4 Morning Links To Ponder

1. It looks like getting a small business loan in Cleveland will be getting easier...on the surface looks like a good idea. (From Crain's)

The city of Cleveland is looking to trim the time it takes small businesses to get its financial help.

Cleveland City Council is expected to pass an ordinance at its June 12 meeting that will authorize the director of the city’s Department of Economic Development to make loans of up to $250,000 without going through the full legislative process.

2. Ted Strickland's voting record will be an issue this fall...(From the Dayton Daily News)

Unlike J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican nominee who served 12 years in state administrative offices, Strickland has a voting record from 12 years in Congress — a record that can be pored over and picked apart, which is what campaigns do.

Strickland, a Democrat whose district stretches along Ohio's eastern border, has a lifetime rating of 88 percent from Americans for Democratic Action, which tracks key votes to create what has become the standard measure for liberalism.

3. Water rates are going up in Cleveland (From newsnet5 and the PD)

4. Ken Blackwell is ticking off more liberal groups (From the PD)

Democrats and representatives of voter-registration groups accused Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on Monday of trying to rig this November's election by publishing draconian new rules governing the activities of people who register voters.

Testifying at a hearing chaired by Judy Grady, Blackwell's director of elections, lawyers for ACORN, Common Cause, the Ohio Democratic Party and other groups said training documents drafted by Blackwell's office are so vague that they subject registrars to felony penalties for even inadvertent violations.

As a result, ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has drastically cut back its voter-registration efforts while its lawyers review the new rules, Katy Gall, Ohio ACORN's head organizer, said in an interview.

"It appears that Ken Blackwell finally figured out how to deal with long lines on Election Day," said state Democratic Party spokesman Brian Rothenberg. "He's just trying to outright deny people the right to vote now."

Those criticisms brought a scathing response from Blackwell's campaign spokesman, Carlo LoParo.

"That's outrageous," LoParo said. "The Blackwell campaign is making a very focused effort to gain the votes of Ohio's urban voters, but particularly Ohio's African-American voters, and that's because Ken Blackwell is the only candidate in this race that can articulate their concerns."

In contrast, Strickland is so out of touch with black voters, LoParo said, that "before this campaign, his idea of diversity was opting for Neapolitan ice cream at the congressional buffet.