Wednesday, May 19, 2010

SERIES: HOW ARE THE MEMBERS OF THE STARK COUNTY DELEGATION TO THE OHIO GENERAL ASSEMBLY DOING? TODAY: OELSLAGER 1


One of the SCPR's favorite legislators:  W. Scott Oelslager.  A man who has been in the Legislature for a quarter of a century with very little to show for it.  A good part of his time in the Ohio General Assembly has been as a member of the majority and for a time a supermajority.  Also, for the most part (except for Strickland), the governor has been a Republican.

He and fellow Republican Kirk Schuring (about 16 years in the Ohio General Assembly) have this little game going on between them called "musical chairs." However, there is one important difference from the classical game we all played as kids.  In the Oelslager/Schuring version, they both get a seat. Just a different seat.  A Senate seat or a House seat, but still a seat.

In this way they are both thumbing their noses at the voters by defeating the spirit of term limits

Oelslager is term limited out of the Ohio House this election year as Schuring is in the Ohio Senate.  Solution?  Oelslager is running to get back in the Senate a second time whereas Schuring is looking to get back to the House for a second time (the 51st).

Oelslager's claim to fame as a legislator is his work on open access and open records laws.  But he has achieved little else.  Even his work on openness in government needs work.

Oelslager has the good fortune to be up against a Democrat (former Common Pleas judge Dick Reinbold) who has virtually no chance to unseat Oelslager.

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