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(upbeat music) (bell ringing) - Good afternoon, and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, chief executive here, also a proud member, and it is great to be back in person, although clearly the rise of the COVID Delta variant is keeping our audience at a somewhat modest size today.

Nevertheless, we are pleased to welcome former 16th Congressional District Congressman, Jim Renacci.

He wants to be Ohio's next governor, and he's here to talk about it.

This is part of our ongoing efforts to put you in conversation with the people who are shaping the future of our state and those who wish to, and we're grateful to have him on our stage today.

On June 9th, he announced his intentions to run in the Republican primary against incumbent governor, Mike DeWine.

He, of course, is no stranger to electoral politics having served four terms in Congress after being, first being elected in 2010 and surviving the redistricting of 2012.

In 2018, he ran for Senate, and though he earned the endorsement of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, he was not able to beat incumbent, Sherrod Brown.

He began in politics many, many years ago as mayor of Wadsworth in 2004.

I think it's important to know that as a Congressman, Mr. Renacci was known for a collaborative and bipartisan spirit.

He chaired the Bipartisan Working Group, more than 20 members of Congress from both parties who tried to craft compromised solutions to big issues, most importantly, the federal deficit.

In 2019, he launched a nonprofit, Ohio's Future Foundation, a 501(c)(4) organization that was advocating for fiscal conservatism and changes to the regulatory environment in favor of businesses.

Our format today will include remarks from Mr. Renacci, and then he's going to sit down for a brief interview, and then we'll move on to questions from all of you and from our listening audience.

If you are joining us via the live stream or via our partners on 90.3 WCPN, Ideastream Public Media, please tweet your questions @thecityclub or text them to 330-541-5794, and our team will work them in.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Congressman Jim Renacci.

(audience applauding) - Thank you, Dan, and thank you for that introduction.

For those that see this big package here this morning, I'm not gonna run through everything in here.

I use this as a guide because this is all the backup to some of the statistics I'm gonna be talking about today when it comes to Ohio.

But thank you for having me.

It's always great to be at the City Club, and it's always great to really get the discussion about the change and the issues that we really need to be talking about, not only in our country and our state.

For those that don't know you, know me, let me give you a little bit of background first.

I was a businessman long before I ever got involved in politics.

I came to Ohio 38 years ago.

I came here because Ohio was the land of opportunity.

If you think about it, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania.

When you left high school, you went into the coal mines or you went into the steel mills.

Those have all since gone.

And what I learned was that Ohio was an entrepreneur state.

It was a state where anything could happen.

And if you think about it, think about 38 years ago.

We had Akron, which was the rubber capital of the world.

You know, we had NCR down in Dayton.

We had Wean United over in Youngstown.

We were an unbelievable state, and we were a state that was one of the growing states at that time and a very powerful state when it came to manufacturing.

We're still one of the stronger manufacturing states, but let's face it, we've lost a lot of ground, and that's one of the things I want to talk to you all about.

I started my first business at the age of 24 with just a couple hundred dollars, created over 1,500 jobs, employed over 3,000 people over my 38 years career in business, went from one business to 60 businesses.

I've run everything from a CPA firm to a car business, to three Harley Davidson dealerships, to an amphitheater, to a golf course, to two sports teams, and the list goes on and on, a physicians management practice, multiple nursing homes, a construction company, and I did it all throughout Ohio.

So I had the opportunity to travel this entire state and I've dealt with the smallest of city to the largest of cities, and I've dealt with the smallest of business to the largest of business, even in my consulting.

And one thing I saw was a state that was clearly losing ground over 38 years.

And quite frankly, for me, I look back at how I got started.

An individual and entrepreneur today probably would have a much more difficult time getting started than I was able to.

I was able to get a loan for almost $80,000 through this local bank to get me started at the age of 24.

I guarantee you, that doesn't happen in today's world.

But I also realized from the values my parents gave me that good, hard work, and always allowing and pulling people with you.

So it wasn't just about me because a lot, if you go back to my business career, you'll find that a lot of people that worked with me now own their own businesses and now have their own consulting companies.

Because I always believed when you're going up the ladder, you've got to pull people with you, and I was a strong advocate of that.

I went to Congress in 2010, not because that was my game.

By the way, Dan told you I was the mayor of Wadsworth.

I was the mayor of Wadsworth because Wadsworth was having problems, and I was a businessman, that was where my office was at.

And in Wadsworth, they had a $2 million budget, $80 million budget, but they were losing close to $1.8 million a year.

And the business community got together and asked me, would you be willing to help?

Because I was a turnaround guy.

I went all over the state and I turned around businesses.

And I said, well, I'm really not interested, not interested in politics, leave me alone, kind of the same old thing, but I always wanted to give back.

And if you look at my history, you'll see that I always gave back.

I was a firefighter in my community, I was on a planning commission, always was willing to give back.

I was on a bank board, I was on the chamber of commerce board, always one of those people who was willing to give back.

Wasn't really interested in politics, but I said eventually, after a lot of pushing, that I would do it.

And I'll tell you, it was a great learning experience for me because I learned very quickly that governments are broken.

They spend, they take their budgets, they just continue to spend, they raise their spending every year, they don't look at the future, they don't look 10 years down the road or 20 years down the road, which you have to do in business.

And I was able to take the city, with a budget deficit, and turn it into a surplus over four years just by putting business principles into the city.

And I was glad to leave because I really didn't believe politics was where I wanted to be.

Problem is in 2009, one of my businesses, a Chevy dealership, was taken from me by the federal government.

People say, well, how'd that happen?

Well, if you remember back then, the Obama administration took over General Motors and the General Motors was required to downsize 200, or a hundred and, no.

1,242 dealerships across the state.

Now, across the country.

Now, I was told my dealership was fine.

58 employees, life was good.

We were actually gonna build a brand new location out on the highway.

The problem was, that wasn't what the federal government was telling General Motors, and lo and behold, in June of 2019 or June of 2009, I got a letter that says you are no longer gonna be part of General Motors family.

And I got to tell you, that was a shock for me because here's somebody who had 58 employees, life was going well, and all of a sudden saw an infringement of the government.

So, that was what drove me to go to Washington.

And I did, I ran.

For over 14 months, I talked to the Congressman who was in place at that time.

He told me he would help me.

He didn't.

A long story short, I said I was gonna remove him, and 14 months later, I did.

Dan mentioned, I went through the last redistricting process and actually got redistricted into a whole nother district, into a district that was actually a much more challenging district because the district I had before that was Congressman Regula's district, which was, as we call it, like R plus or D plus.

This was a, his was an R plus seven or eight.

I now was moved into an R plus two, which meant that it was gonna be a much more difficult fight.

And it was, and many of you know, and I, in fact, we had a debate here at this location.

It was between me and Betty Sutton.

And I actually ended up defeating Congresswoman Sutton 52-48, so it showed that it was a close race.

What I'm proud to tell you though, is I ended up serving in that district.

In my last election, I got almost 67% of the vote, which says that I was able to actually work in a district.

And I'm also proud to say that, look, Republicans and Democrats, I had five Democrat mayors that used to not only come to events with me, but in many times, talk and support me.

So I was happy for them to realize that I'm, it's about working together, it's about getting things done, and it's about taking things across the road, you know, across the line and getting things accomplished.

So I was happy to do that.

I decided in 2017, that Washington is seriously broken.

And by the way, it is broken.

We can't keep spending the money we're spending, we can't keep doing what we're doing, and it is clearly a broken place.

And the only way to fix it, in my mind, is to really get our states to come back and be the solid bearers of the process of moving forward in our country.

Our states really, at one point in time, were the answer and they gave the government, the federal government limited power.

Today, the federal government has taken over much more power than it was originally given to them.

And I really do believe we need states to step up, we need governors to step up, and we need to be able to say no more to our federal government in the sense that they need to provide for the benefits that they should provide.

You know, interstate transportation, the post office, all those things that they were originally designed to do, but they really need to get out of our business of running the state.

And I think we'll talk a little bit about that.

But so, in 2017, I jumped into the governor's race.

I announced that I was leaving Washington.

I could have still been in Congress.

I probably could have been in Congress for the next 30 years.

It wasn't what I wanted to do.

I'm worried about my children and grandchildren, as you should all be as well.

And I stepped into the fight thinking I could change things in Ohio.

I was in there for a short period of time until Josh Mandel, who was in the Senate race, stepped down, and then lo and behold, I got asked to go into the Senate race, something I really wasn't planning on doing, but I will always tell you that when a president of United States asks you to do something, and I don't care what president or who president or which president, when the president asks you to do something, it's kind of hard to say no.

I jumped into a race with a very short period of time and got to travel the state, and was defeated, but only, was defeated only by a very small margin if you look at it in the money spent.

And I think that was important.

But here's the most important thing.

I was able to learn a lot about Ohio.

And right after that, I set up the foundation, Ohio's Future Foundation, and I started traveling the state.

I wanted to see what the problems were in the state.

The New York Times had just come out and said, Ohio is dying and Ohio cities are dying.

So I teamed up with Walsh University and we started traveling the state.

We started going to the small cities.

Think about some of these small cities.

Steubenville used to have 40, 50,000 people, now down to 17 or 18,000 people.

I mean, look at some of those communities.

We went to Portsmouth.

Portsmouth's just an unbelievable city, but it's dying.

Steubenville, Massillon.

We started going to these cities and then COVID hit and we had to stop, but we had a 10-city tour planned.

And what, here's what we learned.

We learned that communities are having problems.

We learned the communities are finding that the overreach of the state government is hurting them.

And we also learned that people are leaving, and that's what's statistically is the problem.

We learned much of what I had learned while I was traveling the state, that Ohio is losing ground.

Ohio cannot compete with other states anymore.

And statistically, I'm gonna tell you, we'll go through some statistics to prove that.

First of all, once I started to figure out that we had these problems, I wanted to get an outside opinion.

So I commissioned the University of Akron to do a study, which they did for me, and they teamed up with Ball State.

It's interesting because the, you can get this study on JimRenacci.com, but it really is Falling Behind, How Ohio Continues to Lose Its Place in the U.S. Economy.

This is a study that's very interesting because it tells us, and told me, it taught me a lot of things, but it also shows that we are losing ground, we are falling behind, and it shows some reasons why we're falling behind.

Let's face it.

There's plenty of polls out there, and I'll show you this.

I mean, two thirds of Americans say the country is going in the wrong direction.

Two thirds.

And actually 60% of Ohioans believe Ohio's going in the wrong direction.

So, think about that.

We all know our federal government, we believe our federal government's going in the wrong direction and we believe our state government's going in the wrong direction, but we keep electing the same people and we keep putting the same people in office, and then we wonder why we end up where we end up.

Well, we end up in this position because we just keep electing and not changing, and it's one of the things that I believe we need to do in the state of Ohio.

I'm gonna run off some statistics.

Best states to live in.

And by the way, each one of these statistics is backed.

That's why I brought this, in case anybody questions.

Best state to live in, Ohio ranks 39th.

Safest states in America, Ohio ranks 35th.

Best and worst states to find a job, Ohio ranks 30th.

Best and worst state economy, Ohio ranks 35th.

You notice there's a trend here.

I mean, we are in the bottom half of everything when we talk about statistics.

State economies worst hit by COVID, Ohio's the fourth, worst hit by COVID.

Fastest growing cities in the United States.

Now, this one was kind of interesting because you would think, well, Ohio has got to have some of the fastest growing cities.

The fastest growing city, the only one that I could find in Ohio, for Ohio, was Cincinnati, which was 242nd.

It was the, so 243 cities are growing faster than Ohio cities.

That's a serious problem as well.

Most dangerous cities.

This is an interesting one, and it shows you, we got a lot of work.

Dayton, number five; Cleveland, number 10; Cincinnati, number 19; and Akron, number 49.

We have four of the most dangerous cities in the 50 cities in our country.

That's another serious problem that we got to talk about.

This one, I have to chuckle about and I threw it in just for today.

The most stressed city in the country: Cleveland, Ohio.

The most stressed city in the country.

Job growth.

This is a real key, too.

If you're gonna grow your state, you got to have job growth.

Well, I've got a number of studies here that show averages over the last couple of years, but our averages have been anywhere from 40th to 43rd, which again, puts us in a bottom trend, in the bottom 10 states.

But let's look at our statistics.

Here's some interesting numbers that our people aren't aware of.

In 2019, the state of Ohio lost 6,200 jobs.

And you can get this from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This isn't an off the wall number.

We lost.

Now, remember 2019, prior to COVID, this was when our state was, all other states were booming.

We were in this, in the economy that was growing, yet Ohio lost 6,200 jobs in 2019.

2020, we lost 324,000.

In 2021, we've lost 81,000 net jobs.

Most recently, the statistics of our numbers show that Ohio ranks 50th, 50th in jobs and new businesses.

That's not good.

State business climate, 39th.

Ninth most outbound state, ninth most outbound state.

And, this is the, this is something that's really bad.

In 2019, we were ranked the seventh most public corrupt state in the country.

Today, remember, that was 2019, January of 2019, that was a University of Chicago study.

Today, the Columbus Dispatch said with all the corruption we've had, including the corruption in Columbus last year and Cincinnati and in Toledo, that we now rank number one.

The number one state for corruption.

These are serious, serious problems that don't help us.

What are some of the issues?

We spend too much.

I'm just gonna give you some numbers.

Ohio just passed an $80 billion budget.

Think about that.

$80 billion budget.

The problem is, with 10.7 million people, $80 billion, is that good or bad?

Well, Florida, Florida has 22 million people and their budget's $88 billion.

So almost the same amount, but Georgia and North Carolina, almost the same size as Ohio, their budgets are approximately $40 billion.

So think about that.

They're spending half of what we're spending and Florida, who's twice our size, is spending the same amount.

We spend too much.

We've had a state that's been on track for the last 25 years that just continues to spend and spend and spend instead of looking.

And by the way, we all know population's declining, we're losing a congressmen.

Now, people say to me, oh, Renacci, our population isn't declining, it's staying steady.

Okay, but we're losing population compared to other states.

We can't compete.

We tax too much.

We're in the top 12 states when it comes to taxes.

Now, people say, well, wait a minute, we got the lowest taxes.

We do.

We do, but we tax everything.

We have one of the states that taxes everything.

We have sales tax, we have, and then we've got a CAT tax.

Think about this.

We have a CAT tax, which actually taxes a business that loses money.

Why would a business stay here?

I mean, one of the challenges I had when I traveled the state was I was in Portsmouth, I talked to a business and they'd say, Congressman, I just got to go across the bridge and I could save $250,000 in taxes.

We better get better at that.

We can't compete.

We have an unemployment system that is antiquated and broken, and many people have seen that.

We were told by the federal government, state government in 2019, we are gonna be in a significant problem if we don't fix our unemployment system.

We didn't.

Our leadership in Columbus didn't fix it, and lo and behold, billions of dollars of fraud and abuse because we didn't do it, we didn't prioritize it.

We have a workers comp system that only compares to four other states.

Most other states have worker's comp systems that are privatized.

The Medicaid system is unsustainable.

The CAT tax discourages companies.

Real estate taxes have increased by 400%.

These are all numbers you can find.

And, we have the same amount of school districts and colleges, yet, our state is set to have the lowest amount of 18-year-olds in 2034.

So I'm just giving you all these statistics that says we are a state with a tremendous amount of headwind against us, but I will tell you one of the best statistics we have.

Depending on where you look, we're either sixth or ninth in opportunity.

We do have some great opportunity here.

We got a lake to the north, a river to the south, we've got a national park in the middle.

We've got halls of fame.

We got so many opportunities, but until we use those opportunities and make sure that we're bringing people in, because that's what we need, quality of life.

University of Akron's study said that if we don't, that what we really need is a quality of life state.

People, businesses don't just move in a state and say, okay, people, come to my business.

Businesses go into a state where the employees are already there and we have to enhance our quality of life.

I'll leave you with this, and then I'm gonna give you, think about this.

We're number one in corruption, number one in drug overdose deaths, and 50th of new jobs and business.

Those are not the statistics you want.

I will tell you though, I mean, we could talk about issues, but we do have, I do have a plan and I know we'll probably get into that.

I do have solutions.

You can find it at JimRenacci.com.

And quite frankly, we need full tax reform.

We need an immediate freeze on spending.

We've got to get our spending back in line.

We need to make, we need to wipe out corruption.

We should be able to do that.

We are a pay-for-play state.

If you think about it, you donate to a politician and then you get a appointment or you get a contract.

That's got to stop.

That's got to stop.

You should get an appointment or a contract because of what you bring to the table.

And I can tell you as governor, I will change that.

Anybody donating more than $5,000 or $10,000, we're gonna put a number on that I'm gonna get the legislature to come together with me, because you gotta be able to work with the legislature.

One of the failures of the current governor is he hasn't worked with the legislature.

We need to be able to say, you can't just give hundreds and millions of dollars to a candidate and then get all this back because we're forgetting about the people of this state, this great state.

So, that's about transparency.

Education reform.

We need education reform.

The University of Akron study says, we've got to be better.

We have to be better at early education.

We got to look to that.

Medicaid expansion, we got to look at.

Medicaid, under Governor Strickland, was 17% of our budget.

Medicaid spending today is almost 50% of our budget.

That's a serious problem, unsustainable.

State pension reform, we've got a horrible pension system that needs, and is really a bankrupt pension reform.

We need to look at it.

But we've got to capitalize on Ohio's quality of life.

I mean, let's face it.

I hate to say this, look at our airports.

We have airports that are underused.

I don't know if any of you have been to the Cleveland Airport lately or Akron.

They're underused, but we've got an airport out here at Berkeley right on the lake.

I mean, I hate to say this, these are things that we can talk about creatively.

Our lakefront should be our greatest asset.

We've got to use it.

We must, I am a big believer we need to decentralize some of our assets in Columbus.

Here's what's going on.

University of Akron study will tell you, people are getting their education.

They're either leaving the state or they're going to Columbus.

They go to Columbus for a few years, and then they disperse to other states.

We're losing people.

That's why Steubenville and all these other states are having problems.

And we must capitalize on our energy assets.

Think about it.

I'm a big believer in all aspects of energy, nuclear, wind, solar, but Ohio has coal and natural gas and some of those things.

We should be capitalizing on some of those assets.

We have to restore the American dream in Ohio, which I think is important.

And we have to really look at how we can bring business here by bringing people here.

We are a changing economy and we are a changing state.

We need people to want to come here and live here.

Let's face it.

You're gonna be able to work virtually going forward.

Wouldn't Ohio be the great state to get people here that are living and working, and then businesses will come.

Cleveland is ranked one of the 10 worst cities in the country to economic city as a country.

Pittsburgh's one of the top 10.

Why is Pittsburgh, 112 miles away, so much better?

Pittsburgh has business diversity, another thing we need to make sure that we have in the state of Ohio.

We have the opportunity for solutions, but we need change.

We need to eliminate the guard, the old guard that continues to do the same old thing and just maintain the status quo.

That's why I'm running for governor.

Jim Renacci.com, you can get the information about me, but I really would appreciate you to learn my platform, learn some of my differences.

And I'd love to have your vote come May, June, whatever it is next year.

Until they get these districts set up, who knows.

(audience applauding) (indistinct) - The Congressman is gonna join me for a brief interview, and then we'll get to questions from all of you.

Congressmen, I think a lot of the, a lot of people will be wondering, okay, you want to be governor.

What would you have done differently over the last year?

So what would you have done differently over the last, really 18 months starting with the beginning of the COVID crisis?

- Sure.

Well, the answer, well, remember, our problems in Ohio started long before COVID-- - [Dan] Sure.

- So, I mean, everybody always likes to go to COVID and say COVID's the problem.

No, our problems were, I mean, the unemployment system was always failing.

Our jobs and economy was failing long before COVID.

But really what I would have done is, is I would not have done the draconian, many of the draconian things that I believe Governor DeWine did.

Let's face it.

He shut down very quickly.

He relied on a director of health.

He scared people.

We should never be scaring people.

We should've been talking about, yes, we have a contagious disease, yes, there are concerns, but he had people scared.

I mean, when you talk to people, they were scared to come out, they were scared to move forward.

And then-- - It was pretty scary, to be honest.

I mean, the whole thing, like, there was so much that was unknown about-- - Right-- - How deadly it was.

There were bodies that were sort of, you know, there were people dying and that they ran out of room in New York City, right, where I have family.

It was scary.

- [Renacci] Yeah, well.

- Objectively.

- And my son's a physician in New York City at that hospital where they were running out of room.

But, my son would tell you today that we overreacted and we made some decisions.

And quite frankly, it's pretty simple.

We have a country with 50 states.

Look at the states that did better.

Look at the states that are coming out.

Today, 22 states are coming out of the COVID problem better than Ohio.

19 of them are Republican states, three of them are Democrat states.

So I'm not saying it's all Republican states, but what happened is I think this governor overreacted.

I think he became the Cuomo of Ohio, not in the scandal that just happened, but-- - It's really hard to imagine Mike DeWine in that context.

- Yeah, not that context, but I'm talking about the overreaction.

And I do think that, you know, first off, anytime you have serious issues, look, I was in business for 38 years.

I mean, I was in healthcare for many of those years.

There were always things that came at us.

The first thing you gotta do is you can't overreact and you can't put fear.

I mean, I took over businesses where people thought they were gonna lose their job.

My first job was to make sure people knew, listen, we're gonna get out of this.

We're gonna come together.

We're gonna learn together, we're gonna come together.

The other thing Mike DeWine did not do is he didn't listen.

So, many times while this dilemma was occurring, I was talking to the Senate president, or even the, many of the people in the legislature, and they'd say, I'd say, well, did you know that Governor DeWine was gonna mandate this today?

And they go, no, we had no idea.

Look, no one person should be making the decisions for the state of Ohio.

I think it should have been a joint effort and I also think we also have to prepare ourself for constitutional issues, too.

I think in many cases, the governor probably, well, didn't probably, he did overreach his constitutional authority, which I think never should be done in any state or any country.

- Congressman, you mentioned early childhood education in your education reform.

I believe you briefly said we have to do more early childhood.

I wanted to give you, that's an issue that has come up a lot here at the City Club.

It's very important to the Cleveland community.

And I wanted to give you a chance to speak more specifically about if your plan includes beefing up early childhood education.

- I think we have to look at that.

I think we have to give those options.

I do believe that, I just learned this the other day.

I think it's a learning experience for me as I travel the state.

Most children, I never realized this.

Whether it comes to drugs, whether it comes to direction, most children, their mindset is embedded by the time they get past fourth grade.

And when you think about that, we need to be able to make sure that we're showing them as many options and we're giving them more opportunity early on.

Today, that doesn't mean that everything should be directed because, look, we have an educational system that is failing in the sense that, as I travel the state and I go into some of the drug rehab facilities, the residential, I mean, I talked to individuals who also say, congressmen, when I was in high school, I just wanted to go, I wanted to learn how to work on cars, and I was told you can't do that, you'll be a, not be at success, you'll be a horrible person, and then I just realized I didn't want to do what they wanted me to do.

So I mean, early education, prior to fourth grade, we've got to make sure our children understand the issues of drugs and many of those things.

And then at the same time, we also got to make sure our education's reformed.

We've got to give people choice, too.

- Let me mention for the benefit of our listening audience, that we're with Congressman Jim Renacci here at the City Club of Cleveland.

And if you have a question you should text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet it @thecityclub.

I'm Dan Moulthrop with the City Club.

Congressman, you mentioned corruption.

You managed to talk about corruption and us being the most corrupt state, Ohio being the most corrupt state, according to some rankings, without mentioning House Bill 6 or First Energy Corporation, or the names of various lobbyists and PUCO appointees and so forth.

I wanted to give you a chance to talk specifically about House Bill 6 as an example of the kind of corruption you would seek to root out.

- Sure.

Well, let's face it.

That is ranked one of the number one worst corruption issues in our state.

It's very closely tied to many people.

I think there will be many more names brought out.

And by the way, First Energy's a good company.

I think the political-- - Wait, hold on a second.

How is a good company implicated in to this extent?

Like, how do you square that?

How do you say it's a good company, but they were responsible for this-- - Well-- - You know, for, I mean-- - They provide services.

That's what I'm saying.

But what happened was-- - They do keep the lights on here at the City Club.

- Right, right.

So they, exactly.

And what I say is, too often, politicians got involved in that, too.

Politicians were asking for money.

They were asking for something.

Clearly-- - Well, I think they invited the politicians to get involved.

- I think it was both ways.

I think if, I think in the end, the FBI in there, as they do their investigation, we'll find out it was probably both ways.

And I think that's what has to come out.

We need to be able to have the transparency to show that people were walking in the door asking for money and people were walking out with commitments and it went both ways.

I mean, this wasn't a one-way street.

So I think in the, when I talk about corruption, this is the perfect example.

There is no way that anybody should be able to donate that kind of money, that kind of money, and end up getting the influence they get, which is why I think we need transparency.

By the way, think about how close that is to the governor.

You mentioned it.

His chief of staff was a lobbyist for First Energy.

His number one lobbyists to the House and Senate, State House and Senate was with First Energy, also was president of one of the dark money groups.

And, Randazzo, who has been named-- - [Dan] Randazzo.

- Randazzo, who has been named, also got this large contract from First Energy before he went on the governor's payroll.

So, I think all this needs to come out and citizens deserve that.

I've asked for the governor-- - Do you think there should, that we should move to a public financing of political campaigns?

A different sort of system entirely?

Should there be different kinds of limits on the kinds of contributions people can, the size of checks people can write to the Renacci for Governor campaign?

- I do.

I, but here's what, I don't think public.

I think people have the right to write a check, but I do think we need, and I've said this, we need to be able to say, if you write a check for over $5,000, you can't get a appointment and you can't have a contract with the state.

You should also say that if you're a business, I mean, one of the things I want to do as governor is go back and look at what happened here.

Think about this.

There are people out here that have gotten multimillion dollar contracts and they didn't just donate $11,000 or $12,000 to the governor.

I mean, they donated to maybe directly, to either the governor or others.

I mean, again, I'm not implicating anybody, but there, but the way our system works is you could donate X amount to the governor directly or anybody running, and then you can donate X amount to the higher Republican Party, if it's a Republican or the high Democratic Party if it's a Democrat, and then they could filter money.

- When you can write an unlimited check to a dark money group or a super PAC that doesn't have to disclose.

- So you should have the transparency.

We need transparency.

But if I'm, look, when I was in the nursing home business, I had to report anybody that owned more, directly or indirectly, than 5% of that nursing home, because I was getting federal and state money.

I think we need to do that as well when it comes to state contracts.

People need to know.

Hey, if you got a state contract for $2 million and you've donated directly or indirectly, your name shows up, you know, $200, $300, $400,000, whatever the limits are, people should know that.

I want to stop that.

I do think, and by the way, the greatest failure of the administration today-- - [Dan] Yes.

- This governor, is that he is not even addressing it.

Not even addressing it.

He should be saying, we're gonna clean this up.

This should be a number one issue.

When you're the number one state for corruption, he should be cleaning it up today.

- The previous, this corruption scandal implicated then House Speaker Larry Householder.

The previous Speaker of the House, Cliff Rosenberger, also left with an indictment hanging over his head.

What's going on?

- Well, let's face it.

And it's not just Republicans because you can go to Cincinnati and you can go to Toledo with city councils.

We had the big scandal here in Cleveland years ago.

It, we are a pay-for-play state.

It's simple.

We're a pay-for-play state.

It goes all the way back, Republicans, Democrats, they take dollars in and then they give out contracts.

Now, they do it legally because they're allowed.

I mean, if you look at the arguments over the years, even back to the Democrat attorney general and then Mike DeWine is attorney general, you could go back and forth, Cordray, they were taking money from law firms, directly and indirectly, and then giving out contracts.

But they said, well, wait a minute, we have this system where we pick.

That should be a problem.

You donate.

I mean, you could track money flowing around in all of these races.

We got to fix that.

This is something the governor should do right now.

If he wants the state to change from number one corruption to number 50th, which is where we should be, and zero corruption, he's got to come out and make those changes, but he's not even talking about it.

He's not even talking about House Bill 6.

I've asked him to explain.

We had a lobbyist, as you're aware, who wrote a book, committed suicide.

- [Dan] Neil Clark.

- Neil Clark, and he said that Governor DeWine took over $5 million and knew about this.

Explain that.

The governor said, well, I'm gonna give money back that I got directly.

Well, clearly this directly, indirectly.

The problem with our system is the direct stuff, you could see.

The indirect stuff, you can't find.

- One of the things about House Bill 6, which has another impact on the economy and the environment for jobs and job growth is the fact that it was designed to prop up old forms of energy.

And many large employers, your Amazons, your Googles, the kinds of employers that governors are routinely courting, have said that they want to see states committed to alternative energy.

They want to be able to buy lots of energy from solar and from wind.

How do you see it?

- I see it as though we should be able to, look, if we want to be a strong manufacturing state and we want to be a strong state, we gotta have inexpensive energy, so you've got to use all of the above, all of the above.

And, look, there are some states that nuclear is not a good idea for.

There are some states that oil and gas are not a good, but I think that's why each state should make their decisions.

And the community, the businesses shouldn't be making the decisions for the state.

As a business person, you look at your assets and you look at your liabilities.

If your assets are, you know, oil, gas, nuclear, well, then, you should use your assets to the best way you can.

That doesn't mean you forget about wind and solar.

I've always been, you look back at my history, all of the above.

But, let's make sure that you're using your assets in the best position.

So I don't care what Amazon wants.

I really want to care, I care what the state wants, the people want and what works best to get what I told you was, our state back to where it needs to be.

We should be one of the top 10 states in the country for business and growth.

I mean, I don't think Amazon is gonna say, well, I'm not coming to Ohio because you use nuclear energy or you have coal or you have.

They're gonna come here because of the workforce and they're gonna come here because of the cost of energy and the cost of transportation, which we have some of those assets already.

- I'm not sure which one of the big tech firms it was, if it was Facebook or Amazon or Google wanted to put a server farm in Ohio and chose not to because there was no solar power available to power it.

And it's interesting that you say that you don't care what Amazon wants.

They're the largest employer, they're, if not the largest employer in the nation, the second largest employer in the nation.

- Well, I told you, I care about how we can grow business.

Doesn't have to be Amazon.

There are a lot of businesses that will come here.

I'd like to have Amazon.

I'd like to have all the companies that want to come here.

But if they say, well, we're not gonna use your assets and we want you to use our preferred assets, I think in the end, the state and whose ever running the state should use what's in the best interest of the state.

- The line on that is that they say they want it, they want solar because they're concerned about climate change.

Are you concerned about climate change?

- Well, look, I, here's what I'm concerned about.

I'm concerned about my grandson who just turned one years old.

I'm concerned about my children.

I'm concerned about our making sure that we leave our country and our state and our earth in the proper way.

And, but at the same time, I also believe, do we have a climate change issue?

Well, some people say we do, some people say we don't.

I believe we just got to do what's best to keep, you know, whatever admissions we have clean.

We already have that.

Look at what the federal government standards they've put out on the nuclear power plants, on the coal plants.

We've already had, look at what they're doing with the cars.

We already have such a clean admission, yet, at the same time, we've got China and all these other countries not doing anything, so we can lead and do some of the things we're doing, but at the same time, we've got to make sure that we lead enough so that we still maintain Ohio, or not only Ohio, but our country as one of the greatest countries in the world.

- Congressman Jim Renacci is running to be in the primary for governor, the Republican primary for governor of the state of Ohio.

That election is next year.

It's a long way off, but only in some ways.

If you have a question, please make your way to the microphone at the back of the room or you can text your question to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794, or you can tweet it @thecityclub and we will work it in.

Can we have our first question, please?

- We have a text question.

Where do you stand on local school districts being able to mandate masks in schools?

- Yeah, I'm a big believer that no one cares more about their children than the parents and that the parents should be the ones who have the greatest authority over what goes on.

The closer you get back to the family, the better off you are.

I don't think government should be mandating things.

I think the parents have the, you know, they don't want their child to be in a position of unsafe situation, so I do believe it comes down to the family and the parents making those decisions.

- Do you not believe that the school board, that's a decision local school boards should make?

- Well, I think the school boards should actually be made up of the parents and the parents should-- - Well, they are, typically.

- Well, but I think what you're finding out is that the parents are actually going to the school boards and saying, wait a minute, we don't want this done.

I think it's the parents should make those decisions.

- Understood.

Do we have another question?

- [Man] Can I just sit here and do it?

- Well, we want to get you on the microphone so folks can hear you on the radio as well.

Otherwise it's just me and congressmen.

Thank you.

- First of all, I do exactly what the Congressman knows.

I do exactly what he did.

I bring, I've turned companies around generally for, through court systems, but I can tell you just on the energy thing, I'm bringing a company back from California that makes batteries.

They're leaving California because they don't have enough power, they don't have enough water and specifically don't have enough natural gas.

So that whole Amazon's coming because, they won't come here because we don't have enough wind power, that.

We have such an opportunity here because of the lake and we have so much diverse power here that there's other things that can be done, and these are companies that are gonna manufacture, this particular company's gonna bring 1,400 jobs, and they're not Amazon paying jobs.

These are high paying union jobs.

- [Dan] Appreciate the correction.

- [Man] So.

It wasn't meant to be a correction.

It's just a statement.

- No, the contribution.

Thank you.

- So, and on that same note, because of the congressmen who I worked with in Washington, and was with him in the beginning, we definitely need to bring, we have a huge skilled labor pool that we could fill a lot of these jobs, but the state sometimes, and the cities, in particular, Cleveland, gets in the way of actually bringing jobs.

They say we want them here, but it's like, okay, we dare you to bring it if you're gonna do this.

So it's, there's zones that we can set up, these opportunity zones that were set up by the last administration have been very helpful to bring people back.

So I think that he's on point as far as the government really has to get somewhat out of the way so we can bring these jobs back.

Now, I'm not saying, just let everybody do whatever they want to do and let everything just happen that's, you know, gonna harm the environment or cause more global warming issues.

But what we need to do is we need to really work together to draw people in so that we can afford this.

If we don't stop, my, I have three children, all well-educated.

One is here.

We have to stop that outflow, as he said, of that 18-year-old going to Ohio State or whatever college they go to, and then moving on to another state.

And it's difficult because when you look at the Southern states, it's hard to keep them here when we're sitting here in five degree weather in the middle of the winter.

- So the question?

- Yeah.

My question is, okay, how, like Jobs Ohio, for example.

How are you gonna correct or give them the authority to work like some of the other states, where Michigan and some of the other, our states, states that are just in the same position we're in, to be able to attract businesses?

- [Dan] Sure.

- Well, look, I appreciate what you said.

And look, businesses come where you have an energy grid of all of the above, because what they don't want, I mean, if you just had solar and the sun doesn't shine for a couple of days, you're gonna have some serious problems.

You want to have that grid.

So I appreciate you saying that.

Most businesses, and I consult with business for the last 30 years, they want a state that has, what they love about Ohio is that Ohio has all those things.

And you're right.

We have the water, we have all this natural gas, we have all these things, so we should use those.

And I think we can use them to our benefit.

So all of the above is important.

It makes our state stronger.

So I appreciate you bringing those things up.

We can continue on the path we are.

In your last question, just repeat it again.

- [Man] Jobs Ohio.

- Oh.

- [Man] Organizations that could, should be able be more proactive in bringing these businesses and they're all, it seems like they're all (indistinct) stronger, (indistinct).

- Again.

Yeah, you're gonna hate my answer on Jobs Ohio.

But Jobs, here's what I believe about Jobs Ohio.

Jobs Ohio has been in effect for almost, I don't know, six, seven years.

I'm probably gonna lose some votes on this from people who work for Jobs Ohio, but Jobs Ohio has got to go because they have not been able, look, we lost 6,200 jobs in 2019.

We lost 400 and some jobs in 2020.

We're losing jobs today, yet we got Jobs Ohio taking all of this money in.

And if you look at their balance sheet, they're the strongest, they have a very strong balance sheet, but they're not taking the risks necessary.

I'd rather bring that money back into the state, economic development, and use it accordingly.

They are so worried about not losing money under that scenario that I don't think they're doing what's necessary.

So, as I travel the state, people say to me, I mean, I'll be honest, I just invested in a company that could not get money from Jobs Ohio, yet, I personally invested in them.

Now, why am I investing in a good Ohio-based company when Jobs Ohio wouldn't do that?

These are the kinds of issues and problems that I believe we have because we have an entity that is so much, so worried about its balance sheet that it's forgetting about its ultimate goal, which is, and that's why maybe the privatization of it didn't work out well.

Remember, the biggest problem with Jobs Ohio is the stronger it is, at some point in time when that contract ends, that's a private entity.

It's like you cut the ship and it just sails on its own.

And that's all state money that we could never get back.

So I'm a big believer that we need to eliminate the Job.

By the way, if you also look at the Jobs Ohio mechanism that was put into other states, they've all abandoned it.

Some of this stuff is so easy.

We just need to look at what other states are doing and take their best qualities and bring them here.

I've said that.

We have a country with 50 states and some of them are doing very good.

I tell you, 19 or actually 22 states are actually coming out of the COVID problems better than Ohio.

What did they do different?

What are they doing different?

And by the way, it is also not warm weather, because some of the states are cold weather, too.

Washington State is not the greatest weather state, but it is actually over-performing than many other states in the country.

You know, Vermont is another one people are moving to.

These are cold states, too.

Indiana, right next to us, people are moving there.

So I don't think it's all warm weather.

I know that's the first thing people want to tell me, oh, Congressman, you don't understand, it's all warm weather.

No, it's the quality of life issue.

I mean, Washington State has some great quality of life issues.

They've got some bad things too, but I'm talking about the way they've set up some of their communities.

Indiana has some things.

We need to look at all of those things, mimic them, make our state just as strong.

- Next question.

- Congressman, on that quality of life issue, the report that you referenced today had Ohio at 45th in the country for quality of life.

Could you speak more about how that's affecting the state and what plans specifically you have to rectify that?

- Yeah, well, it's a great question, and I should have brought that one up before, the statistic on 45th, because that's exactly why, when I go into a room sometimes with, you know, a thousand people, I'll ask them, how many people have a family member that's left.

And I'm telling you 90 to 95% of the people put their hand up.

I mean, even I'd have to put my hand up.

My sons left the state.

People are leaving the state.

That's why we're ranked either the seventh or ninth, depending on what study you look at, most departed state in the country.

The answer is, people aren't staying here for a lot of reasons because we haven't emphasized quality of life.

Look, quality of life was, when University of Akron study came out, I wasn't even thinking about that.

That's why I believe that you have to look at all these issues.

And that's where I heard about, you know, some of these states, people just want to go to because it's a better place to live, raise a family.

It's got many qualities that make you want to stay here and work here and be employed here.

Those are all the things.

And I've said all along, you want to help our quality of life here?

We got one of the greatest assets.

We got Lake Erie, and we have abandoned Lake Erie, in many cases.

I mean, look at all the small towns along Lake Erie.

They used to be hubs of people coming to the state.

One of the reasons why I got to know Ohio so well is my parents couldn't afford very much, but we would drive to Geneva-on-the-Lake.

I mean, that was a great little community.

I mean, we can make that whole hub, all around our lakefront should be destination places.

These are the things that will grow our quality of life.

We're not investing in them, and I'm not saying the state should be spending that money.

The state should be actually working with the cities, the communities and the counties.

Right now, we are just wasting money on the unemployment system, billions of dollars being wasted.

Wouldn't it be great if that billions of dollars was going into our lakefront?

- Next question.

- Thank you, Jim, for sharing your deep experience in entrepreneurship and as a business professional and a businessman.

So when I look across the state of Ohio and I see the challenges with entrepreneurship and in particular, with minorities, women, disabled and veterans having equal access to entrepreneurship and growth opportunities, I want to know from your vantage point, what do you see as those challenges?

What are some of those challenges for those demographics?

And then two, if you are in the seat of governor, how would you address those challenges to ensure that the equity scale is tipped to advance all businesses at the same level?

- That's a great question.

I appreciate that.

So when I was in Congress, one of the things I did down here in the city of Cleveland was trying to look at minorities and individuals that weren't having a chance.

And we set up a program where we allowed them to see other things.

And I worked with some great leaders here in Cleveland that were, some of the kids were living on the street, some of the kids didn't have the same opportunities, but once they had a chance to see the other opportunities that were available to them, they went toward those things.

I think that's number one.

I'm so proud that one of the individuals, I actually brought down to the State of the Union Address because that individual was living on the street who now became a school teacher.

That's an opportunity for that individual.

But I think when it comes to entrepreneurship, it's the same thing.

We got to start early on and make sure that everyone has and sees those opportunities and the opportunities do exist.

Today, we don't see that.

I mean, most individuals, even in high school, even in, as I said, I think in fourth grade, many of their minds are already being set on what they want to do or where they're gonna go.

We've got to make sure that we're showing them, giving them the opportunity, giving them the skillset and then helping them so that they realize Ohio is the place to be.

You can be an entrepreneur in Ohio.

I came here 38 years ago because Ohio was the land of opportunity.

It's not anymore.

It's not today.

I'm sad to say, nobody, I mean, I got an $80,000 loan to start a business.

I mean, I didn't have very much of anything back then.

We've got to get back to that.

Jobs Ohio should be doing some of those things, giving the minority businesses those opportunities, giving some of these small business opportunities.

I want to make sure that, and not only that opportunity is available, but the financial resource available and they see the opportunities in front of them.

- Last question, briefly.

- Okay.

It's actually a follow-up, in a way, to the question that was just posed.

In board rooms around the country and public corporations, the key words today are environmental, social and governance, ESG.

That's what investors are there, that's how they're judging public corporations and that's what corporations are, and boards are attempting to do.

How do you think Ohio can help these public corporations meet the ESG metrics that every corporation today is focused on?

- Well, here's, what's interesting.

And you set up a buzzword, public companies, and I sit on a couple public boards.

But here's what I believe in.

67% of our businesses are small businesses.

They're not public companies.

And I do believe that we need to enhance the entrepreneur, the small business.

That's where we need to be directing.

Now, when it comes to private businesses or public businesses, I always say, some of this should be about making sure you're doing the right things.

I mean, I sit on those boards, we talk about it, we move in that direction.

And sometimes, I hate to say this, we waste more time trying to cover that ground than trying to make sure that we're employing and doing the right thing.

So I think it's got to be a little bit of everything.

But I am a big believer that the governor needs to stay out of that.

His job or her job is to really promote the assets of Ohio, make it grow and prosper, help the entrepreneurship here, help the 67% of businesses are small businesses, and at the same time, be somebody who also realizes that we have those public companies as well, that we need to work with.

- Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, former Ohio Congressman Jim Renacci, now candidate for governor.

Great to see you, sir.

Thanks for being with us today.

- Thank you.

- Today, the City Club, as I said, we've been listening to a forum with Congressman Jim Renacci, who earlier this year announced he is joining the race for Ohio governor.

Next up for the City Club, Tuesday, August 17th, join us in, for our second mayoral debate.

That's presented in partnership with Ideastream Public Media.

All seven candidates seeking office will be participating, and you can watch it online at cityclub.org or on your television at WVIZ, or listen to it on your radio on WCPN.

If you missed last Tuesday's debate, be sure to check it out in our archives at cityclub.org.

On Thursday, August 19th, the City Club of Cleveland is pleased to host a virtual 2021 State of the Great Lakes, featuring Dr. Kelsey Leonard, legal scholar, policy expert, and enrolled citizen of the Shinnecock Nation.

Next Friday, our forum here at the City Club will feature Dr. Hassan Kwame Jeffries of Ohio State University.

He will be talking about what critical race theory is and what it's not.

Find out more about these forums and everything else coming up at the City Club.

Join us at cityclub.org.

That brings us to the end of our forum.

Congressmen, thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for your great questions.

Our forum is now adjourned.

(audience applauding) (bell ringing) - [Man] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

(instrumental fanfare) - [Announcer] Production and distribution of City Club forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.