Ohio is one of the most critical presidential battleground states in the country. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win the White House while not winning Ohio was John F. Kennedy in 1960. For the Republicans, no candidate has ever won without winning Ohio. This track record has created a lot of buzz in our state when presidential campaign season comes around. And, on our side, our record has been quite good since 1992 – four victories against two defeats.
But, downballot, the Democratic Party, and along with it the progressive movement, has been consistently losing since 1990. The Republicans have controlled the governorship all but four years since 1990; they have held each state position since 1994 except for the term from 2006 to 2010; they have controlled both houses of the General Assembly since 1994, except for a two-year period that the Democrats held the House of Representatives from 2008 to 2010. This has culminated in the current despondent state of Ohio politics: a Republican governor, auditor, treasurer, secretary of state, and attorney general, as well as GOP supermajorities in both the House and Senate. There are currently only two statewide elected Democrats – the venerable Sherrod Brown and Supreme Court Justice Bill O’Neil.
Basically, the Progressive Movement in Ohio has hit rock bottom. We control no branch of government and cannot effectuate state policy at this time. Many local activists have seen that and eschew focusing on state politics in favor of constantly preparing for and working hard in federal campaigns for President and Senator. To them, the state government is to be written off – after all, gerrymandering and off-presidential year elections are structural disadvantages that keep us from getting our policy goals enacted.
I admit that these structural disadvantages are huge (as they are in many other states). But, instead of lamenting those disadvantages and throwing in the towel, I remember one of my favorite quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird: “Courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.” There is value in standing up for principle and advocating on behalf of working people.
This diary is about the progressive vision that Ohio Democrats should adopt and push their candidates to adopt. It is also about what tactics we should use to effectuate as much change as possible in the long-term. While this diary is about my adopted home state of Ohio, I believe that it has applicability in a variety of other states suffering from Republican state control despite the presence of a strong Democratic majority in presidential election years. Follow me below for more (caution: long/wonky).
The Agenda
Ohio Democrats’ message and agenda needs to focus exclusively on ensuring that working and middle class families have a better lot in our state. To this end, I believe that the progressive movement needs to hit a message that has three prongs: (1) rebuild the economy; (2) reinvest in our children; and (3) reform the state’s governmental systems.
Rebuild the Economy
The poor condition of Ohio’s economy can be seen throughout the state. There are abandoned factories not only in Cleveland and Youngstown but also in smaller towns like Lima and Lorain. And, nearly 25 years of solely Republican control has failed to stem the rusting tide too often seen in the nation’s midsection. Their response during this period of industrial decline is just like the typical response of national Republicans – cut the rich guy’s taxes and pray to God that he will somehow decide to give the rest of us some scraps. Predictably, the response has led to disastrous results, and the people of Ohio badly need an antidote.
Progressives can offer that antidote in a variety of ways, and I would like to highlight just a couple of them. And, I must give a big hat tip to Policy Matters Ohio, a terrific resource for understanding the state’s serious public policy issues, for coming up with many of the proposals that Ohio progressives ought to push for.
True middle class tax reform that benefits those who work hard and play by the rules. Ohio progressives should advocate for sales tax reductions, decreased income tax rates for family incomes that are less than $46,093 (the median household income), and a fully refundable Ohio Earned Income Tax Credit and child care tax credit. To offset the resulting tax revenue decrease, the estate tax should be reinstituted and higher tax rates, with less exemptions, should be enacted for upper income earners.
Infrastructure investment is the rallying call on the national level, and so must it be on the state level. This means investing in updating our power grid to include combined heat and power technology, expanding the Development Services Agency’s energy and efficiency programs for small businesses, and creating a transportation fund that provides flexibility for alternative transportation options, including public transit, walking, and biking.
Paid family leave has been passed in three states; Ohio should be number four. Making family leave pay part of the state’s workers’ compensation system will benefit families, increase economic security for hundreds of thousands, and ensure healthier, more productive workers.
Predatory loan reform is especially critical in Ohio, where the state’s usury laws are among the least protective in the nation. This reform should be coupled with government-backed microfinance efforts directed towards competing with short-term loan (shark) shops.
Reinvest in our Children
Ohio’s Republicans have intensely followed the national ideological trend for education at the state level. They have worshipped at the false altar of privatization, extolled for-profit charter schools, and refused to adopt a school funding formula that adequately protects Ohio’s schoolchildren. This has led to stark inequities. Indeed, some of southeast Ohio’s schools have structural conditions that are of lower quality than the state’s prisons. Accordingly, higher education attainment has lagged behind other states, the goal of a job-ready workforce upon graduation has not been realized, and the state’s children face a future that is not as strong as their parents’. To combat this, Ohio progressives need to focus on better state K-12 funding that is less reliant on local taxes, tuition-free community college for effective job-training programs, and reduced tuition for four-year state colleges. The Automatic Charter School Closure Law should be strengthened and it should preclude for-profit companies from operating any charter or public school in Ohio. Indeed, Ohio should bar the use of state money to fund educations at “schools” that are merely profit centers for larger companies or powerful individuals.
Reform Government
Progressives should identify the state constitution as a source of many of the structural barriers that reduce the power of working and middle class families. It provides for a redistricting process that emphasizes partisan concerns over the interests of communities of interest. It creates a tax system that is convoluted and precludes local taxes that are progressive. It produces a form of government that is inefficient and duplicative. In sum, it needs full-scale change by either the referendum process, or even better, a full constitutional convention to start over. This portion of the agenda can be particularly attractive to moderates and conservatives who agree that there are serious structural problems with how our state operates.
The Blueprint
Well, what does this agenda mean as we progressives look at our opportunities for activism and the upcoming campaign season? It means a couple of different things as we operate under Kos’s mantra of more and better Democrats.
Activism towards Currently Elected Democrats
Senator Brown is behind us and we don’t need to take any action to get him to the forefront of these issues. Justice O’Neil is a non-factor in many of them. But, we have a whole host of problems with current Democratic members of the General Assembly. In sum, we need many of them to be better Democrats.
First, let’s remember that the average Obama two-party vote share in a House of Representatives district held by a Democrat is 69 percent. Very few members of the House Democratic caucus can credibly argue that they have to adopt conservative positions to avoid a general election defeat. As such, we progressives can expect that almost all of current Democratic officeholders in the General Assembly believe in our issues.
Sadly, reality does not match that expectation. For instance, in the House of Representatives, the Republican caucus passed a budget that was described by the Democratic minority leader as anti-middle class, anti-school, and anti-union. It increases the tax burdens of working class Ohioans, limits critical investments, and precludes charter school employees from unionizing. Nevertheless, three House Democrats, John Barnes, Bill Patmon, and Martin Sweeney all voted for the Republican bill. They represent districts that average a 79 percent Obama vote. That is unacceptable, plain and simple, and progressives need to get renegades like these three back into the pack. (Call to attention all fellow Northeast Ohioans to contact these gentlemen).
Even more importantly, we need our currently elected Democrats to be restless regarding our party’s current minority status. We need them to be active and ready to take the Republicans on every single chance that they get. The time to go along to get along is most certainly not now after two decades of ultraconservatism. Correct me if I am wrong, but the House Democratic caucus has not even proposed a budget that outlines our priorities for state government. We, and our elected officials, need to be effectively and continuously advocating for big ideas; we cannot simply sit back and wait for this period of minority to pass by restating the same old tired lines of attacks.
Activism for “More Democrats”
There are a host of legislative districts in the state that could go our way. Many of them feature Democratic presidential vote totals above 45 percent but just short of 50 percent. We need to focus on these districts like a laser. And, the candidates we select for these positions should be dynamic candidates who are active campaigners and truly committed to the state and progressive ideas. We should give some leeway for candidates to express some independence from the party line or to focus extensively on less controversial parts of the above progressive agenda. And, all of you who live in a solidly Democratic district, please consider going into these swing districts, volunteering, and contributing.
I understand that folks in the activist community automatically run to the highest possible office on the ballot. Indeed, the dynamics of the Clinton-Sanders-O’Malley race may be interesting to watch. Some of us can express our dissatisfaction with Wall Street and the current weak backbone of some within the Democratic tent and chastise Secretary Clinton while others can call Senator Sanders a Vermont socialist with crazy hair and Governor O’Malley an overzealous crime fighter. But ultimately, the presidential primary process in Ohio, as with so many other parts of the nation, is simply one aspect of the progressive movement and the attainment of our policy goals. We need to start chipping away in “blue” presidential states that have starkly red state politics. So, in the coming months, I ask that all of us in this community, especially in Ohio and other similar states suffering from Kasich-like leadership, remember your state legislative and other local races. We need progressives in both Washington, D.C. and our state capital.