Ohioans don't seek help they're due

$1.5 billion goes unclaimed yearly

Barb Galbincea

Plain Dealer Reporter

About $1.5 billion in public benefits goes unclaimed by eligible Ohioans every year.

That includes everything from tax credits to food stamps, according to the man appointed by Gov. Ted Strickland to help more low- and moderate-income residents get the help they're due.

Ralph Gildehaus, director of the Ohio Benefit Bank, said many people aren't aware they qualify for help; others are turned off by exhaustive paperwork, confusing terminology, long lines at public agencies or the prospect of visiting multiple offices to assemble needed benefits.

As a result, they may miss out on thousands of dollars in additional income from such sources as tax refunds, home energy as sistance, child-care subsidies and medical aid. In the eight states, plus the District of Columbia, where the Benefit Bank now operates, counselors identified an average $6,450 more in annual benefits for each client.

Strickland and Gildehaus both were at the Cleveland Foodbank on Friday for the local launch of the Benefit Bank, a free, Web- based program to help people apply for an array of assistance, file tax returns and even register to vote.

"We don't have to look very hard to see Ohioans who are struggling," said Strickland, who estimated that 80 percent of the unclaimed benefits are from federal sources.

That means that, in addition to helping Ohio families, drawing on those benefits would bring more money into the state's economy.

But as the governor was touting the Benefit Bank in Cleveland, the $770,000 he had recommended for the program over the next two years seemed to be in jeopardy Friday as House members worked through the budget proposal.

A spokesman for the governor said in an e-mail that the state money would draw an equal federal match and he reiterated Strickland's support for the Benefit Bank as "an example of the power of partnership between the religious community, private citizens and the state to assist the neediest Ohioans."

Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks, said that about 500,000 Ohioans whose incomes make them eligible for food stamps -- a federal program -- are not collecting. She said the notion that money intended to help low-income Ohioans access such benefits could be stripped from the state budget "makes me sick."

The association of 12 food banks, including those in Northeast Ohio, is helping to implement the Benefit Bank statewide. Begun in Ohio last fall as a pilot program, it already has linked people to more than $4.5 million in assistance, Gildehaus said.

"I think this is really going to be a great thing for the state of Ohio," said Anne Goodman, executive director of the Cleveland Foodbank, noting that the George Gund Foundation provided a grant to help with the local effort.

There are now more than 200 Benefit Bank sites statewide and Strickland appealed to his audience -- many representing community, social service or faith- based organizations -- to help the program spread.

Participating groups agree to have staff or volunteer counselors trained to use the online program. The training is free.

The counselor then works with a client to key in personal and financial information. The software identifies potential benefits and fills out the appropriate application.

Hamler-Fugitt said that by offering the service at community sites "wherever people live, work, play and pray," they are more likely to seek help.

PERSPECTIVE: Vices of strip clubs, slots viewed differently

By JULIE CARR SMYTH The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — David Zanotti sees a certain irony in the push to crack down on Ohio's strip clubs.

After all, the opponents of expanded gambling that Zanotti's Ohio Roundtable represents can present just as many studies as strip-club foes can, pointing to the supposed harmful effects of their targeted vice on communities.

Yet state lawmakers seem to hate one and love the other.

"You have far more significant well-studied research that shows the dangers of video lottery terminals around the country," Zanotti said. "They are actually called the crack cocaine of gambling devices. That they would oppose both would be a very logical conclusion."

Take a look, though, at two proposals moving through the Republican-controlled state Legislature at the moment.

One is the crackdown on strip clubs. The bill would pre-empt most local strip club rules across the state and uniformly restrict club hours and dancers' proximity to patrons.

Fueled by arguments that the clubs are bad for neighborhoods — promoting crime, drug dealing, prostitution and economic decline — the proposal has already soared through the Ohio Senate and was only slowed in the House after opponents publicly complained last week.

A second proposal, one in a long line to expand gambling options in the state, would allow Ohio's seven horse tracks to install banks of instant racing terminals on their premises. Opponents lay out similar arguments about the harmful effects of gaming locations, among them more crime and drugs, with a very different response.

"The devil's always in the details," said state Rep. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican who supported an earlier strip-club crackdown yet backs expanded gambling. "I've never argued that there were deleterious effects to gambling, but the opponents have never done the cost-benefit analysis."

What Seitz means is that Ohio is losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year to casino-like slots operations across its border, particularly in his hometown of Cincinnati, and near the West Virginia border, according to legislative calculations.

Lawmakers split on DUI bill

Senate wants to compel test for repeat offense

Monday, April 30, 2007

By Jim Siegel

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Repeat drunken drivers are in the legislative cross hairs.

The number of Ohioans with five or more DUIs now tops 33,000, and despite several new laws in recent years to crack down on drunken driving, the level of alcohol-related accidents in Ohio has remained steady.

But will the House and Senate come to an agreement on the best next step to curb those who insist on driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs?

The Senate is moving a bill that prohibits repeat DUI offenders from refusing to take a blood-alcohol test. But a key House Republican wants to prevent even first-time offenders from turning on a car before they take a breath test.

Law-enforcement officials, prosecutors and anti-DUI crusaders have been frustrated for years that drivers can potentially avoid a DUI conviction by refusing to take a blood-alcohol test, such as blowing into a Breathalyzer.

Attorneys regularly advise clients that the instant one-year license suspension that comes with a refusal is better than handing over evidence proving their blood-alcohol level is more than 0.08 percent, the limit in which a person is considered to be driving drunk in Ohio.

"The penalty is meaningless to those who have been convicted of multiple DUI offenses," Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh told a Senate committee.

Under Senate Bill 17, which is getting final tinkering in committee, no one with two or more DUI convictions in the previous six years would be allowed to refuse an officer's request to take a blood-alcohol test.

Walsh compared it to obtaining fingerprints from a burglary suspect, or DNA from someone accused of rape -- they are not allowed to refuse.

But Jon Saia, a Columbus defense attorney who specializes in DUI cases, said the bill is reminiscent of the Soviet Union.

"It's pretty frightening that they can hold you down and put a needle in you for a traffic offense," he said. "This is action without a court order. This is allowing police on the street to make that determination with Gestapo-type tactics.

Other proposals in the bill, sponsored by Sen. Timothy J. Grendell, R-Chesterland, would require multiple DUI offenders to wear a "smart bracelet" to monitor blood-alcohol levels and would make it easier to prove a person is criminally liable for loaning a vehicle to someone who is drunk or has no driver's license.

In the House, Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, argues that increasing penalties and requirements on those who refuse to be tested is an idea "that has gone nowhere (in) the last four years, and I don't think it will go anywhere again."

Instead, Seitz is crafting his own DUI bill that would require even first-time offenders to install an ignition interlock device, which prevents a car from starting unless the driver breathes into it to prove he or she was not drinking.

Seitz called it a "far preferable and more effective way of dealing with this problem."

Grendell disagrees. "We have room for interlock, but in and of itself, it is not enough of a deterrent," he said, noting that offenders can beat the system by having someone else breathe into it.

Seitz said his bill will be modeled after a 2005 law passed in New Mexico. But New Mexico's system isn't as effective as some might think, said Linda Atkinson, executive director of the DWI Resource Center, an Albuquerque-based group focused on reducing the impact of drunken driving.

"I think it's a great tool, but I don't like it being sold as a panacea," Atkinson said of interlock devices. She noted that alcohol-related fatalities there fell only a little, from 194 in 2005 to 191 last year.

In New Mexico, she said, the law is enforced by an overwhelmed court system. "Our lower jurisdiction courts don't have the personnel to oversee these," she said.

Doug Scoles, executive director of Ohio Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said that ignition devices could stop the first-time offenders who too often repeat their crimes.

"The generation of interlocks has come so far. We think it's the way to go in the future in mandating these for all DUI offenders," he said.

Seitz said his bill also will propose increasing license suspensions but lessening jail time.

"Jail is not a very effective deterrent for first- and second-time offenders, and it's expensive to the counties," he said.

jsiegel@dispatch.com

"Jail is not a very effective deterrent for first- and second-time offenders, and it's expensive to the counties."

Rep. Bill Seitz
R-Cincinnati

For additional health information, visit OhioHealth

Rep. Millender-McDonald dies

By Mike Soraghan,

The Hill 

April 22, 2007 
Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Calif.), who'd taken leave from Congress after being diagnosed with cancer, died Sunday, a Congressional source said.

House Clerk Lorraine Miller has secured Millender-McDonald's office and is to oversee the office until an election can be held to replace her.

 

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/rep.-millender-mcdonald-dies-aide-says-2007-04-22.html

 

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Rudy Giuliani: Lifelong Liberal

By: George J. Marlin
April 16, 2007 06:33 PM EST

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has been barnstorming the nation, claiming the Ronald Reagan mantle. Recent opinion polls suggest his campaign is striking a chord with the GOP's rank and file but indicate most Republicans don't really know where Mr. Giuliani stands on key issues.

Those who do know are glossing over some very striking philosophical flaws -- at least from a truly conservative perspective. Rudy not only supports abortion but also has advocated for partial-birth abortion and government funding of abortion. He favors gun control, gay rights, domestic partnerships and bias-crime laws. And that's just a short list.

As a conservative activist who has observed Giuliani for many years (and who ran against him in the 1993 mayoral election), I can say categorically that he is not now, nor has he ever been, a conservative. In my judgment, his record leaves no doubt that he's a lifelong liberal.

In college, Rudy attacked senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the 1964 GOP presidential nominee, as an "incompetent, confused and sometimes idiotic man," and he urged Republicans to "find men who will adequately address themselves to the problems of discrimination, of poverty, of education, of public housing and the many more problems that Sen. Goldwater and company throw aside in the name of small laissez-faire government."

Former New York governor Mario Cuomo, a liberal icon, put it this way: "(Giuliani's) basically very pragmatic. And he's progressive. He is not a Neanderthal, a primitive conservative. But look, he's a clever human being. He can shave and draw fine distinctions when he needs to."

Giuliani's first wife, Regina, agreed. She told Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett that when she and Rudy separated in 1980, she "still considered him to be a liberal Democrat." She also observed that "(Rudy) generally won't do things unless he believes them, ... but he's not a saint, and he will do things that serve his interests."

Rudy first switched from Democrat to Independent, and then to Republican, not because he embraced the tenets of conservatism but in order to move up the U.S. Justice Department ladder.

"He only became a Republican after he began to get all these (Justice Department) jobs," Rudy's mother, Helen Giuliani, told Barrett. "He's definitely not a conservative Republican. He thinks he is, but he isn't. He still feels very sorry for the poor."

As a candidate for mayor of New York, Giuliani distanced himself from Ronald Reagan and the GOP. During his first mayoral bid, in 1989, The New York Times pointed out that he "noted frequently that he was supported by the liberal wing of the Republican Party and maintained that he never embraced Mr. Reagan's broad conservative agenda." And when conservatives attacked him during that 1993 mayoral campaign, Giuliani said, "Their fear of me is that I'm going to be a beachhead for the establishment of a more progressive form of Republicanism."

On another occasion he told a television host, "I do not look to see what the catechism of conservatism says about how to solve a problem."

And we mustn't forget that when Giuliani endorsed governor Cuomo for reelection to a fourth term in 1994, he did so, he said, because Republican George Pataki had "a very right-wing voting record" and because Pataki proposed an "irresponsible" 25 percent state income tax cut.

Giuliani also seriously considered endorsing Bill Clinton in 1996 and instead backed Republican nominee Bob Dole with very little fanfare.

"Most of Clinton's policies," he said at the time, "are very similar to mine."

Some Republicans and conservatives are now claiming that Rudy has changed and really become more conservative, and they cite as an example his abandonment of his former vehement opposition to school vouchers. But when Rudy Crew, former New York City Public Schools chancellor, asked Giuliani about this policy shift, the mayor said, "Don't worry about it. It's just a political thing, a campaign thing. I'm not going to do anything. Don't take it seriously." This particular rightward shift was simply a ploy to enhance Giuliani's 2000 U.S. Senate candidacy.

Contrary to what we've been hearing and reading, Rudy Giuliani is today what he has always been: a liberal. Conservatives should take stories of his Damascus Road-like conversion with a grain of salt. Rudy, like Hillary, is campaigning for the presidency in order to implement lifelong leftist beliefs.

George J. Marlin's latest book is "Squandered Opportunities: New York's Pataki Years" (St. Augustine's Press, 2006). In 1993, he was the Conservative Party candidate for mayor of New York City.

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Democratic Presidential Candidates respond to Supreme Court abortion decision

Thanks to Diane Stover and Gary Lankford for passing these on to me................

John Edwards for President
Apr 18, 2007

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Senator John Edwards released the following statement about today's 5-4 Supreme Court ruling upholding the federal abortion ban.

"I could not disagree more strongly with today's Supreme Court decision. The ban upheld by the Court is an ill-considered and sweeping prohibition that does not even take account for serious threats to the health of individual women. This hard right turn is a stark reminder of why Democrats cannot afford to lose the 2008 election. Too much is at stake - starting with, as the Court made all too clear today, a woman's right to choose."

4/18/2007

Hillary Clinton Statement on Supreme Court's Gonzales v. Carhart Decision

Washington, DC -- "This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and recognized the importance of women's health. Today's decision blatantly defies the Court's recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother. As the Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973, this issue is complex and highly personal; the rights and lives of women must be taken into account. It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito."

Barack Hussein Obama Statement

I strongly disagree with today's Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women. As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dissenting opinion, this ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman's medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient. I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman's right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women.

Lobbyists spent less on officials in '06, report says

38 percent drop came during nonbudget year

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Mark Naymik

Plain Dealer Politics Writer

Ohio lobbyists and their employers spent nearly $350,000 in 2006 feeding lawmakers and state officials and buying them small gifts, far less money than the nearly $560,000 they doled out 2005.

The numbers were released recently by the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee, which tracked the activities of the roughly 1,700 lobbyists and 1,600 employers registered with the state during 2006.

The 38 percent drop in spending is typical of an election year and when the biennial budget is not at issue.

In 2004, for instance, lobbyists and their employers spent nearly $395,000, but far more - $636,000 - during the 2003 budget year.

Legislative Inspector General Tony Bledsoe, who oversees the ethics committee, said he has observed a pattern of spending since joining the committee in 2001 that suggests there is more lobbying activity in a budget year.

"In an election year, there are fewer lobbying events," he said. "Individuals tend to interact at the [campaign] fund-raising events, so there are fewer lobbying receptions, dinners, etc. The campaign events, of course, are reported in campaign finance reports and not as lobbying expenditures."

The biggest spender in 2006 was the Wholesale Beer & Wine Association, a powerful lobby that fights tax increases on the sale of beer and wine. It spent $31,287 on receptions for lawmakers. Rounding out the top five spenders were:

The Ohio Children's Hospital Association: $13,607 on receptions and $135 on token gifts.

The Ohio Chemistry Council: $13,742 on receptions.

The Ohio State University: $4,496 on receptions, $4,779 on tickets and gifts, and $672 on meals and beverages.