With the midterms behind us, I think it is time to consider how to move forward in the electoral arena in Ohio in the coming years in light of the very poor performance of the Democratic party in our state.

In a recent American Prospect article entitled The Rural Turnaround, Robert Kutter laid out a path forward for Democrats to compete in rural areas highlighting our neighbors in Pennsylviania and John Fettermans “Every County, Every Vote” strategy. I think that it is time that we as a progressive caucus in Ohio begin to think about more than our own neighborhoods and begin to think about how to influence those parts of our county and our state where large majorities of voters have been lost to the Democratic party.  I think we have to think about how CCPC can participate with people outside Cuyahoga County to affect statewide elections.

I would suggest that we make efforts to listen to the people in the communities where the Republicans are winning by hefty majorities first in our county and then in the surrounding  counties that make up our metropolitan area. Only two of the counties in the Cleveland metro area (Lorain and Cuyahoga) had a majority vote for Tim Ryan. Only Cuyahoga had a majority vote for Nan Whaley. And I think we need to listen not just to progressive friends in these areas, but to mainline Democrats who are still working in those communities.

A lot has been made about voter turnout, especially in Cleveland. For the last three cycles (2018, 2020, and 2022) I have heard that part of the solution to the statewide losses is to increase turnout in the Metro areas to offset the losses in the rural parts of Ohio. While this may be part of the answer, I personally think that the voter apathy that is rampant in parts of our city and county is the result of a widespread view that those in power (from either party) don’t make a difference in most people’s lives. I am not sure that any amount of canvassing and GOTV will overcome that apathy. I suspect that tangible improvements in people’s lives can slowly begin to make a difference. I think we need to think about how our local government can begin to be seen as one that can make such improvements.

I think there are at least three things to consider: 

Should CCPC affiliate with or try to create a statewide organization that would begin such work?

Is Our Revolution Ohio such an organization?

Is the Working Families Party Ohio such an organization?

Are there other groups that we haven’t considered?

What role do ballot initiatives play in building support in areas that vote heavily Republican?

How do you convert support for popular initiatives like $15 dollar minimum wage or reproductive rights to support for Democrats in general elections in such places?  

What are efforts that could be supported at the Cuyahoga county level that would be seen as examples of how a progressive government can work?  

What is a progressive issue that parallels what the above article describes in Chattanooga?

How do we move from focusing on opposition to what we don’t want and begin supporting what we do?

If others in CCPC share these concerns maybe a small group might come together to discuss the questions above and other possible paths to figure out what we might do to make our state competitive again. Let me know your thoughts by sending an email to pkm3@case.edu.

The post What Can Progressives Do in Statewide Elections in Ohio? appeared first on Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.

Currently, if an employee stole $2,900 from their company, they’d be charged with a crime. But when a company steals $2,900 from its workers, they are not.

Growing up in Cleveland Heights and later living in University Circle and Collinwood while attending Cleveland State, I saw firsthand instances where workers around Cleveland, sometimes even my colleagues, became victims of wage theft in the contracting and restaurant industries. From those who were only paid for 39 hours of work when they put in 45 over the week, to those who were outright stiffed as contractors.

But as a young, white, male staffer, that didn’t happen to me.

And after college, like so many of my generation, I left Cleveland in search of “better opportunities.” But after being gone for a decade and running around the country to work for progressive campaigns and causes, I realized there is nowhere I would rather be than back in the Land.

So having recently moved back, I thought long and hard about how I could best work to improve the material conditions of my fellow Clevelanders as we seek to build a more thriving and equitable city. And what is more equitable than making sure workers are paid what they are owed?

For context, Policy Matters Ohio estimates that there are 213,000 instances of wage theft by minimum wage violations alone (!) per year in Ohio and that each impacted worker loses on average $2,900 a year. In a city where the median household income is just over $31,000, that is the equivalent of 9% pretax, or essentially robbing a worker of over a month’s pay.

Unfortunately, because of the total absence of leadership from statewide Republicans in protecting the least among us in Ohio, the burden of cracking down on those who would rob their own employees falls upon municipalities.

It quickly became clear to me that the Guardians for Fair Work campaign was raising up some of the most important issues working people in our community face, including addressing the scourge of wage theft. In less than a year, working with allies including the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, Policy Matters Ohio, the Northeast Ohio Workers Center, and others, outreach was done to City Council and fortunately, Council President Blaine Griffin agreed to be the champion to put forth legislation to put Cleveland on the side of the workers, not thieving, shady businesses.

Recently, Council President Griffin introduced well-intentioned yet inadequate legislation to address this problem in Cleveland. What is absent in the recently introduced package is the enforcement mechanisms needed to be able to take action against bad actors.

Now the Guardians campaign is ramping up its call to allies to ensure that Cleveland’s workers get the protections they need from unscrupulous thieving employers.

Currently, if an employee stole $2,900 from their company, they’d be charged with a crime. When a company steals $2,900 from their workers, they are not.

Last night I gave comment at @CleCityCouncil to discuss the @FairWorkCLE effort to take action against wage theft. pic.twitter.com/NCHfCSwhWH

— Justin Strekal (@justinstrekal) September 13, 2022

Given that addressing wage theft is a complaint-driven enforcement policy, if workers don’t know that new wage theft protections exist, the policy will not achieve its intended outcome.

The best pathway forward would be the creation of something similar to Columbus’s “Just Pay Fund,” which would equip Cleveland with a dynamic ability to respond to allegations of wage theft as well as proactively educate workers and businesses alike as to best practices for those private businesses who seek to build up Cleveland through city contracts or receive financial incentives from the city.

Let's talk about wage theft!

I joined the @FairWorkCLE campaign almost 6 months ago, and I was happy to give comment on Monday at the Cleveland City Council meeting to discuss Council's introduction of a wage theft ordinance. 1/https://t.co/OKj4aiWbMA

— Matthew Ahn (@ahnbrand) September 14, 2022

By advancing the new wage theft policy, coupled with equipping the existing Fair Employment Wage Board with the tools and personnel needed to carry the new policy out akin to what Columbus did, we can foster both clarity and trust between our city, the businesses it works with, and the workers of Cleveland.

After all, Clevelanders deserve a city that will work for them in the most efficient and equitable way possible, and it’s up to us to get every member of Cleveland City Council to take action.

So please, join me in signing the Guardians for Fair Work petition on wage theft.

The post Cleveland Could Move To Address Wage Theft: How To Do It Right appeared first on Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.

We humbly ask the Black Pastors of Greater Cleveland to do whatever you can to help defeat the racist Republican Party this November.

Pride is a sin. Today we put our pride aside for this request. We have been in conflict recently with some of you for our support of former State Senator Nina Turner in her two recent congressional campaigns against Congresswoman Shontel Brown. But as America is bracing for a terrorist civil war fueled by former President Donald Trump, we plead for your assistance.

The first preliminary shots of that terror war have already been fired. Last May we had a New York state teenager, armed with an automatic weapon driving over 200 miles, kill 11 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket inspired by Republican rhetoric of the White Replacement Theory. Plus the white insurrectionist mob of January 6, 2021 sent directly to the U.S. Capitol by the former president fueled by the Big Lie of a stolen 2020 presidential election.

We must always be mindful of Trump’s racist past. His demand for President Obama to produce his birth certificate over the lie that Obama was not born in America. His calling for the return of the death penalty in New York State in a full page newspaper ad as five innocent minority teenagers was railroaded for the rape of a white woman jogger in New York City’s Central Park. Those five teenagers were later released from prison as young men when the real rapist was found. Trump’s control and influence on the Ohio Republican Party is unquestioned and worrisome.

The Republican Ohio U.S. Senate nominee that Trump endorsed in the primary, J.D. Vance, told FOX News earlier this year that Democrats, “have decided that they can’t win re-election in 2022 unless they bring a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here.” This quote is often brought up as Republicans promote the racist “Great Replacement Theory.” Along those lines, the GOP-run Ohio legislature are about to place a November ballot initiative to ban non-citizens from voting in municipal elections to inspire Republican turnout this fall.

Last year we saw a great number of Republicans run for local school boards inspired by the falsehood that Critical Race Theory is being taught in public schools. Nonsense of course, yet a recent Cuyahoga County Republican Party Co-Chair, Peter Corrigan, was elected to the Rocky River Board of Education as part of that anti-CRT slate. For white people, Critical Race Theory is simply Black history, and they do not want their children to reject their white privilege.

We know that you knew of the urgent need of this election, but some people need some of that totality to be brought up in order to inspire action. Lord knows there are some matters we have forgotten here.

But why we are here is what you can achieve that we cannot. We wish we could motivate your congregations to vote like you can. But you are the ones that have earned their trust. You are the ones that can put them on a bus after October Sunday services to the Board of Elections and stretch a human line from Euclid Avenue to Chester Avenue.

To show us your ability I looked at the turnout of Cleveland’s Ward One. In 2020’s presidential election 10,228 residents of that ward voted with your encouragement. In 2018’s governor election 8597 residents of Ward One voted. There were 1631 fewer voters in an area that gave Republican Governor Mike DeWine less than 3.5 percent of the vote in 2018. If those 1631 presidential voters came out this fall they would outnumber the voters of quite a few townships combined between here and Columbus.

That is just Cleveland’s Ward One. Add the other eight Black Cleveland wards plus the many East Side Black and integrated suburbs and it will be promising. After all, Cuyahoga County is more than ten percent of the vote in the state of Ohio.

Do not be dissuaded by recent statewide Republican victories and the legal wrangling over state legislative districts. The bottom line is if Democrat Nan Whaley becomes Governor this November along with the rest of the statewide Democratic slate, they will draw the new state legislature districts for 2024.

So invite our Black state legislators to your pulpits this fall. They will tell you and your congregations of the danger we are in. We ask Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb to assist in this effort as well. Please share this post and we hope that our local media will assist as well.

As we see armed Trump supporters attempt to kill and intimidate FBI agents in Cincinnati and Arizona respectively we clearly see the danger to us all. Only Democratic victories nationwide can motivate Republican leaders to reject Trump’s irresponsible leadership and join us in our pleas for peace.

Faced with this hatred, we must respond inspired by the love, character and organization Dr. Martin Luther King and his followers demonstrated three generations ago. We pray we are up to the task.

The post Please Cleveland Black Pastors, Ohio Needs You to Defeat Racist Ohio Republicans This November appeared first on Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.

I do not mean just to write about suburban mayors. But hopefully the headline will work to get people to read and consider this. There are over a hundred Republican suburban city council members. Numerous GOP school board seats will be up next year as well as other kinds of elected suburban offices. Of course there are plenty of ineffective Democrats and Independents to consider running against as well. The time to encourage challengers to these people is not next year, potential candidates need to prepare and the filing deadline will be well before the November election. Often a municipal filing deadline is when there is still snow on the ground.

If you find yourself calling around next year just before the filing deadline you are probably just going to find a warm body to put their name on the ballot. You might get away with that for a two precinct council race. But if you are looking for a mayoral candidate to spend over $30,000 and campaign hard? Good luck, you’ll need it.

Take up this task and you will learn the meaning of the saying: Elections are won and lost on Filing Day.

So now is the time to talk to your neighbors about who might run. Yes, there are important elections occurring right now. But after the election comes Thanksgiving, (“Honey, it’s Thanksgiving. No one wants to hear that now”). Then it’s Christmas, (“Dear, don’t be rude. It’s Christmas!”). Nevermind “Happy New Year!”

Even people that have worked in political campaigns in the past will need time to prepare. Most of us have noticed many candidates that did not adequately prepare. I remember a city council challenger that scheduled a week-long vacation between Labor Day and the November election. That did not please the supporters much.

So kind readers, you are now drafted to recruit candidates. It’s easy. It’s fun. Talk/email/post to everyone you know in the neighborhood and say, “Someone should run against Mayor/Councilmember ________ next year. Pass it on.”

Often a person you are talking to will be the one to bite. That does not mean that you definitely have a candidate. You don’t have a candidate until they file their petitions properly.

When we get someone with an interest, this is what potential candidates need to do to have a satisfying run for office. Use the following to counsel them or send them to Steve Holecko at the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus (give Steve a call at 440-220-1874 or send him an email at steve@cuycpc.org).

Google yourself.

As well as check your other social media accounts. The reporters and your opponent will.

Understand that you are now a public figure.

I remember a challenger my friends were all excited about. He filed and the reporter writing the Filing Day report found the police report of an embarrassing domestic dispute. He promptly withdrew after the filing deadline was passed of course. The incumbent went unchallenged.

The second people learn that you have taken out a petition for public office, you are a public figure. They will talk about you, your spouse, your kids, your parents, your job, etc… You better grow a thick skin fast. And everyone you love too.

Talk to your spouse.

One of my first recruits didn’t. He was divorced soon after he lost.

Talk to and consider your children.

Remember the Fourth of July shooter this year whose father ran for mayor a few years ago in that Illinois town? Extreme example, but we do get the point, right?

Talk to your family and friends.

This will be your major source of volunteer support.

Talk to your local Democratic precinct people.

Hopefully they will be a source of help as well. 

Check with your job.

Certain government jobs do not allow you to run, period. Certain corporations may bar you or frown upon it. In small companies, you better knock on the owner’s door to ask what they think.

Check your finances.

You might have to pay for much of the campaign out of your own pocket. If the town or ward is only a couple precincts that could be only a couple thousand dollars that you can afford. If we are talking about a mayor’s race in a typical sized suburb that will multiply to 20-30 thousand dollars.

Do research.

Don’t embarrass yourself and us. Learn about the issues and the history of your town.

Short detour. Some of you live in a Cleveland suburban Mayberry. Don’t campaign for Hunting Valley City Council talking about Trump’s crimes and Medicaid for All. Learn the mistake of the Trumper former North Royalton Councilman that recruited a slate of Republicans who got their ass kicked last year. North Royalton is slightly Red, but they didn’t want to hear about it for their city hall. Some people may need to run a student council level campaign. “The incumbent is nice, but I always wanted to serve on the council. You can call me for anything, Mrs. Jones.” Be prepared to bag up dead squirrels and other critters, folks.

Talk to your opponent. Yes, talk to your future opponent.

Depending on where you live, the incumbent may have been appointed to the seat and may have been unopposed ever since. They may just hand it to you if you are cordial. Most suburban council positions are basically part-time, almost volunteer, positions. They are choosing between the church council and the city council for their volunteer time.

Here is a personal example of that. My Ex ran and lost to another woman. The winning woman and my Ex stayed friendly. At the end of that term the winner decided she did not want to serve again. She wanted my Ex to have it. Long story short: My Ex is now a senior member of that governing body.

Go to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (BOE) for all information on your town’s filing information.

Do not get paranoid about going to the BOE for all the information you need to file for office. Their job is to assist everyone to get on the ballot and file their campaign finance reports properly. They are equally staffed by Democrats and Republicans. Your City Hall could tweak requirements to run in your town, but it is the BOE that will enforce those laws fairly.

Get trained.

Learn how to be an effective candidate. Get your 30 second pitch down. Learn how to write effective literature. Call Steve for help there.

Most local Republican mayors and council members do try to hide their conservativism somewhat. Yet, this spring thirteen Cuyahoga County GOP mayors signed an endorsement letter for their State Senator Matt Dolan in his losing campaign for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. Don’t look for any of the sixteen Republican suburban mayors to endorse Democrat Nan Whaley for Governor this fall.

Even the most Republican communities in our county only top out at barely 60 percent GOP. That is difficult but competitive for a Democratic challenger. After all, the Republican mayors of Berea and Mayfield Heights achieved their offices in towns that are over 60 percent Democratic.

For the sake of our democracy, we need to bring our party into every cul-de-sac found in Cuyahoga County.

Written by Richard May on behalf of the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus. Richard has over 20 years experience in fielding candidates when he was a leader in the disloyal opposition. His therapist says he is making progress.

The post Defeating Republican Suburban Mayors Starts Now with Progressive Challenger Recruitment appeared first on Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.

Last night, I began writing about the heartbreaking shooting in El Paso only to awake this morning to another shooting, this time in my home state. I want to go on record as condemning, to the fullest extent possible, the premeditated cold blooded murders of 20 El Paso residents and 9 Ohioans. Both shootings clearly establish horrific and dysfunctional motives emboldened by the divisive political rhetoric that has been terrifyingly normalized by our current Presidential administration.

Politics is not a game. What you say and what you do in public office have implications and consequences for other people. As public officials, your judgement must be impeccable, and your actions strategically positioned to protect and serve all communities, not impose inferential or deliberate harm on communities. Malicious race-baiting, life-threatening and inhumane policies that violate inalienable civil and human rights all for the sake of political gain have implications beyond words. But, our nation’s civil rights laws are clear.

Discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin is prohibited by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Even the insinuation of discriminatory behavior or language is prohibited, not only by institutions that receive Federal Financial Assistance, but also extend to the ethical activities of carrying out the duties and responsibilities of acting in the public interest by every federal, state and local representative. These senseless massacres are yet additional escalations of death and violence against marginalized communities in the United States predicated by our lax gun laws and the racist, xeonophobic rhetoric that has become commonplace in our society. Worse still, it was completely avoidable. We need public officials who will stand up and condemn hate speech. We need public officials to advocate and keep fighting for equity, common sense gun safety safety laws, and the inherent human value of members of the Hispanic community, the LGBTQIA community, the African American community, the Arab community, the Indigenous people’s community, and all communities.

As a Puerto Rican with hundreds of family members still recovering from Hurricane Maria, my heart aches for the nearly 3,000 people who died on the island, and the same 3,000 lives that this administration has callously denied were important or lost due to the lack of emergency response to the island after the storm. The compassionless and desensitized separation of mothers from their children at our border, the deaths from exposure in the immigrant detention camps, the subhuman conditions of the people being held there, and the targeted massacres in El Paso and Dayton set a dangerous precedent of the nationalist populism that threatens the essence of our democracy, the lives of Americans and our first responders, and the spirit of who we are as human beings.

It is all the more important that our local representatives advocate, unaffected by self-interest or politics, steadfastly and unabashedly in commitment to the instance of law and to the diversity that exists in our city and our country. They must protect the rights of every community from disenfranchisement and from harm. Advocacy takes leadership, and it takes an understanding of the issues unique to communities, and the understanding that your thoughts and priorities about communities are reflective in the politics you play and the policies you pass and propose. I agree, and join with Senator Sherrod Brown, who is calling for Mitch McConnell to reconvene the Senate and work in earnest to address gun safety legislatively. The time for learning lessons from these massacres have long passed. The time for action to protect the people of the United States is now.

The post Enough is Enough appeared first on Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.

Our work continues. 2019 is going to be a year of challenge, especially here in Ohio with complete control of our State government by one party.  We are geared up and ready to stand for our Core Values.

This year we have local candidates that will need our support, issues that we are collaborating on with other like-minded organizations, preparing for 2020 and ensuring we have a strong infrastructure built as we look to change the political landscape in our county, state, and country.

Join us if you are in and volunteer in whatever capacity you can! It takes all of us to do our part to preserve what we can of our republic for future generations, if climate change doesn’t wipe us all out!

The post We Won’t Back Down! appeared first on Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.

Amid a busy primary season for CCPC, this endorsement has not had tremendous fanfare. The inclusion of Yes on Issue 1 on a sample ballot, recently mailed by some of CCPC’s endorsed candidates, seems as good a moment as any to confirm the endorsement and add a few words about CCPC and the Fair Districts campaign.

While not a formal member of the Fair Districts = Fair Elections coalition, the Progressive Caucus has grown up alongside it in a real sense. Both officially launched in 2016, and got going in earnest in 2017; CCPC has been an active partner in the campaign for a congressional redistricting reform amendment.

Looking back through e-mails, CCPC invited members to attend a panel discussion about gerrymandering, back in February 2017. By May, CCPC was promoting the speaker training events hosted by League of Women Voters and the Fair Districts coalition.

When the drive for petition signatures launched in June, the CCPC office in Lakewood quickly became a hub for Cuyahoga County efforts. The Progressive Caucus hosted trainings, dispensed and collected petitions, and provided voter lists for door-to-door forays. When the Ohio legislature took notice of the issue, “Help End Gerrymandering” postcards joined the activism arsenal, and members & friends peppered lawmakers with calls for genuine reform.

Remarkably, that succeeded! Late on “Superbowl Sunday,” negotiators from both parties in the legislature and good-government groups reached an agreement on congressional redistricting. Approved by the Ohio House and Senate in short order, it’s on ballots as Issue 1.

The Progressive Caucus promptly communicated the Fair Districts Coalition’s approval to members. (I was honored to lead a February event along with CCPC co-founder Tristan Rader; originally planned to give signature-collecting a boost, its repurposing as a Q&A about Issue 1 offers a reminder of how rapidly the breakthrough arrived.) Formal endorsement followed in due order.

Since the arrival of Yes on Issue 1 yard signs, CCPC has stocked these too.

As a CCPC member, and an active volunteer for the Fair Districts campaign, I’m proud of the partnership. This latest round of Ohio’s fight to end gerrymandering has been a model of successful grassroots activism. The long, long history which preceded it is, meanwhile, a lesson that reform efforts need not surrender in the face of one or even multiple failures.

Finally, it’s worth noting that for all the merits of Issue 1, it is not a “set it and forget it” machine to guarantee fair redistricting. Instead it’s an incentive to lawmakers to do a better job—and an invitation for active citizens to make sure by observing and participating in the process.

When new districts are drawn in 2021, I hope that the Progressive Caucus and many of the friends we made during this campaign will once again let lawmakers know that we’re watching and ready to step in if they drop the ball.

The post CCPC supports Issue 1 and fair redistricting appeared first on Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.