Ohio Valley Politics

If anyone would still like to try to be a delegate at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, this is your last chance. Applications need to be filled out and faxed in by 5 P.M. tomorrow.

If you don’t wish to be a delegate you can still take part in the process by attending your district caucus this Thursday night at 7 P.M. and voting for the delegate of your choice.

If either option interests you, please read this page on the Ohio Democratic Party website. There you’ll be able to download the appropriate form if you’d like to be a delegate or find your districts caucus location, as well as more detailed information about the entire process.

I also wanted to quickly highlight this article from the Marietta Times about Thursday’s 6th district caucus.

Registration for the event starts at 6 p.m. in the lobby outside the school’s auditorium. At 7:15 p.m. in the auditorium, Varner will read a letter from the state chairman and explain the process, after which attendees will break into eight caucuses, one for each candidate.

“It’s not a lot of speechifying,” Varner said.

As a rule of thumb, Varner was told to expect 10 people to attend for every delegate candidate. By the weekend, there were 29 candidates registered, and Varner said Monday she expected that number to increase.

So who are the other 28?

With 2007 coming to a close, Rep. Zack Space is taking some time to look back at some of the things he’s helped accomplish this year.

“My work in Congress is really a reflection of the needs of the people of Southeastern Ohio. I’ve reached out to my constituents, heard their concerns, and taken those concerns to Washington where I’ve been able to bring about change on a variety of vital issues.”

– Rep. Zack Space

You can read Space’s list of accomplishment’s after the jump.

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After Rep. Zack Space and Senator Sherrod Brown held their joint House-Senate VA field hearing earlier this year they reccomended that the VA look into building a Veteran’s Hospital here in Southeastern Ohio. The VA recently rejected this proposal.

“This study is an injustice, and it misses the point.  The VA in Washington should send representatives to our region to hear what I hear time and time again from veterans as I travel my district.  Veterans are fed up with the distances they must travel to receive care. Many of our nation’s heroes elect to go without services simply because they cannot afford the price or time it takes to travel to a VA facility. That’s unacceptable.

“There is simply too much evidence to the contrary for me to accept the VA findings.  I will continue to fight to ensure that our veterans receive the services their sacrifice deserves.”

– Rep. Zack Space

I agree with Space, this is completely unacceptable. Veterans living in my county have to travel all the way to Pittsburgh for treatment. That’s around a two hour drive (one way) from where I am. I know the county actually runs a bus to the VA hospital a couple time a month but those who ride it are forced to wait for every person on the bus to be cared for, a process that takes several more hours in addition to the four hours of travel time. It’s obviously a full day.

Hopefully the VA will reconsider this poorly thought out decision and grant Southeastern Ohio vets the healthcare they were promised, because right now they aren’t getting it.

I just wanted to quickly wish everyone a merry Christmas and happy holidays. Now get off the computer and go spend some time with your families.

Zack Space’s office sent out a column from Rep. Space today about his recent experience working in a foodbank. You can read it after the jump.

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As I’ve mentioned before, Congressman Zack Space recently put together a program for students throughout the 18th district to write to soldiers serving overseas. That program has since come to a close and it’s results were announced today.

“There is no doubt that our Ohio students will brighten this Christmas season for the brave men and women who cannot be with their families.

“I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of support these students have shown for our heroes serving overseas.  The level of participation was outstanding, and I cannot commend their efforts enough.”

– Rep. Zack Space

According to the release, the program resulted in over 10,000 letters written by students from every county in the 18th district.

Today Zack Space (D-18th) along with Republican Steve King of Iowa unveiled the Comprehensive Firearms Reform Act of 2007. The press release says: “We can and will make it more difficult for criminals to get their hands on guns while making sure we protect the civil rights of Americans.” Well, you be the judge:

This legislation would:

* Create a system to provide more flexibility in punishing those who violate gun sales laws.
* Establish a solid legal requirement for determining the willful violation of the law.
* Creates specific sentencing guidelines for dangerous felons convicted of a gun offense.
* Set limitations on the availability of electronic gun owner information to protect the privacy of law-abiding citizens.
* Ban the federal background check tax.
* Allow security companies and ammunition manufacturers to purchase machineguns for product testing and international security personnel training.
* Ease the restriction on the importation of replacement parts for military-style semiautomatic rifles.

So, if more parts are imported for semiautomatics, like AK-47s, won’t that make more working assault rifles available? I’m not sure how I feel about this one yet, I guess Zack will do what he’s gotta do.

Congressman Charlie Wilson went up to bat for Southeastern Ohio when the House was considering it’s omnibus spending bill, securing $6,324,099 in federal investments for the 6th district.

“I don’t think the Ohio River Valley always gets its fair share. I’m proud to bring more than 6.3 million dollars back home in federal investment. These are meaningful projects that will help bring jobs to the district.”

– Rep. Charlie Wilson

I’m sure some people will call this pork, but I think there’s some worthy goals here. Breaking it down we have:

• A federal research grant for Ohio University to develop new heat exchangers for aircraft and spacecraft.
• Funding for the Washington and Monroe (note: I live in Monroe county) County police forces.

Wilson also worked with Zack Space to secure funding for the Ohio University airport, a facility that already brings $15 million of economic activity to the area. The funds will go towards safety and maintenance equipment. This partnership between Space and Wilson also resulted in $280,000 in funding for the Economic Development through Entrepreneurship in Appalachia program.

You can read the full press release after the jump.

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Rep. Zack Space announced yesterday that he will introduce legislation to provide emergency funding to The Emergency Food Assistance Program. Space’s bill would mirror similar legislation introduced in the Senate by Sherrod Brown.

Space’s announcement comes a day after his participation in the Second Harvest Foodbank “Hunger Knows No Holiday Tour” in Hocking and Jackson Counties.

“I find it appalling that we are the wealthiest country on Earth, yet there are millions of people who go hungry every day. Yesterday, I met families who sat for hours in the cold just to receive a meager allowance of food.  This is not the Great Depression, and there is no excuse for children to go to bed hungry.

“Partisan bickering over the provisions of the Farm Bill should not delay funding to help parents provide food for their families.  I applaud Senator Brown’s efforts, and hopefully these bills will quickly make it through to provide the emergency funding necessary to keep these vital programs running.”

– Rep. Zack Space

“More and more Ohioans need food assistance, but there is less and less food to go around. Standing in line at food banks, working families are teetering on the edge. Families are facing an impossible choice this winter – heat or eat. With more people in need, the government must come through.”

– Sen. Sherrod Brown

According to a release from Space’s office, the bill would provide $40 million in emergency funds to last until the programs regular funding, a part of the much debated Farm Bill, is passed.

This statement was sent out Wednesday (12/12/07) but it got lost in the inbox. It refers to President Bush’s second veto of an SCHIP renewal bill

“To say that I’m disappointed in the president’s second veto of the children’s health bill is an understatement. This Congress has fought hard to take this country in a new direction. We not only came to consensus on how to insure 10 million children, we fully paid for it. There’s no reason to not insure our children.”

Wilson also made the following remarks on his vote for the Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007 that provides tax relief for the middle class.

“Last week, the Senate passed an AMT fix, but the Senate didn’t pay for the tax relief and didn’t adhere to fiscally responsible pay-as-you-go principles,” Wilson explained. “I was proud to pass a second AMT fix in the House tonight that was once again, fully paid for.”

“This is the right thing to do,” Wilson said. “It is possible to pass a tax cut and successfully pay for it. If we continue to be blocked by Senate Republicans, middle class American families are the ones who will pay – and that’s not fair.”

You can find the full press release here.

The last few months it’s been somewhat difficult to keep up with news stories about my congressman, Rep. Charlie Wilson, because every time I searched his name or received a Google Alert it was filled with results for the upcoming movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” about a different Rep. Charlie Wilson (now retired).

Well yesterday these two different Charlie Wilson topics collided when the Steubenville Herald-Star ran a story titled “Wilson watches ‘Wilson’ movie“. As the title suggests the story is about the current Rep. Charlie Wilson attending the last 45 minutes of the movies premier after the House adjourned for the day.

There’s an excerpt below but you can find the full article here for the next few days.

“I saw the last 45 minutes. There were five theaters that were packed,” Ohio’s Wilson said.

“I’ve read the book, and the movie is pretty accurate. It’s a good story, a very, very good movie that will be very well received. Tom Hanks is wonderful in the part of Charlie Wilson,” Wilson said.

And, he got to hear a line that has a kind of funny twist for him.

“As I was headed out of the theater, I heard this on the way out. People said, ‘That Tom Hanks sure is great, but he’s no Charlie Wilson,” Wilson said, laughing.

“Hanks plays him very well. It’s a movie you’ll enjoy seeing. It’s the only movie I remember being at when the people applauded when the movie ended,” Wilson said.

Of course, having a previous Charlie Wilson in the House of Representatives has meant sometimes hearing tales of the past for the current U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson.

“I get 20 to 30 comments a day,” Wilson, who began his first term in January, said. “In fact, some friends thought the movie ads were negative ads against me.”

Wilson said he bought the book, “Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History” by John Crile, at an airport in Atlanta a few years ago. The book by the former “60 Minutes” producer was published in 2003.

“I was at the airport in Atlanta and I was walking by a book store when I saw the book in the window,” Wilson recalled. “I bought it, and when I gave the guy the credit card, he said, ‘Here’s your book. Are you that Charlie Wilson?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not the same one.’”

Rep Zack Space has some pretty strong words regarding the recent revelation that Veterans Affairs (VA) appointment schedulers have been manipulating patient wait-time statistics to get performance based bonuses.

“Padding wait-time statistics to pad bureaucrat’s pocketbooks smacks of the worst kind of abuse of the system. Not only does it cost the taxpayers money, but – even more egregiously – it causes suffering for our heroes who selflessly answered the call to serve.

“I am demanding that the VA put a stop to this practice.  If there are administrators out there deliberately instructing their subordinates to falsify data to make their facility look better, that is unethical at best and criminal at worst.  We need answers.

“This is exactly the reason why we have Congressional oversight on the VA.  This news combined with the bonus scandal earlier this year continues to cast a shadow of doubt as to where the priorities of the VA lie.  We should be 100% focused on serving veterans – not administrators.”

– Rep. Zack Space

This statement comes after testimony before the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations yesterday revealed that, according to the release, “flaws with the scheduling procedures for veterans seeking care are frequent and in favor of the VA facility”. Worse, it’s been reported that some Veterans were forced to wait months for appointments that they were advised by health care providers to schedule within weeks.

This evening at the K-Mart in St. Clairsville, Oh there was another mall shooting of sorts. Thankfully no one was injured, in fact there wasn’t even a gunman. A 44-year-old man was shopping when his .32-caliber handgun slipped out of his pocket. Upon hitting the floor the gun discharged, firing a single shot into the floor.

The man isn’t an idiot though, he learned his lesson. He told a local newspaper:

“I don’t think I’ll carry a gun anymore. This accident could have been really tragic. … It was a total accident. I forgot it was in my pocket.”

Let’s hope so. I do have to wonder how someone could forget something like a loaded gun being in their pocket though…

The K-Mart store has now posted signs prohibiting firearms.

Read More: Kmart Posts No-Gun Order | The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register

When your parties national congressional campaign committee spends 1/5 of it’s campaign fund trying to hold a “safe” district, I don’t think you really have much to brag about. But then again it seems like the whole “out of touch with reality” thing has been the ORP’s M.O. for some time now.

Ted, Ted, Ted. This looks like a whole Latta votes against the governor and his so-called popularity.

This is a humiliating defeat for Ted Strickland. He dumped his political capital on the Democrat candidate, and she lost by a greater margin than her 2006 race. It turns out the governor’s popularity is a mile wide and an inch deep. Strickland carried this district himself a year ago, but he clearly couldn’t deliver it for Robin Weirauch.

Democrats talked a big game on this one and even called it a bellwether for 2008. Looks like they might be eating those words right now. They gave this race everything they had, from the deep pockets of Big Labor to the star power of Barack Obama and John Edwards, and they failed miserably.

They’ll try to spin this as a victory because they supposedly forced us to spend resources we didn’t have. Actually, we planned on spending those extra resources because special elections are notoriously unpredictable and no seat is safe in a mid-December turnout effort.

This is an encouraging win that shows our party is strong and energized heading into an important presidential election year.

– Kevin DeWine, Deputy Chairman, Ohio Republican Party

Sorry Kevin, but I can’t resist asking this. How’s your cousin Mike doing? Is he keeping busy?

Now let’s look at what really happened. Robin Weirauch managed to launch a serious campaign in a district that has been in Republican hands for about 70 years. The Republican’s, on the other hand, fought out a very bitter and divisive primary battle. While we may not have won the race, we’ve shown that even the most conservative districts can become battlegrounds. For all their tough talk, I’m sure there were more than a few sighs of relief among Ohio Republicans tonight.

Several more statements after the jump…

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Rep. Zack Space was in Zanesville earlier today to talk to a group of third grade students participating in his armed forces letter writing program.

“It is my hope that these letters of gratitude from home will help these brave men and women feel a little touch of holiday spirit despite being thousands of miles from home. The students at Falls Elementary School were outstanding in their enthusiasm and their devotion to this worthwhile project.”

– Rep. Zack Space

Those wishing to participate should send cards to Space’s Dover office (address below) packaged together in a single envelope, with individual envelopes addressed simply to “A Brave Soldier”. Those wishing to insure that a loved one serving over seas receives a card should call 1-866-910-7577.

The address:

Office of Congressman Zack Space
137 East Iron Avenue
Dover, OH 44622