Dear Friends,
I am honored to be running for election to the Ohio Senate on the March 6, Republican Primary Ballot. For those of you who might be feeling a bit confused, I was re-elected to the Ohio House in the November 2010 Election. Shortly after that election I was selected by my colleagues in the Senate to fill the unexpired term of Senator Jon Husted who had just been elected to serve as Ohio’s Secretary of State.
It was an honor to be selected to the Senate and hope that I have served you well over the past year. I am also very grateful to Senate President Tom Neihaus for appointing me to a few choice committees. I was appointed to the Finance Committee and had the opportunity to play an instrumental role in restoring balance and responsibility to Ohio’s budget. This was not an easy task, given the 8 billion dollar budget deficit we inherited from the former administration. We balanced the budget without raising taxes, in fact, we rolled back taxes and still protected our most vulnerable populations from the cuts.
I was also appointed to Chair the Senate Education Committee. My personal goal in this position is to drive quality in all of Ohio’s schools, whether traditional public, community (charter) or on-line schools. The opportunity for a quality education should be the birthright of every child in Ohio.
Although I started out on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I moved over to the Health Committee in late spring. This assignment has given me the opportunity to work on issues that I had started on while serving in the House. These include issues related to senior health care and the increasing the access to primary care for tens of thousands of Ohioans through the Patient Centered Medical Home initiative. While this legislation originally passed during the last General Assembly, I was delighted to see it become fully funded by the governor in January of this year.
With the Primary election fast approaching you may have questions about my position on specific pieces of legislation. Please do not hesitate to leave me a message in the “get involved” section of this website. I will make every effort to reply to your question quickly.
I do hope I can count on your support on March 6!
Sincerely,
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