A liar or an incompetent
Sen. Jon Husted claims to have not known about nor had anything to do with the cruel, untruthful campaign ad blaming Sherrod Brown for a terrible traffic accident that took three innocent lives. The ad uses video of the crash site and a photo of the victims without the permission of the victims' family.
The disclaimer on the ad clearly states, "Paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, authorized by Husted for Senate."
So if Husted really didn't know anything about the ad or its creation, why isn't he taking legal action against the National Republican Senatorial Committee for falsely stating he authorized the ad?
Either Husted is lying, or
he doesn't know what is going on in his own campaign. Both scenarios are disqualifying.
Ann Spicer, Powell
The importance of home rule
Re "Don't gut Ohio constitution to serve invasive AI oligarchs," Aug. 30: Marc Dann is right to call out the infringement of home rule.
Marc Dann’s column raises the alarm about our elected officials who seek to exert their will over the rights of municipalities. To many Ohioans, this may not register as an important topic, but that will only be true until the state infringes upon your municipality and a topic that is important to you.
The topic may be data centers, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, gun rights or any number of other topics. The home rule clause in the Ohio Constitution that Dann highlights should be important to all Ohioans because it ensures that the state can’t arbitrarily tell municipalities how to run things within their cities.
A good example of this infringement is Senate Bill 63, which tells municipalities that if they use ranked choice voting as an election method, the state will withhold all local government funds from them. Once the state has established this precedent of withholding funds, then it will have effectively established a workaround of the Home Rule clause. Who knows how many private wish-list items our state legislators will come up with then?
Many will be created simply to appease private interest groups and the legislators’ donors.
Most will be things that Ohioans neither wanted nor asked for.
John C. Anderson, Columbus
Acton doesn't care for her voters. I would know
Candidate Amy Acton has shown a complete disregard for our constitutional, civil and human rights, demonstrating that simply voting for blue or red changes nothing about the broken status quo.
Just as registered Black voters refused to overlook former Vice President Kamala Harris' record as a prosecutor, I cannot ignore candidates who dismiss impacted families and disregard our fundamental rights.
Hundreds of families have lost their children to extreme alcohol over-service and legislated impunity. I lost my youngest son, Terrell Michael Raphael Brown – my chef, my heartbeat and my world – at forever 21 to severe ethanol toxicity.
Under Ohio's Dram Shop Act (R.C. § 4399.18), commercial establishments enjoy statutory legal immunity against first-party claims from overserved adult patrons under specific conditions. When Shotz Bar & Grille in Austintown overserved Terrell to lethal levels and escaped civil accountability behind statutory shields, it proved to me that qualified immunity and legislated impunity extend far beyond police officers; they protect commercial entities and public officials alike at the expense of human life.
When Dr. Amy Acton announced her support for keeping qualified immunity intact, she chose legal shields over systemic accountability. I am fighting to pass the Protecting Ohioans' Constitutional Rights initiative to abolish qualified immunity, eliminate statutory shields and ensure real, equal justice for every family in Ohio.
Cynthia Denise Brown, Girard
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Either Husted is lying about ad that exploited family's death or he's asleep | Letters
