Friends don't let friends vote for Mike DeWine.

There are so many reasons not to send this guy back to the U.S. Senate. A brief look at Sen. DeWine’s legislative record should be more than enough for most rational people to come to this conclusion.

Here’s a man who has proposed legislation to “suspend temporarily the duty on” 9 different chemicals that the U.S. imports. This seems to be a very common practice among Senate and House Republicans. I’ve looked at the Congressional record, and while I haven’t looked at all of the 540 pieces of legislation from the 109th Congress that involve this practice, every single one that I have looked at (about 100), was proposed by a Republican. Obviously, suspending the duty (or tariff) on an item makes it cheaper to import it into the U.S. This of course is a benefit to any company who would prefer to import cheap alternatives to U.S. products. Now, really, is there any question as to whose pockets Sen. DeWine and many other Republicans are in?

Senator DeWine, in 2003 & 2004, co-sponsored legislation to add a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw the desecration of the United States flag. Now I’m not the flag-burning type. I never have burned one, and I likely never will. But I recognize, as should all Americans, that it is a citizen’s right, to exercise their FIRST AMENDMENT rights, by burning the U.S. flag in protest. And quite frankly, if the sanctity and stability of our nation is threatened by the mere burning of a piece of cloth, then we’ve got much bigger problems than outlawing flag burning.

And let’s not forget S.2455, the “Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006”, in which Sen. DeWine is attempting to change the law to make President Bush’s breaking the law more palatable. And this is the part of this legislation I love:

“SEC. 8. CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION ON SURVEILLANCE PROGRAMS.

(a) Establishment of Offense- Chapter 37 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 798A the following new section:

`Sec. 798B. Unauthorized disclosure of information on surveillance programs

`(a) In General- Any covered person who intentionally discloses information identifying or describing, whether in whole or in part, electronic surveillance authorized by section 2 of the Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006, or any other information relating to the Terrorist Surveillance Program under that Act or any program of surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) to any individual not authorized to receive such information shall be fined not more than $1,000,000, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both.”

So basically, Mr. DeWine is trying to make sure that when the government undertakes a questionable surveillance program again, nobody can talk about it, especially the media. This way, that inconvenient little thing known as THE TRUTH won’t embarrass Sen. DeWine’s beloved President again. Fifteen years and $1 million fine. Pretty steep. I wonder what the penalty is for violating the FISA law in the first place?? I’m sure White House counsel knows what that is.