From thenewspaper.com

An Ohio state Senate committee voted this week in favor of legislation that would effectively ban speed cameras in the state and impose costly restrictions on the use of red light cameras. Representative Jim Raussen (R-Springdale) had introduced the bill to, in effect, ban both types of photo enforcement in a measure overwhelmingly adopted by the House last year. The Senate committee, however, modified Raussen's bill to allow red light cameras but remove a few of the existing high-profit incentives to use the devices.

The Senate bill bans the use of speed cameras unless a police officer witnesses the incident and personally tickets the motorist responsible at the time of the incident. It also ends the current practice of paying camera vendors a cut of the revenue generated, offering an incentive to trap as many motorists as possible. Instead, the proposal mandates flat-rate contracts. The bill also prohibits private vendors from reviewing photographs to determine guilt, a change that will substantially increase the cost of ticket programs as police would have to assume this function. The measure also forces city to adopt standardized yellow signal timing set by the Ohio Department of Transportation.

From Openers

Hours after former Enron honcho Ken Lay's conviction, DSCC executive director J.B. Poersch sent out an e-mail calling for Sen. Mike DeWine to finally divest himself of $1,500 in Enron political contributions. DeWine got $500 of it for his 1994 campaign and $1,000 for his 2000 race.

"Mike DeWine has waited long enough - it's time for him to get rid of
the dirty Enron money," Poersch said in his statement. "It's incomprehensible to think that Mike DeWine would hold on to Enron's money, especially after today's convictions."

Fair enough. But Poersch overlooked the fact that DeWine's Democratic challenger, Sherrod Brown, also got Enron money -- more than DeWine got, in fact. His $2,000 came in between 1994 and 2000.

Ah, trying to get those precious political points.

I just found this story on Central Ohio Politics

http://www.centralohiopolitics.com/

From OpinionJournal.com's premium email Political Diary:

Friday, May 26, 2006

Republicans are starting to breathe a little easier over their prospects in key Ohio races. A series of scandals and unpopular tax increases have severely tarnished the Buckeye State GOP after 16 years of complete control over state government. Nonetheless, a new Ohio poll conducted for the University of Cincinnati gives GOP Senator Mike DeWine a ten-point lead over Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown. Most significantly, Mr. DeWine is even taking a majority of union household voters.

But the really good news for the Ohio GOP is that their candidate for governor, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, is only six points behind Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland. The key to Mr. Blackwell's growing strength since he won the GOP primary earlier this month is his support in the black community. The former Xavier University football star has been touring black churches and receiving a warm reception, which is now showing up in the polls. Mr. Strickland still leads him among blacks by 55% to 32%, but that's a far smaller edge than an Ohio Democrat would normally expect to enjoy over a GOP opponent.

"Ken always said that since he had won 30% of the black vote in his previous statewide races, he would become governor if he could maintain that level of support," says backer Dan Peters, a former executive with Procter & Gamble, which is based in Mr. Blackwell's hometown of Cincinnati. Mr. Strickland still holds a narrow lead among whites, a group Mr. DeWine leads in his race by some 18 points. If Mr. Blackwell can hold his minority support and build his appeal to white voters to something approaching normal levels in Ohio races, he will be in an excellent position to take the lead.

From the PD

JEERS . . .

to the 180 maintenance employees of Cleveland Public Power, who are on strike. After two years without a contract, members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers want the city to break the pattern it has established with every other union, and give them extra money. Mayor Frank Jackson shows no sign of doing so, and any prolonged job action is likely to alienate CPP's customers.