Latest / Chuck Douglas / Incumbent State Senator Bill Demora Part 1

Transcript

Incumbent State Senator Bill Demora Part 1 · Chuck Douglas

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  Speaker 1: Greetings, salutations, welcome my friends to another edition of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Power Hour on 610 WTVN. I'm Chuck Douglas, you know
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: who you are, and we take it from there. We
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  Speaker 1: get one hour together, which means I talk really fast,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and you must listen even faster. My number, 821-9886-821-WTVN, 1-800-610-WTVN,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: but you really don't need that tonight. Got a guest
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  Speaker 1: in the studio. And, you know, we're coming, early voting
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  Speaker 1: begins October 6th.
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  Speaker 2: Hang on.
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  Speaker 1: I always cringe when I say early voting. It's just
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  Speaker 1: it's a thing with me. But I wanted to get
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  Speaker 1: as many of the Central Ohio candidates in front of
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  Speaker 1: you as possible. I try to extend invitations to everyone.
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  Speaker 1: And tonight we've got the incumbent in Senate District, Ohio
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  Speaker 1: Senate District 25, Bill DeMora, who, first of all, thank
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  Speaker 1: you for accepting the invitation. You wouldn't believe that's kind
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  Speaker 1: of a rarity.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, I accept all invitations, so. Thanks for
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  Speaker 2: having me.
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  Speaker 1: If Zach invited you somewhere, you wouldn't accept that.
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  Speaker 2: Trust me. I don't know who Zach is.
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  Speaker 1: That's the guy standing behind you. I wouldn't let you
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  Speaker 1: accept anything. I wanted to come out and see you
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  Speaker 1: last night and kind of see you in action because
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  Speaker 1: we never met before. And you were at Prairie Township
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  Speaker 1: on my beloved west side.
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  Speaker 3: All 12 people that were related to my opponent.
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  Speaker 2: Really? Yeah. See, I.
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  Speaker 1: I come from a world where candidate nights were a
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  Speaker 1: big deal. And, uh, uh, I, I miss that. I
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  Speaker 1: miss those opportunities for people to come out and actually
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  Speaker 1: face to face speak. You learn so much looking somebody
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  Speaker 1: in the eye when you're talking to them and having
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  Speaker 1: them answer a question. You don't get that from a
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  Speaker 1: campaign commercial.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not running campaign commercial. So I'm, I'm the commercial.
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  Speaker 2: I'm my own commercial.
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  Speaker 1: What not you up? I don't know. I, I am
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  Speaker 1: a Republican. I make no bones about that. And, uh,
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  Speaker 1: And you being a Democrat, many people go, I can't
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  Speaker 1: believe he's even got him in the studio. But as
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  Speaker 1: I was telling you before we went on, I appreciate
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  Speaker 1: frank conversation from people. I don't know how you see
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  Speaker 1: yourself and your role as a current state senator. Do
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  Speaker 1: you Are you a bulldozer? Are you a bridge builder?
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  Speaker 1: What do you try to be when you walk in
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  Speaker 1: there every day?
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  Speaker 2: Actually both.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I am a bulldozer when I'm giving speeches
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  Speaker 3: on the floor, when I'm in committee asking questions, uh,
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  Speaker 3: when I'm trying to hold, um, my, uh, colleagues responsible
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  Speaker 3: for what I think the bad policies are. But, uh,
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  Speaker 3: after we're done with those, we're friends. I mean, I
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  Speaker 3: am chair of the bourbon caucus. I have the bourbon caucus,
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  Speaker 3: basically myself and nine or 10 of my Republican colleagues
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  Speaker 3: that come into my office and, and after the day's
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  Speaker 3: over and have a drink, um, I'm very friendly with
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  Speaker 3: most of my Republican colleagues. So, again, I do my job.
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  Speaker 3: I think I represent my district. But when the voting's over,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you have to be friends with people, especially
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  Speaker 3: the minority. I'm not getting anything done if I'm not.
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  Speaker 3: But I genuinely like most of my Republican colleagues.
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  Speaker 1: You're in, what, the end of your second? Is this
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  Speaker 1: your second term?
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  Speaker 2: I'm running for re-election.
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  Speaker 1: You're running for the second term. Yes. During this first term,
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  Speaker 1: what's your landmark? What did Bill DeMora accomplish in the
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  Speaker 1: Senate that you hold up and say, I did this
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  Speaker 1: as a first-termer and I'm proud of it?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I have not gotten a lot of
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  Speaker 3: my own personal bills passed.
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  Speaker 2: The only bill.
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  Speaker 3: That actually got passed upset most of my Democratic colleagues,
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  Speaker 3: which was to not allow rank choice voting in municipal
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  Speaker 3: elections unless the city would lose their state government funds
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  Speaker 3: if they wanted to do it. But, for instance, one
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  Speaker 3: of the bills that got passed out of committee in
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  Speaker 3: the Senate right now that I've been fighting for is
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  Speaker 3: to ban child marriage under the age of 18.
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  Speaker 2: You can't get married unless you're 18. There's no exceptions.
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  Speaker 2: I also have what I call a couple of fun bills.
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  Speaker 3: Um, naming the Buckeye, the state candy, which actually passed
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  Speaker 3: the Senate.
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  Speaker 2: It's been laboring in the house and committee.
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  Speaker 3: Um, but other bills that I put in there to
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  Speaker 3: basically help my constituents is I have the bill that
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  Speaker 3: doesn't allow that wouldn't allow Ohio state to have any
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  Speaker 3: football game or any other sports on streaming only services
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  Speaker 3: that would mandate. If you want state money, uh, for stadiums,
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  Speaker 3: you have to have a winning record three out of
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  Speaker 3: five years. So the Browns would be disqualified from that
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  Speaker 3: fun things like that, that, uh, you know, a banning
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  Speaker 3: ticket master fees that are extravagant, all these things that,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think are relevant to my district, but
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  Speaker 3: I know I could get past, but I do them
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  Speaker 3: because it feels good. But I mean, I have a
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  Speaker 3: bill right now to mandate that you have to have the,
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  Speaker 3: what do you call them?
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  Speaker 2: The things that provide people, if they, if they, no, no, no.
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  Speaker 3: AED advices and all, and all sports clubs and stuff
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  Speaker 3: like that.
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  Speaker 2: Because again, These things actually makes difference.
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  Speaker 3: So I mix my stuff between what I think is
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  Speaker 3: fun that gets me publicity and real issues that I
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  Speaker 3: think we need to tackle as legislature, most of which
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  Speaker 3: are not partisan.
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  Speaker 1: Now, go back to the beginning of that list there.
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  Speaker 1: You're trying to push, and you don't think this will succeed,
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  Speaker 1: the marriage before 18.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, I think that's– I mean, it passed the Senate
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  Speaker 3: committee– Republican Senate committee unanimously. I'm still waiting for it
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  Speaker 3: to be called up to the floor with what happened
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  Speaker 3: in Fenton County earlier this summer. You know, this girl
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  Speaker 3: basically gets married at 14 and pumps out kids every year.
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  Speaker 3: She was used as a sex slave, basically. That stuff
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  Speaker 3: needs to stop. And basically what happens in Ohio, if
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  Speaker 3: you're under the age of 18 and you get married.
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  Speaker 3: Most of the time, the younger women married older men.
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  Speaker 2: You become basically their property. You have no rights.
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  Speaker 3: You can't do anything without their say so because they
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  Speaker 3: become your legal guardian.
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  Speaker 2: And it's horrible.
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  Speaker 3: And I've worked with Senator Bill Blessing, a Republican, on
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  Speaker 3: this bill. And I had no opposition in committee. And, again,
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  Speaker 3: it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee when we went out
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  Speaker 3: on recess. I'm hoping it gets brought to the floor
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  Speaker 3: in lame duck. Because it's something we need to have
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  Speaker 3: happen and we have happened now.
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  Speaker 1: We and I've I've had this conversation on the air
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  Speaker 1: a couple of times. This is one of those quagmire situations.
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  Speaker 1: We've got these these young women who or I guess
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  Speaker 1: young men occasionally to with parental permission. And apparently a
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  Speaker 1: judge signs off on it can get married at, you know, 14,
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  Speaker 1: 15 years old. OK, the problem is if they get
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  Speaker 1: married and whoever they married is beating the crap out
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  Speaker 1: of them. They don't have the legal status to file
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  Speaker 1: for divorce until they're 18 years of age. Correct.
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  Speaker 2: They don't have legal status to go into a shelter either.
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  Speaker 1: Which does not make a whole heck of a lot
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  Speaker 1: of sense. And then that nasty age of consent thing
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  Speaker 1: pops up. Okay, you can have sex at 16 and
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  Speaker 1: nobody can say anything about it, but you can't get
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  Speaker 1: married until you're 18. There's going to be a lot
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  Speaker 1: of discussion there. I get your point, and I actually agree. We.
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  Speaker 1: We too often, on too many levels, adjust what adulthood
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  Speaker 1: is depending upon what we want it to be. An
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  Speaker 1: adult at 18 years of age, and this goes honestly
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  Speaker 1: clear on back to, I started making this speech with
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  Speaker 1: Maurice Claret. 18 years of age, you can't go to
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  Speaker 1: the NFL because you haven't done enough time in college,
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  Speaker 1: but you can go get shot at across the world
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  Speaker 1: on behalf of your country, but you can't own a
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  Speaker 1: pistol because And you can't have a beer.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: I agree. That agenda-driven legislation over the years has really
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  Speaker 1: put us into a nasty situation of a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: stuff that just doesn't mesh together anymore.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, one of my colleagues said that we shouldn't
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  Speaker 3: be telling people how old they are to get married.
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  Speaker 3: And I said, well, we tell people how old they
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  Speaker 3: are to drive, to vote, to drink, to smoke pot,
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  Speaker 3: all these things.
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  Speaker 2: So why shouldn't we be able to tell them how
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  Speaker 2: old they are to get married?
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  Speaker 3: Again— It's seeing hearing the stories of a lot of
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  Speaker 3: women who came to my office to talk to me
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  Speaker 3: about this bill and people that testified on this bill
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  Speaker 3: saying what happens when they got married under the age
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  Speaker 3: of 18 and all the stuff that all the bad
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  Speaker 3: stuff that happened to them because they had no rights
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  Speaker 3: to do anything about it. And again, this is a
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  Speaker 3: bipartisan bill and. I think it's something we need to
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  Speaker 3: have done because we have there are more situations out
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  Speaker 3: there than what happened to the family in Fenton County.
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  Speaker 3: We just don't know about them. But it's tragic. And
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  Speaker 3: if we can prevent this and I think we can,
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  Speaker 3: I think we need to do so.
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  Speaker 1: You have you been a lifelong Democrat?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you can't spell Democrat without my last name
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  Speaker 3: of tomorrow with every letter in order. So my father
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  Speaker 3: was a councilman in my hometown of Euclid growing up.
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  Speaker 2: Um, I've always been a Democrat. I was president of
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  Speaker 2: college Democrats, Ohio state.
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  Speaker 3: When I got to Ohio state for the four years,
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  Speaker 3: I was there. I was president of state, young Democrats
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  Speaker 3: for eight years. I've worked the democratic party almost 30.
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  Speaker 3: So I've been a Democrat my entire life.
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  Speaker 1: And I don't want to this. It's kind of a
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  Speaker 1: landmine question, but I want to know, do you consider
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  Speaker 1: yourself a traditional Democrat?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: I'll put it that way.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not big fan of some of the people in
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  Speaker 3: my party that, uh, are going so far left that
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  Speaker 3: it's upsetting the mainstream voter in Ohio.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not for that.
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  Speaker 3: I've never voted for Bernie Sanders, nor will I ever
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  Speaker 3: vote for Bernie Sanders. I don't like his– I think
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  Speaker 3: if he wants to be a socialist, I'll be a socialist.
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  Speaker 3: He's not a Democrat in my mind, and we should
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  Speaker 3: never let him run as a Democrat.
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  Speaker 2: That's just me personally. But I'm an old-school labor.
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  Speaker 3: Democrat– that thinks that we ought to be concentrating on
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  Speaker 3: kitchen table issues, not these social issues. It was said
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  Speaker 3: back when Bill Clinton ran for president, it's the economy's stupid.
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  Speaker 3: People vote how their pocketbooks are, and you've seen that
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  Speaker 3: this year that they're voting in their pocketbook, which is
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  Speaker 3: why my party right now stands to gain lots of
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  Speaker 3: seats across the country because the current president and his
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  Speaker 3: economic policies are horrible.
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  Speaker 2: Gasoline.
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  Speaker 3: Groceries, the tariffs they set forth that are hurting Ohio farmers.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm one of those people who wants to
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  Speaker 3: help people. I don't want to get into these culture issues.
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  Speaker 2: Because, again, I'm I guess I'm socially liberal. The fact
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  Speaker 2: is I don't care who you marry. I don't care
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  Speaker 2: who you want to marry. I don't care what you
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  Speaker 2: call yourself, man, woman, non-binary.
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  Speaker 3: I don't care about that stuff. It's not what matters
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  Speaker 3: to me. I'm elected to try to help people, and
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  Speaker 3: that's what I think we ought to be doing and
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  Speaker 3: concentrating on.
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  Speaker 1: What in your first term as you've witnessed, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure you've kind of done a lot of observing. You're
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  Speaker 1: the new kid on the block, so you have to
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: see how everything works. Anything within the Senate that you
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: look at now and go... if I stay around another term,
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  Speaker 1: this needs to change. We're doing something wrong just at
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  Speaker 1: the legislative level, and I want to make this different
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  Speaker 1: to make it better.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I worked in the Senate in the 80s when
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  Speaker 2: I was in college.
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  Speaker 3: I worked for then-Senator Lee Fisher, who became attorney general,
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  Speaker 3: then lieutenant governor. And back when I was in the Senate,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: the Senate was 1815 Republican. The House was majority Democrat,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: and we had Dick Celeste as governor. And things got done.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, people from both sides of the aisle had
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  Speaker 3: to come together and talk and work things out because
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  Speaker 3: you needed both sides to get anything passed.
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  Speaker 2: And that's what I.
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  Speaker 3: Think having these illegally gerrymandered districts and having a supermajority
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  Speaker 3: in both the House of Legislature and the governor and
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  Speaker 3: the Supreme Court, all the same party, I think does
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  Speaker 3: harm to Ohio because we don't get– Everybody's viewpoint.
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  Speaker 2: And the fact, listen, that it's gerrymandered.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the Democratic districts are gerrymandered so that the
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  Speaker 3: more liberal, progressive.
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  Speaker 2: Socialist things get a bigger say. And the Republican districts.
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  Speaker 3: Are gerrymandered that the right wing mega nut jobs get
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  Speaker 3: more of a say. And that doesn't do well to
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  Speaker 3: govern when people from the fringes of these parties are
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  Speaker 3: winning elections because they don't want to come together and
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  Speaker 3: talk and try to work out things.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's bad for Ohio. Ohio is always.
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  Speaker 3: At least when I was growing up, it was a
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  Speaker 3: two-party state. It's kind of leaned to the right now,
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  Speaker 3: but Barack Obama won the state twice. And I think
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  Speaker 3: we need more of that. I think we need more
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  Speaker 3: ability to get everybody's viewpoint in and get the best
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: legislation we can. Because right now, what they did today
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: in the Statehouse, didn't let myself or my colleagues talk
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: about this gas tax policy. Bullshit, I'm going to call it.
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  Speaker 3: Sorry for using a bad language, but it was a
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  Speaker 3: bad bill. That's not going to do what they say
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  Speaker 3: it's going to do. But we were didn't get to
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  Speaker 3: talk about it in committee to ask questions, didn't get
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  Speaker 3: to give our opinions on the floor, didn't get to
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  Speaker 3: offer amendments.
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  Speaker 2: They just ran roughshod. I think that's bad for the
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  Speaker 2: state of Iowa. That happens.
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  Speaker 1: And I understand the the Senate president basically allowed the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: two sponsors of the bill to speak, but no one else.
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  Speaker 2: It's.
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  Speaker 1: Is that a legal maneuver? I mean, is that is there?
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  Speaker 3: Of course, they can do it because they're in charge.
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  Speaker 3: But it's never happened before. I mean, I get along
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  Speaker 3: great with President Macaulay, believe it or not. Even though
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: we're opposite parties, we sit next to each other, behind
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: each other at football games, and we get along great.
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  Speaker 3: We've had drinks before. We've had meals before. I generally
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: like Rob McCauley, but today I think was Rob McCauley's worst.
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  Speaker 2: Day as Senate president.
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  Speaker 3: The fact that he did what he did, didn't let
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  Speaker 3: us even speak to anything on the floor for the
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  Speaker 3: first time since I've been a senator.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: I think that's wrong, and I think that made him look... bad.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that just made him show how bad
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  Speaker 3: this policy is that they're trying to do that. They
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: couldn't even have Democrats say why we were opposed to
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: this bill. And believe it or not, I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 3: four of my colleagues voted for it.
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  Speaker 2: Um, Democratic colleagues.
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  Speaker 1: So 25 to 6, I think.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So three of my three of my whatever
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  Speaker 2: I had Democratic colleagues vote for this bill.
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  Speaker 3: So not every Democrat was going to get up there
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  Speaker 3: and criticize it.
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  Speaker 2: But those of us that.
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  Speaker 3: Were not going to vote for it should have been
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: given our three or four minutes to give it to.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Our reasons why we're going to do it. And I
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: think it was.
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  Speaker 3: Bad precedent and bad policy for the Senate president to
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: that to us today.
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  Speaker 2: And again, I said this to the reporters afterward.
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  Speaker 3: I think it was President McCauley's worst day as a
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: Senate president because it's the first time it ever happened.
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  Speaker 3: And the fact that he did this just makes you
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  Speaker 3: wonder what they're hiding, that he couldn't even have debate
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  Speaker 3: on this.
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  Speaker 2: And I think it was a bad move for him.
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  Speaker 1: All right. I said up front, I like frank conversation.
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  Speaker 1: We are getting it. I appreciate that. Bill DeMora, who
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: is the incumbent Democrat in Senate District 25 here in
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the state of Ohio, looking for your vote again in November.