CPT • Turner candidacy upsets local political apple cart

Cuyahoga Politics Today 

Candidate’s return home will raise District’s profile, heighten the stakes 

By R.T. Andrews 

Nina Turner announcing from her home in Cleveland's Lee-Harvard neighborhood that she will be
running for Ohio's 11th Congressional District seat if Rep. Marcia Fudge vacates the office upon her
confirmation as US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. [Screenshot by R. T. Andrews]

She hasn’t won an election for anything in over a decade, and the last time her name appeared on a ballot was in 2014, when her candidacy for Secretary of State was part of a statewide ticket that cratered from top to bottom, but if you watched the rollout of former state senator Nina Turner’s declaration of candidacy for a Congressional seat that is not yet vacant, you know that star power has come to Cleveland and its 11th District.

Turner left town in 2015 in bold and shocking fashion when she very publicly shifted her allegiance from Hillary Clinton, the presumptive favorite for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, to the insurgent Bernie Sanders, because his campaign more closely aligned with her principles. 

If I say many of her fans felt betrayed and effectively burned her political jersey in effigy, then you know what’s coming next. Turner took her native political talents to the national stage where she performed under the brightest lights, the harshest scrutiny, and against the toughest competition. She performed in leading roles and was regularly center stage in the high stakes production of two national political campaigns. In between, she headed a dynamic national political organization for several years and spent frequent time as a commentator on national television networks. 

Long story short, Turner left town on a mission, learned what it takes to compete at the highest level, sharpened her skills, developed a team of loyalists, and in the process built a national fan base. 

Yesterday, flanked virtually by a carefully selected array of former legislative colleagues, current public officials, and Hollywood star power in Danny Glover, Turner announced from her home in Cleveland’s Lee-Harvard community, that she was running to succeed Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, who will vacate the seat if confirmed as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for the incoming Biden administration. The event was impeccably scripted, the production values were tight, the presentations were succinct, coordinated, and on point, and the candidate was at her most radiant, composed, and centered. (She obviously understands the suburban voters she will need to win over to broaden her base.)

Clearly, like another prominent prodigal Northeast Ohioan, Turner has returned better equipped to pursue the brass ring. 

By law, Gov. Mike DeWine would set dates for special primary and general elections if Fudge resigns. The winner of the special general election would serve until December 31, 2022. 

Turner, 53, joins county councilwoman Shontel Brown, 45, and former state senator and ex-Cleveland city councilman Jeff Johnson, 62, as announced candidates to succeed Fudge. The field will undoubtedly expand when and if a vacancy in fact occurs. 

Make no mistake: Turner’s candidacy, while anticipated, irreversibly changes the dynamics of the race in many ways. 

First and foremost, Turner’s presence assures the race will be about policies and ideas. Atypical of most local politicians of any stripe, the Turner brand is associated with big policies and big ideas. She will force discussion of critical issues like healthcare, public education, affordable housing, food insecurity, living wage, income inequality and public transportation in any candidate forums. The candidates who have not prepared themselves adequately to debate these issues will likely find themselves exposed, if not overwhelmed. 

Notwithstanding Turner’s presence in the race, she is by no means a shoo in. Her presumptive status as front runner in an incomplete field will have no value when the votes are tallied. 

Indeed, Turner herself may become an issue. A passionate person who inspires many, she also incites fierce opposition on both personal and policy matters. Some suburban white women may never forgive Turner for her perceived abandonment of gender solidarity when she left the Clinton plantation for Sanders. Businesspeople who applauded Turner’s courage as a solitary African American advocate for county reorganization in 2009 will be appalled by the prospect of an unapologetic leftist representing the District. And Cleveland’s staid black political establishment, a low expectations bunch, are unlikely to appreciate Turner’s disruptive force. 

So, assuming that Fudge leaves office in the next 45 days or so, expect the following: 

· The race to succeed her will draw the most national attention to a local political contest since Carl Stokes was elected mayor in 1967. It’s already begun.

· Anti-Turner forces will coalesce around an ABT candidate. (Anybody But Turner) 

· Many disengaged eastside Cleveland voters, who once comprised the District's heart, will find their concerns center stage. 

· A spirited special Congressional contest will impact next year’s mayoral race in Cleveland, possibly accelerating a wholesale changing of the guard.

And in a wild off the cuff prediction: do not be surprised if northeast Ohio’s original prodigal child, who now reigns in Los Angeles, but whose childhood home is part of the District’s crazy Akron tail, and who has become widely respected for his willingness to speak out politically from his platform of fame and fortune, finds a candidate to endorse in the race.

• • •• • • 

CPT • Change is Coming to Ohio's iconic 11th Congressional District — Part II

Cuyahoga Politics Today 

The 11th Congressional District is endangered as a fount of black power — Part II

Hollowed out central city, state’s slow population growth, along with altered political culture, are diminishing black community’s grasp on former stronghold

By R. T. Andrews

The Cleveland Browns were synonymous with excellence almost from the very moment they burst onto the pro football scene in 1946. From the beginning the team was exceptional, so routinely dominant as to play for a league championship ten consecutive years.

In eastside neighborhoods like Glenville, where future NFL Hall of Famers like Marion Motley and Bill Willis lived unpretentiously alongside their neighbors in the city’s ghettos, the Browns were beloved, a source of pride. The team became such a part of the town’s fabric that even when they sank into competitive irrelevance — their lakefront  home relabeled as the Factory of Sadness, it was inconceivable to think of our town without them.

Then one day they were gone, leaving only the team colors and faded scrapbooks featuring such team legends as Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly, and Paul Warfield. [On the west side of town, the revered names were undoubtedly Lou Groza, Otto Graham, Dante Lavelli and Dub Jones.] Under team owner Art Modell, they made bad decisions, suffered financial reversals, mortgaged the future on bad short term bets, and proved themselves thoroughly inept at making the organizational and management changes required for success in the constantly evolving world of the NFL.

While the city got a new team three years later, the new Browns are only now  escaping the shadows of institutional incompetence that have dogged their rebirth.

Don’t look now, but a deft redrawing of political boundaries by Ohio’s rightwing General Assembly could mean that a Congressional District that once seemed institutionalized as the bedrock of black Cleveland politics could vanish after a half-century run as swiftly as those Browns did 25 years ago.

Ohio's 11th Congressional District

Dismal turnout by black Cleveland voters in recent elections will make it harder for a black candidate, especially one without the benefit of incumbency, to win either a primary or a general election campaign for the seat. 

Cleveland’s black community — the place that gave the country its first elected big-city black mayor; the home base of a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus; the birthplace of the Twenty-First District Caucus, once so powerful as to show urban Democratic political machines that there was a drastic price to pay for disrespecting the black community — could lose its grip on a Congressional seat?

Yes.

Consider the following:

• When the District was drawn in 1968 to comply with Constitutional principles, the vast majority of Cuyahoga County’s black residents were crammed into a handful of neighborhoods: Central, Hough, Glenville, Fairfax, Mt. Pleasant, and Lee-Harvard. All of the first ring suburbs that today have significant black populations and are part of the Congressional District — Euclid, Maple Heights, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Bedford Heights, Richmond Heights, South Euclid, Garfield Heights, to name a few — were hostile to integration; collectively, they had less than five percent of the county’s black residents.

This concentrated black voting power was what the Ohio General Assembly kept a lid on through racial gerrymandering, until federal litigation and legislation — Baker v. Carr, the “one man, one vote” case decided in 1962; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — helped lay the groundwork whereby an impressive cadre of local black attorneys and some staunch white allies, finally secured citizenship rights supposedly guaranteed one hundred years earlier by the Civil War Amendments. 

• Today, most county municipalities are at least nominally integrated, as are most of Cleveland’s west side wards. Black outmigration from the central city has seen substantial numbers of black families move across county lines, establishing homes in communities as varied as Streetsboro, Macedonia, Willowick, and Hudson.

The decennial redistricting that follows the Census every ten years is impacted by these migration patterns. Indeed, the current “Cleveland” district represented by Marcia Fudge snakes a narrow path down to north Akron to pick up several neighborhoods of black residents to pack into the 11^th District. That was a Faustian bargain struck at George Forbes’ house with then-Speaker of the Ohio House William Batchelder that benefitted both Republicans and the black Democratic establishment.

In several of her relatively rare public appearances in the district over the past few years, Fudge has referenced the dwindling margins of her majority minority district, pegging the percentage of black voters in the district somewhere around 50.5%. (We always found such hyper-parsing of her constituency curious: it made us wonder how it influenced her constituent relationship management, how she viewed her ability to win the support of nonblack constituents, etc.)

• In recent decades, Ohio has ranked among the nation’s ten worst states when it comes to Congressional district gerrymandering. In May of last year, voters overwhelmingly passed Issue 1, a compromise measure designed to limit the grossest excesses of gerrymandering. It is unclear how that will play out in the upcoming line drawing. The estimable Dr. Larry Brisker, the Tri-C professor whose analytical skills informed redistricting negotiations in ways that looked out for the black community’s political interests, has gone on to higher reward. Who is capable of assuming that role? 

• The willingness of the black state legislators to play footsie with their GOP legislative overseers a decade ago and create a second district more or less tailor-made for a black candidate — Joyce Beatty’s Third District seat in Franklin County —  could affect the State’s need to maintain the protected status of the venerable 11^th. Ohio’s 11-12% black population may warrant one majority minority district out of its soon-to-be 15 seat allocation; Beatty’s district may lessen the obligation of legislators to preserve a second such district. 

Are Ohio’s black and Democratic legislators willing to lay it on the line to preserve the 11^th District? The answer is not a clear yes, even before considering that House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, a rising star, is likely maneuvering to support drawing a district that could be conducive to her own healthy ambition for a Congressional seat.

• And most significantly, dismal turnout by black Cleveland voters in recent elections will make it harder for a black candidate, especially one without the benefit of incumbency, to win either a primary or a general election campaign for the seat. Some informed estimates suggest that Cleveland’s 52% Census response rate means its city council will be reduced by at least six, and perhaps eight, wards. This will translate into fewer black elected officials than the already too aloof ones who populate public office now. This is not a recipe for enhanced civic engagement.

A few days ago, cleveland.com published a piece by retired political writer Brent Larkin that purported to list a half dozen likely aspirants to succeed Fudge. We saw it as a disservice to the black community. Too many of the names are retreads from an era of black politicians who never grasped the idea of elected officials as public servants.

Over the past few weeks, we have had numerous chats with community members regarding the District’s future, and sought suggestions of people who, blessed with a future outlook, could help guide the district into a new era of politics while echoing the best of our past. We will share those names  in the final installment of this series. But next, Part III will invite reflection on what qualities we would like to see in our next Congressperson? What should be the job description? 

Meanwhile, we invite you to share your thoughts on these questions, and to suggest names of potential candidates, whether they have previously run for public office or not. If you wish to share your suggestions in the comments, please use your real name. If you prefer to remain anonymous, email me directly. [It won’t be helpful to have Bill Neverwas anonymously float the name of Bill Neverwas.]

• • •• • •

CPT • Change is Coming to Ohio's iconic 11th Congressional District — Part I

Cuyahoga Politics Today

The 11th Congressional District as we know it is about to change, and with it, black Cleveland has a chance to remake itself — Part I

By R. T. Andrews

The very public effort of US Representative Marcia Fudge to persuade President-elect Joe Biden to appoint her as Secretary of Agriculture is an unmistakable signal that her time in Congress is rapidly coming to a close. Whether or not she secures the Cabinet slot, gets another appointment as consolation prize, or decamps to the nonprofit world, Greater Cleveland will soon have a new Congressional representative. And should some surprising turn of events occur whereby Fudge completes the term to which she was just elected, there is likely zero chance she would run again in 2022, when a new district, redrawn following this year’s Census, will almost certainly be less conducive to the walkover races she’s enjoyed since she won two races to succeed Stephanie Tubbs Jones in 2008.

Why Fudge has one foot out the door and the other in the air is open to speculation;  reluctance to face voters in a new district, and/or a loss of enthusiasm for the job are among those that have been advanced. Frankly, the reasons are subordinate in importance to a host of more substantial questions.

The Stokes brothers, Louis [standing]
and Carl, were architects of what we know
today as the 11th Congressional District.

What is the future of the 11th Congressional District?  How might we shake free of our dependence on the dinosaur style of politics that serves to keep us among the poorest, least healthy, and most ineffective communities in the nation? What opportunities exist for the black community to redefine our current politics? How can we develop and nurture the political talent that can make our politics relevant again? What changes need to be made to create a political climate where our electorate becomes engaged and our turnout is no longer dismal? Where among us at present are the candidates who can effectively represent our interests? How might we support them so that they remain responsive to us and not to the puppet masters who govern the larger community?

Answering these questions would go a long way to making the selection of Fudge’s successor a transformational moment and not just another horse race that reinforces the status quo.

Before we address these questions, let us first take a look back to another transformational moment.

• • •

What we now know as the 11th Congressional District was shaped as a result of multiple lawsuits filed in the 1960s over gerrymandering by the Ohio legislature to prevent the election of a black Congressman by carving up the black community. As Louis Stokes detailed in his memoir, that person most likely would have been his brother, Carl B. Stokes. But, as luck would have it, by the time the litigation was ultimately resolved, shortly after the US Supreme Court ruling in Lucas v. Rhodes, handed down in December 1967, Carl had just made history by becoming the first black elected mayor of a major American city.

[I pause here to give a special shout out to two black attorneys who were stalwart fighters in Cleveland’s civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s: Russell T. Adrine and Richard L. Gunn, who shared legal offices but had separate practices, were part of the successful legal team that created what was originally the Twenty-First Congressional District.]

The chance to become Ohio’s first black Congressman drew a plethora of candidates, including several experienced and well-known politicians: George Forbes, who would become the longest-serving and most powerful city council president in Cleveland’s history; Leo Jackson, an outspoken maverick Glenville area councilman who would go on to a long and distinguished career on the Court of Appeals; and George White, the Lee-Harvard councilman who later became Chief Judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

What opportunities exist for the black community to redefine our current politics?

But Carl Stokes, who had been a driving force behind much of the litigation, was reluctant to concede the seat he felt was his to anyone outside his circle. And thus began the political career of his brother Louis, who would easily win the primary, winning every ward and every precinct, and go on defeat Republican Charles P. Lucas, who had been the plaintiff in the lawsuit that created the seat, in the general election.

Having a black Congressperson in Cleveland has been a given ever since 1968, when Louis Stokes won a special election for the Twenty-First Congressional District and became Ohio’s first black member of Congress. He went on to serve the entire district with distinction for thirty years, winning respect far and wide, perhaps as much for the dignity of his service as for his signal accomplishments and the bounty he returned to the district.

Stokes became the dean of local black politics in Greater Cleveland. While George Forbes, Arnold Pinkney, and later Mike White exercised tremendous political power and influence during the Stokes era, all understood that Lou was the godfather, the umpire and final arbiter on any important matters of political dispute within the black community. Much of his influence was exercised through BEDCO, the Black Elected Officials of Cleveland, the organization Stokes used to maintain a basic level of accountability, order, and coherence among local black elected officials.

The history of the 11th Congressional District has helped make the office of U. S. Representative the holy grail of Cleveland black politics.

As Stokes approached retirement, he proposed county prosecutor Stephanie Tubbs Jones as his successor. Her natural political touch, high name recognition, and immense popularity, along with an already distinguished resume that included service as a Common Pleas Court judge, made her the consensus pick. She won the 1998 primary in a landslide and seemed on her way to becoming a force in Congress when she suffered an aneurysm and died suddenly in July 2008.

The Cleveland black political establishment that had achieved some modicum of black political power, was now aged, and had failed to nurture any first-rate talent or establish any mechanism to pass the baton to the next generation. But in the absence of any countervailing force, they assembled enough energy to push forward a Tubbs Jones ally, then-Warrensville Hts. mayor Marcia Fudge, as her successor.

Unlike the pattern that prevails in districts with white representatives, the job expectation for Cleveland’s black Congressperson has always included more than normal constitutional duties. The history of the seat, coupled with systemic limitations upon the aspirations of black politicians — except for judges, only rarely has a black candidate (Virgil E. Brown Jr., Peter Lawson Jones, and Tubbs Jones) been able to succeed on a countywide ballot, and only one black nonjudicial candidate (Republican Ken Blackwell*) has ever won statewide — and the standard set by Lou Stokes, has made it the holy grail of local black politics.

While an evaluation of Fudge’s tenure in the seat is best left for another day, there is no doubt that the timing and manner of her departure will soon reveal just how bare is the cupboard of black political leadership in Cleveland.

Our next column will take a look at what her departure may mean for the constituents she leaves behind.

• • •• • •

* Blackwell was elected Ohio Treasurer in 1994 and Secretary of State in 1998 and 2002. Our original post said no black nonjudicial candidate had ever won a statewide election. This is true of Democrats who have run statewide.

Additionally, Jennette Bradley was elected Lieutenant Governor in 2002 as Governor Robert Taft's running mate. Taft appointed her as Ohio Treasurer, effective January 2005, to fill a vacancy; however she was defeated in the Republican primary the following year.

Both Blackwell and Bradley are African American.

Today's Politics: President visits; Turner looks at independent run

Magnetic President Returns to Charge Faithful Base

President Obama came to Cleveland today to deliver what was billed as a major speech on the economy. What he delivered was substantially less, but it mattered not to the adoring capacity crowd that filled every nook and cranny of the Shaker Heights High School gym for a chance to be in his presence.

The president’s key announcement was his recess appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The president had nominated Cordray last July to head the new agency but Senate Republicans have refused to allow the nomination to come to the floor for an up or down vote.

That nomination had already been leaked to national media before the president arrived, so the real impact of the president’s visit was the unofficial launch of his reelection campaign. Judging by the lines of folk who snaked three or four abreast around the Shaker Board of Education headquarters last night in bitter cold, enthusiasm remains strong in this neck of the woods for a second Obama term.

Not only did a crowd arrive early last night to stand outside school administration headquarters for tickets for the president's appearance, they were back this morning at 10:30, almost three hours in advance of the President’s talk. It was a festive atmosphere both for the hundreds of students, perhaps forty percent of an estimated 1400 attendees, as well as the nearly thousand adults. And almost all stayed patiently in place for longer than the President spoke, as he worked the crowd and departed the scene.

We will try and post video of the event on Thursday.*

* Update [Jan. 6]: Technical difficulties prevented me from posting my video. Here is the C-Span broadcast.

• • •

Turner weighs independent run against Fudge

Yesterday’s post contained the following paragraph, which may require me to swallow some crow:

“And for those of you who read [State Senator Nina] Turner’s statement declining to re-file against [US Rep. Marcia] Fudge as holding open the possibility that she might run as an independent, don’t hold your breath.”

Today, we heard from multiple sources that Turner is circulating petitions to run as for Congress as an independent. If Turner files sufficient petitions by March 5, it will set up a head-to-head ballot contest in November.

Turner’s statement last week that she would not challenge Fudge in the March 6 Democratic primary referred to the difficulty of mounting a viable challenge in a short primary season. An independent campaign would bypass that issue, though it would present other challenges.

Stay tuned.

Fudge-Turner: Leadership & Opportunity

Fudge-Turner: Leadership & Opportunity

We were disappointed but not surprised when State Senator Nina Turner announced last week that she was dropping her bid to take on Rep. Marcia Fudge for the Democratic nomination for the 11^th District Congressional seat.

The handwriting was on the wall when Turner had no response to the back-to-back images of pretty much the entire Democratic Party establishment, first in Cuyahoga County and then in Akron, standing shoulder to shoulder with the incumbent. It was clear at that point that Turner is not yet quite ready for prime time. She hadn’t raised the money or put together the organization to wage a competitive race. And as she correctly noted, the redistricting agreement reached last month by the Ohio General Assembly aided most political incumbents, including Fudge, even though it was unhealthy for Ohio voters.

My disappointment at Turner’s decision is because it postpones what has already been delayed for far too long: community dialogue about what kind of leadership is needed to move us forward. Many black people decry the one leader at a time syndrome — the Messiah model in its worst incarnation — but we seem to default to it time and again. Marcia Fudge has been in Congress barely three years but many people seemed to think it a crime that someone would step forward to challenge her.

As a community we need to get to a place where we hold our elected officials accountable, where they understand that their job is not merely to hold place, but to advocate and advance our interests, which includes developing talent and opportunities across the board.

Has there ever been a time when status quo was good enough? Marcia Fudge demonstrated in response to the whiff of a challenge that she could assemble a throng to defend her seat. Perhaps that will be impetus for her to claim the seat independently as opposed to having merely been its inheritor.

Lou Stokes held that seat long enough to establish and perpetuate a godfather model of black politics. He served as arbiter of political turf battles within the district and on occasion as spokesman for the black community. He hasn’t been in office for over a decade, he no longer even lives here, and it’s not clear that his perceptions and judgments are in tune with the community [consider for example his outmoded views on county reorganization, his top-down leadership model, and his aversion to transparency].

The departure of Stokes, the unexpected and unhappy demise of Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and the destruction of the inefficient and corrupt county Democratic Party regime [inefficient and corrupt = the worst of all possible combinations] have led to a vacuum in local black politics. The old guard leadership of Stokes and George Forbes is clearly inadequate. Their insistence on retaining power as personal privilege thwarted the development of next-generation political and community leaders.

Our most accomplished and competent civic leaders these days probably reside in the judiciary. They are elected through the political process but are barred by their offices from overt political activity. Carl Stokes was running an electrifying and organic mayoral campaign in his mid-thirties. Today, potential leaders of similar vintage like county councilmen Julian Rogers and Pernel Jones Jr. are still getting their feet wet as public officials. We now have a bevy of suburban city mayors and council people but not a one who steps up on any issue beyond his or her municipality.

Turner’s inability to mount a credible campaign need not mean that critical community questions of leadership, education, economics, equity, housing, development, etc., continue to go unaddressed. The unopposed Fudge now has a golden opportunity to claim her office by setting forth a new model of local community empowerment. She seemed momentarily on that path when she tinkered a few years ago with revitalizing the moribund Congressional District Caucus apparatus, switching it from an effete political arm to a nonprofit organization. But after a promising start, she either lost interest or got too busy.

The recent redistricting that incorporates parts of Akron and Summit County offer her a new chance at reorganizing the caucus as an effective tool for community building, community education, and leadership development. An intelligent recasting of a once-valuable brand would be part of a Fudge political legacy that would demonstrate her worthy of continued active support and not reification by default of opposition.

• • •

For the record, we noted in a previous post that three candidates filed have filed to run in the primary. None have the potential to engage the community as a Fudge-Turner race might have.

And for those of you who read Turner’s statement declining to re-file against Fudge as holding open the possibility that she might run as an independent, don’t hold your breath.

 • • •

We commend to you this post by George Packer in The New Yorker dealing with the hopefully-soon-to-be-forgotten Rick Santorum, political reporting, and the routine right-wing demonization of President Obama.

Two excerpts:

… gutter rhetoric is so routine in the Republican campaign that it’s not worth a political journalist’s time to point it out. In 2008, when Michele Bachmann suggested that Barack Obama and an unknown number of her colleagues in Congress were anti-American, there was a flurry of criticism; three years later, when a surging Presidential candidate states it flatly about a sitting President, there’s no response at all. Certain forms of deterioration … become acceptable by attrition, because critics lose the energy to call them out. Eventually, people even stop remembering that they’re wrong. …

The great puzzle of the Republican campaign is that, in an era of unprecedented ideological fervor, the party will almost certainly nominate the candidate who is the blandest, least ideological, and least trusted by conservatives … Romney, forever stuck at twenty-five per cent, understands his situation acutely, … like an actor who normally does investment commercials and is improbably cast in an ad for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He’s doing a credible job playing an intellectual thug, because that’s the only way to win the nomination.

It would be a mistake, though, to believe that, long after Iowa, once the horse race is over, and if he’s elected, Romney could suddenly flip a switch, clear the air of the toxicity left behind by the Republican field, and return to being a cautious centrist whose most reassuring quality is his lack of principles. His party wouldn’t let him; and, after all, how a candidate runs shapes how a President governs. In politics, once a sellout, always a sellout; once a thug, always a thug.

• • •

Congresswoman Fudge Responds To News that Turner Won't Enter Primary

The Campaign for Rep. Marcia L. Fudge released the following statement this afternoon:

I have great respect for State Senator Nina Turner and I wish her well in her future endeavors.  It is my intention to maintain the trust and confidence of the people of the 11th Congressional District and provide the representation they deserve. It is my honor and privilege to serve them.  I look forward to the opportunity to continue to be their voice in Congress.

Three candidates have filed to run against Fudge in March 6 Democratic primary. Well-known political activist and former Cleveland School board member Gerald C. Henley filed yesterday; his petitions have been ruled valid. Marie Jefferson and Isaac Powell filed petitions by today’s 4PM deadline. The validity of their petitions will likely be determined next week by the county Board of Elections.

The winner of the Democratic primary will be the presumptive winner in November’s election unless an independent candidate files to run by March 5. No Republican filed by today’s deadline.

BREAKING NEWS: Turner bows out; will not challenge Fudge

Nina Turner issued the following statement through a spokesperson about 2 PM today:

"Last month, I filed to run for Congress with the intention to take on the status quo and give voters an opportunity for change.  Since then, two things have happened.  First, the redistricting process was manipulated to allow incumbent politicians to guarantee their reelection.  And, the primary election was set for March 6, 2011, a date which gives challengers little time to wage competitive campaigns.

Under these circumstances, I have decided not to run as a Democrat in the 11^th Congressional District.  

Let me be clear:  Our community faces huge challenges, which the present leadership has utterly failed to meet. The past few months have only convinced me and many Northeast Ohioans of the necessity for change and reform, and so my work will continue.  We can and must do better."  

Turner's spokesperson says the Senator is out of town and unavailable for comment.

Obama may be beneficiary of Turner-Fudge Contest

I seldom agree with commentator John McWhorter, a conservative commentator who often seems insulated from an understanding of how race actually works in this country.  But his piece in the current issue of The New Republic, “Why Eric Holder’s Effort to Help Minority Voters Could Backfire”, raises some solid questions that relate both to the ugly compromise* reached by Ohio state legislators this week [* if it weren’t the holiday season, I would substitute "Democratic Party capitulation”] and to the distressed arguments raised by those who condemn out-of-hand the challenge to Congresswoman Marcia Fudge D-11 in the Democratic primary, now certain to occur March 6.

McWhorter denounces the concerted national drive by Republicans to suppress black and brown votes in the name of reducing voter fraud for exactly what it is: a “brutally cynical effort … to instinctively seize political advantage by … trying to suppress [black and brown] Americans’ right to vote in a fashion that is not only utterly disgusting but revoltingly reminiscent of ” Jim Crow days.

McWhorter finds pernicious the way that the Voting Rights Act has been used to encourage the development of majority-minority districts. Such districts, he argues, “discourage young black politicians from learning how to build cross-racial or cross-class coalitions.” He goes on to note how most of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus owe their success to the sort of black districts that the Act has been used to support, and that such districts, in which mostly black people are led decade after decade by the same black person are ripe for voter apathy.

As noted, we are often troubled by McWhorter’s alternate-world analysis but he has put his finger on a couple of significant issues here.

Regardless of the outcome of state senator Nina Turner’s challenge to the Hon. Marcia Fudge, if it results in energizing the dormant electorate of the 11^th District, Turner will have enhanced President Obama’s reelection chances by increasing the likelihood that he carries Ohio.

• • •

We have been asked to encourage our readers to attend today’s Young Professional Town Hall with County Executive FitzGerald at Cleveland State University's Student Center Ballroom.  

The event starts at 6:00 p.m. and will feature remarks to the young professional community in Cuyahoga County, as well as the opportunity for young professionals to answer questions directly to County Executive FitzGerald at the event, or prior to the event on Twitter via the hashtag #AskFitz.

There is more info available here.

Fudge to declare on Monday; others weigh challenges; Ruth D. Clement passes

Congresswoman Marcia Fudge will formally announce this Monday her intent to run for re-election as representative of Ohio’s 11^th Congressional District of Ohio. Fudge originally won election to the seat in a special election in 2008 following the sudden death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones. She won election to a full term that November and was re-elected two years later.

The current filing deadline for Congress in Ohio is next Wednesday, December 7. Six people have taken out petitions to run in the Democratic primary that is now set for June. Others besides Fudge who pulled petitions but have yet to file: Angela Davis, Gerald Carver Henley Sr., Anthony Perry, and Isaac Powell.

State Senator Nina Turner of Cleveland, expected to be Fudge’s toughest opponent, filed to run on Monday. Some expected the new district, which extends south to include much of Akron's black community, to attract state representative Vernon Sykes, but that appears to have been a non-starter.

Fudge’s news conference is scheduled for Monday at 10 am at Phil the Fire Restaurant, 3750 Orange Place, Beachwood.

State and County Offices

Wednesday is also the filing deadline for all state and county races, including the state representative, judge, county council [Districts 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10], and county prosecutor, where five candidates have pulled petitions to succeed incumbent Bill Mason, who chose not to seek reelection.

Congressional remapping

Primary election day for all state and county races is March 7, 2011. If the Ohio General Assembly can agree on a redistricting plan in time — the Dayton Daily News reported yesterday that House Democratic leader Armond Budish of Beachwood claims a deal while the Republicans say no deal has been struck — then the June federal primary may yet be moved to March 7.

SAD NOTE

Ruth D. Clement died yesterday. She was widow of Dr. Kenneth W. Clement, a key adviser to former Cleveland mayor Carl B. Stokes.

We did not see her often but she was unfailingly one of the most gracious ladies we have ever known. 

Survivors include her three children, Michael, Lia, and Leslie.

Funeral will be Saturday, December 3 at 11AM at First Baptist Church, 3630 Fairmount Blvd., Cleveland Heights.  The family will receive friends this evening from 6-8 PM at E.F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home, 2165 East 89 St, following a Delta service.

Turner files to run against Fudge for Congress

State Senator Nina Turner filed petitions yesterday with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to run for the Democratic nomination for Congress from the newly-redistricted 11^th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge.

Ohio’s federal primary election is presently scheduled for June 12, three months after the state’s primary for local and state offices. State Republican legislators created the second primary, at an estimated added cost of $15 million, to allow time to negotiate with Democrats over Ohio’s congressional remapping.

Ohio is losing two Congressional districts effective Jan. 2013 because the state’s population has grown more slowly than the rest of the nation.

Ohio Republicans have drawn the new Congressional map in a way that eliminates most inter-party competition and almost guarantees GOP wins in twelve of the districts. Democrats are believed to be currently pushing a 6-6-4 plan that would make six districts more competitive, favoring Republicans in only six districts, and Democrats in four.

Unless negotiations between Republican and Democratic state legislators result in an agreement this week to adjust  the GOP majority’s congressional map, it will be nearly impossible to hold both primaries on the same day, because the original filing date for partisan office is next Wednesday, December 7. Congressional candidates presently have until March 14 to file, but are likely to file by December 7 so as not be left out in the cold by any last-second legislative deal that might restore the single primary.

This is Ohio so of course it’s more complicated than that. Democrats are working to collect  hundreds of thousands of signatures [they need 231,150 valid ones] to delay implementation of the GOP’s 12-4 map and bring the issue before Ohio voters next November. And of course, court action by either party is a possibility.

Whatever the federal filing primary election dates turn out to be, the Fudge-Turner battle is certain to be fierce, and likely reshape the political landscape in the area as much as the GOP-gerrymandered map.

Uncharted Waters ahead in the 11th Congressional District

The worst kept political secret in town is state senator Nina Turner’s intent to challenge Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge in next year’s Democratic Party primary.

If the contest happens — and, while likely, it is by no means a done deal — the battle between two of the community’s best-known politicians could be epic.

A Fudge-Turner contest would have an immense impact on black community political life, no matter the victor.

Many of Cleveland’s black politicians are of the timid variety. They dodge and duck having to endorse a candidate if the outcome is not clear. But a Fudge-Turner faceoff, which could even attract other strong candidates looking to sneak to victory, would permit no bystanders.

The congressional district Fudge now represents was first drawn in 1968 in the wake of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  The plum — the assurance of becoming Ohio’s first black Congressman — produced a mad rush of candidates, including legendary Cleveland City Council majority leader Charles V. Carr, and the ambitious eastside Cleveland councilman, George L. Forbes.

Louis Stokes, fresh off a huge legal victory before the U.S. Supreme Court [Terry v. Ohio, the seminal stop-and-frisk case], and hugely aided, of course, was the eventual winner, aided by his brother the mayor’s political machine.

Upon Lou Stokes’ retirement thirty years later in 1998, the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones resigned as county prosecutor and seized the seat with a resounding primary victory over the Rev. Marvin McMickle and then-state representative Jeff Johnson. She seemed poised to challenge Stokes’ longevity record until her sudden death in August 2008.

Lou Stokes stepped into the void after Jones’s death to manage an orderly though not uncontroversial transition of the congressional ring to Fudge, a Stephanie confidant and then-mayor of Warrensville Heights.

Fudge declared last Saturday in Richmond Heights that she would be running wherever the district lines wound up being drawn. Her announcement came at an 11^th District Caucus town hall meeting, the day after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the handiwork of the Ohio Apportionment Board in securing a 75% favorable GOP-district set up could be challenged by voters in a November 2012 referendum.

That decision becomes relevant only if and when the Democrats can secure 231,000 valid signatures to force a statewide vote.  At the moment, the decision creates uncertainty as to the primary date, the district’s outline, and the filing date for primary candidates.

Amidst all the uncertainty, Turner must decide soon whether she can raise enough money and secure enough endorsements to make at least a credible challenge to Fudge.

It is both ironic and sobering to realize that less than four years ago, neither Fudge nor Turner had a political profile that was discernible more than a few blocks from their respective residences.

• • •

Your humble correspondent can be heard on the airwaves tomorrow over at the Civic Commons, where I will be delivering a three-minute commentary on the maddening obfuscations that assail even educated voters trying to decide how to vote on an issue where they have made up their minds but the ballot language leaves them scratching their heads.

The show starts at 12:30pm. Catch it on WJCU/88.7 FM.