Former Secretary of State, Jennifer Bruner, speaking at a "Fair Elections Ohio" meeting concerning HB194

Former Secretary of State, Jennifer Bruner, in a recent article criticizes Ohio GOP relentless efforts to suppress Democratic votes in Ohio.  She compares GOP trash and burn tactics, since 2000 — “to cut off or diminish the ability to vote of those most vulnerable to disenfranchisement, such as minorities, low-income Americans, single mothers and the like” — with William Tecumseh Sherman’s devastating “march to the sea.”

Bruner writes about the latest GOP vote suppression effort — House Bill 194 — and says this effort is backfiring on the GOP. Over 500,000 signatures were collected to put the repeal of HB194 on the November ballot.

Defenders of HB194 claim that its purpose is to “modernize” voting laws, but Bruner outlines how HB194, in fact, is designed to suppress voting. If HB194 stands, it will:

• Reduce by mail absentee voting to three weeks from five weeks and reduce in-person absentee voting to two weeks.
• Ban in-person absentee voting on Sundays and Saturday afternoons.
• Ban in-person early voting during the last weekend before the election.
• Make it more difficult for the boards of elections to open extra offices in the community to make it more convenient to vote early.
• Stop local Election Boards from sending absentee ballot applications unsolicited to all voters.
• Stop local Elections Boards from paying postage on return absentee ballot requests or on the return of absentee ballots.
• Impose technical reasons not to count votes.
• Order a minimum voting precinct size in cities and villages only.
• Prohibit someone with no ID from having their ballot counted.
• Eliminate the 10-day period after the election to provide missing ID.
• Strike down disclosure rules for corporations participating in campaigns.

Recently, the current Secretary of State, John Husted, in response to the looming referendum, urged the Assembly to repeal HB194 and substitute other legislation. But Bruner is working with a group called “Fair Elections Ohio,” who is saying that the referendum should go forward.

Sharen Neuhardt last night was endorsed by the MCDP to be the Democratic candidate to represent Ohio's 10th Congressional District. This picture was taken from Sharen's web-site.

Of the six Democrats seeking to be nominated at the March 6 Democratic Primary to represent Ohio’s new 10th District, DavidEsrati reports, the Montgomery County Democratic Party last night endorsed Sharen Neuhardt.

According to The Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting, the 10th District is only one of three Ohioan congressional districts, out of 16 total, that can be considered “competitive.”  With redistricting, the old 3rd District, represented by Republican Mike Turner, merged with the 7th District and, very mathematically, is now the 10th District.  The new district picked up a lot of Montgomery County Democrats previously excluded from the 3rd District. The new 10th includes all of Montgomery and Greene counties and part of Fayette.

According to the group’s analysis, in the 10th district, the “Republican index” is 54.18 and the “Democratic index” is 45.82.

Statistically, the Republican candidate has the advantage, but the index doesn’t show the growing frustration of voters with all incumbents. The “approval” of congress is now 10% — an all time low — and incumbent Mike Turner, in this election, will need to deal with rising voter  consternation. Many habitual Republican voters are ready to “throw the bums out.”

The MCDP, I’m sure, will say they chose the most qualified of the six candidates. Neuhardt is a successful Greene County attorney, who, in 2008, after the retirement of long time congressman, Republican Dave Hobson, was the Democratic candidate seeking election to the 7th Congressional District. She spent over $800,000, received 42% of the vote, but lost to Steve Austria.

One big factor in any endorsement is electability and, in order to get elected, it seems a candidate must be able to raise huge amounts of money. I’m sure the fact that Neuhardt raised $800,000 in her 2012 campaign made a big impact on the Democratic Party leadership and influenced their endorsement.

Blogger David Esrati is seeking the nomination and has been working hard at his campaign. He objects to the MCDP making their endorsement. He writes, in “The Democratic Monarchy of Montgomery County Endorsed Dirty Money tonight”: “Running a 1% candidate against a 1% incumbent will put the local Dems at 0 and 6 against Turner. In case they haven’t noticed, people are getting turned off by the big money being slung around.” In his campaign speeches, Esrati downplays the importance of money, saying his campaign will not need huge sums of money because he will run an “unconventional campaign.”

But, it is not surprising that the Party, all other factors being equal, would go with a money campaign rather than an unconventional one.  Most party members, I’m sure, agree with Former Party chair, Dennis Lieberman, who is quoted as saying, in a December DDN article, a successful Democratic congressional candidate would have to “be able to raise a lot of money.”

Two years ago the nominee was a 25 year old,  Joe Roberts. He raised practically no money and ran a very ineffective campaign. Esrati, and the other Democrats not chosen for endorsement, cannot be surprised that the party endorsed the candidate with the track record of raising a lot of cash.

I’m opposed, in principle, to the Party making endorsements. But reforming the MCDP is a challenge for another time.

• In March 6 Primary, Six Democrats Vie For 10th Congressional District Nomination — See Videos of Each, January 31st, 2012
• Proposal To Stop Democratic Primary Endorsements in Montgomery County Quashed At Reorganization Meeting, June 3rd, 2010
• At MCDP Reorganization Meeting I Will Propose A Change In By-Laws To Prohibit Primary Endorsements, June 2nd, 2010
• Now Is The Time For Montgomery County Democrats To Get Involved To Vitalize and Reform Local Dem Party, January 26th, 2010
• Mike Turner Is A Bum, For Our Democracy’s Sake, Let’s Throw The Bum Out, October 16th, 2008

When Governor John Kasich rolled out his “Jobs Budget” (HB 153), no one was surprised that this champion of all things “free market” called for the acceleration of the privatization of public education in Ohio via the repeal of the 2005 moratorium that prohibited the opening of new on-line schools in the state.

But — surprise, surprise — the Republican dominated Assembly rejected Kasich’s proposal and voted to keep the moratorium in place. Wow, at first glance, it looked like the legislature was responding to the dismal academic failure of Ohio’s current e-schools, and, amazingly, that Republican Assembly members, tempering their free market mania, were acting to protect the public interest.

Not so — says Innovation Ohio. This think tank has published a report “OHIO’S E-SCHOOLS: FUNDING FAILURE; CODDLING CONTRIBUTORS,” that says the Assembly’s refusal to allow the opening of new e-schools, in fact, was a pay back to e-school owners from Republicans demonstrating their gratitude to their big political donors.  E-schools are hugely profitable and, naturally, e-school owners don’t want additional competition, so they pressed their Republican “friends” to keep the moratorium in place. From the report:

“Innovation Ohio has found that between 2001 and 2010, Ohio Republicans, who now control both the Governor’s office and the Ohio General Assembly, received nearly $4 million in campaign contributions from just two men – David Brennan and William Lager.

David Brennan, who operates more charter schools in Ohio than anyone else, has single- handedly donated nearly $3 million to state candidates and Republican Party accounts. Brennan operates the Alternative Education Academy E-School (OHDELA), as well as several brick-and-mortar charter schools.    Though OHDELA graduates just 35.9 percent of its students, Brennan receives $11.7 million a year in state money to operate it.

Incredibly, Mr. Brennan—who currently rakes in roughly $100 million per year from the state, and has banked over $500 million in state money since 2000—has never once testified before any education committee of the Ohio General Assembly.

For his part, Mr. Lager, who operates ECOT, has made nearly $1 million in political contributions since 2001. ECOT receives $64 million per year in state money – yet graduates just 35 percent of its students, and has a performance index rating worse than all but 14 of Ohio’s 613 districts.  …

(By keeping the moratorium in place that stops the formation of new Ohio e-schools,) far better for these Republican benefactors to maintain their gravy train, especially since the adoption of standards is nowhere in sight. Coupled with the repeal of E-school reporting and minimum spending on student requirements, Brennan and Lager now can enjoy the best of both worlds—no pesky competition to eat into their market share, no standards for the schools they already operate, and no risk of state- imposed fines to cut into their profits.”

The New York Times last December reported, “Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools,” that one Ohio School, Ohio Virtual Academy, receiving more than $60 million a year from the state, is managed by a national company called “K-12.” Astoundingly, the CEO of K-12, Ronald J. Packard, receives an annual salary of $5 million.

The NYT reports: “In an interview at K12’s headquarters in Herndon, Va., Mr. Packard said, ‘We’re here to help children, and that is our overriding purpose and we want to do it as well and efficiently as possible.’ ” I had to laugh when I read Mr. Packard’s “It’s all about the children” defense. I guess it’s nice to have your good deeds rewarded with a $5 million paycheck each year, as well.

Innovation Ohio doesn’t report the salaries of Lager or Brennan, but, I’m sure they are huge.  Do the math:

E-schools receive $6,320 tax money per pupil — subtracted from funds that otherwise would go to local public schools — and the reported average student: teacher ratio for Ohio e-schools is 37:1.  (I suspect it is much higher.) The average salary for teachers in Ohio e-schools is $36,000 and with retirement and health benefits the average total compensation per teacher would be much less than $50,000.

The largest Ohio e-school is ECOT with 9257 students. On the expense side, if the 37:1 ratio is accurate, ECOT has 250 teachers with total compensation each year of $12,500,000, round to $13 million. Add computer equipment, software, on-line expenses, etc cost, I’m guessing, on average, $1500 per student each year for $14 million Add a generous amount for administrative and office costs,  for another $5 million.  And the TOTAL is $13 + 14 + 5 = $32 million

On the revenue side, @6320 per student, there is an income of $58 million, and, so, there seems to be an excess of $58 – $32 = $26 million.

If I’m off in my expense side by $10 million, there is still plenty of excess money to pass around. One big e-school expense I’ve not noted is advertising — e-schools spend a lot of public tax money soliciting new students.  And, of course, donations from e-school owners given to politicians is also an indirect expense. Here is how the gravy train chugs along, ever faster:

• Money extracted from taxpayers
• is cleansed by “private enterprise”
• then placed to politicians’ hands
• so politicians can enact policies
• to empower “private enterprise” to extract more taxpayer money so
• even more money is placed in politicians hands so
• “private enterprise” can extract even more money ….

Here are more details from the Innovation Ohio report — all data taken from public records:

From 2001-2010, David Brennan alone made political contributions totaling $2,933,046 to political party accounts and candidates for statewide and legislative offices, with only token amounts going to Democrats.    William Lager donated $943,452 during that same time frame –again mostly to Republican candidates and causes. What is especially noteworthy is the size of their recent largesse, especially since it is Republicans who are now seeking to remove all caps, restrictions and accountability from E-schools and charter schools more broadly.

As the 2010 elections approached, Mr. Brennan stepped up his contributions to statewide Republican candidates, giving generously to the campaigns of Gov. John Kasich ($22,781); Secretary of State Jon Husted ($22,745); Treasurer Josh Mandel ($22,692); Auditor David Yost ($11,000); Attorney General Mike DeWine ($11,000) and Speaker of the House William Batchelder ($22,000). xxi    Their Democratic opponents received nothing from Mr. Brennan.

Mr. Brennan also contributed heavily to various Republican Party organizations and committees during 2009-10. In 2009, he gave a total of $169,075 to 5 different GOP political funds, and in 2010, $106,000 more to 3 Republican funds and committees. He also contributed an additional $24,850 to Republicans in 2009-10 through “Go-Go PAC”, a political action committee that he himself controls. xxii    Go-Go PAC’s contributions to Democrats during this period totaled $9,420, with the bulk of that ($8,395) going to incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland.

All told, David Brennan lavished over $412,000 on Republican candidates and committees during 2009 and 2010 alone, while contributing a token $9,420 to Democrats in this period.

Although not as generous as Mr. Brennan, William Lager also targeted Republican candidates in 2009-10, giving Batchelder $21,000; Yost $11,395; and Senate President Tom Niehaus $11,000.    Two Democrats—then-House Speaker Armond Budish and Rep. Ted Celeste of Columbus—received $10,000 each. xxiiiLike Brennan, Mr. Lager also gave significant amounts to party organizations in 2009-10, with Republican committees receiving $86,093 and Democratic committees getting $42,000.