New governor’s diverse Cabinet sends message

One theme of the campaign for governor involved how long Mike DeWine had thought about holding the office. An election victory would amount to reaching the height of his career as an elected official, starting in the 1970s as the Greene County prosecutor, including time in Washington as a House member and senator, with stints in Ohio as a state senator, lieutenant governor and, most recently, attorney general.

So, now at age 72, he has had time to weigh what he would do as the state’s chief executive . ...

What deserves particular attention is the welcome diversity of his team . ...

DeWine has put together a Cabinet of 16 women and nine men. Five members are African-American.

The makeup doesn’t amount somehow to denying openings to qualified white men.

It gets to the point Justice Sandra Day O’Connor made in a 2003 Supreme Court ruling securing affirmative action, that “in order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.” ...

An Ohio with steep challenges must take advantage of all its talent.

That is the valuable message Mike DeWine has sent.

Read the full editorial from the Akron Beacon Journal at bit.ly/2Fo4PAg