UPDATE: 08/13/2013
CONCERNED CITIZENS OF STARK COUNTY HEAD CHRIS BORELLO COMMENTS ON SCPR REFERENCE TO OELSLAGER GETTING CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CHESAPEAKE ENERGY
As you all know, Scott chairs the finance committee, that oversaw the bill language concerned with the TENORM, radiation from fracking...
Seems Olson is suggesting to us that Scotty has some bigger fish to fry, and like before, with our Uniontown radiation/Plutonium issue( Scott was the one who gave us the Fed report dated Oct. 3rd, 2001, NAREL /US EPA summary of Plutonium report - a report that had been reportedly, quite conveniently withheld previously from the public, and the Fed Judge, and the US EPA Inspector General, to boot)....
Yet, as Olson describes it, Oelslager then dropped our group like "a hot potato" at the end of the day.... Is history repeated itself with the radiation concerns now involved with fracking?
If so, how heartbreaking it is, given our Uniontown citizens had put our faith in Scott more than most politicians , thinking he truly cared, indeed , he felt more than the average pol, after conveying to me his own family's personal experience with a deadly cancer...We thought - when it came to protecting citizens, children, from getting cancer , Scott would find a way, go above and beyond a call of duty....
Where is he know, is he even asking Gov. Kasich to simply respond to our jointly signed letter from the other week, by 53 concerned citizens and groups? Surely, Scott must at least believe scientific answers from these State agencies are warranted?
Chris
ORIGINAL BLOG
Stark County W. Scott Oelslager has finally made it into the political big time.
On January 23 of this year
he was named Ohio Senate finance committee chairman.
And, Oh! "what a difference a
day year makes."
In his July, 2012 semi-annual campaign finance report, he received $26,750 in contributions; not exactly chump change.
But it pales into relative insignificance in comparison to his 2013 report. Wow! $113,150 collected in a mere six months.
Ever since he worked for former long time Republican Congressman Ralph Regula, Oelslager has hungered and thirsted to hit the political big time.
But for one reason or another he has - until now - come up short of the mark.
At one time he appeared to be on a fast track to become Regula's (retired in 2008), however, the story is that he annoyed Ralph's wife Mary with his pushiness and aggressiveness. And, as we all know who have wives, one does not want to irritate the wife.
Before long Oelslager was on the outside looking in.
Relegated to the Ohio General Assembly since 1985 and initially also thought to be on the fast track there to become a leader but had several problems getting to the leadership level.
Initially, it was those damn Democrats and the autocratic Vern Riffe (Speaker of the House 1975 through 1994; also a political demigod to Massillon clerk of courts Johnnie A. Maier, Jr.) and his ironfisted control of the Ohio General Assembly that frustrated Oelslager in his drive to the top.
To get to a majority, Oelslager and his fellow Republicans devised a plan to get term-limits instituted in the Ohio General Assembly and thereby break up the Democratic stranglehold on the OGA.
One little problem though for Oelslager.
In sort of a way his leadership drive got disrupted by guess what? Yes, term limits. He couldn't get enough seniority in either the House or the Senate to make any headway to the top.
What's more, is that the political tide in terms of Republican political temperament swung on him.
Oelslager had, up to the last few years, been a part of what now is a vanishing (if not, nonexistent) breed of Republican: "a moderate."
So he has had to reinvent himself.
While still not a fire-breathing right-wing religious-right type like Stark County OGA colleague Christina Hagan (R - Marlboro), he has moved enough to the right to have the blessing of Republican governor John Kasich and other important "to-the-right" Republicans who run the Statehouse.
Hence on January 23rd he became chairman of the Senate finance committee.
But the Stark County Political Report does not believe he is done yet.
The Report is convinced he is determined to become either the president of the Senate or the speaker of the House.
It has to be optional because of what?
Yes, that old bugaboo that brought the Republicans to power in the first place: term limits.
Oelslager has one more term in the Senate and so will have to do some real wheelin' and dealin' to get to the top.
He probably has a better chance to one day become the the speaker of the House as he and another Stark County colleague Kirk Schuring (R, Jackson, the 48th House District) play a version of musical chairs whereby they switch back and forth between the House and the Senate thereby defeating the intent of term limits.
But one does what one has to do to get ahead, no?
So has chairman of the finance committee he has as if by magic acquired supercalifragilisticexpialidocious campaign fundraising powers.
And this is the factor that can catapult him to the higher reaches of political power in the Republican caucuses of the Ohio General Assembly.
Of course, there is a price to pay for raising this kind of money from PACs.
And the articulation of the price is this. Who is Scott Oelslager beholden to?
His constituents in Stark County?
Earlier this year Canton City Council president Allen Schuman tried in vain to get Oelslager to come to Canton (the largest part of Oelslager's Stark County constituency) to talk about the state of Ohio's gutting of local government funding which Oelslager and his fellow Stark County Republican legislators Christina Hagan and Kirk Schuring supported.
Oelslager's response (Schuring did show up)?
"I'm too busy."
Too busy doing what?
Now we know the answer.
Raising campaign funds for himself and the Republican caucus so that the GOP can maybe duplicate the feat of Democrat Vern Riffe and his 1975 to 1994 run as Ohio's Almighty "political" God, no?
Maybe, just maybe, Scott Oelslager will become the head of such a political juggernaut?
You can be sure of this.
Now that Stark County Democratic chairman Randy Gonzalez sees how powerful Oelslager has become, he - the SCPR thinks - will stand aside and let Oelslager breeze to a second term in the Senate next year.
By the SCPR's calculation, Oelslager has raised $89,700 from political action committees for only one-half of 2013, to wit:
Chris Borello of the Concerned Citizens of Stark County will be real thrilled to see that Oelslager received $2,000 from Chesapeake Energy (a leading fracker for oil and natural gas in the nation).
Borello goes way back with Oelslager. She got her community activist start as head of the Concerned Citizens of Lake Township back in the 1980s when revelations of the existence a toxic dump less than a mile from the center of Uniontown came to light.
Initially, she thought that Oelslager was going to help her and her group's fight to get what has become to be known as the Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill (IEL) clean up.
She knows better than that now.
When it became apparent to Oelslager that the issue could be - let 's say - "politically toxic" in terms of being in favor with the powers that be in Stark County, he dropped Chris and her followers like the proverbial "hot potato."
But then again one does one what has to in order to get through the political headwinds to the top, no?
Back to Oelslager and his fundraising to top this discussion off with how he has done with individual campaign donors.
Of course, they are not nearly a lucrative as the political actions committees and the lobbyists, but there is prestige in getting donations from the likes of these folks:
It will be interesting to see where Oelslager's current track will lead him.
But he has to - in his private moments - be excitedly saying to himself.
"Scott! You've Come a Long Way Baby!!!"
