Incumbent Shontel Brown retained her seat representing the U.S. House District 11, beating challenger Eric J. Brewer on Nov. 8, according to final, unofficial results from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website.
Brown received 162,154 votes, or 77.6%, to Brewer’s 46,862 votes, or 22.4%.
Two simple words we don’t say enough, but mean so much…
— Shontel Brown for Congress (@ShontelMBrown) November 9, 2022
Thank You. pic.twitter.com/lBPpBu2bos
Democratic Ohio Rep. Emilia Sykes of Akron on Tuesday defeated Republican North Canton attorney Madison Gesiotto Gilbert in a newly reconfigured congressional district that includes all of Summit County, a sliver of Portage County, and northern Stark County.
Unofficial results from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office showed Sykes with 146,621 votes, compared to 132,181 for Gesiotto Gilbert. The Associated Press called the race for Sykes at 1:54 a.m. on Wednesday, hours after statements began rolling in to tout a Sykes victory.
Pack your bags, #OH13… We’re going to Congress!!! pic.twitter.com/uCUBpD3Tdx
— Emilia Sykes (@EmiliaSykesOH) November 9, 2022
OHIO-Shontel Brown, 46, a Cuyahoga County Council member who also chairs the county Democratic Party, won the Cleveland-area House seat formerly held by Marcia Fudge, who stepped down to become housing and urban development secretary in the Biden administration.
Brown defeated Republican Laverne Gore, a business owner and activist, in the heavily Democratic district that stretches from Cleveland to Akron. She said she is ready to get to work.
“I am committed to going to Washington as a unifier, and will work with President Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress to lead a swift health and economic recovery from the pandemic for Ohioans,” Brown said in a statement.
Brown will fill the remainder of her predecessors’ term, which runs until January 2023. She must face reelection again next year under a congressional map that’s being redrawn to hold onto the seat.
Shontel Brown, the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party chair and a county councilwoman, on Tuesday won the Democratic primary in the race for former Rep. Marcia Fudge's seat, after opponent Nina Turner conceded.
Brown will be the overwhelming favorite to win the Nov. 2 general election.
"I am eternally grateful," she told a group of supporters on Tuesday night. "I am completely overwhelmed by all of you that have showed up and showed out on my behalf. This was a collaborative partnership of the community."
She added: "This isn't an all-or-nothing thing. This is about making progress. Sometimes, it takes compromise."
United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) is being sued by 19 employees at an Ohio distribution center who allege the company fostered a "racially hostile work environment."
The lawsuit, filed in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas on March 13, accuses UPS and five specific supervisors of "enabling and tolerating" a racist culture in the Maumee facility.
"The Defendants have maintained a hostile work environment through these employment decisions, as well as by tolerating, and failing to remedy known racist comments and conduct," the lawsuit claims. "They have promoted and tolerated an atmosphere of racism in which individual employees feel free to display overt racial biases through conduct."
The lawsuit calls for compensatory damages exceeding $25,000, legal fees and an undetermined amount of punitive damages for the plaintiffs who say they experienced incidents of apparent racism from white co-workers and supervisors.
In July 2016, a defendant reportedly hung nooses above the workstation of an African-American employee, after which the defendant was fired, but the plaintiff was allegedly told not to discuss or photograph the incident.
Just days after the noose incident, another African-American employee reports receiving text messages from white co-workers in a group chat referencing potential lottery winnings, asking "can we buy another noose with the winnings," and "If you feel down and out, the noose is loose," but no disciplinary action was taken when the issue was taken to management.
In September of the same year, an employee was fired after referring to a minority neighborhood as "N-----ville" and refusing to deliver a package, but was reinstated to her position almost immediately, according to the suit.
Other incidents in the lawsuit include:
A slur written in bathroom graffiti
Employees using racial slurs toward and in the presence of African-American employees
Talking about attending a Ku Klux Klan meeting and buying rope to "hang ‘em high"
Displaying a cellphone video hangman game with an African-American effigy
Posing a large monkey doll dressed as a UPS employee at the top of a ladder near the work stations of African-American employees.
Read more: Employees Sue UPS For Discrimination Citing Slurs, Nooses In Warehouse
The all-Republican Ohio Supreme Court will become a little Democratic with appeals court Judge Melody Stewart declared a winner on Tuesday night.
Stewart, who serves on the Eighth District Court of Appeals in Cleveland, had about 52 percent of the vote with 99 percent of the precincts counted to displace incumbent Justice Mary DeGenaro, who was appointed in January by Gov. John Kasich after the resignation of Democratic Justice Bill O’Neill.
Stewart, 56, is a member of the Ohio Criminal Justice Recodification Committee, which works to revise and update Ohio’s criminal code. Stewart has a bachelor’s degree from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati and a law degree from Cleveland Marshall College of Law.
The police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland four years ago has withdrawn his application to a police department in eastern Ohio, CNN affiliate WTOV-TV reported, citing the department's police chief.
Timothy Loehmann was hired by the police department in Bellaire, a small town on the Ohio River, about 65 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. Bellaire Police Chief Richard "Dick" Flanagan told WTOV on Wednesday that Loehmann called him saying he was "rescinding his application here at the Bellaire Police Department."
"I had accepted his withdrawal from the Bellaire Police Department," Flanagan said. "He proceeded to tell me that he wanted to pursue the legal end of what's going on there in Cleveland and he just doesn't have the time to travel back and forth."
Flanagan said Loehmann was never sworn in and was still in the training process.
"Everyone assumes he was automatically hired -- no, there is a process," he said. "He did not receive one dime. He was not on the schedule."
The announcement of Loehmann's hiring caused an intense reaction from the community, WTOV reported. Flanagan said that at one point, the department received more than 200 calls between 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. "Our own citizens here in town were not able to get police, EMS or fire service because they couldn't get through anywhere," he said.
While Flanagan originally said that everyone deserved a second chance and that he stood behind the hiring of Loehmann, he told WTOV on Wednesday that he believes the withdrawal is personal and he supports the decision.
"I think he did the right thing by stepping down, not putting the citizens here in town in jeopardy," he said. "In this job you have to make split-second decisions, you have to see things you don't want to see, you have to do things you don't want to do, you have to say things you don't want to say. We're not supermen -- we just wear a uniform and enforce the laws."
Timothy Loehmann, the former Cleveland police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice has been hired by a police department in a small Ohio village.
Jay Z will stage a concert in support of Hillary Clinton in the swing state of Ohio before Election Day, according to Buzzfeed. Details of the concert were not formally announced.
The Cleveland concert will focus on mobilizing black voters ahead of the November 8th presidential election; while Clinton currently holds a narrow lead against Donald Trump in most polls in the crucial swing state, a huge turnout by the African-American community would make it difficult for Trump to capture the Buckeye State, Buzzfeed reports.
Both Jay Z and Beyoncé have been staunch supporters of Hillary Clinton, participating in fundraisers for the candidate. The couple even hung out with former president Bill Clinton during the Made in America festival in Philadelphia.
[SOURCE]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio on Tuesday ruled that the 2014 elimination of the state's early in-person (EIP) voting was unconstitutional and in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Judge Michael Watson stated in his decision:
The elimination of the extra days for EIP voting provided by Golden Week will disproportionately burden African Americans, as expert and anecdotal evidence reflects that African Americans vote EIP, and specifically EIP during Golden Week, at a significantly higher rate than other voters. ... [Additionally,] it may be more difficult for voters with time, resource, transportation, and childcare restraints to make two separate trips to register and vote, and Golden Week allowed individuals to do both at once. ... The elimination of [same-day registration] means that voters must now register and vote at separate times, which increases the "cost of voting," especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged groups.
Statistical and anecdotal evidence cited by Watson showed support for the claims that African Americans utilized this procedure greater than other groups, and that the elimination of this inevitably places a disproportionate burden on them to the point of violating constitutional rights and the VRA.
Read more: Federal judge rules Ohio early voting cuts unconstitutional
