Break the chains

The State Legislature is in full swing today, which is usually bad news for anyone who's not a suburban car dealer making more than $250,000 a year.

Six-time WCW champion Sting watching Monday Night Nitro from the rafters of an unnamed arena. This is exactly how I feel watching Ohio House sessions from the cheap seats.

I saw my old friend, Senate Majority Communications Deputy Director Garth Kant, at the Statehouse yesterday.

Garth and I had some battles in the past—namely when he tried to get me tossed from the Statehouse for heckling Riley Gaines, a woman who turned a fifth-place swimming finish into a career of anti-transgender bigotry.

I thought we had moved past those times, however, since Kant followed my Twitter account and we had some friendly exchanges outside the Statehouse. But that changed recently, when Kant broke my heart into a thousand pieces by blocking me.

“There’s a reason they don’t let [Comedy Central’s Daily Show host] Jon Stewart do real news, because you’re straddling two worlds,” he said. “Calling the President of the Senate a ‘Blowjob Brother’ disqualifies you [from ever becoming a credentialed member of the media].”

We’re approaching the two-year mark of my busting up the Statehouse next month, and it would appear that some folks in that realm still don’t understand what I’m about.

I have no desire to become a credentialed member of the media. And I don’t mean that as an insult to any of the great reporters on the beat. But I don’t ever want to both sides an issue. I don’t want to say, “Well, this side wants to drive transgender people from polite society; this side says that doesn’t seem fair. Which one is right? You decide.”

Statehouse Republicans have enlisted guys like Kant and his boss, John Fortney, who spent decades in media, to help bend the ethics of journalism in their favor. They seem to be of the stone-aged opinion that only credentialed press can spend time at the Statehouse talking to people and developing sources.

I’m fine with never having their respect. I wouldn’t have nearly as many brave and noble subscribers if I went around groveling at the feet of people like Garth Kant.

I think that’s what annoys Kant and the others the most. I don’t have a boss or some rich benefactor that they can leverage against me to enforce their idea of decorum. I’m not seeking their approval and I don’t need anything from them. It’s one of the best parts of the job.

What Lame Duck Hijinks looks like

Who’s this legislative dipshit? Meet State Rep. Scott Wiggam.

Lame Duck Session is generally a house of horrors where the most freakish elements of the Republican Party try to pass bizarre, terrible, or bizarrely terrible legislation by any means necessary.

State Rep. Scott Wiggam (R-Wooster), was last seen trying to explain how it’s not voter fraud to have his adult son and mother-in-law, both of whom live in Florida, registered to vote at his address in Wayne County.

Wiggam is the rare case where I’m thankful for term limits. He’s out of the House at the end of the month and starts a new gig as Wayne County Clerk of Courts in January, where he’ll be professionally quarantined to an area where his voters live.

But like a video game boss wildly flailing before its imminent death, Wiggam is attempting to relitigate the early days of the pandemic because he equates that time with martial law and wants to make sure the state government is incapable of properly responding to a pandemic like we did for six weeks in 2020.

Wiggam has proposed an amendment to SB-62, which would designate “Rutherford B. Hayes Day” and has already passed the Senate.

Wiggam has proposed an amendment that would basically hijack the memory of Hayes and use it as a vehicle to gut County Boards of Health in Ohio just in time for the next pandemic.

A member of one county board in Ohio explained what Wiggam’s amendment would do if enacted.

“The bill would change how Boards of Health operate in Ohio eliminating the District Advisory Councils and appointing just five members now appointed by County Commissioners,” the source explained.

“It would also change the budgeting process.

“The proposed changes would eliminate the District Advisory Council and make other changes to increase the authority and oversight of Boards of Health and Health Districts by the county commissioners, including the appointment of Board of Health members and approval of local health deparrtment budgets (ala HB-463 of the previous General Assembly).”

I didn’t see this tip until after Wiggam took proponent testimony in the State and Local Government Committee, which he chairs. But I caught Wiggam, dressed like a 1980s KGB agent for some reason, walking through the garage underneath High Street between the Statehouse and the Vern Riffe Government Building.

I didn’t have the camera rolling. But I asked Wiggam about his amendment, and he acted confused, as if I was offering him a handjob in a shadowy nook around the corner or something. I told him that if I went back to my source and found out he was lying to get rid of me, then we’d have to do things the hard way next time.

Well, he chose poorly.

Ohio House poised to defund the police in cities of all sizes across Ohio