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Democratic former Governor Dick Celeste speaks out on his life experiences and his view on what's happening in the state right now.

We'll have more of that on this week's state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of ohio.

I'm Joe Ingles, sitting in for Karen kasler.

I had the opportunity to hold a conversation recently with Democratic former Governor Richard Celeste for the Columbus Metropolitan Club, along with being the only Democrat elected governor to two terms since Ohio switched to four year terms for its chief executive in 1958.

Celeste has been a diplomat and a university administrator, and he served in the Peace Corps.

But he's also had some personal challenges that he went into in his new book, such as Losing the Race for Reelection as Governor and Personal Marital Problems.

So I asked him what he's learned from all of those experiences.

My grandmother used to say it's a mighty long road that has no turn.

And I kept that in mind, often both in my political life and in my personal life.

And it's interesting because I don't think people would normally think that this is the case.

But the truth of the matter is, as you if you read the book, you'll understand when I say this, I was more honest in my public life than I was in my personal life.

And I say that partly as a matter to acknowledge reality, but also because I want to encourage young people.

We have a few of them here in the audience.

Not as many as I'd like, but you have.

I want to encourage young people to to believe the public service is a terrific way to devote your life and experiences you have in the public arena.

And the opportunity to make a difference is extraordinary.

And I think today, unfortunately, too many people have a sour view of public service.

So what have I learned?

I've learned to celebrate the privilege I've had to serve.

I've learned it.

As my oldest son said to me at one point in my life, Dad, you never knew how to hold a job.

I mean, I was I was ending the eighth year as president of Colorado College when Eric called me.

Dan, I'm calling to warn you.

What?

Warned me.

About what?

Oh, he said, Dad, you're.

You're sailing into uncharted waters.

I said, What do you mean?

Charter waters.

He said, Dad, you've never held a job for more than eight years in your life.

Anyway.

Well, as governor, when you were in office, you increased funding for education, for health services and veterans programs, welfare programs.

But in doing that, you increased the state income tax by up to 90%, depending on how you figure that.

Now, Republicans in the statehouse are trying to decrease income taxes and would like to get as close to zero as possible.

In your opinion, is that possible?

And what's the cost of doing that?

Well, those I mean, there are some in the room who are old enough to remember the fight to get the income tax.

That was in 1970.

Jack Gilligan was governor, the Republican House and the Republican Senate.

Republicans were in a majority in both houses.

She had a Democratic governor who was insisting that we create an income tax in Ohio.

And twice he vetoed budgets.

And it wasn't until December of 1971 that we adopted an income tax bill that was basically written as a compromise between a Democratic governor and Lloyd George Kerns, the chair of the House Finance Committee from Marion, Ohio.

For any of you whose memories go back that far.

And, I mean, it was an extraordinary it was an extreme achievement because it was a bipartisan bill.

I believe that in I talk about this in the book, I made a terrible mistake.

I didn't have the communications advice that I should have had, Jeff, from, you know, really thoughtful, public relations people and the rest.

I, I wanted to be bold.

I said, we're not going to do business as usual.

And we did.

When I became governor, Governor Rhodes had gifted me a deficit of $400 million, which had to be made up by June 30th.

And so we wrestled with that and we decided we had to maintain the temporary increase in the tax that he imposed and add add to that.

I made a terrible mistake in how I communicated that tax increase.

And I made a second mistake by not saying that.

Should we have revenue in excess of what we thought that we would reduce the tax over time?

Some of that tax reduction, I think has made sense.

But I think the idea of reducing it to a flat tax or eliminating the income tax is incredibly unfair.

It puts a burden and people are paying sales tax.

It puts a person and a fixed income.

It is an extraordinarily regressive perspective.

So I think it's ill considered and I think it will come back to haunt future governors as they try to deal with the challenges of growth and change and investment in public infrastructure in the state.

Right now, there's a lot to discussion at the state House about the possibility of putting a statewide ballot issue out there that would make it harder to pass constitutional amendments in the future.

Back in 1983, it was Republicans who went to the ballot to try to get voters to repeal the income tax increase.

At that time, and approve another measure that would have required a 3/5 majority vote for future tax increases.

And both of those failed, by the way.

What do you think about the idea of requiring 60% voter approval for constitutional amendments?

I think I think it means you don't trust people.

I think the the irony is you want to put an issue on the ballot to increase the number of votes necessary to pass the 60%.

And you want to pass it with 50%.

So here's my suggestion.

If you believe that 60% is a good idea, require in the language of the amendment that this amendment shall be passed by 60% and then and then and then you get a fair test of it.

Right.

I mean, I am stunned, frankly, by the number of people who are frightened by voters who want to do things to repress a vote one way or another.

Why do you why do you want to have one drop box per county?

I mean, I live in Colorado.

I've got a drop box a mile and a half from my house.

I can walk to the Dropbox to vote and I voted in an election yesterday.

I was here, but I voted because they sent out the votes, the ballots early.

I voted two weeks ago.

I mean, come on.

If if we I think this is one of the things that frustrates me.

And the interesting thing is, again, young people are more confident about, you know, going out and organizing and in and making education an issue than most politicians are today.

And I think I think I'm frankly disappointed.

I, I, I have to confess, I used to be an admirer of Frank LaRose.

I now am not.

I'm a critic of his because I think what he's done in the last year and a half has been a big step backward from the direction that he had taken earlier.

It's well-known that you stay in touch time to time with former Governors Taft and Strickland and Kasich.

Can you share some insight and maybe an anecdote or two about what you talk about when you get together?

Or is that really a private thing?

Oh.

We lie to each other a lot.

No, no.

You know, it's interesting because, again, I would take well, Bob Taft and I've always had a cordial relationship.

We worked together on the board of Battelle for kids recently.

I have a great admiration for him.

And I think there there was an exemplary secretary of state when he was secretary of state, as well as service as Governor John Kasich.

And I are interesting.

Some of you may remember his parents died very tragically in a in a car accident, drunk driver hit them as they were coming out of a restaurant.

And it was right before the Christmas holidays.

And when the state patrol told me this, I called John and I said, listen, I don't want you to spend Christmas, the Christmas holidays alone.

He and I had a relationship because he'd grown up in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, not far from Monessen, PA, where my dad grew.

And so I said, Come on and stay with us for the holiday weekend.

And, you know, just we don't want you to be alone.

And so he did.

And ever since we, you know, we've been good friends, even when we disagreed politically.

I mean, when he put the issue on and a repeal of the state collective bargaining act on the ballot, I thought that was I thought that was not a good idea.

I have posted and he lost it.

And I told him I want again, John, except I wasn't winning.

And the people of Ohio were winning.

I mean, and so we get together.

I think he shares some of my frustration with the way politics has been practiced in recent years.

And probably his frustration with his party is even greater than my frustration with my party from time to time.

Well, you are the last two term Democratic governor in Ohio and one of three Democrats elected to governor since 1958.

That's that's a lot when you think about it.

What are the Democrats in Ohio maybe doing wrong?

What should they change to try to win more gubernatorial elections or elections in general?

Well, I think, you know, the everybody says this is a red state.

It red and blue are not really very descriptive of politics today.

If you really want to know the inside story, if you were to look at the official records of the secretary of state of Ohio, you would see there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state of Ohio.

Today, it's like 937000 to 820000.

There are 6.2 million on unaffiliated voters.

That's true across the country.

The biggest political party in this country are people who will not choose a political party.

They're going to vote for themselves.

And so any successful candidate has to think about how do I reach not just my partizans, but how do I reach the folks who want to vote but are not identifying with the party?

And I think that's the challenge for Democrats.

And that means getting into 88 counties.

That means spending time in Washington County or Vinton County, all across the state of Ohio, and talking to people about why Democrats should be chosen to lead this state.

And I think if young people do that, you look at the I mean, you watch the issue of choice when it goes on the ballot in Ohio.

I it will show a dramatic division in this state.

That is an opportunity for people who believe that women should have a right to choose about their reproductive choices.

And I think the same thing, same thing would be true if we put an assault ban on the ballot in the state of Ohio.

People would turn out to support an assault ban in the state of Ohio.

Political parties are uncomfortable with those.

Well, at least one political parties aren't comfortable with those issues.

But I think people want us to be dealing with these hard issues.

And if the political system and this is tragically I mean, choice is stuck in a really tough situation right now in Washington, where it is really difficult to deal with the fundamental issues.

Everybody wants to deal with the cultural issues.

You know, I'm sorry, I, I have one biracial grandchild.

I have I have a gay grandchild.

I my my grandchildren represent a spectrum of crosses, you know, across our our society as most of our families do.

These days.

Right.

You look at the changes that are going on among young people.

Let's get back to the real things that count.

And I think if the Democrat Party and I've said this to listen, Democratic Party organizers, county by county, sits and listens to people, you know, go to the public library, leave on voters or wherever it is and have a conversation with people.

But what is really counting today and and are you prepared to get involved?

You're going to see a tremendous number of people get involved on this choice issue when it goes on the ballot.

We have a brain drain in Ohio.

And I know you know that.

And you work with college students.

You're around that young adult age.

When you had your cabinet, you had a whole lot of young people working for you in an important positions, actually, and you engaged young people.

What needs to be done now to make sure that young people who graduate from college should see themselves living and staying in Ohio?

Well, I think.

It's you know, to me, it's a matter of economic activity and encouraging innovation and making it easy to start businesses.

Columbus, I mean, Columbus, if you look at the Columbus metropolitan region, it competes favorably with the top 20 metropolitan regions in the country, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton.

They need to be doing the same kinds of things to attract young people and to keep young people in.

I think those communities are working at it.

It's fun for me to go back.

I mean, I just yesterday met one of my daughters for breakfast at Grumpy's Cafe in three months.

And for any of you, you know, Cleveland and you drive to Tremont today and if you'd driven there 20 years ago, the difference is dramatic.

And who's buying those townhouses?

Who's moving into those apartments?

They're young people who are coming into town because they can you know, they can afford it.

And there are opportunities for them.

So I think that I think we're going to see more of that.

The truth of the matter is that these days, the question is, do I need a college degree to do what I want to do?

And there are more and more young people saying I can get a skill and I can use this skill.

And that skill is highly portable.

So people are going to win.

When you have a portable skill and when you don't have to spend five days a week in an office but often can do it remotely, I mean, last night I had a conversation with two young people who are thinking of moving back to Columbus from California, I think.

But what's interesting is they both work remotely, so they could be anywhere.

My son work.

My youngest.

My son, seven kids.

My youngest son is 25 designs video games.

He's he sits in Irvine, California.

He could sit in Dublin, Ireland.

He could sit in New Delhi, India.

He could be anywhere for his job and be doing it.

And that's part of the challenge.

So let me ask you this.

What does Ohio have going for it?

What's the best thing Ohio has going for it?

The heart of it all.

I opened it up.

Look, you know, I don't know whether it was Mark Twain or a famous novelist from Mansfield, Ohio, who said Ohio is the furthest west of the east, the furthest east of the west, the furthest north as the south and the furthest south to the north.

And John Glenn, you said when he was campaigning, he said, you know, if you took the United States and squeezed it and squeezing and squeezed it and squeezed it, you'd end up with Ohio.

And you think about that, we were winning.

We were still within 500 miles, if I may say, 60% or more of the population.

This country, we have an incredible richness of academic institutions.

We have the most important resource.

20 years from now or 30 years from now, the best access to fresh water anywhere on the face of the planet.

You look at the at the dividing line between the Great Lakes watershed and the Ohio River watershed.

That's Ohio.

And we have it.

And the rest of the world is going to be begging for it over time.

And I believe that if I if I were back in the governor's office, I'd be trying to create a center around water assurance and other things like that at universities around this state to help promote our access to water, because that's I think there are I think there are all sorts of things, you know, and we've got we didn't use to have venture capitalists in Ohio, but we now have people who have money and who are really interested as venture capitalists and investing in startups.

They'll make some will succeed, several will fail, but that's the dynamism that you want.

And the more we can do that, the more Ohio thrive.

John Lowe As an 80 year old, I got to tell you, I am very impressed with my 86 year old friend up there.

You're you're new to me, but it's very impressive.

My question is, the Republicans, the right wing, generally have adopted a lot of demonizing terms and they repeat them over and over, you know, whether it's World Woke or Hillary or whatever.

And it is influencing people, there's no doubt about it.

What do Democrats do?

What how do you approach that?

How do we sort of offset that to some extent?

Well, thanks for the question, John.

Look, the opposite of woke is asleep.

I mean, stop and think about it.

Stop and think about it.

All the folks who are making a big deal about this.

The opposite of woke is asleep.

Is that what you really want?

I mean, I know there are a lot of sleepy heads in Florida, but I don't think that's what they really want.

Right.

My feeling is that and I think, you know, part of it is we should use some humor.

We do see we can.

You.

Know, we don't want to play necessarily on their field.

Unleash things.

Right.

Part of it is telling personal stories.

I mean, I, I, you know, I watch my children, my grandchildren and now my great grandchildren.

And I think about the world in which they are growing up and the kinds of things that they are dealing with as young people these days.

And yet they, you know, they are put off by the fact that a lot of advertising now has biracial couples on a big deal.

Right.

And they see that all the time when their communities they see that in their churches, they see it at schools, whatever, They aren't put off by gay kids.

They aren't even I mean, I listen to a 13 year old and a 12 year old have a conversation in my kitchen.

Three years ago, I was making pancakes.

They were talking about cisgender and transgender.

I didn't know what cisgender was until I asked somebody my I had to talk with 20 year old son to say, what is cisgender versus transgender.

I got educated that I got only 30% of the country is really into this.

And you have to keep reminding yourself.

Yes.

And we we need to listen to and engage with and have conversations over the dinner table with folks who are part of feeling threatened by the changes that are going on in our society.

But those changes will go on.

If you look at if you look at the demographic data, here's here's one data point that jumped out at me recently.

More children were born to single white women than married women in the last year.

And why is that?

Because a lot of young people decide getting married isn't that important, right?

I have a grandson, Max, and his girlfriend, Rachel.

They own a house together.

They have two kids together.

Two of my grandchildren are.

Come on.

You know I love them.

They're terrific.

It is the way the world is gonna be.

And we should celebrate it.

We should embrace it.

We should welcome it.

We should be energized by it.

We should learn from it.

It enriches us.

It's going to make our culture more interesting.

It's going to be the thing that generates the competitiveness, the beats, the Chinese.

We're stuck in age old ways of thinking.

That beats anyone who's stuck in age old ways of thinking, Well, that's how we do it.

So I think just remember the opposite of Woke is asleep and we have to help our job.

Our job is to help those folks wake up.

And that's it for us this week.

For my colleagues at the Ohio Public Radio and TV Statehouse News Bureau.

Thanks for watching.

Please check us out at statenews.org You can follow the show, Karen Kasler and me on Facebook and Twitter.

And be sure to join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans.

Peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community more at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org.