Democratic News

Today, State Rep. Robert F. Hagan urged Gov. Kasich to support his legislation that would better inform communities and local agencies about chemicals used in regional fracking projects. In 2013, Rep. Hagan introduced legislation, House Bill 42, to require oil and gas companies in Ohio to disclose a full list of chemicals used in the fracking process to better serve local medical professionals and responders during spills and other accidents.

Recent reports indicate that Halliburton delayed for five days the disclosure of a list of harmful chemicals that spilled into the Ohio River. The chemical information is typically used by emergency responders to make efficient decisions regarding the health and safety of community members and the surrounding environment.

Tuesday, State Rep. Kathleen Clyde (D-Kent) and Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Charleta B. Tavares (D-Columbus) held a press conference announcing legislation to address the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. In that decision, the Court ruled that some corporations cannot be required to provide insurance coverage for contraception methods that would violate the religious beliefs of company owners. The development was widely panned as a setback to the personal liberty of hard-working American women.

To commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, House Democratic Leader Maxwell Heard (D-Columbus) Wednesday released the following statement:

“Today’s anniversary is a sobering reminder that it takes monumental social action and sweeping government reforms to uphold the rights and liberties Americans hold sacred. There is no free market for our constitutionally-guaranteed rights. Rather, brave women and men throughout history fought tirelessly to compel their government to take action in order to form a more perfect union. And, whether it’s today’s fight for equal pay, access to the polls, workers’ rights or women’s healthcare rights, it is clear that many will be on the wrong side of history in the ongoing struggle for civil rights.”

National Public Radio’s economic series, Planet Money, today released a comparison of post-recession job gains and losses on a state-by-state basis from Jan. 2008 to May 2014. The comparison shows Ohio ranks 41^st in post-recession job growth, with jobs shrinking by 2.4 percent in the Buckeye State.

The data is contrary to the Kasich Administration’s belief that Ohio’s economy has been a national leader in job growth under Kasich’s watch. The governor and his allies spent much of 2013 and the first part of 2014 saying Ohio was ninth in job creation nationally, a statistic widely panned as faulty for failing to disaggregate job growth based on Ohio’s labor force. Democrats often point to Arizona State University’s WP Carey School of Business for state-by-state job growth rankings. According to the university, Ohio finished 2013 as 44^th nationally in job creation, and currently ranks 38^th.

“This shows what many Ohioans and Democrats have been saying about Governor Kasich’s economy all along,” said House Democratic Leader Tracy Maxwell Heard (D-Columbus). “His recovery for the rich is not creating jobs for the rest of Ohio. Tax cuts targeted at the wealthy aren’t creating the job growth Governor Kasich promised.”

The collapse of Wall Street in the fall of 2008 triggered a global economic recession that impacted states all across the country, including Ohio. Ohio began to recover from the Great Recession in March 2010 when the unemployment rate first started to drop. Over the next 12 months, and before any of Gov. Kasich’s policies were in place, the unemployment rate would continue to drop to 8.8 percent, from over 10 percent, by March of 2011. 

House Democratic Leader Tracy Maxwell Heard (D-Columbus) and members of the Democratic caucus today marked the start of the state’s new fiscal year and the one-year anniversary of the largest General Revenue Fund budget in state history. Gov. Kasich signed the last state budget bill on June 30, 2013. At the time, House Democrats stood in opposition to the budget, saying the toxic mix of tax hikes on working and middle class Ohioans and funding cuts to schools and communities would not create the economic opportunity Kasich and his Republican colleagues promised.

Republicans used property and sales tax increases along with funding cuts to schools and communities to target tax cuts at the state’s top income earners—a policy they say helps the state’s economy. Still, Ohio’s job creation rate trails the national average, and the state ranks 38 out of 50 over the last year in job creation according to the Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business.