Former resident throws hat in for U.S. Senate seat
The race for Rob Portman’s U.S. Senate seat is heating up. A man with local ties announced his run recently, and will be circulating petitions in the Wapakoneta and Lima area.
Jeffrey Melton, who currently lives in Circleville, has been a resident of both Cridersville and Wapakoneta.
“I’ve served this country once for four years and I am ready to serve it again,” Melton said.
He was a specialist in the U.S. Army and said his job was to blow up tanks. He dropped out of high school at age 17 during his senior year to join the military and passed his GED test after doing well on the pre-test.
Most recently he worked as a corrections officer in both in Ohio and North Carolina; he’s worked in corrections for close to 20 years.
“Back in 2009 I started college,” he said. “I now have two masters degrees; one is in business administration the other is in criminal justice with the emphasis in law enforcement.”
His decision to run for office was prompted by encouragement from others.
“I had several people tell me you need to run for office, you need to run for office,” he said, but acknowledged, “it’s hard to beat an incumbent.”
Melton said he was last elected as the vice president of the union at the Lima Correctional Facility. He said he prayed about whether to run and when Portman announced he wouldn’t run again, he had his answer.
“Like President Trump, I am not a politician,” Melton said.
He is a fan of Trump and attended a rally in Circleville. He found the recent impeachment process a waste of time.
“All that time they spent trying to impeach Trump, all that money it cost, for what? For him to be found not guilty,” Melton said.
He also doesn’t view the Jan. 6 Capitol protest as an insurrection and questions whether Antifa and other groups were also present.
Melton draws influence from other politicians as well.
He said he liked President John F. Kennedy’s goals to lower taxes, which he explained pro
motes job growth. He said also they need more people like Sen. Dan Crenshaw and House Rep. Lauren Boebert in Congress. He said they need more people that will stand up to Democrats.
“A lot of these Republicans or GOP won’t stand up to the Democrats,” Melton said.
He also looks up to Ted Cruz and Trey Gowdy.
“You need people like that that will fight for America, and not just fight for themselves,” Melton said.
Melton explained where he stands today’s issues.
“I don’t believe in this defund the police garbage,” he said, adding police likely need more funding for accountability efforts like body cameras and acknowledged an increased need for mental health officials.
“You don’t send a mental health expert on a call by themselves,” Melton said.
He explained police and EMS often visit scenes together when circumstances are uncertain.
“Police departments could have one on hand,” he said of mental health officials.
Having seen mental health issues first hand in corrections, he said it was a matter of finding people the individual trusts to talk to, whether it is a family member, friend or health professional.
He sees a need for changes in the use of force, and possibly increase training.
While he is in favor of use of force committees, he said when civilians join those committees they need to have an idea of how the system works and when force can and can’t be used.
Melton saw an issue with transgender individuals being able to use whatever restroom they identify with because of a potential for sexual abuse.
“Transgenders in the military; that’s fine as long as they are wearing a uniform of what their birth certificate says their sex is and they have to be in the barracks for whatever sex they actually are not what they want to be,” he said, moving on to the gays in the military topic.
“Gays in the military that’s fine, they have a trigger finger and it works just as well as mine,” he said.
Melton has a strong opinion about how COVID has been handled in Ohio.
“I am anti-dewine and his COVID policies. He needs to just open up Ohio and get it over with,” he said. “I had COVID last October, I missed two days of work, I didn’t really get sick,” Melton said.
He said he doesn’t plan to get the vaccine because the Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla, didn’t plan to get it after it was released. However, Bourla has said he and executives wouldn’t take the vaccine before it was their turn to do so.
He is also against the use of fetal stem cells in the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
He views mask wearing as a control method and said that Muslims also use mask wearing to control women.
“It’s a control thing,” he said. He is also is against what he views as wasteful or unnecessary spending and sending money to sanctuary cities.
He also saw a need to limit add-on riders to legislation that aren’t related to the original bill.
“All that junk that has absolutely nothing to do with COVID shouldn’t be in there,” Melton said of the recentlysigned relief bill. He also saw a $5 billion provision specifically aimed at helping socially disadvantaged farmers of color as racist.
Melton has seen an erosion of birpartisanship.
“I don’t think the Democrats want bipartisanship,” Melton said, recalling the 1980s when people would say what they would like to do and you could vote for the person. “I didn’t vote straight line Republican or straight line Democrat. I voted for the person and their ideas. Now it’s well the person running against me did this, or did that, all they do is slam each other and it shouldn’t be like that.”
Melton is against “Cancel Culture” and took issue with the cancellation of Dr. Seuss and Pepe Le Pew. He saw hypocrisy in cancellation of Pepe Le pew for promoting rape culture, but not for allowing people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with.
“Going after cartoon characters and children’s books; they lead some very lonely lives,” Melton said.
He said in today’s world Blazing Saddles if it aired on television would be edited down to 15 minutes based on what is considered acceptable.
“It won’t be long with Democrats in both chambers, they will be coming after the Bible,” Melton said.
He believes in the Second Amendment, and is against gun control legislation that requires background checks at gun shows.
On immigration, he criticized President Joe Biden’s pause on an border wall when legislators have one in front of the Capitol building. He claimed that although Trump got the bad rap for “kids in cages,” Obama had similar policies. Alhough little has changed in immigration since Biden took office, Melton took note of media silence.
Melton believes Biden has dementia and is doing as he is told by others.
“They’ll be using Article 25 on him pretty soon,” Melton said.