Once a backer, Brown wants filibuster gone

The Monday missive from Sen. Sherrod Brown’s campaign team was quite clear:

“Republican politicians are weaponizing redistricting to choose their voters, rather than the other way around — in Ohio, and across the country. We can’t let them get away with weakening voters’ voices in our democracy.

“It’s time to end the filibuster and protect voting rights.”

Left unsaid was the fact the Ohio Democrat ardently backed the filibuster less than five years ago, when Republican were in power. The reversal has led some critics to accuse Brown and other switcheroo Democrats of hypocrisy.

Brown was among 61 senators from both parties in April 2017 who signed a two-paragraph letter to Senate leaders that supported the filibuster.

“We are united in our determination to preserve the ability of members to engage in extended debate when bills are on the Senate floor,” the letter reads. “Therefore, we are asking you to join us in opposing any effort to curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of senators to engage in full, robust and extended debate as we consider legislation before this body in the future,”

Brown vocalized a change of position about a year before Democrats won control of Congress and the White House.

“I think we should do away with the filibuster,” Brown told the Cleveland City Club in November 2019. “We are too dysfunctional. I would not have said that two or three years ago.”

He said during an Atlantic interview for a story published in October 2020, “We’ve got to eliminate the filibuster.”

The root of Brown’s reversal was “unprecedented Republican obstruction and dysfunction in Washington.”

The voting rights bill referenced by the campaign is a Democratic measure that would clamp down on gerrymandering nationwide. A spokesperson said Brown opposes Democratic gerrymandering in places such as New York and Illinois just as much as Republican map manipulation in Ohio and other states:

“As Sen. Brown always said: Voters should pick their representatives — not the other way around.”

A Washington Post tally Tuesday of Democratic senators showed that 21 want to eliminate the filibuster; 15 are “committed” to changes; 12 remain “open” to changes; 2 oppose changes.

Brown: US Senate Republicans guilty of ‘red scare Mccarthyism’

Failure to forestall filibusters is far from the only frustration Brown is feeling this month.

As chairman of the Senate’s banking committee, Brown stronglyboosted President Joe Biden’s nomination of Cornell professor Saule Omarova as comptroller of the currency, essentially the nation’s top bank regulator. He noted that she would become the first woman, person of color and immigrant to hold the post.

But she was forced to withdraw her name earlier this month after it became apparent that she would not be confirmed by the Senate. Banking lobbyists and Republicans accused Omarova, born in the then-soviet republic of Kazakhstan and educated in Moscow, of wanting to subvert the U.S. economy in favor of communism.

During a hearing in mid-november, Sen. John Kennedy, R-louisiana, said, “I don’t know whether to call you ‘professor’ or ‘comrade.’” Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said Omarova promoted “socialist” ideas.

The latter caused Brown to fire back: “I thought red scare Mccarthyism was rightly relegated to the dustbin of history.” But the nomination, which would have won approval if all 50 Democrats had voted for Omarova, essentially was scuttled when five centrist Democrats announced their opposition in late November.

“Dr. Omarova is one of the most qualified nominees ever for this job because of her experience as a policymaker, in the private sector, and in academia,” Brown said after her withdrawal.

“In a relentless smear campaign reminiscent of red scare Mccarthyism, they have shamefully attacked her family, her heritage and her commitment to American ideals.”

Brown: Musk undeserving of being Time’s person of the year

Brown was even unhappy with Time’s person of the year, Elon Musk, tweeting that the Tesla and Spacex CEO is “a billionaire who has been found guilty of illegal union-busting by the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board).”

Dewine threatens vaccine veto, state wants to roll back gas tax

Gov. Mike Dewine threatened to veto a measure with that would seriously curtail vaccine mandates in Ohio, cleveland.com reported Tuesday.

House Bill 218 already has passed the House, and is awaiting committee hearings in the Senate early next year. It is the latest in a series of proposals Dewine’s fellow Republicans, which dominate both the House and Senate, designed to curtail authorities’ powers to combat pandemics such as COVID-19.

And the very same day as the veto threat, the GOP put another round in the chamber that could get hearings during the governor’s re-election campaign for the May primary. Senate Bill 277 would temporarily repeal the gasoline and diesel tax increases pushed through by Dewine

shortly after taking office in 2019.

Dewine and lawmakers struck a deal to raise the gas tax by 10.5 cents to 38.5 cents a gallon and the diesel tax by 19 cents to 47 cents a gallon. The increase was expected to generate about about $550 million annually for the state and about $300 million a year for local governments.

The governor said in 2019 that the tax increase would provide nearly $255 million for three phases of the Columbus Crossroads project to improve the I-70/ I-71 interchanges Downtown.

But Republicans who back the new measure say the cash isn’t needed now that Congress and Biden approved $1.2 trillion in infrastructure funding. The Senate bill, which also would roll back the additional motor vehicle registration tax on electric and hybrid vehicles, would end collection of the revenue for five years, starting Jan. 1, 2023.

The sponsor, Sen. Steve Huffman of Tipp City, already has 15 co-sponsors in the 33-member chamber so it appears a likely candidate for approval unless leadership decides to block it.

Did you pick the winner of Politifact’s 2021 Lie of the Year?

Last week, we noted that Politifact was soliciting the public’s opinions on nominees for the 2021 Lie of the Year.

The fact-checker announced the winner on Wednesday. Probably to the surprise of few, it was the numerous lies about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and its significance. Three-fourths of public votes backed the winner.

“Nearly a year later, there is zero evidence to say that Jan. 6 was an antifa operation, a tourist visit, a false flag, or an uneventful day to forget,” all false claims about the armed insurrection, Politifact said. drowland@dispatch.com @darreldrowland