Sherrod Brown

While I'm preoccupied today here are some video clips as a Friday diversion:

New ad for OH-15 candidate Mary Jo Kilroy, focusing on health care:

Here's a music video about five days on the campaign trail with OH-07 candidate Sharen Neuhardt:

And, by the way, Sen. Sherrod Brown endorses Neuhardt:

Don't miss Jeff Toobin's reaction to McCain's speech - "the worst speech by a nominee since Jimmy Carter in 1980 ... shockingly bad":

A couple weeks ago I posted about Sick Days Ohio and the decision by Gov. Strickland to oppose the bill.

Previous Entry

I have been saying that this is a bad piece of legislation ever since it came about. I agree with the Governor that this is the wrong time but more importantly the wrong bill. In addition, I took Lowquality Ohio to task for abandoning its position in opposing the bill instead moving to neutral.

Yesterday I was forwarded the following email:

Special Update, Thursday, September 4, 2008, 9:19 am

Sick Leave Backers To Pull Issue From Ballot

A coalition pushing a ballot initiative that would have provided seven days of paid sick leave for certain Ohio workers said Thursday it will remove the issue from the fall ballot.

Service Employees International Union District 1199 President Becky Williams said the Coalition for Healthy Families will ask to have the proposal taken off the ballot.

Ms. Williams said the decision “was not easy nor made lightly,” but was reached after “it became clear that a shrill and vitriolic ballot campaign marred by misinformation and disinformation would be impossible to avoid.”

So that's what was being annonuced at 9:15 today. From the Columbus Dispatch:

Ohioans for Healthy Families, the group that backed the paid sick-day amendment, said today that it has asked that the proposal be pulled off the Nov. 4 ballot.

Officials with the Serice Employees International Union were holding a press conference this morning with Gov. Ted Strickland and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, to announce the decision.

Strickland and Brown said they would push for a separate law requiring paid sick days.

SIEU District 1199 President Becky Williams said the union was "absolutely optimistic" about the  possibility of a national sick-day law. "I believe we are all committed to make it not just the law of  Ohio, but the law of the land."

Brown promised that a sick-day law would be "part of a Democratic agenda starting in January."  He said, "We know this works and needs to be done nationally."

The elected officials, all Democrats, said they were counting on the election of Barack Obama, who supports a national sick-day proposal,  to provide the impetus to pass the legislation.

This just in:

"A coalition pushing a ballot initiative that would have provided seven days of paid sick leave for certain Ohio workers said Thursday it will remove the issue from the fall ballot.

Service Employees International Union District 1199 President Becky Williams said the Coalition for Healthy Families will ask to have the proposal taken off the ballot.

Ms. Williams said the decision "was not easy nor made lightly," but was reached after "it became clear that a shrill and vitriolic ballot campaign marred by misinformation and disinformation would be impossible to avoid."

This ballot issue had polled very well and was expected to draw Democratic-leaning voters to the polls. Barack Obama has indicated his support for the idea of madatory paid sick leave. However, Gov. Ted Strickland announced his opposition to the version contained in the ballot issue after his attempts to negotiate a compromise version failed, and a massive and well-founded opposition campaign was in the works.

UPDATE: More from the press release after the break.

With the hoopla of the convention subsiding there is very little to distract me from the shock and desolation of last week's sudden loss of our much-loved leader. I am going to do a post recapping the moving tributes to Stephanie Tubbs Jones from yesterday morning's ODP breakfast program, but I wanted to do something more personal first. The only problem with that strategy is that I'm pretty much at a loss for words. Strangely, however, a lyric from Macy Gray's "I Try," one of my favorite love songs, comes close:

I try to say goodbye and I choke.
Try to walk away and I stumble.
Although I try to hide it, it's clear ...
My world crumbles when you are not here.

Honestly I have no business feeling as devastated as I do. But I do. I am not favored with having been her friend. However, my few contacts with her were so infused with caring and love that it made me feel close to her, a feeling I'm sure is shared by thousands.

In 2006 I began attending some of the Congresswoman's monthly 11th District Caucus meetings, and in that election cycle I saw her at dozens of campaign events. I walked in her fabulous Labor Day parade, volunteering for Jennifer Brunner and taking photographs for my blog.

Also that year I sat down with her and four fellow bloggers for an hour-long "Meet the Bloggers" interview, during which she was her usual dynamic and impassioned self. She also displayed a bit of her political fortitude in that interview, defending her support for the "Learn and Earn" ballot measure that progressives uniformly denounced. Her position was based on prioritizing her concerns, and Cleveland's desperate need for economic development trumped ideological niceties about state-sponsored gambling. "There is absolutely nothing else going that's going to put development money into this community in order to help the people," she said, and although she was patient in listening to our objections to the ballot measure she wasn't about to yield.

Late last year, when I was next in line to serve as president of my city's Democratic club, I screwed up my courage and button-holed her at a fund-raiser at a private home. I made an appeal to her to speak to our club at some point during 2008, since it was an important election year and she hadn't met with us in a long time, and I also asked for her advice on trying to get more young people involved in the club. She promised to try to meet with the club (although our regular meeting night, Thursday, conflicted with her schedule when Congress was in session), and she had thoughtful suggestions and contacts on reaching out to young people. After that little chat she shocked me the next time we met by giving me one of her famous hugs and calling me "Baby." Everyone who knew her is aware that this wasn't an unusual gesture for her, but it was a special moment to me, and it reflects the abundance of love and compassion in her soul that such things came to her so naturally.

The club appearance I sought evolved into a special joint meeting of a dozen area Democratic clubs and grassroots organizations, scheduled for August 14th to take advantage of the Congressional recess. As it happened, that was the Congresswoman's last public appearance. It was a big political rally, but it was also a love-fest, with a standing-room only crowd seizing the chance to spend some time with a cherished leader. She was incandescent that night, vibrant and passionate, energizing the crowd. In her usual way, she acknowledged officials and candidates at every level, down to asking all the precinct committee members to stand and receive applause for our efforts.

What was less usual that night was that she spoke at some length about her hopes and plans for the future, looking beyond the upcoming election. She talked about the pressing issues on her mind, including racial disparity in health care, and she said that she hoped to ascend to the leadership position on the House Ways and Means Committee so that she could influence taxation and spending policy for the benefit of education, infrastructure development, job training, and other initiatives to improve the lot of ordinary citizens. Perhaps her rumination on the future was prompted by emerging from her long commitment to being national campaign co-chair for Hillary Clinton, I don't know, but recalling those hopes and plans brings a stab of pain. With her mind set on those objectives, she surely would have attained them, and the special things she sought would have come to pass.

Ed Icove of South Euclid was the point person for organizing the event, but the Congresswoman remembered our conversation of last year and acknowledged me by name from the podium for having started the process. It was an unnecessary but characteristic touch. Our last direct conversation was immediately before she spoke. I ran crouching up to the front table and thanked her for speaking to us, and also for her very special tribute to my friend State Sen. Lance Mason at a meeting of the county executive committee the week before (the purpose of which had been to vote on placing Lance on the ballot for the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas). She held my hand and thanked me for the opportunity of addressing the clubs that night. And in the arbitrary and shocking way of such things, that was the last interaction we would have. I am blessed that it was, in a way, perfect.

My inventory of Stephanie Tubbs Jones anecdotes is light compared to those who will be speaking and writing over the next few days, so please excuse me for borrowing a good one -- it really speaks to her vitality and determination. I was at a fundraiser for OH-02 Congressional candidate John Cranley at the home of Subodh and Meena Chandra in 2006 where Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) were featured guests. Rep. Murtha related that he had once remarked to a colleague that there seemed to be many more women and minorities in the House of Representatives than previously. "No, not many more," the colleague replied, "It's just that Stephanie Tubbs Jones is here now."

But she is no longer here. And my world has that crumbling feeling.

I have put some details about the public viewing and memorial service tomorrow after the break. (There is also public viewing this evening from 6:00 to 8:00 at Bethany Baptist Church 1211 E. 105th Street.) I'm also including this video clip that I shot at the election night celebration for Sen. Sherrod Brown in 2006. This is the Stephanie Tubbs Jones I will remember, the high-voltage larger-than-life Stephanie Tubbs Jones. And notice that she was already looking ahead, focused on 2008, just a few hours after the polls had closed on the 2006 election. If anyone needs any more inspiration to work hard in this election, here it is: