Paul Bieniek
pbb001@marietta.edu
Representatives and Senators of the 131st Ohio General Assembly, ordinary citizens and dignitaries from all over Ohio filed into Peoples Bank Theatre in Marietta on the evening of April 6 to hear Gov. John Kasich’s annual State of the State address. After delivering his first State of the State in Columbus, Kasich has taken the speech to locations outside the state capital each of the past five years.
Before the speech, political science professor Dr. Mike Tager wondered how Kasich would work the setting into his address.
“I’m curious how he will weave in Marietta into the theme of the speech, whether he’ll emphasize pioneers or the fact that Marietta was the first city in the state,” Tager said.
Kasich’s campaign for president of the United States, in which he is one of the final three candidates for the Republican nomination, gave this year’s address added attention. Before the speech, Dr. Mark Schaefer, chair of the political science department, said he believed Kasich would largely avoid discussing his presidential campaign, at least directly.
“I think he’s going to highlight Ohio’s successes of the past four years,” Schaefer said. “But this speech is going to attract national media attention, so he’s going to emphasize how policies are transferable to the national stage, and there will be soundbites in there that will come across very well for his campaign.”
Kasich’s speech began on a lighthearted note, carrying a baby onto the stage and pausing for a selfie with Ohio Senate President Keith Faber and Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger before beginning his prepared remarks from the podium.
The governor spoke for roughly an hour, describing how Ohio has always been a home to “adventurers,” using the first settlers who established Marietta on April 7, 1788 as an example that other Ohioans have followed.
“Tomorrow, April 7th, will mark 228 years, to the day, that 48 daring adventurers first settled here in Marietta,” Kasich said. “Ohio in those early days was a frontier state, and although the frontier continued moving westward, Ohio in so many ways remained on the frontier —a pioneer in entrepreneurship, adventure, industry and innovation.”
Kasich proceeded to review more substantive matters, lauding the economic accomplishments of the state under his administration including tax cuts, over 417,000 new private sector jobs, and a $2 billion surplus in the state budget. He also highlighted the state’s expansion of Medicaid coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” This is viewed as controversial among Republicans as most other Republican governors have decided to opt their states out of Medicaid expansion.
He made several references throughout the speech to what he called the state government’s “war” against prescription drug abuse, including the “Start Talking!” initiative which emphasizes the need for community leaders to talk to youth about drug abuse and intervene when problems arise.
“Do you want to stop drug addiction and drug abuse and drug deaths in your community? Go do it,” Kasich said. “Get out of your comfort zone. Grab a young man or a young woman, and you tell them about God’s purpose for their lives.”
Also touched upon were bipartisan efforts to improve community/police relations, emphasizing that changes in police standards on the use of force made in Ohio should be adopted by the entire country.
On education, Kasich highlighted OhioMeansJobs.com, a website where children can learn about potential careers and find jobs once they come of age. He also said that he has urged colleges throughout the state to get rising costs under control and has mandated that they have career advising services. Additionally, he praised the College Credit Plus (CCP) program, which gives high school students in the state the opportunity to take college classes and earn credit for them, for saving participating students $50 million in educational costs.
Alluding to the travels undertaken for his presidential campaign, he asserted that people in other states have told him the progress in Ohio gives them hope for the future.
The address was notably thin on future policy proposals, but Kasich did urge the assembly to move up the implementation of already-passed tax cuts and consider lowering the state income tax in 2017. He also asked the legislature to create a non-partisan way of drawing congressional districts to put gerrymandering “on the dustbin of history.” The state’s voters already approved a new non-partisan scheme for drawing state legislative districts last fall.
Not mentioned in the speech was controversial legislation passed this February that defunded Planned Parenthood facilities in the state. The organization orchestrated a protest the evening of the speech outside the security checkpoint on the corner of Third and Putnam streets, which was attended by several Marietta College students, including senior political science major Casey Peel.
“The defunding of Planned Parenthood was an attack on women’s health care,” Peel said. “I understand he [Kasich] is a pro-life guy, but that’s three percent of what Planned Parenthood does. They provide different kinds of reproductive health care to women all over the place.”
Political science majors and seniors Jessie Hamon and Chanell Cornett, who also participated in the demonstration, expressed dismay at the defunding, saying it represented a recent pattern of regression in the struggle for women’s rights.
“It feels like we’re going back on the developments we’ve made,” Cornett said. “I also think it’s very contradictory of many Republicans when they favor small government but actually on this issue they want their hands in other people’s business.”
Environmentalists also protested the event, criticizing Kasich’s stances on the oil and gas industry and environmental protection on the whole.
On the speech overall, Tager was intrigued by Kasich’s focus on drug abuse and a nuanced response to it. He also found Kaisch’s faith-based and charitable rhetoric to be a sharp contrast to that of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination Sen. Ted Cruz and businessman Donald Trump.
While Schaefer was not taken aback by any of Kasich’s policy proposals or highlights, he was surprised by some aspects of the address.
“I was a little surprised at the lack of order and flow that existed in the speech,” Schaefer said. “It was surprising that he did not work to make it more transferable to the national stage. To be honest, it sounded like the speech of a man who would be returning to Ohio.”
Sophomore political science major Paige Berschet found the speech impressive but also said it contained nothing shocking.
“Overall I think the State of the State was successful and I thought it was nice that it was held in Marietta and not Columbus. I enjoyed having it at the Peoples Bank Theatre as it is a very nice and formal location and newly renovated,” Berschet said. “Kasich’s speech was nothing surprising or unexpected, but I thought he hit on some important key points and issues like education and drugs issues in the state.”
After giving the address Kasich immediately returned to the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, which will hold its Republican primary on April 26.
