Debate-less Press Club series for state candidates

Through the combined efforts of the Akron Press Club and the Bliss Institute the  Akron area will get a closer view of some statewide candidates on the November ballot. Democrat State Rep. Connie Pillich, who is challenging Republican Treasurer Josh Mandel,  will open the fall series on Sept. 30.

Unfortunately,  there will be no political debates.  University of Akron political science professor David  Cohen, who does much of the  heavy lifting for the fall series, said the  process of setting up debates has simply become too complicated.

We experienced some of those complications when I served as the Press Club's program chairman.  Republicans simply  aren't keen on meeting  their Democratic opponents  on a debate  panel, particularly in Akron, where more than a few nitwits accused the Club of being a subversive Democratic hideaway.  (As Press Club president, I had at  least four Republicans on my board.) One critic even reported me to the national Veterans of Foreign Wars for catering to socialists!

In one instance,  we had succeeded in lining up a debate between Democrat Capri Cafaro, of Niles, Oh., and then-U.S.Rep, Steve LaTourette, a Lake County Republican.  We  later learned  that LaTourette had canceled his appearance for the age-old standby, a scheduling conflict. So Cafaro had the benefit of the entire program for herself.

The late U.S. Rep. John Seiberling, a towering Democrat who had  nothing to be gained from debates, agreed to more than a half-dozen encounters  with restaurateur, Mark Figitakis,  a Republicsn  running squarely and hyperactively  on the anti-abortion issue.  I covered the first one at the Tangier Restaurant  in which Seiberling calmly, cooly,  and collectively  left the Republican for dead.  (I told Seiberling  afterward that he  could debate as often as he wanted, but this was my first and last  one as a political writer.  He smiled gently and said he enjoyed  fulfilling his obligation to voters to debate, no matter what.)

Akron Mayor, Don Plusquellic, a Democrat , also accepted debate invitations from  the Press Club.   But over on the other side, Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff refused all attempts to haul him up to the debate panel against Republican Kevin Coughlin, who was challenging Arshinkoff for his job. The normally voluble  chairman flatly turned it down.    "I should have known," Coughlin told me.

I should have, too.

.

The Republican massacre of Summit County districts

  As you might have suspected, Summit County's two Republican congressmen voted against the debt ceiling increase while the county's two Democrats supported  the clean bill offered by House Speaker John Boehner.  The nays were Rep. Jim Renacci and Rep. David Joyce;  the yeas, Rep. Tim Ryan and Rep. Marcia Fudge.

About Joyce:  Wasn't he the guy who succeeded Steve LaTourette and billed as a moderate in the mode of his predecessor?   We're still waiting, folks.  Renacci, meanwhile, has been a perfect fit for the Tea Party.

Since the congressional districts were mercilessly gerrymandered by  Republicans,  Summit County's bizarre carving have left us  with four congressmen who don't have homes in the  county.  (For comparison's  sake, Gaul had only three parts.)   Religious scholars might  call it penance for the sin for long harboring  the late John Seiberling back when the liberal Democrat  represented the entire county.

Today, Renacci calls Wadsworth home; Fudge,  Warrensville Hgts; Joyce,  Russell Townshp in Geauga County, and Ryan, Howland ( near Warren).

On the map, the four new districts are virtually indescribable, appearing as though they fell off a truck.    Look for yourself.

* * * * *

Sen.  Rob Portman can't be feeling too chipper these days.   The latest Public Policy Poll revealed the Ohio Republican  is taking a heavy shelling from voters for his vote against extending unemployment  insurance.  The PPP figures say 51 pct. of the Buckeye voters are now less likely to vote for him; only 27 pct. more likely.

According to the pollster, Portman, a passive sort of pol, is "pretty undefined with voters right now.  36 pct. have no opinion one way or the other, with only 28 pct. approving of him to 35 pct. who disapprove.   He doesnt have the kind of politlcal capital stored up that lets you vote against something  more than 60 pct. of your constituents support."


As I've mentioned before, one of Portman's favorite responses  when the other side doesn't agree with his position is that he's disappointed.  In the wake of the PPP poll, he has a lot to be disappointed about.

UPDATE: Portman voted NO on cutting off debate to raise debt limit, defying Senate minority leader McConnell; Ohio's Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown voted yea. Measure passed handily.  If it had failed, it could have led to another government shutdown. Way to go, Rob!

Why am I now grouped with Cleveland voters?

To my despair,  I have learned that my neighborhood in Fairlawn, which is a few minutes away from Akron, is in the Eleventh Congressional District.  That means my vote will be dumped into the new boundaries that include Euclid, East Cleveland, Shaker Heights and  Cleveland. My  congresswoman will be Marcia Fudge, a Democrat,  the former mayor of Warrensville Heights.  I'm sure she is a competent representative.   But I live in Fairlawn, some distance from the bulk of her constituents. Excuse me if as a voter I feel isolated from the crowd.  Excuse me again if I say the Republicans responsible for  butchering the new congressional districts couldn't have cared less about the relationship between the People's House on Capitol Hill and me. Am I not a people?

Did I say People's House?  Defining people has taken some strange turns this political season.  Mitt Romney insisted that corporations are people.  And the   gang in Columbus that isolated my neighborhood in an alien  Cleveland  people zone was greedily at work in  building a still greater GOP force in Congress that already boasts of 12 of the state's 16 congressional seats.
Their math is telling.   May we conclude that three out of four Ohioans are Republicans even though the state went to Barack Obama in 2008?

A little history of this ridiculous scheme:  When I arrived in Summit County more than four decades ago , there was but one congressman,   Bill Ayers, a Republican.  He was ousted by Democrat John Seiberling in 1970.  To no avail, the local Republican front office spent many restless nights trying to figure out how to win back the county.

It didn't get any easier in 1987 when Seiberling retired and turned the seat over to Tom Sawyer, the city's Democratic mayor. After more restless nights,  the local and State GOP decided  the best way to rid the county of Sawyer after 15 years was to carve  up his district, pitting him against Tim Ryan, of Niles, in the Democratic primary.  It was a no-win  challenge to Sawyer with the eastern part of the county dumped into  Ryan-leaning territory.  The county has now evolved into three congressional districts with Fudge, Ryan and Republican Steve LaTourette (a bit of the northern patch  of the county).

It's a mess  from the Master Carvers of Columbus. (There was a moment or two when I thought my neighborhood would end up in Toronto).

Ah. but others have taken note of this villainous handiwork.  Voters First, set up by the League of Women Voters, has filed petitions with the Secretary of State - more than 430,000 signatures - to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to create a non-partisan  citizens commission to draw up district boundaries.  I hope it works , but at least I am now assured that there are 430,000 others in this a state who care about fairer representatation as much as I do.


UPDATE: Thanks to a reader, I now can tell you that the goulash called Summit County congressional districts is even more tasteless.  The county actually has four congressmen - four!   I have overlooked Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton, which  ended up with a horribly malformed district  zigzagging south across part of the county  from Lorain to Green.       How did my new district escape Toronto?   I stand corrected.  


UPDATE NO. 2:  A Republican called to inform me that there were four congressmen with bits of Summit County in 1972 when Democrats drew the lines.  The one that escaped me was a single township  assigned to the late  Rep. John Ashbrook.  So I must ask:  Is there anyone out there who can report five?  

Ohio House redistricting; For cubism lovers only

BY THE TIME the Ohio House finishes its ignoble tinkering, my little neighborhood in Fairlawn will have been dumped into a Muskegon congressional district. Either there or Wilkes-Barre. Nothing is certain when the political carnivores set their sights on exiling voters to where they can do the least harm to the ruling political class in charge of protecting the careers of its sitting congressmen.

We have come to know it as gerrymandering - as in Elbridge Gerry and salamander - and if you've have a chance to look at the jigsaw puzzle that the Republicans at the Statehouse have proposed in their redistricting map you'll get a pretty good idea of what matters the most in politics. We must suffer it with new census figures every 10 years and it will be uglier this year with Ohio's loss of two more congressional seats.

In their wisdom the GOPers have proposed a ribbon of a district (9th) that connects Toledo with Cleveland! Still in an innovative mood, the new map would link Summit County to Cuyahoga, Medina, Trumbull and Geauga Counties and possibly Toronto. That hasn't been decided as yet. The district that slices through Akron appears to have been drawn by a drunken cubist painter. Or M.C. Escher.

Alas, Akron. The city once was well represented solely by the late John Seiberling, followed by Tom Sawyer, both of whom were tightly ensconced in the area's history, identity and needs. A decade ago, the yearning of local Republican officials to get rid of Sawyer (the former Akron mayor) carved out a new district heavily weighted by Youngstown voters. When the GOP redistricting crew wound up its work , Summit County had three congressmen - east, west and north. That was a first for the county. Did I tell you that the crowd that has taken up residence at the Statehouse can be imaginative? There's even talk that the county could end up with four congressmen. With the Ohio House, all things are wretchedly possible, if not in the spirit of basic public service.

As for those concerns for the folks who need easy access to their congressmen, many will have to make long-distance calls. And I'll bet you may have thought that the perps were in office to tend honorably to your business. Think again, folks. Again. You and your alleged lawmakers live in different universes.

An American hero

THE LATE John Seiberling was remembered Saturday with soaring affection in the spacious sanctuary of the Bath Church-United Church of Christ.  The memorial service for the former Akron congressman, an unapologetic liberal Democrat,  drew more then 200 friends, many from his former Washington staff as well as the family and  others  from his 14th District that he served   so honorably  for eight terms.  The ten speakers who rose to the pulpit described him in terms reserved for noble giants: Courageous... Prinicipled... Unyielding to his opponents.  "A man of fortitude and with a fabulous mind," said  Loretta Neumann,  one of Seiberling's key assistants in his Washington office who tirelessly  directed the steps leading to the service.

Grand  embellishments of the lives of the dead are not hard to come by.  However, in Seiberling's case the recognition of  his accomplishments in a day of cynical and even depraved distortions of the truth were not only accurate - but fully deserved. He set a  standard for committed public service that few others can ever hope to achieve. A determined environmentalist, he is regarded as the father of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, working across the aisle with Rep. Ralph Regula, the Navarre Republican, to win White House and congressional support.  Appearing  in park uniform at the pulpit, CVNP superintendent John Debo  solemnly credited Seiberling with "battling the obstacles" to preserve 33,000 acres for the benefit of the millions of visitors to the park today. He concluded by lifting his hat that  had been out of view behind  the podium. "I honor an American hero," he said. "Our hats are off to you."

Seiberling's remarkable accomplishments extended well beyond the CVNP.  He played a central role in sponsoring legislation that created the Alaska Lands Act of 1980 that preserved 100 million acres in the state that is creating such a fuss these days with a vice presidential nominee whose views on conservation seem to change  with each sunrise.    

None of this was easy and certainly the opposition to his environmental goals grew, particularly in Alaska,  where the hard-liners accused him of carpetbagging - and worse.  One can imagine how it would play  today among those who insist that destructive global warming is a myth generated by crazy liberals like Seiberling.  Not that he would care.

As a political writer who covered Seiberling on the homefront  throughout his tenure in Washington, I was always impressed by his low-key expression of his mission - "Mankind is my business" -  his dedication to the arts and his droll response to candidates who came at him for eight terms.  I covered the first debate he accepted with a Republican restaurant owner who wanted at least a half-dozen more.   The challenger was s0 quietly destroyed in the first one that I asked Seiberling why he had agreed to do  more. "If he wants to debate," Seiberling said seriously, "I can't very well ignore him. It wouldn't be right."  I said that would be fine, but this would be the last time that I would show up to report on such a mismatch.   Seiberling replied with a soft laugh.

But you can find the essence of the man in Saturday's printed program.  Here, we let him speak for himself:

              "We will never see the land as our ancestors did.  But we can understand

               what made it beautiful and why they lived and died to preserve it. And

               in preserving it for future generations, we will preserve something of

               ourselves.  If we all have an interest in this land, then we all have a stake 

               in its preservation.  There is no more worthwhile cause"...