The candidates
79th Ohio House District
Ross W. McGregor
Age: 47
Address: Springfield
Education: Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Urbana University
Current employment: Executive vice president, Pentaflex, Inc.
Political experience: In fourth term as representative of 72nd House District
Political party: Republican
David D. Herier
Age: 41
Address: Springfield
Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science, Wright State University; juris doctorate, University of Dayton
Current employment: Partner in law firm of Geyer, Herier and Frizzell
Political experience: None
Political party: Democrat
74th Ohio House District
Robert D. Hackett
Age: 63
Address: London
Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics, Columbia University
Current employment: Founder, Central Ohio Financial Mgt. Group
Political experience: In second term as representative of 84th House District; former Madison County commissioner
Political party: Republican
Steve W. Key
Age: 57
Address: Wilberforce
Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science, Michigan State University
Current employment: Property manager
Political experience: None
Political party: Democrat
The race for the Statehouse’s new 79th District pits a Democratic challenger who wants to explore drilling for oil and gas and create a “Department of Repeal” to get rid of regulations that restrict business growth against an incumbent Republican and champion of legislation to outlaw workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians.
“A few anecdotal things are what separates us the most,” said David Herier, a Springfield attorney and first-time political candidate who’s facing four-term state Rep. Ross McGregor, R-Springfield, on Nov. 6.
Clark County’s other statehouse race has quirks of its own.
The race for the new 74th District features Bob Hackett, a two-term Republican from London who’s concerned about the high cost of health care, versus Steve W. Key, a Democrat from Wilberforce who’s vocal in his support for fracking, the Second Amendment and returning prayer to schools.
Like the current 72nd House District, the 79th District will be wholly contained within Clark County, but will add Pike, German, Green and Madison twps. The district includes Springfield, New Carlisle and Enon.
The current 84th District is becoming the 74th District, which includes all of Madison County, part of Greene County and Moorefield, Pleasant and Harmony twps. in Clark County.
Herier vs. McGregor
Herier works fast — or at least he’s had to in his bid to upset McGregor, who’s seeking a fifth and final term in the Ohio House.
Herier didn’t enter the race until August.
“Just getting signs put up was a quick deal,” he said.
The original Democratic candidate for the 79th House seat, David M. Farrell, withdrew from the race in July.
Herier, 41, a lifelong Springfield resident and a partner in the law firm of Geyer, Herier and Frizzell, volunteered to run.
“It’s time to do something instead of sitting back and complaining,” he said.
He admits that his opponent is less conservative and more pragmatic than other Republicans, but he considers McGregor, who’s vice-president of his family’s manufacturing business, to be out of touch with the area’s working-class constituents.
The son of an International Harvester line worker and a Lincoln Elementary teacher, Herier said he knows because he’s one of them.
“I have to go to work every day, not because I want to, because I have to,” he said.
He pointed to McGregor’s support of a failed bill in 2007 that Herier said would’ve allowed payday lenders to continue lending at exorbitant rates.
“I don’t think he understands normal folks,” Herier said. “His priorities are just different because of his background.”
Herier believes the issue of drilling for oil and gas in Ohio is about to heat up — and he wants to explore the possibility.
“If production can be done safely,” he said, “it makes sense.”
He does, however, urge caution.
“I certainly don’t want to do damage we can’t undo,” Herier said. “We need to do what’s smart instead of what’s expedient. To some degree, it seems like we’re jumping into it not knowing what the results will be.”
McGregor, 47, is proud of how this Legislature balanced the budget and rebuilt the state’s depleted rainy day fund — but it came at a cost to local government, according to Herier.
“They balanced the budget on the backs of those folks,” Herier said.
“To have a rainy day fund is a great idea,” he added, “but then we have police and fire being laid off. A business coming in looks at those sorts of things. If we don’t have those basic services, then we’re going to look less attractive.”
He said he wasn’t aware of any police or fire personnel being laid off locally.
One thing both candidates agree on is the need to focus on better developing the state’s workforce to meet the available jobs — many of which are going unfilled because workers lack the proper skills.
“If businesses knew they could come and get the employees they need to do the job, I think they would be happy to locate here,” Herier said.
“Not everybody needs to have a four-year college degree,” McGregor said. “We also need highly skilled welders.”
McGregor believes the recently formed Global Impact STEM Academy, a bioscience high school expected to open next year in the former South High building, is a step in the right direction.
Also a lifelong Springfielder, McGregor recently celebrated his seventh year in the Ohio General Assembly. He touts himself as a centrist who can get things done because of it.
“I’m proud to say that, in the time I’ve been in the House of Representatives, I’ve had legislation I’ve sponsored signed into law by every governor I’ve served with,” he said.
“I don’t promote things that aren’t in the broad interest of my constituents and the state,” he added. “I’ve avoided engaging in extreme partisan issues.”
Executive vice president of Pentaflex Inc., McGregor cites as an example his sponsorship of a bipartisan bill signed into law this summer that reformed collateral sanctions on people being released from prison.
Collateral sanctions, he said, are conditions that are attached to felons even after they’ve paid their debts to society. For example, someone trained in prison to be a barber previously wasn’t eligible for a license once they were released.
“If you come out of the prison system and you can’t get a job, the easy thing to do is recidivise,” he said.
Less successful has been his bill that would outlaw discrimination of LGBT Ohioans in the areas of employment, housing and public accommodation (restaurants, hotels).
“I intend to introduce it again in the next General Assembly,” he said. “It’s just the right thing to do.”
He also continues to advocate for the widening of I-70 through Clark County and is sponsoring legislation addressing the issue of timber theft, in which someone harvests someone else’s trees without permission. The theft is actually hard to prosecute, he said.
McGregor believes Ohio is in much better financial shape. Jobs are being created and revenue is coming in as projected, he said.
“As a business guy,” he said, “I look at it and say the business plan for the state seems to be holding true.”
Hackett vs. Key
The race for the 74th Ohio House seat features two former college football players — and the Democratic challenger admits he would need to pull off an upset.
“If I can win this thing,” Key said, “it would be historic.”
Key, 57, briefly played football at Wilmington College on scholarship. Hackett, 63, played at Columbia University, where he made second-team All-Ivy honors as an offensive guard.
Hackett, a financial adviser and former Madison County commissioner who’s seeking a third term in the House, believes he’s on the side of a winning team.
“We’re making great progress,” he said. “We balanced the most difficult budget in Ohio’s history. We’ve done a good job of attracting jobs. We’re first in the Midwest. We’re fourth in the country.
“We dealt with it much better than the Democrats did.”
Revenue is being created, Hackett said, by putting people back to work, not by raising taxes.
He said there’s more to do.
“We’ve got to continue to market Ohio,” Hackett said. “We want to be more aggressive and go after businesses.”
He said the area’s trio of Republican legislators — himself, McGregor and state Sen. Chris Widener — have momentum on their side.
“We’re not laid-back guys,” he said. “We have a track record.”
He cited his role in helping bring CodeBlue — and, so far, about 175 new jobs with it — to downtown Springfield in 2010.
Attracting new business, Hackett said, means getting rid of unnecessary regulations and retooling the education system so that it churns out the right kind of workforce.
“We have so many jobs in Ohio that we can’t get filled,” Hackett said, “because people aren’t trained for that kind of job.”
Before, he said, students weren’t prepared for careers until college. He supports the new Global Impact STEM Academy first proposed by Widener, and believes it shows that secondary education is rightly changing how it operates.
“The collaborations are really improving,” he said. “It’s hard to change the existing systems. I know. I came from local government.”
An advocate of mental health services, Hackett also is concerned about the cost of health care, which he said is “killing small business.”
“With Obamacare, one of the things I’m unhappy about is we’ve lost sight of how expensive care is,” he said.
“Something had to be done,” he added, “but a complete takeover by the federal government is going to increase taxes.”
His Democratic opponent, Key, isn’t in favor of President Obama’s national health plan, either.
“I’m saying no to a federal takeover,” Key said. “Let Ohio design their own plan.”
He envisions a state-designed health-care exchange with multiple insurance providers competing for business.
A conservative Democrat who manages 10 properties in Xenia, Key unsuccessfully ran for Greene County commissioner in 2010.
“The ability to serve is always something I’ve wanted to do,” he said.
He sees his opening in this traditionally red district in part because of Hackett’s support of another health-care issue — the so-called heartbeat bill.
Passed by the Ohio House in 2011, but still pending in the Senate, the bill would ban abortion once a heartbeat is detected. Opponents of the bill say a heartbeat can be detected often before a woman realizes she’s pregnant.
“I’m trying to dig out women voters who will look at those votes and say, ‘That’s not where our values are.’ I’m trying to peel off women voters,” he said. “I think women should make their own health-care decisions.”
Education also will be a priority for Key.
He wants to ensure the proper amount of lottery money and casino money goes to education.
“It’s been a shell game,” he said. “My understanding is it’s given and it’s taken back out of the general fund.”
He also wants to create peer groups for the school districts in the state, so that a district like Xenia would be compared to a similar district, not Oakwood.
He believes that teachers in all districts have the best interests of their students in mind.
“I don’t think any teacher goes to school in the morning,” Key said, “and thinks, ‘How can I mess up this group of kids?’ “
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