The FBI indictment of Republican and former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder mentions 21 candidates who FirstEnergy worked to elect so that they would vote for Householder as Ohio Speaker. From the indictment: “The Enterprise spent Generation Now money on approximately 21 different candidates –   15  (including  Householder)  in  the  […]

According to an FBI indictment issued in July 2020, Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder accepted more than $60 million in bribe money from FirstEnergy Corp. in exchange for a $1.3 billion public bailout.

1 in every 10 black men in their thirties is in prison or jail. Sentences for black men committing the same federal crime are 19.1 percent longer. Why? Many stages of the criminal justice system are behind these statistics. For instance, prosecutors decide what charges to bring and what sentences […]

We know there is a crisis in higher education. We see the symptoms in higher tuition, lower graduation rates, and record student loan debt. Too often, the narrative about what’s causing these problems is the idea that these universities just aren’t being run similarly enough to private businesses. Is this true, though? We’ve […]

In Hamilton County, OH, the county I live in, the sheriff’s office has recently been involved in several high-profile police brutality incidents. In May 2018, the sheriff’s office agreed to a $500,000 settlement after a corrections officer, Jason Mize, shoved a 61-year-old man, Mark Myers, headfirst into a cinderblock cell so hard […]

One of the ways that corporate media spins against popular programs is by focusing on costs. We saw this on display in the Democratic debates with questions like this one from Savannah Guthrie:  Vice President Biden, thank you. Senator Harris … There’s is a lot of talk in this primary about new government benefits, […]

One of the best workshops I went to this year at Netroots Nation was called “The Race Class Narrative: Putting It to Work.” Put together by SEIU and conducted by Josh Keller (SEIU Minnesota State Council), Tinselyn Simms (SEIU), and Christopher Lampkin (SEIU 1199NW), the seminar helped me answer a question I’ve had for a while: […]

In July 1960, James Baldwin wrote the following in an article in Esquire, “Fifth Avenue, Uptown: a Letter from Harlem”: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” This week @girlziplocked asked a wonderful question on Twitter.  What's something about being poor that middle-class people […]

I talk to people all the time about politics and one of the things I hear most often is: “We need to get the money out of politics.” Everyone seems to have ideas how to stop this, ranging from third parties to repealing Citizens United to the “small government” ideas of libertarians.  

While researching voting recently, I stumbled across a great report by the U.S. Bureau of the Census on voting in congressional elections that suggests one of the big reasons our government works for the wealthy is that the wealthy vote. 

Here’s a look at the statistics, and why more people voting could go a long way toward reducing the influence of money in politics. 

I met Judge Michael Donnelly at an event in Cincinnati where he spoke about some of the issues he was seeing in the justice system. He opened my eyes to a few of the challenges our judicial system faces, so I asked him if he’d answer a few questions. 

1. Transparency in the plea-bargaining process is a major platform of your campaign. Can you explain why?