Meeting the 84th District candidates 84th Ohio House Republican candidates share views at forum in Minster
MINSTER — The Knights of Columbus hall in Minster hosted a question and answer forum Tuesday night for Republican candidates in the 84th Ohio House district, giving candidates the opportunity to share their priorities and qualifications
MOR ROW
Aimee Morrow of Greenville introduced herself as a citizen candidate, who has worked in health care for 28 years. She refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic. Morrow said she and her coworkers came together as a group forming Medical Freedom Fighters of Darke County. She has protested at Kettering and Premier health facilities.
“Through that I just started holding rallies,” Morrow said.“In Darke County only 36 percent of the people were vaccinated, that shows how many people did not want it. We are seeing a pushback of tyranny and we say no. That’s why I decided to run as a Christian candidate,” Morrow said.
“We need to get back to the Constitution that was formed on Biblical principals,” Morrow said.
Her priorities include medical freedom, cutting taxes and her Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
Morrow said a lot of people have left health care during the pandemic with added regulations. She said regulations ultimately cost money, resulting in costs going up and she wants to reduce them.
“We need a change; 2022, I believe is a changing of the guard,” Morrow said. “We need to get the wrong ones out and bring the Godfearing ones in. It is time to give the voice back to the people, especially with HB 248,” Morrow said, noting there were representatives who were not on board with the bill. She said they were not really representing the people.
Morrow said protecting children in schools goes beyond gun violence and into transgender bathroom access in schools.
“I believe in giving the voice back to the people,” Morrow said, adding that people are watching the Bethel School District where a debate over transgender bathroom access has been ongoing.
“These parents showed up in the hundreds because they were refusing to allow this to happen,” Morrow said.
Morrow also said she believes that conception starts at birth and that there are no if, ands or buts about it.
When it comes to voting, Morrow said she believes people need to have a license to vote and was concerned about freedom of speech.
Morrow is supportive of funding law enforcement.
“I absolutely back the blue,” Morrow said, adding she had heard from Darke County Sheriff Mark Whittaker that sheriffs don’t make that much money.
“We need to honor them and make sure that they are taken care of,” Morrow said.
LARGER
Jacob Larger, New Bremen’s village council president, grew up in New Bremen and has taken values from westcentral Ohio to Columbus.
“I think what makes this area great is that we are hard-working individuals and we stand up for what we believe,” Larger said.
He worked for the National Federation of Independent Business, an advocacy group for small businesses, after finishing college.
“This is where I fell in love with the idea of advocacy,” Larger said. Larger had experience working at a community college in administration and at a workforce agency in Job and Family Services in Allen County. His No. 1 priority in office will be workforce development.
“You can never find enough quality individuals to hire and the regulatory environment in Ohio and throughout the United States is broken. You need to take the regulations and shrink those down,” Larger said, adding business owners don’t want the rules of the game to keep changing. He called for “commonsense regulation”.
He was asked by the governor’s office to help in workforce development due to his experience with small businesses.
“I spent a couple of years understanding the workforce programs in the state of Ohio and was very impressed to see that we have dozens upon dozens of workforce programs. I was a little less impressed to see that they don’t really talk to one another,” Larger said.
He believes he has the experience to streamline those agencies without spending new dollars. Larger said officials need to reduce the rural brain drain or outward migration from rural areas. He is focused on the labor force participation rate and finding ways to incentivize the workforce with signing bonuses. He also sees a need to reform community colleges to include more certification programs.
Larger decided to run after meeting with people who said there was a need for good, quality, integrity-bound candidates.
He is a pro-life candidate and has experience from his work in Job and Family Services seeing issues that can be addressed in foster care.
“When it comes to being pro-life, we need to be pro-life inside the womb and out and I would like to focus on reforms that help to get aging out foster youth the supports that they need when they turn 18 to be successful,” Larger said. He believes that life starts at conception and said he did not get involved in Celina’s sanctuary city debate as a New Bremen public official but believes in sanctuary cities if the votes are there.
Larger said that school shootings tear at people’s heartstrings but recognizes other potentially fatal situations are more likely to happen.
“Not to be callous, but your child has 40 times better chance of dying from an overdose in your own medicine cabinet than being involved in a school shooting,” Larger said. “If we are not locking our medicine cabinets we are increasing the chance of something negative happen to them.”
He also advocated for a single point of entry in school buildings and suggested using money designated for Planned Parenthood to fund safety initiatives.
Larger said in New Bremen they make sure their police force has what it needs to be successful.
He brought up destructive protests against police in Minneapolis that occurred before an officer was proven guilty or innocent. He said the men and women in blue help put neighborhoods back together when they are destroyed by those protests.
Larger also has a strong opinion on medical freedom.
“The state has no right to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do,” Larger said. He has helped the Lima Unity Medical Freedom Group organize rallies and he has assisted people in filling out medical exemption forms.
Larger has been involved with elections as a poll worker. He called election integrity a political football and blamed national media for not vetting Joe Biden. Larger said Ohio does elections well, which he has seen firsthand going through poll worker training in 2020.
“Ohio is a model and other states need to take a look at it,” Larger said.
KING
Angie King of Celina told voters that experience matters. King has 25 years of experience in small business as a licensed realtor and 21 years of experience with government, consisting of 11 years on Celina’s city council and is in her 10th year as Mercer County recorder. King explained that she grew up in a farming family and got her bachelors and masters degrees locally from Wright State University.
“I understand our values and our culture,” King said.
“I will work hard to protect our district and our way of life.”
King said the school shooting in Texas was tragic and that she can’t imagine what the parents are going through.
“I believe there are some things we can do to harden up the schools,” King said. She cited the recently signed House Bill 99 giving teachers the option to carry and designated a large amount of money for schools to improve security. King said badge systems and automatic locks could be utilized.
“It’s tough and I don’t want this to sound callous, but I don’t think its right that we infringe on our second amendment,” King said.
She said conservative values are under attack.
“Those on the left are trying to tax our entrepreneurs out of business,” King said, adding the left also wants to defund the police and stir racial division.
“I believe the people in the 84th district appreciate the men and women who serve and protect them,” King said.“To my knowledge, our commissioners, our city council members support the men and women in blue.”
King said election integrity was the No. 1 question she was asked as she went door to door campaigning. She was not concerned about local boards of elections but was concerned about officials in Detroit locking their doors and covering windows while counting ballots. She said Yellow Springs officials changed their charter to allow nonAmerican citizens to vote in local elections. King said the issue of non-Americans voting in local elections will become a statewide issue.
King has served as president and vice president of the Ohio Young Republicans. She has chaired numerous Reagan dinners, and served on George W. Bush’s Disability Advisory Committee and has been an alternate delegate for the Republican National Convention.
Both of King’s children are deaf and she has been advocating for the deaf and hard of hearing over the last 25 years. King worked with state officials for newborn hearing screenings and updating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
King has also been an advocate for Celina residents. When Celina was under an unfunded EPA mandate for their water treatment facility, she made a visit to Washington D.C. to meet with representatives and resulting in a $750,000 line item for funding that facility.
King has been a supporter of the medical freedom movement and gave proponent testimony for House Bill 248 addresses vaccination mandates. She supported her staff regardless of their vaccination choice.
King also wrote a letter to State Auditor Dave Yost about Ivermectin, which some people were seeking to treat COVID-19. The drug is typically used to treat parasites in animals and is not FDA approved for treating COVID-19.
“I wasn’t able to get Ivermectin in the state of Ohio, I had to go across the state line to Indiana,” King said.
King also wants to eliminate the state income tax citing the state’s tax burden ranking.
“Right now Ohioans need relief,” King said. She said Senate Bill 327 would eliminate it over 10 years.
“Why wait 10 years? Ohioans need relief now,” King said. “Let’s be bold and get it done sooner.”
King believes eliminating the state income tax would help draw workers to Ohio.
King also wants to address shortages in the trades and wants more funding for related programs.
King made her stance on abortion clear.
“I am unapologetically pro-life, I proudly stood with many of you, and attempted to make Celina a sanctuary city for the unborn,” King said, adding she is endorsed by the Right to Life PAC. “We need to promote life and foster reform,” King said. She said it took 18 months and $100,000 legal battle for friends of hers to get their adoption finalized. King’s prolife support extends to sanctuary cities for the unborn.
“If we can save one life it’s worth it,” King said. King spoke from experience as a realtor in support of zoning against abortion clinics. she said Celina zones against pot shops, porn shops and strip clubs, but they wouldn’t zone on abortion clinics.
“Could you imagine if you are a boutique owner or a restaurant owner or maybe you have an insurance company. If the business next to you is an abortion clinic, what do you think that is going to do to your business? It is as much a part of economic development as it is saving a life,” King said.
The primary election will be held Aug. 2, and early in-person voting will start on July 6.