A Forum on Voting Issues in Ohio Wednesday August 22, 2018

The flyer is here
Wednesday August 22, 2018
“A Forum on Voting Issues in Ohio”

7pm-8:30pm
Panelists:
Representative Kathleen Clyde (D), Ohio House District 75
Dr. David Cohen, Asst. Director, Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics
Senator Frank LaRose (R), Ohio Senate District 27
Moderator: Thomas Suddes, Editorial Writer, Cleveland.com

This forum will explore current voting and election issues in Ohio including early voting, voting by mail, voter registration, voter ID laws, removing voters from the rolls, gerrymandering, voting equipment and security and campaign finance laws.


Thomas Suddes, Cleveland.com

CWRU Beachwood Facility: 25700 Science Park Dr #100, Beachwood 44122
Cost: Free & Open to the Public
Cosponsors Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com. CWRU Siegel Lifelong Learning, League of Women Voters-Greater Cleveland.
Corporate sponsor: First Interstate LTD

Ohio Gun Laws: What are our options? a forum on July 17, 2018


The flyer is here

The post summary of forum is here

The forum video is here

Tuesday July 17, 2018
“Ohio Gun Laws: What are our options?”
Heights Public Library Main 7-8:30pm

Representatives from:
League of Women Voters of Ohio Lobby Corps
Moms Demand Action
Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence
Ohioans for Gun Safety

moderated by
Darrielle Snipes, Ideastream/WCPN

All open to the public. Please contact if you have questions about any of these events: teachingcleveland@earthlink.net

 

“Women in Politics: How to get more women to run for office in Ohio” a forum on May 16, 2018

Wednesday May 16, 2018 7-8:30pm
“Women in Politics: How to get more women to run for office in Ohio”
moderated by Mary Kilpatrick, Reporter, Cleveland.com

The flyer is here

The preview is here

The Cleveland.com post forum summary is here

The video is here

Women make up over 51% of the voting electorate and yet men still far outnumber women in elected office in Ohio and across the country. This forum will explore options for increasing the number of women who run and hold elected office, particularly in Ohio.

Panelists

Karen Beckwith, PhD, Flora Stone Mather Professor and Chair Department of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University

Christina Hagan, Ohio House of Representatives, (R) 50th District

Nina Turner, President, “Our Revolution, former Ohio State Senator, Cleveland Councilperson

Cost: Free & Open to the Public
Heights Library Main Branch
2345 Lee Road 44118
7-8:30 p.m. Free & Open to the Public


Mary Kilpatrick, Cleveland.com

Please contact if you have questions: teachingcleveland@earthlink.net

Cosponsored by
Case Western Reserve University Siegal Lifelong Learning Program, League of Women Voters-Greater Cleveland, Cleveland.com/Plain Dealer plus Heights, Lakewood, Shaker and Cuyahoga County Library Systems.

Corporate Sponsor: First Interstate, Ltd.

Interviews with 6 Ohio Governor Candidates. For May 8, 2018 primary

Interviews with 6 Ohio Governor Candidates. For May 8, 2018 primary
Produced by Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron. The interviewer is Tom Beres

Read about them here

Watch them here:

“The Nuts and Bolts of Ohio Campaign Finance” Thursday October 26, 2017

Thursday October 26, 2017
“The Nuts and Bolts of Ohio Campaign Finance”
Flyer here

Video here

  
Donald C. Brey                                        Donald J. McTigue

Session #1: Ohio Campaign Spending/Finance Laws
▪ Donald C. Brey, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
▪ Donald J. McTigue, McTigue and Colombo

 
Catherine Turcer                  Cyndra Miller-Cole

Session #2: Alternative Campaign Funding Models Current Used in Other States and Communities
▪ Catherine Turcer, Common Cause Ohio
▪ Cyndra Miller-Cole,  The Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, The University of Akron

Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Moot Court Room,
1801 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland 44115
9:30am-11:30am Free and Open to the Public.
CLE credit available for $30. Register for CLE here with CMBA

Program cosponsored by Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association and the League of Women Voters-Greater Cleveland

A brief history of the Ohio income tax by Michael F. Curtin February 15, 2017


 

A brief history of the Ohio income tax
by Michael F. Curtin

Gov. John Kasich keeps swinging his ax at Ohio’s state income tax.

When he launched his 2010 campaign, Kasich revealed a dream of abolishing the tax. He won’t accomplish that, but his fourth and final budget proposal represents his fourth consecutive whack at it.

“We’ll march over time to destroy that income tax that has sucked vitality out of this state,” Kasich declared at his 2010 campaign kickoff.

The nexus between Ohio’s income tax and its economic fortunes is questionable. Forty-three states have income taxes. As of 2014, Ohio’s per-capita income-tax burden ranked 34th, says the conservative Tax Foundation.

In the modern era, conservatives argue the tax punishes initiative and slows economic growth. Progressives defend graduated income taxes as essential for reducing the average Joe’s overall tax burden.

This ideological fault line didn’t always exist. In the early 1900s, as the Progressive Era gained steam, federal and state leaders — Democrats and Republicans — simultaneously took interest in the idea of taxing incomes.

In September 1906, Republican Gov. Andrew L. Harris appointed a five-man tax commission “to investigate the tax laws of this state and to make recommendations for their improvement.”

In June 1909, President William Howard Taft, a Republican, proposed a constitutional amendment giving Congress the power to levy income taxes; the amendment was ratified in 1913.

The work of Ohio’s tax commission prompted delegates to the state’s 1912 constitutional convention to consider a state income tax. The question was put to Ohio voters that September. By a 52-48 vote, Ohioans authorized the General Assembly to consider income taxes, with uniform or graduated rates.

The General Assembly was not quick to use this authority. As the 20th century unfolded, the state looked elsewhere for revenues. In response to needs created by the Great Depression, in 1934 Ohio enacted a statewide sales tax of 3 percent. In 1967, it was raised to 4 percent.

However, pressures for an income-tax increased throughout the 1960s. In 1962, Tax Commissioner Stanley J. Bowers predicted Ohio would need an income tax within five years, primarily to relieve excessive burdens placed on real estate and personal property.

In 1968, a tax-study committee led by state Rep. Albert H. Sealy, R-Dayton, held 24 hearings across the state. Business interests, led by the Ohio Farm Bureau, the Ohio Contractors Association and the Ohio Hardware Association, voiced support for an income tax to offset the hated personal-property tax, which bore no relation to profitability.

In December 1971, after a half-century of buildup, Democratic Gov. John J. Gilligan and a Republican legislature adopted a state income tax, with rates ranging from 0.5 to 3.5 percent. The Republican game plan was to give Gilligan just enough votes to pass the tax, then clobber him with it in 1974.

When conservatives led by state Rep. Robert Netzley qualified a repeal for the November 1972 ballot, Ohio Republican Chairman John Andrews worked behind the scenes in opposition. The Ohio GOP platform that year remained silent on the issue. The repeal failed by more than 2 to 1. There were many reasons for Gilligan’s subsequent defeat, but the GOP tax strategy was pivotal.

The 1981-82 recession prompted Republican Gov. James Rhodes — a master of the “temporary tax” — to win approval of a 50 percent increase in the income tax. His successor, Democrat Richard Celeste, solidified it, adding another 40 percent over pre-1982 levels.

Those increases prompted another repeal effort, this time led by conservative state Sen. Thomas Van Meter. The repeal failed, 56-44.In 1984, for the first time, state income-tax collections surpassed sales-tax collections. By 2005, income-tax revenues accounted for nearly half of all state revenues, far outpacing the sales tax.Since then, the tide has run in the other direction. Under Govs. Bob Taft (1999-2007) and Kasich (2011-present), state income-tax rates have been slashed 30 percent. Sales-tax collections now far outpace income-tax revenues.

Kasich hopes to accelerate that trend, proposing a 17 percent reduction in income taxes, offset by increasing the sales tax to 6.25 percent, from 5.75 percent.

But even with Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate, Kasich might find a shortage of fellow ax wielders. Over time, the income tax comes in handy.

This piece originally ran in the Columbus Dispatch on Wednesday February 15, 2017

Columbus native Michael F. Curtin was formerly a Democratic Representative (2012-2016) from the 17th Ohio House District (west and south sides of Columbus). He had a 38-year journalism career with the Columbus Dispatch, most devoted to coverage of local and state government and politics. Mr. Curtin is author of The Ohio Politics Almanac, first and second editions (KSU Press). Finally, he is a licensed umpire, Ohio High School Athletic Association (baseball and fastpitch softball).

 

“Voter Registration in Ohio” by Michael Curtin

The pdf is here

i-heart-voting-ohio-sticker

Voter Registration in Ohio

By Michael Curtin

Ohio has 9.3 million eligible voters, of whom 7.7 million are registered to vote in the Nov. 8, 2016 election.

Secretary of State Jon Husted has mailed notices to the 1.6 million eligible but unregistered Ohioans that they have until Oct. 11 to register for this year’s hotly-contested presidential election.

With so much attention given voter registration today, it might surprise many Ohioans to learn that, prior to 1978, our state did not have a statewide registration requirement.

From adoption of Ohio’s first voter registration law in 1885, it took 93 years for the state to adopt legislation that applied the same standard across all 88 counties.

Three decades into statehood, Ohio lawmakers began debating the need for a voter registration law. However, in 1837, the House Judiciary Committee recommended against it because it would be “impracticable in a new and rapidly settling country” where the population was constantly changing, wrote David M. Gold, author of Democracy in Session: A History of the Ohio General Assembly.

Without registration requirements, voters simply showed up at their neighborhood polling place, signed and addressed poll books, and showed a piece of identification when requested.

Like many states, Ohio grew more serious about voter registration after the Civil War, as large numbers of citizens moved from farms to cities.

On May 4, 1885, the legislature passed a law requiring registration of voters in Ohio’s two largest cities – Cincinnati and Cleveland.

The law required the two cities to create wards containing no more than 300 voters in each, and to appoint “voter registers” – one from each major party in each precinct – to supervise registration. Those registering were required to list name, address, age and marital status.

However, eight months later, the Ohio Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional because it provided only seven days for registration.

The court ruled the General Assembly has the power to adopt a registration law, but not one so restrictive.

“There is no provision for registering at pleasure during the earlier part of the year, and no provision for providing his qualifications on election day and voting,” the court reasoned. “How many mechanics may be absent pursuing their trades during the seven days!”

The court laid down a balancing test that Ohio has struggled to meet ever since: “We believe it is an easy task to frame a registry law that, while protecting the election from fraudulent votes, and securing the integrity of the ballot, will in no practical way impede or injuriously restrain the constitutional right of the voter,” the court instructed.

The next year, the legislature passed a law giving control of elections in Ohio’s major cities to boards of elections.

The General Assembly also began to set population thresholds at which cities would be required to register voters, allowing local boards of elections to determine the length of registration periods.

For much of the 20th century, voter registration was not required until a municipality reached a population of 16,000.

In larger population counties, municipal boards of elections gradually were consolidated into county boards of elections.

However, as recently as 1952, only 17 of Ohio’s 88 counties were “full registration” counties, and an additional 18 were “partial registration” counties. That left 53 counties without any registration requirement.

By 1972, 53 counties had adopted countywide registration, seven had partial registration, and 28 still had no registration requirements.

Perhaps the biggest voter registration fight in Ohio history occurred in 1977. In control of both houses of the General Assembly, Democrats overrode a veto by Republican Gov. James A. Rhodes and enacted legislation establishing election-day and permanent registration statewide. The law removed a 30-day precinct and county residency requirement.

At the time, boards of elections in registration counties removed people from the voting rolls if they failed to vote in any election for two successive years.

Such voters would be mailed postcards informing them of the need to re-register – in person.

Republicans wasted no time in challenging the law. The GOP led an initiative petition campaign, gathering 365,985 valid signatures to place what became State Issue 1 on the Nov. 8, 1977 ballot.

Approved by a 62-38 ratio, the amendment repealed election-day and permanent registration, established a 30-day, statewide registration requirement effective in 1978, and required re-registration if a voter failed to vote at least once in a four-year period.

For the first time, Ohio had a standard statewide voter registration requirement, effective for the Nov. 7, 1978 election.

As of Jan. 1, 1979, the Ohio secretary of state was required to maintain a master list of registered voters, compiled from the 88 county boards of elections. The state also began allowing registration by mail.

Earlier this year, the General Assembly approved a bill to provide for online voter registration and re-registration. However, the law does not take effect until next year.

The march of technology almost certainly ensures an ongoing debate over how best to balance an unrestrained right to vote with ballot integrity.

Curtis B. Gans, the co-founder and longtime director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, who died last year, in 2009 urged Congress to consider the merits of government-issued, biometric ID cards for everyone 18 and over.

Such cards, Gans reasoned, not only would eliminate the need for state-by-state voter registration, but could ensure a fully accurate federal census, and provide secure ID for medical records, Social Security, Medicare, driver’s licenses and more.

Columbus native Michael F. Curtin is currently a Democratic Representative (first elected 2012) from the 17th Ohio House District (west and south sides of Columbus). He had a 38-year journalism career with the Columbus Dispatch, most devoted to coverage of local and state government and politics. Mr. Curtin is author of The Ohio Politics Almanac, first and second editions (KSU Press). Finally, he is a licensed umpire, Ohio High School Athletic Association (baseball and fastpitch softball).

Ohio aggregation

1 How Diverse is Ohio? (Video)
2 Ohio presidential election results since 1960: Statistical Snapshot (Plain Dealer 9/3/12)
3 Ohio Politics & Election News from the Plain Dealer
4 2015 State of the State Speech
5 The State of Ohio from WVIZ/Ideastream
6 Statehouse News Bureau from WVIZ/Ideastream
7 Thomas Worthington: Father of Ohio Statehood
8 “Ohio: 200 Years” Documentary by PBS
9 Columbus: Campaign Memorabilia. Video from CSPAN
10 Columbus: The Ohio Statehouse. Video from CSPAN
Teaching Cleveland Digital