|
Space, a former U.S.
Representative for the 18th Congressional District – which
comprises 16 counties in rural southeastern Ohio – sees the
Auditor’s office as an opportunity to influence some key
issues in the coming years. The office might not be as
glamorous as other statewide positions but its influence is
huge now and will expand soon.
The Auditor’s office is
one of five independently elected statewide offices under
the Ohio constitution. The office has a staff of more than
800 auditors and other professionals and is responsible for
auditing all public offices in Ohio – more than 5,000 in all
– including cities, counties, villages, state universities,
libraries along with state agencies, boards and commissions.
The office investigates fraud and provides financial
services to local governments.
Space sees the Auditor’s
office as an opportunity to being an amount of reform to
state government – ending corruption and serving as a
watchdog for Ohio families, he says.
Space is a native of
Dover, Ohio, a small eastern town. A graduate of The Ohio
State University’s law school, Space returned to Dover to
practice law serving as a public defender and as the city’s
law director. He was elected to Congress in 2006 in the blue
wave that carried Ted Strickland into the governor’s office
and gave Democrats in the U.S. Congress a majority making
Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the House. The blue wave gave
way to a red wave in 2010, sweeping out Strickland and
Space. He then joined the firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and
Pease in Columbus to work with local governments, charitable
organizations and the private sector to promote economic
development in Ohio.
Now as he contemplates
what he might accomplish in the Auditor’s office, Space sees
three primary areas of concern in which in which he can make
a huge difference for Ohioans, he told The Truth last week
during a visit to Toledo.
First, with the new format
for the state’s redistricting commission, the Auditor will
be one of the three state officeholders in that group (
along with two legislators from each major party) “I’m going
to do everything I can to end partisan gerrymandering,” says
Space. That’s a practice, he calls, “empowering extremism.”
Secondly, he sees the
Auditor’s office as a chance “to deal with the influence of
wealth on policy.”
“Money has become the most
important factor in politics,” says Space. Subjectivity has
replaced what he says should be an objective process. Space
mentions several key issues in which an Auditor can have a
positive impact by eliminating abuses caused by financial
greed. He mentions that Ohio’s public school system has been
corrupted by the charter school scandals, particularly that
of ECOT (Electronic Class Room of Tomorrow) to which his
opponent Keith Faber lent his support. ECOT has been accused
of taking $1 billion in state education funding over the
course of 18 years. Faber has received more than $34,000
campaign donations from the company.
Space also is lending his
voice to the pay day lending issue that has gained so much
attention recently. Ohio is reputed to have the highest
average pay day lending interest rates in the nation – as
high as 591 percent. Ten years ago the legislature made a
half-hearted attempt to rein the companies in, but they got
around the laws by simply re-titling their businesses. The
legislature is making another attempt now.
Space also believes that
the Auditor’s office can have an impact on the way the state
budget is drawn. During these Republican years, the state
has decreased payments back to local governments through the
budget.
The criminal justice
system is another area of concern to Space as the state
turns to privatization of prisons creating another source of
wealth for such companies at the expense of the taxpayer.
The third major area in
which Space feels the Auditor’s office can operate to the
benefit of Ohio’s citizen is in its primary function – that
of audits. “I intend to use those powers in a creative way,”
he says, noting, for example, that auditing Medicaid
operations can determine why state agencies have not been
able to make headway against the devastating opioid
epidemic.
Space is starting his
campaign for the general election with some ground to make
up. In the primary election, Space – unopposed for the
Democratic nomination – garnered 508,131 votes. His
Republican counterpart, Faber – a member of the House of
Representatives from the Ohio 84th District for
the past two years, who spent the previous eight years in
the Ohio Senate – earned 611,729 votes.
Clearly Space will be
hoping on the typical Democratic increased turnout in a
general election, along with his ability to keep voters’
focused on his major issues and Faber’s huge ECOT blemish.
“We can move the needle in
the right direction to restore confidence in the
government,” he says. |
