Don't Look There — Look Here!

Apparently, Jennifer Garrison, the state legislator from Marietta who is now running to be the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, has finally discovered elections issues, one of the key functions of the SoS office. The legislature has been working for a while on a bill based on the recommendations made by current secretary of state Jennifer Brunner to simplify and clarify Ohio’s ballot process. These recommendations emerged from a couple of gatherings of experts and interested parties last winter.

The Columbus Dispatch wrote about this yesterday:
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/11/14/elect...

The new Jennifer wannabe-SOS has decided to swoop in and become the face of the bill. After being M.I.A. on elections issues previously, she apparently held a press conference in Columbus this past week to announce HER introduction of the Ballot Integrity Act. This seems like a transparent piece of showboating, and most of the media seems to agree. The Dispatch doesn’t mention this press conference, and the only coverage I can find is in Garrison’s hometown Marietta Register and Marietta Times — and oddly, at ProgressOhio’s website.

This is the group that took heat several months ago for providing Garrison with a platform to rehab her image on gay issues, after she used her extreme right position on gay marriage to win her seat in the legislature in 2004. ProgressOhio offered her the opportunity to promote her support of ENDA — the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. This was presented in some circles as an example of her “evolving” thinking on gay issues. Others saw it as opportunistic, particularly given that the Republican Senate guaranteed it wouldn’t pass.

But Garrison is also to the right of virtually all Democrats on women’s reproductive issues — and with the Stupak-Pitts amendment having outraged women everywhere and awakened many to just how threatened reproductive freedom is, it’s not a good time to hold her position on choice — or lack thereof — and be running as a Democrat.

Now she has a golden opportunity to try to rehab her image on choice as well. Prevention First — a bill intended to prevent unwanted pregnancies through improved access to birth control and comprehensive sex education — is back in the state House. Garrison has avoided it the last two times it was (unsuccessfully) introduced while she was in office — which makes her look like either a fanatic or a coward. Now she’s running for state office as a Democrat and absolutely has to get the votes of a huge number of pro-choice women to win. So … does she throw them a bone?

Apparently not. According to Planned Parenthood Ohio, she is not one of the nearly two dozen co-sponsors. It’s stunning to believe this could be the case. I talked to my state legislator today who is chairwoman of the relevant committee, the health committee, and she wasn’t sure. She seemed taken aback at the possibility that Garrison had NOT signed on, and said she would check and get back to me. I hope the Planned Parenthood rep is wrong, but it’s their issue and they’re generally pretty well informed.

Garrison can call press conferences and co-opt all the election bills she wants. Her position on choice is GOING to be an issue in this campaign, and the sooner she and the Ohio Democratic Party face up to it, the better. I'm tired of activist Democratic women telling me despairingly that they've just accepted that Jon Husted will be our next secretary of state and they've moved on to think about other races. If Jennifer Garrison does not sponsor Prevention First, she’s been outed as a religious extremist more interested in punishing “bad” women who have unapproved sex than in preventing unwanted pregnancies — and the birth of unwanted children. That’s not a route to electoral success as a Democrat.