The heavy hitters behind the so-called Columbus Education PAC

What do Grange Insurance, Quantum Health, Corna Kokosing, the Columbus Blue Jackets, and Mount Carmel have in common? The answer might surprise you.

From the Franklin County Board of Elections

Citizens United was one of the most calamitous Supreme Court decisions in American history. It’s hard not to feel nihilistic about our political system until it gets reversed.

Citizens United essentially ruled that money is free speech. Make no mistake, rich people and their interests have always played an outsized role in American politics.

But Citizens United amplified that and, even worse, allowed the creation of Political Action Groups (and Super-Political Action Groups) in which wealthy people hide their “speech” until after the election.

We saw this on the national level, with Elon Musk and his super PAC spending roughly $330 million to help re-elect President Business Deals.

But these kinds of antics trickle down to the local level, too. We saw them in the Columbus School Board primary, where something called “The Columbus Education PAC for Responsible Governancy, Accountability and Integrity” spent $12,750 supporting Antoinette Miranda, Dr. Jermaine Kennedy, and Patrick Katzenmeyer—the three candidates ordained by the Franklin County Democratic Party among a 10-candidate field.

The spending isn’t an astronomical amount, though dollars stretch further in school board races than in any other local election. But it’s worth examining who funded the PAC over a nine-day span in April, roughly three weeks before the May 6 primary.

• Christie Angel, the former CEO of the Columbus YMCA, whom Elizabeth Brown, the daughter of former Senator Sherrod Brown and the wife of School Board candidate Patrick Katzenmeyer, replaced. Angel is also the wife of Columbus City councilman Otto Beatty III.

• John Ammendola, CEO of Grange Insurance

• Kara Trott, the CEO of Quantum Health

• Lori Gillett, the CEO of Corna Kokosing Construction Group

• Moving Forward PAC, aligned with the disgusting Mayor Suburbs and funded by Douglas Romer, Executive Vice President and CEO of EMH&T

• Carolyn White, the wife of Scott White, the CEO of IGS Energy

• Tavana McDonald, CEO of Mount Carmel Hospital System

• Michael Priest, President of Hockey Business Operations for the Columbus Blue Jackets

• Nancy Kramer, CEO of Ammarati, a subsidiary of IBM

This is about as good an example as any of the people and businesses running Columbus politics behind the scenes.

Maybe I’ve got it wrong, and all these highly connected and affluent people took a particular interest in a local school board race, an they all donated to the same PAC three weeks before the election without coordinating with each other.

But I don’t think I do. This was a coordinated effort by influential people to further put their thumb on the scale of electoral politics behind an entity that they know 99 percent of voters won’t bother looking into.

You almost have to laugh, considering local powerbrokers like the ones on that donor list are largely responsible for the current plight of Columbus Public Schools.

Do your political interests align with the executive class? Mine don’t.

It’s not looking good for Creepy Creech or Filthy Phil

From left to right: State Rep. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria) and Assistant Speaker Pro Tempore Phil Plummer (R-Vandalia)

I’ve contended from the beginning of the State Rep. Rodney Creech “erect penis” scandal that two things can be true: Creech can be a creep, and Rep. Phil Plummer can be using the investigation, which resulted in no criminal charges, to hang an alabatross around the neck of a future political opponent.

That stance is becoming more and more vindicated every day.