Jennifer Garrison: Unacceptable
Submitted by Anastasia Pantsios on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 7:37pm.
I'm not big on litmus tests for candidates. I didn't agree with Ted Strickland's "gun-owner's rights" position, although it's not a huge issue for me. Even more, I didn't like his vote while in Congress for the awful 2005 bankruptcy bill that enriched credit card companies at the expense of regular people. But I liked (and still like) the preponderence of what he stood for.
Jennifer Garrison, a state representative from Marietta, announced last week that she is joining Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown in the race to be the Democratic nominee to replace Jennifer Brunner as Secretary of State — as had been long rumored. A few months ago, when her race was still in the distant rumor, I heard some disturbing things about her positions, especially on so-called "values" issues.
In particular, it was her stance — and her use — of gay marriage that concerned me, and I've pretty much confirmed to my satisfaction that the rumors are true. It turns out that Garrison didn’t simply support the 2004 Defense of Marriage Amendment when she ran for the legislature that year, but actually used the issue to attack her Republican opponent Nancy Hollister, who sensibly and humanely opposed it.
Maybe this sort of stuff plays around Marietta but it won’t play statewide. Too many of us are Democrats because we believe that civil rights are for everybody. It’s not a litmus test; it’s a basic article of faith. We can disagree, I guess, on issues like abortion (although even here Garrison’s position is extreme) as long as you’re not in the man-in-charge/ no-birth-control-or-sex-education brigade. And I suppose if Garrison belonged to a church that did not want to recognize gay marriage, that would be a minus, but maybe not a deal-killer, as long as she didn’t bring those beliefs into public life. But to actively campaign against equal rights for any law-abiding, tax-paying citizen and to demonize an opponent who does support such rights goes completely against the core beliefs of the Democratic party.
In addition, she’s got all the anti-abortion, anti-gay and pro-gun endorsements you’d expect to see on a Republican’s resume. So the enthusiasm level for her among Democrats would be near zero. While I’m generally opposed to pushing any candidate out of a race, I think that in order to show it has some shred of principles, the Ohio Democratic Party must lean on Garrison to drop out by any means necessary.
If you’re still not convinced, look at the quality of her supporters:
http://republicansforgarrison.wordpress.com/
You really don’t need to read any further than the first post, titled “NARAL Comes After Jennifer Garrison.” It starts “Babykillers that want to distract from their Nigerian President’s failure of a healthcare plan.” It’s all downhill from there — a litany of smears and sexist tripe. Sure, this sounds like a lonely, maladjusted guy with woman issues. But with such people in her camp, she’d be massively abandoned by reasonable Democrats statewide, and this race would left for dead. We can’t afford that. ODP, get this woman out of the race now. She's not an acceptable statewide candidate.
While I'm at it
http://www.brownforohio.com/home.html
Go give Marilyn a little help.
On the experience side, she's superior to Garrison as well, having headed a chamber of commerce and worked as a county commissioner with the Franklin County Board of Elections on making their elections last year run smoothly — so she's got both pieces of the SoS job, business and elections. Garrison has neither as far as I can tell, although she's a lawyer and could undoubtedly handle the job. But as a Democrat, she can't get elected, not with the gay community and most activist Democratic women refusing to support her.
Garrison's election experience
Of course I care about Garrison's position on gay marriage and a host of other issues. And I totally support people not wanting to vote for her because of those reasons. However, I have to admit I care a lot more about her experience in matters that the SOS will deal with directly.
I find it curious that Garrison is not yet a sponsor or co-sponsor of H.B. 260, the current election reform bill. Granted, Brunner had an awful lot to do with crafting the bill and may have wanted Garrison left out, but you'd think if she's running as chief elections person, she'd have her name on the Ds reform bill.
Also, looking back at some history, she also was not a co-sponsor of H.B. 234 back in 2006, that also brought some election reform (particularly on student poll workers and absentee ballot requests). This was during the 126th OGA, so it was still a Republican controlled house. However, Democrats like Dan Stewart, Mike DeBose and John Domenick were sponsors. Why wasn't Garrison? Or if she didn't like the bill, why was she not more vocally opposed? It suggests to me that election issues are not really her passion.
It does not seem to me that she has taken much interest in election issues at all during her tenure in the House. We've made some important advances in protecting voting rights, and I hope we get someone in office with the experience and passion for the issues to move us forward. Garrison has shown zero leadership on these issues so far.
Thanks for the info, Mike
I looked for evidence of her support for (or opposition to) election-reform issues, and I just couldn't find anything. I'd have to agree with your conclusion that she just hasn't taken much interest in these issues, compared to Marilyn Brown who was active as a county commissioner in working with the board of elections to assure that things went well in the Columbus area, and who has spoken in detail about her ideas for building on the reforms and improvements Jennifer Brunner has made.
I think Garrison's positions on things like gay marriage and abortion become significant mainly in terms of the effort and resources her campaign would be likely to get from key Democratic constituencies. I agree it's silly to base a downticket office entirely on such positions, and I certainly mocked Sandy O'Brien for running for treasurer in 2006 on an anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-guns platform. However, those positions (and Blackwell's coattails with evangelicals) won her the primary over a better-financed, party-supported opponent. Once women and the gay community get to work, Garrison is going to have a tough time winning her primary. And if the ODP recklessly tries to push Brown out of the race or to back Garrison, I think you'll just see these groups putting their time, energy and money into other candidates.