March of the extremists

The thing about Ohio is that its politics can always get crazier.

The Ohio Republican Party (ORP) has effectively turned a once-proud battleground state into a GOP-dominated domain where Senator Sherrod Brown’s 2024 campaign will be the last interesting statewide election in our lifetimes.

As we saw in 2018, the Statehouse is ruthlessly gerrymandered against national anti-Republican sentiment sweeping away the GOP’s supermajority in either legislative chamber.

As State Senate president (and domestic terrorist) Matt Huffman (R-Lima) told The Columbus Dispatch in a glowing profile, “We can pretty much do what we want.”

The thing to remember about the ORP is that they’ll never be satisfied with their power. They are always looking for ways to further leverage their power by any means necessary.

We got yet another example of this when they railroaded a special August election through the legislature and had the crooked Ohio Supreme Court bless the exact kind of election the legislature had banned last December.

We’re getting another look at their hubris by attempting to dilute the power of independent voters in the state.

From Haley BeMiller of dispatch.com:

Ohio Republicans want your relationship with a political party to be official before you vote in a primary election.

House lawmakers have introduced two separate bills that would require Ohioans to register in advance with the Republican or Democratic Party to vote in their primaries. Proponents say the current system too easily allows people to flip back and forth and mess with their opponents' elections.

The legislation comes less than one year before Ohioans will select nominees for president and Ohio's 2024 U.S. Senate race.

"Just like a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers should not be selecting a Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, the members of each political party should be selecting their candidate," said Rep. Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester, who's sponsoring one of the proposals. "This bill simply helps to assure election integrity and increases voter confidence."

What separates the NFL from Ohio politics is that the same rules bind both teams. As we saw when the Ohio Redistricting Commission forced voters to vote with legislative maps the Ohio Supreme Court had twice ruled were illegal, that ain’t the case in this fine state of ours.

David Helmick, a member of the Mahoning County Republican Party Central Committee, mentioned that activist Republicans are pushing the concept of closed primaries because they blame Ohio’s open primary as the reason for former Congressman Jim Renacci losing to Mike DeWine in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2020.

That’s hilarious, considering Renacci lost his second statewide election in as many years because he’s a weird, uncharismatic, out-of-touch rich guy who can’t campaign.

House Bill 208 and House Bill 210 are similar in spirit, but they differ on key details.

In both cases, voters would select their political party on a registration application or update form. They could choose from a party recognized by the state or write in another established party not listed on the form. Voters could still indicate if they prefer to be unaffiliated, meaning they would only be able to cast ballots on local or statewide issues.

Those who are already registered would default to their affiliation in the most recent primary.

Under House Bill 210, sponsored by Gross, Ohioans who wish to select or change their political party for an upcoming primary must do so by Dec. 31. Anyone who submits a form after that would have to wait until the following year to vote in a partisan primary.

Rep. Gross (R-West Chester), the sponsor of HB-210, is the biggest kook in the State Legislature. And honestly, using the word “kook” might be an understatement.

Longtime readers of The Rooster already know my thoughts about the bill’s other primary sponsor, State Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery).

Rep. Thomas Hall (R-Madison Twp.), the sponsor of HB-208, is a Republican that has earned my respect in our interactions in the Statehouse. I mostly disagree with his policies, but he won’t lie, bullshit, or evade questions like Reps. Gross and Click.

Even without that consideration, I’d still back Hall’s bill if forced to choose one considering it’s not asking voters to make their party determination the year before the election.

This kind of bill will pass the legislature. I can almost guarantee it. And it will dilute the vote of independent voters. It will also force more voters to register as Republicans and move them into their data collection operations.

It will also almost ensure that the most-rabid Republican will win primaries that only feature the most ideologically committed Republican voters. You can probably guess how that will affect our already Republican-dominated legislature.

The sad part is there are about 22-25 Republicans in the Ohio House that are the only thing separating this state from a complete theocratic takeover. And those types of Republicans will become extinct within a few election cycles when these bills pass.

The two silver linings in LGTBQ rights going backward in Ohio…

It’s going to be a grim day at the Statehouse today. You can tell that much by how excited the Center for Christian Virtue is about a slate of anti-LGTBQ bills that the House will pass this afternoon:

I just don’t recall Jesus being so excited to discriminate against marginalized communities. Alas.

From David Rees of nbc4i.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio lawmakers could pass two anti-LGBTQ+ bills this week, possibly banning six trans athletes from participating in sports and prohibiting trans youth from receiving medical care while also altering how teachers can discuss the LGBTQ+ community.

House Bill 68 — the “Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act” — and House Bill 8 — the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” — both advanced at the Ohio Statehouse last week and are scheduled to be voted on in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. The bills are two measures reframing LGBTQ+ inclusion in Ohio, along with House Bill 183 barring trans students from using a bathroom that doesn’t correspond with the gender assigned to them at birth.

[…]

Representatives amended [the SAFE Act] on June 14 to include House Bill 6, named the “Save Women’s Sports Act.” The bill would bar trans girls from taking part in female athletics and override the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s trans student-athlete policy adopted during the 2015-16 school year.

According to three Statehouse sources, State Rep. Jena Powell (R-“Arcanum”) has been throwing a shit fit behind the scenes with House leadership for folding her Women’s Sports Act, which has been her One Big Idea since arriving in the legislature, into Rep. Click’s SAFE Act.

That’s because Powell is a shameless self-promoter who cares more about her clout than “protecting” women’s sports against the six transgender female athletes in Ohio who aren’t dominating their sports but want a slice of feeling normal.

Aside from that, you can almost guarantee the ACLU will sue when Click’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors gets passed.

And Ohio will likely lose just like Arkansas did yesterday:

Rep. Click will almost assuredly be an obnoxious dickhead on Twitter (even more than usual, which is saying something) when his bill passes. You don’t have to take the bait.

Instead, you can take solace that passing the legislation likely leads to Dave Yost, our dipshit Attorney General, again getting laughed out of federal court.

Ohio will continue shoveling public money into privately owned coal plants

State Rep. Derek Merrin (R-Monclova Twp.) attempted to stick it to Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill), the man who stole his Speaker’s gavel on Jan. 3rd, by allying with the Democratic Caucus to repeal the last vestiges of the notorious HB-6 scandal that’s still on the books.

That effort resulted in everyone eating shit, thanks to House leadership.

From Morgan Trau of news5cleveland.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio House leadership voted to protect a scandal-ridden law that forces ratepayers to spend millions funding “dirty” coal plants. In doing this, the Republicans likely killed the bipartisan repeal effort.

House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) and his fellow GOP members on leadership voted Tuesday to recall House Bill 120. H.B. 120 would eliminate subsidies for two 1950s-era coal plants.

[…]

Stephens has one of the coal plants in his district and has shown no signs of wanting to repeal the bailouts. The bill has received no hearings, despite it being introduced months ago.

Hard to believe that a power plant built in the 1950s that relies on a dying energy source like coal isn’t turning its nose up at free money from Big Government!

It’s also not surprising to see Stephens protect that kind of interest in his district. That’s how it works in Ohio, and in the meantime, we’ll continue to funnel millions of dollars to coal barons—including one in Indiana!—that was only made possible by the largest bribery scheme in state history (that the FBI knows about).

Prisons aren’t about rehabilitation in Ohio…

Grim news involving prisons in Ohio this week. As I’ve said before, the state of prisons in Ohio can be traced to the fact that prisoners have no constituency in the Statehouse despite counting in census numbers. And Hell, a lot of Ohioans think the only people in prison are those that deserve to be there in the first place.

That results in policies like how prisoners can read Mein Kempf before anything related to computer programming.

From themarshallproject.org:

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) has a host of policies controlling which books people can have in prisons, how they can get them, and what they can do with them.

Incarcerated people in Ohio have been denied access to books like a U.S. Army survival manual, “The Witches’ Bible,” several computer programming guides, prison abolition literature, and a book about imprisoned drug lord El Chapo.

Among the books ultimately allowed through in recent years are “The Art of Seduction,” a compilation of letters to “Penthouse,” “Mein Kampf,” a coloring book featuring designs with profane language, and a different book about El Chapo.

This probably has something to do with the Marion prison scandal in which inmates created “havoc” with a system of computers hidden in the ceiling of the computer laboratory.

But between this story and the Sheriff of Butler County feeding “warden burgers” as punishment to prisoners already in solitary confinement and laughing at laws against such a thing, it’s no surprise that the recidivism has been on a “steady climb” in recent years, with 1 in 3 inmates returning to prison.

THOSE WMDs. My e-bike changed my life… Six decluttering strategies minimalists swear by… The Etsy sellers paying rent with Taylor Swift merchandise… Hunting the monkey torturers… Why did the missing Titanic submarine use a $40 video game controller?