Rotunda rumble
Voting topic: Ohio’s 2024 presidential ballot is taking shape after election officials verified that independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver submitted enough signatures to qualify. As Jeremy Pelzer reports, Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office is currently conducting a legal review of formal notifications of the nominations of Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump by their respective parties. While such notifications are usually a formality, political furor has raged for months over whether the Democratic nominee will be removed from Ohio’s general ballot due to difficulties with an administrative deadline.
Free range: Peter Range, who resigned as CEO of Ohio Right to Life late last month, has a new job at an ideologically similar organization, writes Andrew Tobias. Starting Monday, Range will become a senior fellow at the Center for Christian Virtue, a conservative evangelical advocacy organization in Columbus. Range’s departure from ORTL comes after four of the group’s board members also left in recent months, including one who alluded to political differences with the organization in a Facebook post. The changes at the organization come as the Republican Party has sought to soften its position on the issue at the direction of former President Donald Trump.
Stoned age: Recreational marijuana sales continue to run briskly in Ohio, and lines don’t seem too long in the first few days of recreational sales. Prices have risen from $220 per ounce to as high as $420 per ounce. Medical patients have expressed concern about prices and the amount of product available to them, reports Laura Hancock.
Catch up: Democratic Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly raised just under $350,000 for his re-election in July, while Supreme Court candidate Lisa Forbes raised about $300,000, according to a new campaign finance report. The two Democrats had the two highest fundraising reports of the month, with Republican Megan Shanahan coming in third with $170,200. Overall, the three Democratic candidates raised more money than the three Republican candidates, $794,500 to $477,600, although the Republican candidates still have more money — $1.3 million to $1 million.
Service questions: U.S. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, Republican Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate, is criticizing the timing of Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s retirement after a military career spanning more than two decades, claiming he did so to avoid a deployment of the Minnesota National Guard to Iraq, Politico reports. Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice presidential candidate, filed his initial paperwork for his run for Congress in February 2005, about a month before reports surfaced that the Minnesota National Guard might be deployed. Walz then announced his candidacy in May of that year, two months before the Minnesota National Guard order was officially issued.
Airplane envy: Vance approached Air Force Two to “take a look” at the plane after he and Vice President Harris landed at the same Wisconsin airport, The Hill writes. “I thought I would stop by and take a good look at the plane because hopefully in a few months it will be my plane,” Vance told reporters outside Air Force Two. “I also thought you guys might be feeling lonely because the Vice President is not taking questions from reporters.” Harris’ campaign responded to Vance’s approach to Air Force Two by calling it “odd.”
Having and not having: Walz and Vance have little in common politically and financially, writes the Wall Street Journal. Tim Walz does not own a home and does not have many investments beyond pensions and a college savings plan, according to past financial reports and tax returns. If he were elected as Kamala Harris’ Democratic vice presidential candidate – a job that pays $235,000 – that would mean a raise of more than 50 percent. Vance, on the other hand, is a multimillionaire who owns several homes and invests in a range of assets, including gold and cryptocurrencies, according to his most recent financial reports.
The rich and famous: False bribery allegations led to an Ohio Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that gives defamation victims more time to sue. According to Scott Wartman of the Cincinnati Enquirer, the court ruled that the one-year statute of limitations for defamation suits begins when the victim realizes their reputation has been damaged, rather than a year after the defamatory statement was made.
Buckeye Puzzle Game
Ask: Which Ohio village has been making footballs for the NFL since 1955?
Send your answer by email to [email protected]The first person to answer correctly will be featured in next week’s newsletter. Plus, you’ll be so much prouder if you win and don’t have to google the answer!
Thank you to everyone who answered last week’s question:
What is the oldest museum in Ohio?
Last week’s answer: The Firelands Museum in Norwalk was founded in 1857 as a “cabinet of curiosities” by the newly formed Firelands Historical Society. Now open Thursday through Sunday, the museum displays Native American and pioneer artifacts, as well as the bones of a 13,000-year-old giant ground sloth found in the area.
Readers of the Capitol Letter Pam Manges of Wooster, national ambassador emeritus of the American Cancer Society Action Network, was the first to give the correct answer.
Birthdays
Sunday, 11.8.: Curt Steiner, Republican political consultant and chief of staff to former Governor George Voinovich
Directly from the source
“If we’re talking about boneless wings, let three five-year-olds judge that. Because adults obviously can’t do that.”
Comedian Lewis Black is taking to social media to poke fun at the Ohio Supreme Court’s recent viral 4-3 ruling that said the label “boneless chicken wings” is not a legally binding guarantee that they are boneless.
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