CPT • Primary Reflections and School Integration

Cuyahoga Politics Today

Wrapping Up this Year's Primary

Face off on County's Outskirts

 By R. T. Andrews

Last month’s primary election was probably the longest Election “Day” in Ohio history. It took on a surreal aspect when Gov. DeWine, acting wisely if belatedly, on March 16 ordered the state’s health director to declare a health emergency necessitating the closing of the polls the following day, March 17.

After considerable confusion, Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced intentions to extend the election until June 2. A meddlesome General Assembly then exercised its authority and shortened the extension by five weeks. So voters had until April 28 to cast their primary ballots but with restrictions that all but eliminated in-person voting for most registered voters, who were forced to resort to Ohio’s unnecessarily cumbersome and slow two-step voting process.

 

Given the circumstances, and the fact that most candidates were out of money and voters were understandably preoccupied turnout was down for a Presidential election year primary. But the most enduring thing is always the results. And even for a ballot light on contests, there were some truly memorable results.

 

First, who would have imagined even two years ago that a Greater Cleveland  state representative district that is whiter than the state’s population [84.5% vs. 80%], less black than the state’s population [6.9% vs. 11], and with the smallest percentage of residents below the poverty line of the state’s 99 districts, would be heading to a November face-off between a first-term incumbent and a political newcomer who are both African American males?

That’s the case in State District 6, which serpentines around the eastern and southern edges of Cuyahoga County, capturing outer ring suburbs whose unifying characteristics are their racial homogeneity and their wealth. 

 

 

The District cannot be characterized as liberal  by any means. Comprised of fourteen communities before Phil Robinson broke through to win the seat two years ago in Ohio’s modest blue wave, the seat had been long been a Republican stronghold.

 

Robinson’s challenger this fall will be Shafron “Shay” Hawkins of Lyndhurst, who defeated veteran Highland Heights councilman Ed Hargate in the GOP primary. 

Phil Robinson, D-6, Solon

Shay Hawkins

This may turn out to be an unusually issues-based race. While the Plain Dealer endorsed Hargate, saying they were troubled by Hawkins’ vagueness on some issues, the challenger appears in fact to be possessed of very strong views, as might be expected of one with his impressive educational and policy credentials. He has undergraduate and law degrees from Ohio State and an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School. He’s a registered financial representative and a member of the Washington DC bar. Additionally, he has legislative experience, most notably as a key advisor to US Senator Tim Scott, R-NC, relative to the opportunity zone legislation.

 

Hawkins, 45, won the GOP nod with 54% of the vote, no doubt aided by the endorsement of the county party.

 

A second notable result was one on the Democratic side where Cleveland Municipal Court judge Emanuella Groves defeated three other candidates to win the nomination for an open seat on the county Court of Appeals. With three women in the race, including another African American municipal court judge, South Euclid’s Gayle Williams-Byers, the math did not seem particularly favorable for either black candidate. But Groves’ 42.7% share of the vote made the race a catwalk, as she more than doubled each of her rivals.

 

As a side note to this race, the lone male in the race, ran an offensive campaign, mailing campaign literature that targeted Williams-Byers in one piece and Denise Rini — until recently a Republican — in others. Carlin’s lit pieces referencing Williams-Byers ran alongside the devil’s strip of color-coded politics that have plagued this community for too long. We don’t want to call it racist, but it definitely stunk. We will be looking carefully at any future political efforts involving Carlin’s campaign honcho, Chris Glassburn, a longtime confidant of county exec Armond Budish.

 

A third primary race that captured our attention was the mid-twentieth century campaign mounted by Gabriella Rosalina in another contest for a county appellate judicial seat. This was also a three-woman, one man race, the other candidates being Lisa Forbes, who won handily with 56% of the vote, James W. Satola, and Alyson Monroe Brown.

 

Our intrigue in this race was watching how Rosalina’s father, Basil Russo, a former Cleveland city councilman who represented the Little Italy neighborhood back in the 1970s, spent so profusely and wildly to get his daughter the nomination.

 

Russo was council’s majority leader when he challenged Dennis Kucinich in the city’s nonpartisan mayoral primary in 1979. He came in third behind Kucinich and primary winner George Voinovich, who was also victorious that November. Russo later served as a county judge before leaving the bench to make money.

 

Thirty years after his departure from politics he tried to call in every marker he had. He secured endorsements for his daughter from George Forbes — who was last on the ballot 30+ years ago, losing his only citywide campaign to Mike White in the 1989 mayor’s race — and Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, who has at best a modest track record when it comes to her endorsements. Russo also got endorsements from a host of other long-forgotten or never-remembered public officials with zero ballot box office appeal. Even where one of the sitting council people might have helped the campaign — virtually every one of them endorsed her — the campaign failed to call upon them for any help.

 

Note we say Russo did all this work. In the few times we saw the candidate on the trail, we were underwhelmed. In fact, she never made it clear that she actually wanted the job.

 

In the end we can be relieved that the best candidate won. Many of us remember the last time a political pop — a beloved Congressman — supported a daughter for a judgeship. That did not end well.

 

Forbes will face off against incumbent appellate judge Ray Headen for the two years remaining on the unexpired term.

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The elusive search for equity in public schools 

Today is the 66^th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision, Brown vs. Board of Education, in 1954 and the unanimous 9-0 opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren that outlawed de jure segregation in public education.

 

FWIW, we think the people who are clamoring today to reopen businesses prematurely in the face of this pandemic, the vigilantes who hunt down joggers and hoodie-wearing Skittles eaters, and who echo every alternative fact uttered over at Fox News, seem like the spiritual descendants of those who opposed the Brown decision.

 

We’ll say more about the Brown decision this week when we review a book that discusses how the charter school movement adapted from the massive resistance movement that emerged in the South following the decisions in Brown I and II.

 

Kind of the way a virus mutates to counter a vaccine that restores health.

 

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Fudge fumbles again in local judicial endorsement process

Congresswoman's endorsements carrying less and less weight

Almost two years ago to the day, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge attempted an “ill-conceived and ineptly concealed private maneuver” to shape the outcome of the local Democratic Party judicial endorsement process. The botched effort to secure endorsements for two black women candidates, which we reported on here, brought to the surface the uneasy racial tensions that infects so much of local Democratic politics.

But if you thought the Congresswoman would be deterred from long distance interference, you were sadly mistaken. Last month she endorsed five candidates for county judgeships.

Despite there being several competent black women candidates, including two sitting municipal court judges, all five candidates Fudge chose to endorse are white.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge chairing hearing on
voting rights at Cuyahoga Community College
on April 25, 2019

Not a single one of the Congresswoman’s choices won the endorsement of the party’s Executive Committee.

What does this mean? For starters, it says that Fudge, who has represented Ohio’s storied 11^th District since 2008, wields astonishingly little influence within party ranks. Her choices gain little benefit from her announced support, and those who run against her candidates do so without political cost.

Our highest ranking elected official is essentially impotent when it comes to advancing our political interests.

This is a disastrous state of affairs for the black community. The political weakness of our Congressperson may not be apparent if one looks only at the election returns every two years. But after this year’s Census, Congressional districts will be expanded and redrawn, and there are lots of factors at play that could mean that the 11^th District seat may no longer continue as a safe preserve of black representation.

Signs of discontent are beginning to emerge within the District over the current state of affairs. The Cleveland NAACP recently joined forces with two political action groups to organize the Unified Endorsement/Ratings Process [UERP]. The three groups plan to vet candidates based on specific criteria of special import to the black community. Judicial candidates will be examined, for example, for their understanding of cultural competency, their appreciation of implicit bias, and their commitment to systemic reform.

The focus this year will be on judicial candidates, expanding over time to include legislative and executive races on local, county, state and national levels. The process launches this week with interviews scheduled for tonight and tomorrow from 5p-9p at the Harvard Community Center, 18240 Harvard Ave. [44128].

This initiative arose out of concerns that the judge4yourself.com process, while well-regarded, nonetheless had some flaws best addressed by this new process. A representative of GPAC, which is comprised largely of activists and clergy, and is a NAACP partner in the UERP process, says its work will complement, not displace, judge4yourself.

The third partner in this new effort, FIINPAC [Formerly Incarcerated Individuals Necessary Political Action Committee], has distinguished itself in years past with some productive voter registration efforts.

A unique feature of the UERP process is that while the NAACP will limit itself to rating candidates, FIINPAC and GPAC intend to endorse candidates and to extend campaign support to those it endorses.

Signs of Clergy Unrest

A more ominous indication that Congresswoman Fudge could be out of step with her constituency arose yesterday when she appeared at the weekly meeting of United Pastors in Mission. UPM, originally formed as an association of young activist pastors, has now matured into a collective of some political sophistication, with regular programming that has become part of the bipartisan campaign circuit for state and local public officials.

Fudge was there to tout her slate of judicial candidates but got pushback from several clergy members on at least two counts. Attendees wanted to know why she did not endorse Joy Kennedy, a well-qualified black attorney, for Domestic Relations judge. Fudge’s answer seemed to indicate surprise that Kennedy had remained in the race.

More problematic for Fudge by far was her avowed support for Gabriella Rosalina, whose father, Basil Russo, gained local renown as a ward leader and city councilman representing Little Italy, eventually rising to majority leader. before becoming a judge, first in Common Pleas, and then the Court of Appeals. Along the way, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor 1979.

Russo has long been a formidable ballot name county wide. Basil’s brother is chief judge of Probate Court. But another brother, Frank, tarnished the family name when he resigned as County Auditor in 2010 after pleading guilty as a ringleader in the county corruption scandal.

Basil has been pulling out all the stops to get his daughter the nomination, making contributions and pledges of financial support left and right, along with calling in old political favors. Some combination of these efforts was apparently enough to win Fudge’s support, along with that of 14 out of 17 Cleveland city councilmen.

Candidate Rosalina, however, has an undistinguished record as an attorney and is clearly uncomfortable on the campaign trail. She was the proverbial doe in headlights when seeking the party’s endorsement last month, which went to her opponent, Lisa Forbes, by such a surprisingly wide margin that Basil reportedly felt double-crossed.

The sense that Rosalina is an inferior candidate and that Forbes handily won the party endorsement led some UPM members to question Fudge’s game plan.

Part of the Congresswoman’s problem is the absence of any discernible criteria for what it takes to win her blessing.

An opaque process, resulting in an announcement of support without an accompanying rationale, followed by the proffer of zero resources beyond perhaps a played out radio commercial, and no consequence for ignoring or contravening the endorsement, have reduced a once-prized 11^th District endorsement to little more than a trinket.

The extreme political weakness of the black community has been developing for several years. As we head to Black History Month we’ll talk about why that is and what the future may hold.

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