WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO 16TH DISTRICT CONGRESSMAN JIM RENACCI'S "BIPARTISAN" BREAKFAST CLUB?

Serving who?

By the looks of things from an Associated Press report, second term Congressman Jim Renacci (Republican - Ohio's 16th congressional district [which includes north, northwest Stark County and a spike down into Canton {Democrat Canton Councilman's Kevin Fishers ward} to capture The Timken Company]), is serving partisan interests over and above the interests of his entire constituency be the voters Republicans, Democrats, independents or non-partisans.

Clearly, his "you" has to be a reference to staunchly Republican partisans.

So?

He's a Republican, isn't he?

Indeed, he is and notwithstanding the big ballyhoo he made last October - when the national civic group Jefferson Action made of his race against sitting Democratic congresswoman Betty Sutton (the old 13th congressional district) decided to focus on the race - about his "apparent" involvement in a bipartisan effort on his part to bring "a spirit of seeking common ground" to congressional decision making, the SCPR was skeptical of the authenticity of his claim.

Now that he triumphed over Sutton in what was thought to be at the time "an up for grabs - could go either way" seat, it appears that his feint towards reaching out to the Democrats in Congress is at an end.

For reminders of his dissembling move towards bipartisanship in the interest of the well being of the nation, here is an MSNBC link that served as a forum for Renacci's posturing.



Not only did Renacci make the MSNBC appearance, he also postured bipartisanship at the Jefferson Action forum (confirming:  see Jefferson Action video at the 17:00 minute mark)

As recently as April of this year the Plain Dealer was empowering/enabling Renacci's dessembling with a piece published on April 3, 2013.

But that was then.

It seems that Congressman Renacci has had "a change of heart."

Witness  a Associated Press piece (published locally in the Akron Beacon Journal) covering a Renacci August 15th in Wadsworth.

To underscore his obvious turn away from a supposed bipartisan inclination to out-and-out partisan Republican politics, take a look at these quotes out of the AP article:

It’s not the easiest thing when you only control one-third of the federal government,” said Renacci, R-Wadsworth, faulting the Democrats who control the Senate and the White House for the stalemate as he flipped through a series of PowerPoint slides intended to send a message that Republicans are focused on “Making Washington Work.

And:

This summer at the behest of their [political party] leaders, House Republicans like Renacci are fanning out across the nation to press this anti-Washington, blame-Democrats pitch at town hall-style meetings. They’re trying to counter claims that they are responsible for a “do nothing” House and feed on the public’s antipathy for anyone linked to Washington. (emphasis added)

Do ya think that the congressman is reaching out in a bipartisan fashion?

It is indeed disappointing that Renacci has proved not to be "the real deal" in searching for authentic bipartisanship solutions to pressing national problems in response to voter-desired action that Congress as a whole do just that.

Should the Democrats field a strong candidate against him next year when he is up for reelection, you can expect Renacci to do another feint towards bipartisanship.

For the SCPR, Jim Renacci is no different than folks he has criticized (e.g. Democrats John Boccieri and Betty Sutton) who, as he pointed out, were captives of their political caucus.

It is this sort of thing - triffling with the public's trust in candidate/office holders actually being what they say the are - that jaundices and jades those of us who do not buy into the partisan panaceas as workable solutions.

For most of us could care less about a Republican agenda or a Democratic agenda.

What we want is a reach out to the other in a "come let us reason together" fashion as a workable context to solving the very real problems of our nation, state and local communities.

In playing with our sentiments, hopes and dreams, Congressman Renacci has contributed to the increase in citizen cynicism that seems to abounding these days.

Congratulations Congessman Renacci in furthering his personal and political party agenda at the expense of the interests of the nation.

Hope that makes him feel a sense of achievement.

How he can ever utter the "bipartisan" word ever again is hard to see.

But as most American have come to expect, it would be surprising to see him not to have the effrontery to do exactly that.

That he and many, if not most, other politicians toy with us is "par for the [political] course."

In doing so, they undermine the public's trust that they say they so earnestly desire.

Trust has to be earned.

Renacci et al are no where near earning the trust of anyone but the most ardently partisan voters.

The rest of us vote "the lesser of two evils."

Swell, just swell, no?

PART III - A SCPR CRITIQUE OF THE JEFFERSON ACTION RENACCI/SUTTON CITIZENS FORUM

Jefferson Action (a 501c4 non-profit civic education organization) provided citizens of the 16th congressional district a splendid public service in selecting the district to be a focal point of a citizen inquiry into candidates Jim Renacci's (R - Wadsworth) and Betty Sutton's (D - Copley) view on various economic issues at play in their match up against one another to see which of the two will remain in Congress.

Renacci and Sutton (both currently in Congress [Renacci - the 16th], [Sutton - the 13th]) were forced to run against one another because U.S. Constitution required decennial redistricting required a reallocation of congressional seats across America with population losing states [Ohio was one of them, losing two seats due to population loss] ceding seats to states gaining population.

The Jefferson Action process (a seven day one spread out over three months:  July, September & October) involved:

• In July,  getting a 24 member randomly chosen 16th District citizen group (which actually ended up being 23 number) and identifying the boilerplate issues, to wit:
• Weak Economic growth,
• Unemployment, and
• the Federal Deficit and Debt
• In September, preparing the citizens group to acquire a depth of information about the issues with which to frame specific questions of each Renacci and Sutton bounded by the generalized issues of weak economic growth, unemployment and the federal deficit and debt,
• In October, (the SCPR was present and videotaped both candidate interviews) meeting each of the candidates face-to-face (The Report being one of the media present), but separate from each other, for about 75 minutes of a back and forth on pre-framed question with spontaneous follow up.

While The Report applauds the project having been put together and implemented, it is important to the integrity of the process that Jefferson Action, the citizen-participants and the candidates performance be reviewed and critiqued.

Such is the focus of this blog.

Prior blogs have honed in:

• on the organization of the project with an SCPR evaluation on whether or not Jefferson Action put together a "sustainable" model for other civic involvement organizations to follow (LINK),
• on the preparation of the citizens group in terms of whether or not the members were adequately prepared to frame meaningful questions, both prepared and spontaneous follow up, to pose to the question and designed to compel the candidates to be responsive to the questions asked (LINK to a prior blog which dealt somewhat with the preparation phase.  

As previously stated, this blog is an analysis of how effectively Jefferson Action, the citizen group members, and the candidates themselves responded to the challenge.

A wealth of materials covering the entire seven days is available at Jefferson Action's website (LINK).

In hindsight, looking at what appears to be a consistently "skewed" citizen evaluation in Renacci's favor, the SCPR believes that the "random" selection process was not thoroughly thought out and resulted in a group composition predisposed to the congressman's viewpoint.

In reviewing the citizen-group's "votes" on the candidates' responses to the questions presented to them on weak economic growth, unemployment and the federal debt, the SCPR's take is that the result was not as much as thoughtful analysis of the candidate responses as Jefferson Action would undoubtedly preferred, but appears to have been laced with underlying political preference.

Moreover, it appears (again, in hindsight, seeing the groups' findings - LINK) that the stronger personalities within the group were Republican "right-of-center" types (one person, in particular, stood out) who prevailed in terms of getting their views accepted by the more neutral members of the group.

A solution?

Jefferson Action should have put more effort in ensuring that the group participants were eight solid Republicans, eight solid Democrats, and eight solid independents. 

It is very easy to check historical voting records in primaries.  Determining who has voted consistently and which political party ballot they have taken or that they have taken no party ballot at all is a walk in the park.

Also, pre-selection interviews from a pool of potential selectees should resulted in the ferreting out of overpowering personalities.

It was obvious to The Report that one personality in particular was driving the engine of JA selected group and possibly was a key factor in slanting the vote of the group as a whole towards Renacci.

The SCPR's take on the Renacci/Sutton answers was that the quality of  their answers was pretty much of a draw. 

It seems to yours truly that the citizen-participant follow ups were not strong/persistent enough to have any hope of driving the candidates off their talking points.

And consequently seasoned political observers would be hard pressed to say that one candidate was more effectively responsive that the other.

Here is an example.

One of Renacci's bromides at the forum, which is a well-known universal talking point among many Republican candidates, is the insistence that lower taxes produce jobs.

Well, there is another point-of-view.

Democrats (and, of course Congresswoman Sutton) rightly or wrongly, are fond of saying "we have tried that and where did it lead us?"

Democrats in Congress (including Sutton) and President Obama favor massive infrastructure investment a la President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal."

But the follow up questions, failed:

• to draw out distinct clarity on the differences between the candidates,  and
• to press for evidence that one answer was more right for the country than the other.

The citizens could easily have asked Renacci to provide data that the tax cut approach has worked.

And anticipating what clearly was going to be a main tenet of what Sutton was going to say, why wouldn't "inquiring minds" want to ask him what part a "spending for infrastructure" might play in job recovery and economic recovery.

Sutton should have been asked for economic studies that are evidence that the tax cut scenario does not pan out.

And Sutton should have been pressed on her infrastructure argument.  For beginners: what was good for the 1930s and 1940s might will work in 2012, no?  The candidates should have been pressed to provide evidence for his/her point-of-view.

To be fair to the citizens, the SCPR believes the structure of the separate interviews was inadequate to the task at hand and greatly hampered the type of vetting of the candidates that might have been more enlightening as to which view offered solutions to what ails the country on the economic front.

A more beneficial format would have been for it to have been a townhall-esque setting like the one that Romney and Obama will be having Tuesday night.

Jefferson Action's 16th congressional district citizens forum project was a noble enterprise.

But it could have been so much more!

(VIDEOS) PART II - JEFFERSON ACTION CITIZEN GROUP PREPARES IN SEPTEMBER TO MEET & QUESTION CANDIDATES RENACCI & SUTTON IN OCTOBER

Readers of this blog should have read Part I (LINK) prior to reading this blog.

PART II - JEFFERSON ACTION PREPARING ITS CITIZEN GROUP FOR OCTOBER 7, 2012 Q&A WITH CONGRESSPERSONS RENACCI & SUTTON

It all begin back in July of this year.

A non-profit civic organization named Jefferson Action (JA) brought together an effort to enable and empower voters in the 16th congressional district to know the candidates better.

This is how JA describes beginnings of its project:

On July 27-29, the first Citizens Election Forum met to discuss the economic problems facing Ohio’s District 16 and identify the most important economic issues for the Renacci and Sutton campaigns to focus on. Twenty-four citizens randomly selected from the district worked hard over the course of three days to identify three economic issues they want the Renacci and Sutton [LINK] campaigns to address. In the end the group agreed that weak economic growth, unemployment and the federal budget/deficit are the economic issues the candidates should address.

The SCPR believes that a major impediment to everyday citizens interacting in a critical/analytical way with their elected representatives is their unprepardness.

We all know the feeling.

Unprepared for anything equals insecurity.

Oh yes, if the citizen has a particular problem they can and often do scream and yell at their elected public official.  But to do so is to risk coming off as a "hot-head" not to be taken seriously and thereby plays right into the hands of an experience-advantaged politico who has no answer.

A citizen/politician match up in terms of prior preparation is in fact a mismatch.

If nothing else, the official will have honed up on his/her talking points and likely thereby to make onlookers see the citizen as being a politically ignorant person.

Accordingly, it was very empowering for Jefferson Action to have gone out an gotten nine experts (the September 20 -23 sessions) in economics and politics to meet with its 24 randomly selected across the 16th congressional district citizen-participants.

To repeat, the framework for the Q&A with Renacci and Sutton was centered on three broad issues of the candidates' respective campaigns.

• Weak Economic growth,
• Unemployment, and
• The Federal Deficit and Debt

For you and I, carefully chosen experts are seemingly not in the cards.

Accordingly, the Jefferson Action model (as put together as its 5th project) is  not a realistic one for ordinary citizens in that respect.

However, there may be a viable alternative.

In this day and age of a vibrant Internet, one can become, if so disposed, self-educated on the issues in any campaign.  But there is no doubt about it, it takes a lot of time and effort to do so.

A threshold consideration is therefore:  whether or not it is realistic to expect folks busy with their work-a-day worlds will have the time and resources to take advantage of the Internet (and other) resources?

The SCPR thinks not unless a ready-made resource is put together that is easily accessible.

Perhaps Jefferson Action could lead the way in the following ways:

• for starters, being a rallying organization for the creation of citizen groups in competitive congressional districts across America which meet at centrally located public libraries and thereby able to have Internet access,
• to make available web-accessible "simple to use" organizational materials,
• to make its staff available via various mediums as consultants and resource persons for citizen groups to avail themselves of,
• assisting citizen groups formed to obtain commitments from congresspersons running in the chosen districts to participate in a format like that employed by JA in the Renacci/Sutton exercise,
• in developing an web page which everydays access to ask questions of a panel of experts assembled by JA,
• to provide document templates which provide content and timeline structures which lead the citizen groups from the preparation process through developing vetted and highly relevant issue Q&As, and
• helping the citizens to evaluate the Q&A responses and provide a web-based depository for anyone to access as an aid to deciding in who to vote for in the chosen districts.

Jefferson Action has made a tremendous contribution towards facilitating a reasoned public dialogue in the conduct of political campaigns in its five projects.

However, unless the organization creates a follow-up, sustainable and continuing effort, it could be remembered for doing a good public work that has life only as a fading memory of those who participated in and witnessed parts of it.

Here are a series of videos published by Jefferson Action showing actual preparation stage sessions of its 16th congressional district citizen group.

PART I (VIDEOS) MATCH UP: (SORT OF) 16TH DISTRICT CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES RENACCI AND SUTTON AT JEFFERSON ACTION ON SATURDAY. DID EITHER WIN IN THE MINDS OF 24 16TH DISTRICT CITIZENS? ALSO, FROM THE SCPR PERSPECTIVE?

INTRODUCTION

This Stark County Political Report blog is "Part 1" of a multi-part presentation of a Jefferson Action (JA) "of, by and for the people"  Renacci/Sutton project that The Report will be spreading out over the next week.

(Note:  The Report will be publishing additional blogs on other Stark County political topics during the run on the JA event series)

For a grand total of seven days over a number of weekends (culminating on this Sunday - October 7th - Jefferson Action (LINK) has brought together a group of 24 citizens of Ohio's 16th Congressional District (with the 130th Congress which takes office in January, 2013) to become informed about the campaigns of Republican Jim Renacci (Wadsworth) and Democrat Betty Sutton (Copley) and at the end to evaluate their candidacies.

Both Renacci and Sutton are congressional incumbents.  Renacci has represented the 16th congressional district for the past two years.  Sutton has represented the 13th congressional district for the past six years.

They were thrown together because of U.S. constitutionally required (post-every-10 year-census) redistricting.  Ohio lost population and correspondingly two congressional seats from 18 to 16.

The race is too close to call for political prognosticators.

And it is drawing the infusion of millions of dollars of outside-of-the-16th District political actions committees.

While it is unlikely that Republican control of Congress is at stake, it could happen but a more likely and realistic scenario is whether or not Democrats can narrow the Republican margin of control.

WHO IS JEFFERSON ACTION AND WHY IS THIS MINNESOTA NON-PROFIT INVOLVED IN OHIO?

First, take a couple of minutes to view this YouTube video produced by Jefferson Action in order to get an overview of what the organization is about.



Next, one should ask:  why is Jefferson Action involved in projects of citizen education (the Renacci/Sutton project is the fifth such project) in pursuit of its mission?  JA describes it mission as being:

a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to returning democracy to the people. Our mission is making the informed voice of everyday citizens heard — and making sure elected officials and politicians address the issues.

Politicians spend too much time on attack ads and too little time listening to the people. Special interests have hijacked the debate and steered it into the gutter.

Jefferson Action offers a solution. Our Citizens Election Forums are a remarkable tool with a track record of satisfying the voting public’s hunger for action and accountability.

Beyond the obvious and sincere civic aspirations of JA, the SCPR believes that the the 16th District was chosen because of:

• the tightness of the race, 
• the fact that two incumbents are running against each other, 
• Renacci's loose association to right wing Tea Party movement and Sutton's "left-of-political-center" stance, and
• the respective Renacci and Sutton articulation/communication skills

played large into JA selection of Ohio and the 16th to focus on.

A MODEL FOR ALL CITIZENS TO FOLLOW CLOSELY

The SCPR invites the readers of The Report to digest much of the information that was presented by Jefferson Action in the form of providing a framework (via Jefferson Action personnel, college professors and others) so that the citizen-participants were equipped and empowered to question both Renacci and Sutton, to mull over the answers, discuss among themselves the answers and to endeavor to come up with some sort of an evaluation of the candidates and their campaigns.

Of course, the SCPR will present (through the courtesy of Jefferson Action in the sense of making the Renacci/Sutton material available on its website which can LINKed to direct) the candidates in their presentations and a summary of the citizen-evaluations and The Report will offer an assessment of the candidates (parsing the video of their respective JA presentations), their campaigns and the citizen-evaluators assessments.

Due to the exhaustive work done by JA and the citizen-participants, as indicated above the SCPR will be spreading blogs out over seven days.

Stark County does have a direct stake in the outcome of the 16th District congressional race.

But whether or not you as a reader of the SCPR live in the 16th, following closely along with the JA project will equip you to cast a more informed vote in your own congressional race; be it the 7th (Democrat Healy-Abrams v. Republican Gibbs) or the 13th (Democrat Tim Ryan v. Republican Marisha Agana).

Moveover, following the JA Renacci/Sutton model will certainly put you in a position to critically evaluate your candidates and better able to make more persuasive arguments to your friends, neighbors, family and community members as to why they should support the candidate that you have become convinced is the best candidate.

WHERE TO START?

For starters, readers of this blog owe to themselves to take the time out to watch the Q&A between the citizens and the candidates.

Just as the citizen-participants invested considerable time in informing themselves, 

Here is the Jefferson Action YouTube video of Congressman Renacci (the old 16th):

(Note:  The SCPR took a video of the event and in breaking down the film by candidate point-by-point will be using said video)



And here is the Jefferson Action YouTube video of Congresswoman Sutton (the old 13th)



In Part II tomorrow, the SCPR begins an assessment of the candidates, their campaigns and the JA citizen-participant evaluation of the candidates and their campaigns.

RENACCI & SUTTON: AN "UNUSUAL & SORT OF" DEBATE?

What's this?

The people get to decide what questions get asked of the candidates?

And to evaluate the answers for public dissemination?

Indeed!

Several days ago the campaigns of Republican Jim Renacci and Democrat Betty Sutton agreed to participate in a debate sponsored by Jefferson Action on October 6th, 2012 at the Radisson Hotel Akron/Fairlawn sometime in the morning.  The exact hour the debate will begin has yet to be set.

Renacci, who is the sitting 16th district congressman, and Sutton, who is the sitting 13th district congresswoman, were thrown into this race against each other because Ohio lost two seats (from 18 down to 16) due to a loss of population in the 2010 census.

As far as the SCPR is concerned, this is a debate to see more than most debates because the questions will be framed by 24 random 16 congressional district constituents (the new district).

According to a press release issued by Jefferson Action (re:  Reclaim November, Ohio!) on August 10th:

The forum (Ohio Citizens Election Forum) will gather 24 randomly selected residents for an intensive, seven-day (the six day immediately preceding the debate and, of course, October 6th itself) exercise in learning and discussion focused on economic issues.

The subject matter of the unusual and  sort of  debate will be:  weak economic growth, unemployment and the federal budget deficit and debt.

The Report describes the debate as being unusual and sort of  because Renacci and Sutton will each appear separately for an hour of questioning by the citizen panel.  Panel members will then report back to the public on their impressions:

(in the words of the release) on how well each candidate addressed the issues, and whether they’re campaigning on the issues — or basing their campaigns on attacks and negative soundbites.

Space will be made available to both the public and the media.  However, the forum will not be available on "live" media.

The Stark County Political Report applauds Jefferson Action for generating the idea of a discussion of economic issues by Renacci and Sutton and also that the questions will come from everyday citizens.

The Jefferson Action group says of itself:

Jefferson Action is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to returning democracy to the people. Our mission is making the informed voice of everyday citizens heard — and making sure elected officials and politicians address the issues. Our Reclaim November, Ohio! project aims at making the voice of the people heard by candidates in Ohio’s hotly contested 16^th Congressional District.

Based in St. Paul, Minn., Jefferson Action uses the Citizens Election Forum process to bring together randomly selected citizens to consider important issues. The citizens are educated by experts representing a wide range of viewpoints. The group then recommends a course of action.  Jefferson Action lets the public know if the politicians are addressing the important issues – or simply attacking one another.

While there may be other debates between Renacci and Sutton to take in, as far as The Report is concerned, this is one for those Stark Countians who are part of the 16th to see!