Today, Senator Nickie Antonio (Lakewood), Campaign Chair for the Ohio Senate Democrats, released the following statement on the most recent of several FBI investigations into members of Ohio's Republican supermajority:
"Over the past four years, members of Ohio's Republican Statehouse supermajority have been caught up in three massive scandals that hurt Ohio taxpayers.
"First was ECOT, a for-profit online charter school whose founder paid millions to keep GOP legislators from regulating online schools.
"Next was the payday lending scandal, which forced our last House Speaker, Cliff Rosenberger, to resign from office amid FBI investigations.
"Now the man who replaced him as Speaker has been arrested by the FBI for a third scandal, which the US Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio calls 'likely the largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.'
"There's no way around it: this is a pattern.
"Ohio's GOP supermajority has created a culture of corruption that damages our entire state.
"We need checks and balances for the system to function.
"We need more than one party with a seat at the table. It's time to elect Democrats and draw Ohio's district lines fairly so we can get to work serving Ohio families."
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