The Rooster's Official 2023 Sample Ballot

Some name and issues from around Ohio that carry the complete and total endorsement of your favorite deranged blogger.

Statewide Issues

• Yes on Issue 1. It’s time to protect reproductive rights from beady-eyed freaks like Michael Gonidakis, the president of Ohio Right to Life who would lead us to believe he’d force his daughter to have her rapist’s baby.

• Yes on Issue 2. As of this writing, I’ve gone 200 days without marijuana, which is the longest I’ve ever abstained since I was 16. I have some opinions on weed that I didn’t have before I quit, and it will become substantially less cool when Big Business takes over the trade. But it’s no less dangerous than alcohol, and it’s time we take enforcement out of our criminal code.

Columbus Issues

• Yes on Issue 11. Ohio funding its public schools through property taxes is horseshit. But as a renter, it’s not my problem! We must support our local schools; otherwise, we’ll reap what we sow in the future.

• Yes on Issue 16. The Columbus Library levy carries the complete and total endorsement of The Rooster.

Cleveland Issues

• Yes on Issue 38. Molly Martin previously stopped by The Rooster to explain the participatory budget, which is on the ballot after a Republican-led effort to kill the democratic movement died in the cradle at the Statehouse.

Cincinnati Issues

• No on Issue 22. Aftab Pureval, the jabroni mayor of Cincinnati, wants the city to sell a public good so he can spend that money and then skip town before the long-term ramifications of that sale come due. On top of that, Norfolk Southern denied Cincinnati the information that would have allowed them to determine exactly how much the railway is worth. It’s not a fair deal!!!

Franklin County Municipal Judge

• Zach Gwin. You might not believe it, but the man is a fellow Franklinton Freak and also subscribes to The Rooster. I learned recently that he’ll be sending his children to Columbus Public Schools, which is exactly what you want to see from our city’s leaders. Hopefully, he’ll remember this endorsement if I ever end up in his court on assuredly trumped-up criminal charges.

Columbus City School Board

• Brandon Simmons. I was planning to vote for Simmons despite my hesitancy of anyone younger than 30 running for office since 90% of the time they’re stone-cold freaks. However, no local sources had anything bad to say about him. On the contrary! And then last week, I ran into Simmons at One Line Coffee in Franklinton. For what he lacks in experience, he’ll make up for with intelligence and passion. He was somebody who made me realize I wasn’t half as smart as I thought at 22.

• Sarah Ingles. Full journalistic disclosure: I knew Ingles and considered her a friend before she declared for office. I’m friendly with her mother at the Statehouse. Still, the Columbus City School Board is not a glamorous, high-paying job. And Ingles works as a lawyer for a local union, which means she’s smart obviously but also that she understands the common issues facing working families in our community. Those traits are going to serve her well in the battles to come.

Columbus City Council

• Adrienne Hood, Ward 4. Please, please, please, vote for Ms. Hood. Even if you are satisfied with the Franklin County Democratic Party’s tyranny over Columbus, Hood is running against the most replaceable member of the council. We desperately need an independent voice!

• Melissa Green, Ward 6. Ms. Green actually had the decency to talk to me like a normal person at Goodland Brand, a Franklinton business operated by her husband that I patronize. A former social worker is a good voice to have on the council, and she’s running unopposed.

Columbus Mayor

• Joe Motil. I wrote about my long-standing beef with Mayor Andy Ginther last week. Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed with his performance when he turned Sullivant Avenue into a taxpayer-funded campaign photo-op last week. If he dropped dead today, nothing would inherently change about how the city is run. It’d be nice to have a mayor in Columbus who didn’t come to power on the cocktail circuit for the first time in my adult life.

Worthington City Council

• Tom Burns. If Columbus is ever going to house the millions of people that will move here in the coming years, the suburbs are going to have to do their part to build affordable housing, too. Burns is a guy who understands that which is no small thing in a city as NIMBY-fied as Worthington.

Westerville School Board

• Louise Valentine. She first appeared on my radar as a State Senate candidate in 2018. I was impressed with her campaign, and I’m glad to see her back in the arena running for something as important as the school board. Westerville would be lucky to have her!

South-Western School Board

• Anthony Caldwell. A friend of The Rooster. South-Western has some hobgoblin candidates trying to get on their board—beat them back by re-electing a professional like Caldwell!

---

Be sure to follow The Rooster on Twitter, TikTok, and Bluesky.