Three weeks ago, we told you about how the Ohio Republican Party changed the rules of who could be seated on the State Central Committee, despite the fact that candidates had already long since filed. GOHP Blog explained to us how they needed a majority of all members to approve the change, but didn’t get that. They only got a majority of the members present, but declared a victory for the amendment anyway. We also reported to you how they hid behind a secret ballot to do it.
Since then, we and other groups have contacted as many committee members as we could, and asked them how they voted. I posted about my 13th district members’ responses.
It was amazing how quickly the “No” people responded back, and how many others either refused to say how they voted or ignored us all together. Nothing like standing behind your vote, right? See my previous link about the 13th district. Here is another example. Bea Lyons is the 4th district committeewoman. A different person is listed on the ORP website, so she must have been appointed to the seat at some point, probably by DeWine himself. I found Bea on Facebook, and immediately noticed the news article she recommended on her wall. Hmmm….
I then sent her a message politely asking her how she voted on the rule change. Her response was not very friendly.
She later responded that she was keeping her vote secret. I think we know what that means.
So, without further delay, below is the table of our results. Unless there is an asterisk, these results were a result of direct contact by either me or one of you readers who wrote to me with their results. If there is an asterisk, it means the result is from a tea party group in the state who we partnered with. They did not differentiate between a “Yes” vote and people who refused to say. Finally, it is reported that Amy Sabath made the motion for the secret ballot, so that is noted as such. We were able to record 24 “No” votes, 14 “Yes” or “Refuse to say” votes, and 5 members who were absent from the meeting and did not vote.
Some of these folks are running for reelection, while others are not. Note that the district numbers above are the CURRENT districts, NOT the new reapportioned ones. We will be posting a list of all of the SCC candidates in this March’s primary, and that will of course be listed according to the new redrawn Senate lines. Please send me any additional info to add to the list.