Mike DeWine

Michael DeWine is the Republican governor of Ohio, serving since January 2019. Previously, he served as the state's attorney general from 2011 to 2019, served two terms in the U.S. Senate, and several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives prior to that.

On February 17, 2012, DeWine switched his endorsement from Mitt Romney to the more conservative Rick Santorum.

In April 2019, DeWine signed a Heartbeat Bill into law, something his establishment predecessor, John Kasich, had vetoed.

COVID-19

President Trump declared a National Emergency over Coronavirus and left the individual states to enact policy to protect their citizens. Out of an abundance of caution, Governor DeWine decides that Ohio will take the lead of the nation and shut the economy down. In this process, DeWine tramples over the Constitution while declaring that he will use science for his best judgements. DeWine's experiment to be first in the nation to close would eventually spread to an additional 40+ states. Other states that closed after Ohio started lifting restrictions and reopening while Ohio remains shutdown. DeWine delays details on authorized return to work for some Ohioans, staggers delayed reopening of others. No guidance at all for some businesses with the excuse "he's got to get it right." Meanwhile his crisis team of healthcare professionals held projections that were off by huge numbers. The science is out already, states that did not move into quarantine had no more increase in the infection rate than the states that did.

Taxes and Bailouts

One of Mike DeWine's first moves as a newly elected Governor was to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure repairs.

DeWine then signed HB6 into law. This bill is a billion dollar bailout of two Ohio nuclear plants run by First Energy. A petition is circulating to reverse the bailout signed into law.