose add to the constitutional crisis in Ohio by throwing his support behind a so-far anonymous and secret plan to impeach Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor for doing her job in the gerrymandering battle?
Congressman Dave Joyce has made a bit of a name for himself with his efforts to decriminalize marijuana, so why is he opposed to what the House of Representatives did last week to do just that?
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Read the automated transcript below:
Chris: [00:00:00] We spent last week recording special episodes with a bunch of the candidates for statewide office Morgan Harper and Tim Ryan and John Cranley and Nan Whaley and Matt Dolan. And one more that I’m not remembering Jim or NACY, who was surprisingly like the Congressman Jim RNAC, not the Trump Trumpy guy.
We’ve seen the last two years. So check them out. There’ll be publishing starting tomorrow. It’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laurie Johnston, and Layla Tassie for our regular episodes, where we talk about the big stories of the day.
Hope you all had a good weekend.
Lisa: Well, there were snow.
Chris: I know, I couldn’t believe it. The dog came in completely covered. It’s like, man, when are we done with this? It’s April. Well, it’ll be warm and rainy this week. How likely does it appear? Ohio will get a state [00:01:00] school superintendent. More bent on conservative politics that on educating the state’s children based on finalists for the job, Lisa, this could go either way.
It’s either going to be really seriously arch political or education. Education-based.
Lisa: Yeah, they’ve winnowed down. There were 27 applicants for the state superintendent of schools job. They winded that down to seven candidates. They will all be interviewed later this month on April 11th and 12th. And there are a couple that might be their ideologies might be of concern.
One of them is Kimberly M Richie. She’s the former acting assistant secretary in the U S department of education office. Civil rights. And she also authored an American enterprise Institute report, which is a right-leaning think tank saying that the Obama administration recommendations on student discipline policies that led to black children being punished more than white children may have violated us civil rights laws.
And she says, you know, [00:02:00] these are the foundational principles associated with critical race theory. And that’s a quote. She also drafted legislation and school policies to regulate racist. Instruction in K to 12. Another one who might be kind of right-leaning to put it mildly. Dr. Ronnie Tarci he’s the superintendent, right?
I’m sorry, not him. Thin Larson. He’s a consultant for a Christian educators association, international, which urges more Christianity in the classroom.
Chris: So let me stop you there because that seems like a preposterous nominee. First state school, board superintendent, right? Mr. Larson. I mean it’s private school oriented.
It’s seriously religious. I mean, this is supposed to be the job that makes sure students get valid education. What are they thinking? Putting people like that into the finalist? Why don’t we have a whole rash of educated?
Lisa: And we do the other, they’re all educators actually in the other [00:03:00] five are all school superintendents, you know, across the state.
One is from a doc, Dr. Ronnie Tarci, he’s the superintendent of Penn sock and public schools in New Jersey, but all the other ones were superintendent of Ohio schools. So they definitely have five educators. You know, I don’t know, without digging in further, but they look like they’re, you know, they’re bonafide.
So, but these other two, their ideology is a, is a cause for concern.
Chris: I grew up over near Penn sock and I don’t remember it being a bastion of high-quality education, but it’s been a long time. Maybe it’s changed. We’ll have to see if an educator gets in or if they go with the politics and if they go out the politics, what a disappointment that will be you’ll listening to today.
Why is Cuyahoga county putting its new jail on a contaminated brownfield, for which a deed restriction currently prohibits building things such as jails Leo, this popped up last week and people are telling us nothing to see here, but it’s a little bit to see. [00:04:00]
Leila: Well, I mean, I think a big reason here is that any, any parcel or assembly of parcels, large enough to accommodate a project of this scope in the city of Cleveland is going to be on a brownfield that requires remediation.
That is pretty much a certainty. And the steering committee has decided that they want this facility to be relatively close to downtown or more specifically close to the courts. But, but yeah, Courtney is selfie and Caitlin Durbin. We’re chasing down the story on Friday and it turns out, and it’s no surprise the jail committee’s top choice.
Where that shipping container yard currently lives is the former site of a standard oil refinery. As things stand, the site is prohibited from non-commercial and non-industrial uses because of a standing covenant with the Ohio environmental protection agency and to put a jail there, the county would have to connect.
Tests to understand the extent of the environmental contamination and take some steps to clean it up. Uh, an environmental [00:05:00] consultant has been hired to advise the county on the cleanup process. The EPA would then have to sign off on allowing the property to be used for residential purposes because that’s what a jail is.
And the county has already begun. Preliminary testing on the site, but they haven’t yet started the full process that would be needed to remediate the site and get that EPA approval for use as a jail. So that’s where it sets. And there’s some tension around what needs to happen first and whether they’re ready to take this vote tomorrow.
And so, uh, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s what prompted us to tell. I want
Chris: to, I want to talk about this more before we do, uh, Caitlyn also wrote a fascinating story about the history of this selection process with loads of previously reported details. There’s too much in it for us to do as a quick discussion on this podcast.
So we’re going to do a special episode to go through it all because there’s a lot to talk about in this case. I do have a couple of questions, the [00:06:00] optics of the. Putting the jail on a brown field are never going to be good. I mean, you and I discussed this Friday. You don’t agree with me, but I could see this become the source of civil litigation, jail guards could Sue saying that it wasn’t really cleaned up and there’s a cancer cluster.
We’ve seen that kind of thing before. And the idea that it has to be close to downtown to be near the courts. I don’t quite get that either. I mean, if you’re going to put them on a bus who cares, if it’s a five minute ride or a 20 minute ride, and when we have. Foundering mall sites all over this county that have good access to the highways.
Why couldn’t we build it there? Where there’s no danger of somebody saying I’m being poisoned? I mean, or refinery, that’s not a healthy situation.
Leila: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know enough about the remediation process to make any comment. How safe a property is afterward. I guess I’d have to know more about that, but, but in terms of proximity, I’m assuming that most of the.[00:07:00]
You know, the, uh, um, most of the inmates probably are booked from Cleveland, right? Isn’t Cleveland sort of the source of most bookings. And so do I, I’m assuming that Cleveland police want to have, have easier access to the jail than to be driving all the way out to some far-flung Cuyahoga county suburb.
To, um, you know, and to don’t have
Chris: to be far-flung kayak county suburbs. We have defunct mall sites all through this county,
Lisa: right in your neighborhood,
Chris: right in Richmond Heights. And you got that big bunch of amount in your Bedford
Leila: and. That kind of raises. The other question that we’ve talked about in the past is, you know, I think that there would be protests in many communities of having a jail situated in a suburb because people don’t want, uh, inmates when they’re released to be released into their site.
And, uh, that’s that I think is probably one [00:08:00] of those unspoken parts of the discussion when it comes to choosing a jail site. And a, but
Chris: we’ve also talked that there appears to be millions and millions of dollars included in this budget to do that clean up. And if you went to a site that wasn’t dirty, you could save that money.
They haven’t done a lot to save money on this thing, and that would save money. I just, it raises a lot of questions that I don’t know. We have good answers too. So it does feel a little bit odd that they’re going to vote tomorrow to focus on this, I guess, to figure out the cost of the cleanup. You first have to say, it’s your number one site?
Is that the thinking? Yeah,
Leila: it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing. You’re not going to go down that path of pouring money into even the first stages of the cleanup process. If you’re not sure this is the right site, you have to have some kind of. Commitment from the committee in general. And yet, you know, some arguing, you shouldn’t commit to the site until you’ve, you’ve attempted some, you know, until, until you know that the cleanup is, is feasible.
[00:09:00] And so it’s, I think there’s a, there that’s where the tension lies, but then you kind of need to galvanize behind one,
Lisa: one decision. If I could jump in here and say, you know, we’ve got these slush funds and you know, of ARPA money with county council. Cleveland and Cuyahoga county are full of brownfields.
That would be a great way to spend that one-time money from opera instead of giving it to county council is a slush fund. I mean, yeah. Like, you know, like the article said, like Layla alluded to, are you going to find a clean site for jail? Probably not.
Chris: Okay. You’re listening to today in Ohio. We’ve lost so many Ash trees in an Ohio to an invasive attack.
Are we now going to lose Ohio’s beach trees as well? Laura, Pete cross wrote this story. It’s another distressing one.
Laura: Um, this is really bad news. Beech trees from Ohio to Maine are dying from Beech leaf disease, which is linked to a microscopic parasite and experts are trying to [00:10:00] control that path. But they’re also focusing on finding resistant trees that may be needed to one day repopulate the species and beaches are native to Ohio, and this could be devastating to our forest because maple and Beech make up about 25% of our Woodland species.
So there’ll be empty patches across the forest canopy and animals that have come to rely on the beach nuts. We’ll we’ll have to find a new source of food.
Chris: Well, and how long has this been in the country? Is this something that will go as quickly as the Ash trees dead? Or is there time to try and.
Leila: Well, it’s
Laura: been 10 years since a naturalist in lake county.
Their Metroparks first discovered the symptoms of what would be known as Beech leaf disease. So it didn’t even have a name then. So it’s been here at least a decade, but this worm can kill a tree in eight years. I mean, that’s pretty fast. So early signs are deep green striping between the veins and blistering of leaf tissue.
The symptoms get worse every year as they choke off the leaves, ability to photosynthesize energy from this. [00:11:00]
Chris: We couldn’t save the Ash trees. We ended up cutting down and in suburb, after suburb, they just took them out. Is that what’s ahead for the beach trees?
Laura: Well, it’s possible, but I feel with the Emerald Ash borer, the whole thing was don’t move firewood, right?
Like we’re going to keep it contained this one. They are being. A little more, they have more foresight. They’re not saying, Hey, we’re going to contain this. Instead. We’re looking how to create disease resistant trees. And so they’re going to be breeding them, but that could take years. If not decade, the Holden Arboretum is working really hard on this.
The, the, it sounds like a vaccine that collected Beech leaves from their own property, floated them in water to collect these nematodes. Those are the worms they need moisture to move around. So then they inoculated healthy trees by applying these nematodes. Immersed in water to dormant buds, which is where the critters do the most damage.
So then they can create these disease resistant trees and they can plant them. But yeah, I mean, you’re not going to be able to replace every tree immediate.
Chris: Okay, check out, [00:12:00] Pete cross a story on cleveland.com early voting in Ohio is embattled. Primary election starts this week, and today is the last day to register.
Vote to vote in a very odd year. The ballot is not going to be complete. Let’s help the voters here. Lisa, where do we stand on this primary election?
Lisa: Well, let’s talk about today, which is the last day of voter registration. So if you’re not registered, you have until nine o’clock here in Cuyahoga county because Cuyahoga county elections director, Tony per lot, he says he wants to leave the office open until nine o’clock this evening.
So people can register to vote until then downtown. And he’s also planning an event today to get the word out so early voting begins tomorrow. April 5th. Um, and that’s, mail-in voting as well. What will be on the ballot is statewide and local races. So statewide being secretary of state, governor attorney general and so forth.
And then. Elections, you know, city, you know, for different cities and [00:13:00] suburbs, there will be no legislative races on the ballot. And we all know why, because there are still maps that are in flux with the Ohio Supreme court. Um, secretary of state Frank LaRose pulled those from the May 3rd primary ballot.
Back on Friday, there is a possible makeup race on August 2nd, but that data is certainly not set in stone is litigation continues.
Chris: So, I guess the important message for now is if you’re not registered to vote, you got a few hours to do it, go do it. And then the way you vote will clarify, there’ll be a ballot for may and there may be a ballot.
Lisa: Right. And, and I’m confused, Chris, and maybe you can straighten it the further congressional races. They’re saying that they’re using them. The map that the Republicans on the redistricting commission approved on March 2nd, but I don’t know if that’s going to be on the May 3rd ballot. I was a little bit unclear on congressional races.
Chris: Yeah, I think they are. That’s, that’s part of the problem. I do believe there’ll be voting on congressional and I [00:14:00] do well, you know, the lines aren’t. So people had filed to run with the shifting lines and you’re right. The lines are locked. So that seems relatively safe. It’s really the legislative that will all have to be decided later.
And you know, you know, what you can probably expect is incredibly low turnout for that. That primary, whenever it occurs, because it’s just the legislative races. People don’t even know who their legislators are and they don’t hold them to account, obviously, because of all the shenanigans that go on there.
Lisa: Yeah. The Ohio Supreme court ruled against democratic efforts to block the current congressional Matt from taking effect, but they will hear arguments on a new map after the May 3rd primary.
Chris: Okay. It’s today in Ohio. Frank Russo is among the most corrupt figures ever in Cuyahoga county doing in measurable damage to the county’s economic well-being.
He died over the weekend and while friends will now speak well of him, let’s remind everyone about just how [00:15:00] monstrous his corruption was. Layla. He doesn’t get to go with nice pats on the back. Right? This guy was the worst of the 60 plus people who went to prison because he was the thief.
Leila: He was Rousseau.
Rousseau was elected as the county recorder in 1984. That’s kind of where his, his time in, in county politics began. And, and although it would be a couple of decades at that point before the full scope of his crimes would come to light Cayuga county. Began to catch a glimpse of it all early on. And in 1988, he ran unopposed for reelection.
He used campaign cash at that time to buy a big screen TV and a van, which he kept at his home and claimed where necessary campaign expenses. And then 1991, he collected, you know, uh, $7,700 in campaign contributions from his employees, nearly half of what he had raised that year. In 1992, he was accused by a democratic party challenger of padding, the county payroll with [00:16:00] political allies and using his campaign account for his personal use, but he just kept winning re-election very easily.
And then he was appointed in 97 to succeed. Tim McCormick as county auditor, when McCormick became county commissioner. So then he, uh, uh, you know, in that role, he, you know, he, he began his, his next, his next chapter of his
Chris: career. And I mean, he, you took to pick the company that would assess the value of homes.
He took a gigantic kick-back. He ended up walking away with a million in his pocket, but, but the, but the run-up of the price people estimated taxpayers were at. Accountable four to 5 million. And the whole thing about the corruption in Cuyahoga county was a big red sign that said, if you’re an honest person, don’t do business here.
It was, it was bad. Jimmy Demora is the big figurehead for this thing. Cause he was the county commissioner and larger than life and he fought it to the end. But you know, he just got stuff like Palm [00:17:00] trees and pizza ovens. Frank Russo was stuffing cash into his pocket. He was. Bad news. And they, they treated themselves like they were rock stars.
I remember after the corruption pro bro, Chris Evans did a story. Former reporter with us, did a story about how they were like a cabaret act. You know, the rat pack, guys that show up and shake hands a glad hand, but then you listen to those phone calls they were having. Pretend mafiosos, you know, it’s, it was gross, what they did.
And there were two things involving him that really stood out to me. One, he got a guy to run against him as a sham. And then
Leila: Joseph Bellucci, who was, who was oddly a pizza shop manager. How did that not, I mean, God kind of, kind of out of nowhere, right? I mean, he wasn’t like a, uh, political, um, you know, a name that people would recognize.
He drops out a month before the election. And it was too [00:18:00] late for Republicans to run another candidate.
Chris: He set it up so that he would have an easy, I mean, he would have had easy reelection anyway. And then he gave the guy a job. I mean, that was, and the guy, $70,000, you got the Lucci got convicted and it was part of Russo’s charges.
The other one, and this was the one that I think was the most disturbing moment in the corruption probe. There was a phone call and. Kevin Kelly, not the Cleveland city council, president, Kevin Kelly, but a guy who worked with Russo and at the county. And they’re talking about, you know, greasing the palms of people, um, as, as with contracts in exchange for their money.
And they’re talking about an upcoming. Services levy for social services and Cuyahoga county, and they can’t wait to get a pass so they can seize it to use in sleazy, sinister ways. And, and, you know, people vote on those taxes for the goodness of. They want to provide the social services. They [00:19:00] want to make sure children are taken care of.
And these guys like Rousseau, all, they saw that as was their personal cash supply to get more gain from themselves. It was the definition of despicable behavior. The county back God, who knows how long you could sense. The Cuyahoga county started to recover almost immediately. As soon as these guys were gone, you started to have good business.
But you know, Lisa mentioned earlier in the podcast, the slush funds, this is what Rousseau and Demora and all those did it’s worth thinking about as the current county. Counsel looks to put $6 million into their own little coffers to spend as they wish, because that’s how you get into trouble. Right?
When you start having individuals with the ability to steer $6 million each, we should remember this as we go. I
Leila: agree with you completely.
Chris: And we’re probably going to dig some [00:20:00] stuff out of our archives to put up that Chris Evans story would be worth putting up again. We should never forget this kind of thing, because we were more abundant as a county because of that behavior.
And you’ve just got to be a guardian against it. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Republican politicians like to blame the nation’s leaky Southern border for much of the drug problem in Cleveland and in Ohio, Laura, is that claim legitimate. It
Laura: doesn’t seem to be John Caniglio did a really thorough story on the drug routes of how opioids and.
Meth and all sorts of things get into Ohio. And most of them are coming through border crossings with custom guards. They’re legal ports of entry that are overwhelmed with traffic and authorities are struggling to keep up. And then these cartels, and there are two main powerful ones in Mexico. They use low level careers to haul these large amounts of, of drugs and financial conduits to launder the proceeds.
But they’re just traveling down the highway like anybody. In [00:21:00] semi-trucks packaged with all sorts of things. Either there are false bottoms to packages or, or fake gas tanks, and usually the drivers know what’s going on, but a ton of this stuff is, is ending up in Chicago and then going down the Ohio.
Chris: Yeah, it was surprising to see how much of the tr how much the turnpike has become a route for drug traffic.
Cause I I’m on the turnpike fairly frequently and there are a lot of troopers on their bike. I would think if you were carrying illegal drugs, you’d try and avoid places where there are troopers there all the time.
Laura: Yeah, you would think so, but this is a, it gets Chicago is just huge for the taking of these packages and then repackaging them.
So it’s a big hub. And then Ohio is obviously not that far from Chicago. And John looked at a lot of DEA reports and then talk to a lot of experts. And they said, you know, it’s, there could be just a random package in the middle of the desert people sneaking across. But the vast number of this is just the people overwhelmed at the ports.
They are [00:22:00] not able to check every, every vehicle
Chris: coming. It is interesting how much the Republican candidates, mainly for office talk about the border, the leaky border being the drug issue when it really isn’t that’s John’s reporting makes clear, check it out on cleveland.com. It’s Jim run AC a big Benny Fisher, airy of fake news outlets in his bid to unseat Mike DeWine in the Republican primary for governor Lisa watchdog group in New York, pointed this out to us.
We put together a story at the end of last year.
Lisa: According to the German Marshall fund, which did an analysis, they found 174 articles published on Jim Rene. See, since last December, and this was on a network. Quote unquote, new sites that are owned by a group called metric media. It’s a network of 1300 conservative leaning websites that publish stories that some claimer ordered up by GOP groups or corporate PR firms.
So pay to [00:23:00] play. Um, it’s run by a guy, a former TV journalist named Brian timpani. He’s based out of Illinois and run AC got 170. Thousand interactions from these articles. Cause he was posting them on his own Facebook page and linking to them. Although he does say, we don’t know whether this is true or not.
He has no relationship with metric media. He did not hire or buy coverage from them.
Chris: Yeah. It was a preview of the special episode that Seth Richardson and I did with him as a candidate for governor, he was adamant he has nothing to do with it. And he actually was a little bit cheeky. He says he has a Google news search of his name and any story that.
He shares on social media and he wishes the plain dealer, the Cincinnati Enquirer, or the Columbus dispatch would do these stories, which was kind of funny. I mean, some of these stories are silly. Like he produced a poll showing he’s winning, which nobody I think believes that. And then these sites covered his.
And then he shared that [00:24:00] like it’s legitimate news when he was the source of it to begin with. He does, he does though say he has nothing to do with it. He hasn’t asked them to do anything. He’s not connected to it. Uh, and maybe it’s just, there’s some very far right. People that want Mike DeWine to lose and they’re trying to have.
Lisa: But can I add something?
Laura: Go ahead. I went to look at this website because I wanted to see what the fake news websites look like because you see them on social media a lot, but like, is anyone going to the homepage? And it was, I mean, it does look like a legitimate news site. And then they had like, you know, the little headers, it will be like local news.
And then the headline was county commissioner meeting. It’s like what county? Like, like, like he was pretending to be real news, but, um, I dunno, who puts the.
Lisa: Yeah, these have names like Buckeye reporter, Ohio business, daily Cleveland, reporter.com. And when I went to that and looked at their people, the people page was blank.
And, uh, Tony Frankie’s with the German Marshall fund said [00:25:00] that that the coverage is inauthentic and it’s presented in a news format, but on sites that don’t follow journalistic standards, a lot of these do not have by-lines there’s no copyright. So, I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty suspect, but it looks.
Chris: Yeah, I think it’s playing to a very specific audience.
I don’t think they’re looking to win big hearts and minds. They’re playing to a very conservative audience and maybe it’s, I don’t know, maybe it’s to get up the vote. They’re strange because somebody spending money on them and they’re not making money on them. So, so what’s the point you’re listening to today in Ohio.
Did secretary of state Franklin rose add to the constitutional crisis in Ohio by throwing his support behind a so far anonymous and secret plan to impeach Ohio, chief justice, Maureen O’Connor, who’s just doing her job in the gerrymandering battle. Layla,
Leila: you know, other Republicans, even, even how speaker Bob cup and governor [00:26:00] DeWine have been keeping their distance from this impeachment.
Push, which is happening quietly and somewhere behind closed doors. But LA rose was asked about this at a Republican event in the Columbus area on Friday. And he said, impeaching O’Connor may be the right thing to do. I just can’t believe that. This was in response to an audience question at a union county Republican party event.
He said, quote, I think that she is not upheld her oath of office and that’s, and that to me is a basic test of a public servant. That’s up to the state legislature, whether they want to impeach a chief, does this justice or not? I certainly wouldn’t oppose it, but he went on to say, impeaching. Might be a hollow political tactic because it wouldn’t happen in time to make a difference in redistricting.
The maps have to be drawn and approved by the court by April 20th, for them to be used sometime this year. And if they’re not a federal court is likely to take over the process. So he was kind of like, it might feel good to do it. But it [00:27:00] won’t change the outcome, but this is insanity for him to say that Connor she’s the only Republican doing her
Chris: job ocracy to say, she’s not living up to the oath of her office, which she clearly is.
He’s the one that repeated that. Has violated the oath of office by abandoning what the constitution requires. How many times did they meet that? He, as a member of the Ohio redistricting commission missed the constitutionally imposed deadlines for doing the maps. How many times has he refused to do what the Supreme court has ordered him to do as part of this commission?
Anybody is abandoning the oath of office. It’s Frank Leros. I can’t believe we’re at a time where an elected secretary of state would make such a preposterous and false statement just to get to rally the troops.
Leila: I know. I mean, even [00:28:00] the, the argument that’s kind of nestled at the heart of the impeachment push that, you know, the judiciary doesn’t have the power to change an election date.
Only the legislature can do that. I mean, it’s not the judiciary holding up this process. It’s, it’s the redistricting commission and their failure to follow the constitutional mandate. That’s what. All the log jam here and the
Chris: sheep. How many times has he had the chance to say no, Bob cup? No, Matt Huffman.
We’re going to follow the process that the constitution requires. Instead he lines up, gives him a salute and does what they tell him to do. And he’s now challenging. The Supreme court, chief justice for doing her job. I, it’s a very distressing moment in, in Ohio politics. He’s running for reelection and he doesn’t have much of a challenge, but how could anybody vote for him knowing that he is so seriously abandoned, all sense of principle.
You’re listening to today in [00:29:00] Ohio, and that’s going to do it for a Monday conversation. We got some stuff we left on the table. We’ll get to it tomorrow. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Layla. Thanks to everybody who listens.
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