Jennifer Garrison Is So Conservative Not Even EMILY's List Will Touch Her Flailing Campaign

If Democrats want to support antigay, anti-Choice bigots, they can just vote for Republicans

Wednesday is the filing deadline for candidates running in Ohio's May 6 primary. The DCCC and their wretched conservative recruit, Jennifer Garrison, will be in for a big shock when grassroots progressive and community activist Gregory Howard officially throws his hat into the ring. I've talked to him at some length and I'd say his as good a candidate as Garrison is a terrible one.

Even though Garrison has a grotesque right-wing record as a state legislator, she's trying to blend in with Steve Israel's mystery meat candidates so that Israel can lie to his House colleagues about the monster he's asking them to back financially. Israel doesn't tell other House members she's vehemently antigay and anti-Choice and anti-environment. He just "sweet talks" them into contributing to "our candidate." What a waste of money-- in a red district with a PVI of R+8! And she's Ohio's Sarah Palin!

Garrison beat a Republican incumbent in 2004 to win a state house seat from Southeast Ohio, by ATTACKING HER GOP OPPONENT FOR BEING TOO PRO-GAY. Yes, you read that right. From the Gay People's Chronicle: Garrison already has a rocky relationship with the LGBT community. She won her House seat by gay-baiting her predecessor, Nancy Hollister, in 2004.

Earlier that year, Hollister was the only Republican to vote against the so-called “defense of marriage act.” It was considered a courageous vote.

Garrison sent out mailings that read, “If you believe marriage is between one man and one woman, there’s something you should know about Nancy Hollister.”

The other side of the card said, “DOMA was enacted precisely to protect Ohioans from having to accept ‘marriages’ or ‘unions’ entered into in other states. Despite the value of DOMA, Nancy Hollister voted against it. Jennifer Garrison believes marriage is between one man and one woman and will fight to protect our values.”

In 2006, as a member of the House Education Committee, Garrison helped to kill an amendment that would have required Ohio schools to protect students from bullying for their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The anti-bullying bill passed without the LGBT protections.

An attorney, Garrison opposed EHEA last year, saying it is wrong to single out classes of people for protection. This is a common talking point that anti-gays use against equality laws, and is legally flawed.

From the Akron Beacon Journal (November 11, 2004):

Garrison turned the Hollister vote [against the Ohio Defense of Marriage Act] into something seemingly sinister. She told the Parkersburg (W.Va.) newspapers that "the big difference between Nancy and I is the gay marriage issue. I am against it. She is for it."Garrison sent mailings into homes that read: "If you believe marriage is between one man and one woman, there is something you should know about Nancy Hollister." The mailing then all but declares that Hollister embraces gay marriage, concluding Garrison will "fight to protect our values." Karl Rove would be proud. Clearly, Garrison rode the wave of state Issue 1. She and her pals should be ashamed.

But not only content to have the LGBT community exist as second-class citizens, Jennifer Garrison also wants her own gender to subist that way. From a NARAL email yesterday:

Last week, Jennifer Garrison, a Democrat from Marietta, officially entered the race for Ohio’s Secretary of State. Jennifer Garrison currently serves in the Ohio House of Representatives and has a 0% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio.

Rep. Garrison showed just how extreme her anti-choice position is when she filled out the 2008 candidate questionnaire for Ohio Right to Life, saying she would:

• support legislation in Ohio to outlaw abortion (with only an exception to save a woman’s life),

• support legislation that would allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense emergency contraception, and

• support state funding for so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” that lie to women about the risks of abortion and never refer patients for abortion or birth control services.

Representative Garrison does not share our values.

She and Israel are trying to hide that record from Democrats-- Garrison from Democrats in Ohio and Israel from Democrats in Congress. Now even Republicans are noticing the kind of phony-baloney campaign she's running. Matt Dole, the campaign manager for GOP incumbent Bill Johnson brought up her status as a Steve Israel mystery meat candidate last week. "Jennifer Garrison has been in this race for months, and yet her website doesn't even have an issues page and she refuses to take a stand on important issues like Obamacare and the budget deal recently passed by Congress," Dole said. "The people of Eastern and Southeastern Ohio deserve to know where their candidates stand, and we call on Jennifer Garrison to share her stances on important issues." Israel thinks he's so smart to tell his conservative candidates to hide their views from the voters. You'll see how well that works in November.

Steny Hoyer, of course, has already been out to Ohio to campaign for her. How could he miss an opportunity to try to elect another corrupt corporate shill who will help him reach his career goals? Meanwhile, all you hear from her are the same shop-worn platitudes Israel has all his fatally-flawed candidates regurgitating across the country.

Garrison says she is running because she thinks Washington is broken and not representing all of the people.

"My goal is to represent everybody. I'm filing as a candidate on the democratic ticket, but I think people send us to D.C. to work together and that would be a lot different than what we have in the current congressman," Garrison said.

Even with Steve Israel beating up Democratic congressmembers to contribute and Hoyer and his lobbyist friends out in Ohio asking for donations for her, Garrison did worse than almost any other of Israel's other awful Jumpstart candidates. She only raised $102,031 and has a measly $134,298 cash-on-hand, although the DCCC had demanded she raise at least $250,000 last quarter. Her Republican opponent, Bill Johnson raised $183,566 and has $650,942) on hand. As soon as Greg Howard files, we'll alert you.


UPDATE: A Real Democrat Is In For The OH-06 Seat

Monday Greg Howard filed with the FEC to run for Congress, giving actual Democrats who would like to get rid of Republican incumbent Bill Johnson, an alternative to voting for Garrison in the primary.

In a news release, Howard said he decided to run to press for an overhaul of the economy which he said presently fails to provide for full employment at a living wage.

Howard criticized Johnson as blocking economic reforms which would help average Americans.

“I will push for a substantial increase in the minimum wage and the retraining of unemployed workers,” Howard said. He indicated it is also critical “to extend unemployment compensation for the long-term unemployed.”

Howard said he supports an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to abolish corporate constitutional rights, calling the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the  Citizens United case an “abomination.” He described corporations as valuable economic tools, but added “they should not be allowed to dominate our political life.”

Howard is a member of the Meigs County Democratic Central Committee, and has with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Ohio State. He said he has had extensive experience as a construction engineer on large projects, including power, petrochemicals, and hazardous materials remediation in several states.

Also in the press release Howard said he “opposes the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) because I believes that, like NAFTA, it will result in shipping American jobs overseas.” He said he would work to eliminate the special exemptions to the Clean Air and Water Act for shale oil and gas extraction that were written into the Energy Act of 2005.

Howard intends to push for monetary reform. He points out that the current federal reserve system of money creation, as credit, by private banks has pushed governments, businesses and the great majority of citizens deeply into debt. “It is time to end the uncontrolled creation of money, most of which flows to Wall Street instead of Main Street,” said Howard. “It is bizarre and tragic that the government, which is constitutionally charged with the duty to create money, instead borrows from banks to which it gave away the privilege of money creation, and then pays the banks interest on this money from taxpayer pockets.”

It is time to have money created as a public asset, rather than as public debt. Monetary reform can pave the way to job-creating investment in the nation’s infrastructure, and could ultimately result in the balancing of the federal budget and the paying off of the national debt. It would also rein in the ’too big to fail, too big to jail‘ Wall Street banks, whose business practices put us into the economic slump that are we are in currently.