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Tuesday, March 2, 2010
16 senators endorse Yost for auditor
Sixteen out of 21 Republican state senators, including Senate President Bill Harris of Ashland, have endorsed Delaware County Prosecutor Dave Yost for auditor, Yost’s campaign announced on Tuesday, March 2.
“Dave Yost has the maturity, judgment and real-life accomplishments to lead,” Sen. Gary Cates, R-West Chester, said in a press release.
“We have great confidence that he will continue the high standards of professionalism and integrity of the last three auditors of state.”
Yost said in the release that he was grateful for the support.
“I look forward to working closely with members of the Ohio General Assembly as auditor of state,” Yost said.
“These senators want the same thing that the people of Ohio want - clean, efficient government, from the statehouse to the county courthouse.”
Other senators endorsing Yost were:
Sen. Steve Buehrer, Delta
Sen. John Carey, Wellston
Sen. Kevin Coughlin, Cuyahoga Falls
Sen. Karen Gillmor, Tiffin
Sen. David Goodman, New Albany
Sen. Jim Hughes, Columbus
Sen. Tom Niehaus, New Richmond
Sen. Tom Patton, Strongsville
Sen. Kirk Schuring, Canton
Sen. Bill Seitz, Cincinnati
Sen. Jimmy Stewart, Athens
Sen. Mark Wagoner, Ottawa Hills
Sen. Chris Widener, Springfield
Sen. Tim Shaffer, Lancaster
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Morgan gets Cuyahoga County GOP endorsement for auditor
The Cuyahoga County Republican County Party endorsed state Rep. Seth Morgan, R-Huber Heights, for auditor on Tuesday, March 2, Morgan’s campaign announced.
Morgan is running for the GOP nomination for auditor against Delaware County Prosecutor Dave Yost, the state GOP-endorsed candidate for auditor.
Former Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett, a member of the Cuyahoga County GOP committee, said he was at the endorsement meeting and unsuccessfully tried to get the committee to endorse both Yost and Morgan. Bennett backed Yost.
“Seth has done a good job of lining up his supporters,” said Bennett. “A lot of the regulars were not at the meeting. They sometimes take things for granted.” He said there was a “clear majority” for Morgan
“Seth Morgan is the most qualified candidate of either party for auditor of State,” Rob Scott, Morgan’s spokesman, said in a press release. “Cuyahoga’s endorsement solidifies Seth’s support across Ohio.”
Brent Swander, spokesman for Yost, said in an e-mail that “we’re proud to have the endorsement of the Ohio Republican Party and Republican county auditors across the state.
“We look forward to working with our friends in Cuyahoga when Dave is the nominee for state auditor.”
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Bipartisan bill makes human trafficking second-degree felony
Members of the politically divided Ohio Senate have found something they can agree on - cracking down on human trafficking.
Sens. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo, and Tim Grendell, R-Chesterland, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, have jointly introduced Senate Bill 235, which creates a second-degree felony for human trafficking. Conviction of a second degree felony carries a prison term of up to eight years and a fine of up to $15,000.
The more than 20 senators who cosponsored the bill included: Jon Husted, R-Kettering; Shannon Jones, R-Springboro; Chris Widener, R-Springfield and Fred Strahorn, D-Dayton.
“Ohio needs legislation that will attack human trafficking criminal enterprises and put them away for a very long time,” Fedor said in a press release on Tuesday, March 2.
“Children are trafficked within Ohio’s borders every year because the traffickers know our laws are weak.”
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Dann aides face criminal charges
Two top aides to former attorney general Marc Dann are facing misdemeanor ethics charges.
The Ohio Ethics Commission brought charges Tuesday, March 2, against Leo Jennings III and Edgar Simpson.
Jennings, Dann’s former friend, roommate and communications director, is charged with soliciting improper compensation and filing a false ethics statement. Simpson, Dann’s former chief of staff and friend of his wife, is charged with filing a false ethics statement.
The two are expected to appear in Franklin County Municipal Court later this week.
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Kickoff planned to get public’s input for Ohio statue
A kickoff press conference is set for Wednesday, March 3, at the Statehouse for the campaign to get public input into which Ohioan should represent the state in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Members of the legislature’s National Statuary Collection Study Committee and representatives from three history groups will discuss details of the public input campaign. The history groups are: the Ohio Historical Society, the Cincinnati Museum Center and the Western Reserve Historical Society
The public input process will run March 20-June 12 and will include in-person voting locations, opportunities to participate on the Web and efforts to get young people involved.
The committee last week released a list of 10 finalists, including the Wright brothers, the aviation pioneers from Dayton and former U.S. Rep. William McCulloch of Piqua, a key advocate of 1960s’ civil rights legislation.
The committee expects to make its recommendation in July after receiving the public input. The legislature is expected to vote on the committee’s recommendation when it returns in the fall.
Other finalists include:
*Thomas Edison, inventor
*Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author
*Jesse Owens, Olympic gold medal winner
*Harriet Taylor Upton, women’s suffrage activist
*James M. Ashley, Toledo congressman and abolitionist
*Judith Resnik, Akron astronaut who died on the Challenger
*Albert Sabin, Cincinnati, creator of oral polio vaccine
*Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president and Civil War general.
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Unemployment checks ending
With no federal extension in sight, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services is telling people who exhausted their maximum 26 weeks of unemployment benefits that their checks are ending.
Congress let the Feb. 27 deadline for extending emergency unemployment benefits expire.
More than 432,000 Ohioans are receiving unemployment checks. Beginning this week, between 20,000 and 24,000 Ohioans each week will reach the end of their eligibility. Those who exhaust their regular benefits won’t be eligible for extended benefits. Those who exhaust their tier of federal extended benefits won’t be eligible for additional extended benefits. And no extended benefits will be paid after July 31.
“This is an extremely unfortunate situation for thousands of Ohio’s families, who still are suffering the effects of the national economic downturn,” said state Job and Family Services Director Douglas Lumpkin. “Ohio’s unemployed workers need these benefits to help them weather the storm while they continue to search for employment. We encourage Congress to take immediate action to help them.”
Nearly 11 percent of Ohioans are out of work.
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Ohioans to receive $2.8 M in telemarketing settlement
More than $2.8 million will go to Ohio customers of Wachovia Bank whose accounts were illegally debited by a payment processing company between 2004 and 2006, Attorney General Richard Cordray announced on Tuesday, March 2.
The payout is the result of a settlement of a 2007 lawsuit between the Federal Trade Commission and seven states with Florida-based payment processing companies Your Money Access and YMA Company, owned by Tarzenea Dixon, Cordray’s office said in a press release.
The lawsuit accused Dixon and several co-defendants of knowingly processing unauthorized debits through Wachova Bank on behalf of deceptive telemarketing schemes that violated the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, the release said.
Wachovia has agreed to issue more than $150 million in redress checks to victims of the telemarketing fraud and $2.8 million will go directly to 24,517 victims in Ohio, the release said. The checks are to consumers for funds deducted from their accounts by three payment processors that maintained accounts with Wachovia, including Dixon’s company, said the release.
“It is always unfortunate when consumers fall victim to the many financial predators and schemes that are out there,” Cordray said in the release.
“However, today we have a good story to tell. We were not only able to track down the predators, but the victims will receive restitution. These cases are tough on everyone, but thanks to the strong efforts of the many state and federal agencies involved, this one is a success story.”
From June 23, 2004 to March 31, 2006, Dixon’s company processed more than $200 million in debits and attempted debits by providing its clients access to consumers’ bank accounts, the release said.
More than $69 million of the attempted debits were returned or rejected by consumers or their banks as unauthorized charges, the release said. In other cases, the merchants either failed to deliver the promised products or services or sent consumers relatively worthless items, said the release.
For more information on the case, click here.
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Report: 8,900 Ohio deaths could result from no health care reform
Failure to enact health care reform this year will lead to about 8,900 premature deaths of Ohioans between 25 and 64 years old in the next decade, according to a report released on Tuesday, March 2, by Families USA, a consumer health group.
The report - “Lives on the Line: The Deadly Cost of Delaying Health Reform” - says that at the national level the number of deaths per day would increase from 68 per day in 2010 to 84 per day in 2019.
The report uses a methodology developed in an earlier report from the Institute of Medicine to estimate national and state deaths due to lack of health coverage, a press release said.
The report also says that:
*In the 15 years since health care reform last was debated, more than 290,000 Americans from 25-64 years old died prematurely due to lack of health coverage.
*During the next 10 years Ohio is projected to have the 8th largest number of premature deaths due to lack of coverage. The others in the top 10 are: California (34,600); Texas (31,700); Florida (25.400); New York (13,900); Georgia (11,500); North Carolina (9,600); Illinois (9,400); Louisiana (7,700) and Michigan (7,600).
Release of the reports comes as Congress continues to debate health care reform after last week’s summit convened by President Barack Obama.
“Failure to pass health care reform - in effect, doing nothing to make health coverage and care affordable - result in a huge and terrible cost,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said in a press release.
“We can measure that cost in many important terms like escalating health care costs and unaffordable increases in premiums, but we should recognize the ultimate, inexcusable consequence - lost lives.”
