Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutuel, 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 We continue a series of conversations with the major party candidates for statewide office this week with Auditor.

They talk about their stances and strategies on the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

This week, we continue a series of interviews we do every four years, conversations with the candidates, specifically the ten major party candidates for the five statewide executive offices of governor, secretary of state's attorney general, treasurer.

And this week, auditor will air these interviews in the order in which they were conducted, starting with the first interview I did this week with the Democratic former city Councilmember of Nelson Ville in Athens County, who is now at City Order, Taylor Sapp ington.

So I decided to run for state auditor for a couple of reasons.

One is that I look across the state and I look at state government, and there's unprecedented corruption, unprecedented change.

Right.

And and in Ohio, that is run by folks who don't exactly come from places that most Ohioans come from.

And so the reason I say that we have things like the first Energy House Bill six scandal, the largest public corruption scandal in Ohio history, no investor, no state investigations, no examinations, nobody's gone to jail.

And very few have lost their job.

Right.

And when you're talking about $1,000,000,000 bailout in a bribery scandal, somebody should be held accountable.

And I'm running just to do that, to hold them accountable.

And the second part, I don't mean to cut you off there, but go ahead.

The second part is coming from a place Ohioans understand.

I was raised by hardworking single mom trailer on a hillside, no stranger to disconnection of that electricity.

That House Bill six talks about our electric bills.

Right.

We couldn't make our electric bills in my family.

My mom taught me the difference between hard work and and the difference between right and wrong.

And those are things And that's a background I think most Ohioans want in their leaders.

That's why I'm running.

So the House Bill six scandal is in the federal courts.

Now we've got a trial set for January with former speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Burgess.

They both pleaded innocent.

Let me ask you, though, what would you as the auditor be able to do if this is in the federal government's hands, in the federal districts hands, what would you be able to do?

And so that's a great question.

And that's the question of the day.

Right.

So my opponent, Keith Faber, believes that it is just a federal issue and that the feds got it from here.

But in my experience, down in Nelson ville, where I'm the city auditor we've taken on a lot of federal issues.

And one of them was corruption and theft and Nelson ville alone.

I could've left that to the feds and said, you guys take it on the state.

You guys take it on and said, I handed over the documents in the case to the state.

I did my job as auditor.

So that's the first thing.

Be out in front and do the job.

But secondly, the auditor has an incredible ability to look through these places like the Poco board, to look through where state money is going to look at the state house and to take all this information in and say, let's make a report, let's make an examination, let's show the public, our leaders and administrators, what went wrong here.

And how do we prevent it from happening again?

Unfortunately, Keith Faber has done none of that.

He's left it to the feds who are not going to do that report for us.

Our leaders are going to have to do that.

And that's what I would do differently.

One of the roles that you would play if you were elected auditor is a seat on the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

Democrats have talked about drawing fair maps if they're elected.

But you want at least one of the other Democrats who are running for secretary of state or governor would have to win to be a majority on that Ohio redistricting commission.

And of course, Democrats would also have to win a majority on the Ohio Supreme Court to have maps, to have the maps that you want put into place.

So how do you get to draw those maps?

How do you make that happen?

A really good question.

So I want to push back on one notion, and it's a notion that currently runs that process, and that's the maps that we want in place.

That's what everybody involved with the process, except for folks like Leader Russo, who's taken a brave stance on these maps.

That's what they're doing.

Republicans on the commission, Mike DeWine, Keith Faber, Frank LaRose, the legislative leader, say, how do we get to the maps that we want that get our folks in power?

And that's a mistake with the process.

I can assure you that as a responsible public servant, I only promise the things that I can deliver on.

And one of the few promises that I will deliver verbally, you know, my word is my contract is I'm going to deliver maps that make sense for our neighborhoods that are fair and honest and competitive, not partizan.

And so, sure, we got to win some races.

We got to get on there but the main point is, is that the sooner we get back to talking about maps, that makes sense for neighborhoods from Cleveland to Nelson Ville to Cincinnati to polling where I was yesterday That's the that's when we'll be on the right track.

The issue of abortion may not seem to have any connection to the auditor's office, but it's certainly a campaign issue for Democrats in other states.

For instance, in Connecticut, the Democratic state treasurer candidate has said the state will not invest in companies that don't do the right thing by their employees.

So let me ask you, what What about that issue of abortion?

Is that an issue that's coming into your campaign?

Yeah.

So across Ohio, folks are pretty afraid of since Roe vs. Roe versus Wade went down.

I've heard from folks, men and women.

Right, who are afraid of what this means, of what it means to start rolling back things that folks thought they could depend on, like access to health care or access to abortion.

They're energized.

It's making a difference in this race.

It's making a difference in other races.

But beyond that, I would say that the most important role the auditors going to play on any issue, whether it be abortion, education or health care, is is twofold.

The first one is the obvious is to make sure that our state departments, our administrative offices and our money is being handled well and is being spent responsibly.

The money is being spent responsibly, but more in a bigger way.

On the redistricting commission, if we're going to get extremists out of office, if we're going to have common sense middle ground folks coming from our neighborhood, small business owners, teachers and nurses running state government again, we're going to make sure that our maps make more sense You ran against Republican State Representative Jay Edwards in 2018 in that race.

You had some trouble getting support from Democratic Party leaders and from unions who turned out to back Edwards What have you learned from that campaign in 2018 that you're now applying to your race your statewide race now.

The number one thing I've learned is what Tim Ryan saying all over this state workers first, workers come first.

And this is a worker's first campaign.

This is a worker's first coordinated campaign.

And workers are coming first for the Democrats.

And so the first folks I called up was the mine workers.

We went and visited and that's who we went to.

We met with labor leaders across the state before I was announced.

Local and statewide and made sure they understood that they were going to be somebody who speaks for workers across the state.

Which makes them valuable stakeholders and input in this campaign.

So the 2018 campaign was its own beast and its own animal, right.

Not only was our younger, but 2018 was not 2022.

But most importantly, I want folks to know workers come first for me and workers come first on this campaign.

On the note that 20, 18 and 2022 are two entirely different races.

You're the first openly LGBTQ person to run for statewide office in Ohio.

Also one of the youngest to run for office in Ohio.

It should be noted that this year we have Jim Obergefell, who was the lead plaintiff in the case that legalized same sex marriage in this country, who's on the ballot as four state representative along with some younger candidates, including Sam Lawrence, who's 19 years old, running in southwest Ohio, one of the youngest people to ever run.

Now, while LGBTQ voters had a historic turnout in 2020 younger people don't really turn out to vote.

So what are you hoping to get from these two groups that you really represent?

So you're right.

First, openly gay statewide candidate, which is really a shame in some ways because we should have had a first sooner.

So the first thing I hope is, is that this becomes commonplace and people understand that I'm running for the betterment of Ohio.

And whether somebody is straight gay or bisexual or whatever it may be.

Right.

They're running because they care and they care about the state and they care about our communities.

So that's the first thing I hope there.

I also happen to be you're right, the first hour I'm sorry, the youngest person to run for state auditor in its history.

And young people not only deserve a seat at the table.

Young people not only deserve leadership, but they better step up.

People like me better step up if we're going to fix this country.

So that's something I hope people hear.

I hope they hear people like Sam who are fighting for young people to get registered and get involved, because there's nothing in my career, whether it's been counsel, whether it's been working on a local mental health board, whether it's been city auditor.

There's nothing in my life that has been done alone.

It's been done together.

And so the more folks who get involved, I think the better.

Ohio will be back to the corruption question.

Democrats have not run well statewide since 2010.

This midterm had been predicted to be good for Republicans.

But all bets are off at this point.

Conventional wisdom is kind of out the door here.

But Democrats, when they've run on this issue of corruption, like with E!

Court and other issues like this, they haven't done that well.

You're really focused on this issue what makes you think that this time you can reach people with that message that you have about your concern for corruption?

Yeah.

So the first thing I want folks to know is that we're running this campaign with all the nuances.

A state auditor campaign should be run.

However, you got to speak plainly, too.

And you've got to speak simply.

So the thing I say all over Ohio is we're going to run or I'm running to balance the books and catch the crooks.

And it's not just a catchy phrase, although it is a catchy phrase.

Right.

But it explains what is going on in just one sentence.

And I think people understand that intuitively.

They understand they want their money to be handled responsibly, but they also understand there's corruption in Ohio and it needs taken on.

And I think deep down beyond the cynicism, most voters when they say all politicians are corrupt, I actually think most folks understand that people get into these races and they dedicate their life to running and then dedicate their life to these offices.

Townships, city, village, county, in, up because they care about their towns and their state and their neighbors and the future.

Right.

And so they understand there's deep corruption in this state.

The Suffolk poll this morning showed 68% of folks rated Ohio as at least somewhat corrupt.

So they know the corruption's there.

They may not know Larry Householder name.

And quite frankly, I'd rather than move on from Householder and the investigators take care of that case, too, right.

We don't need to be stuck on a toxic leader like that forever.

But Ohio understands that this is a corrupt state government.

And my hope on Election Day is they understand that I will actually take it on in a way that it hasn't been.

You have an issue that many of the Democratic candidates have in this race in that you are trailing in the fundraising.

The Republican candidates are outraising the Democratic candidates by big numbers.

How do you get that message across without the money?

Yes.

So so we do have money, right?

That's the first thing.

But the second thing is, is that you got to spend it smarter and you got to work harder.

So yesterday we were just talking before the cameras were on.

Right.

That we were everywhere from different state and Lima Paulding, Van Wert, Sydney, all over the place, talking to voters about this message, meeting them, making videos, posting on social media.

Meanwhile, advertise and are running all over the state in the coordinated campaign, which, by the way, Ohio's just the largest.

The Democratic coordinated campaign is the largest in the in the country right now.

We have folks spreading this message all over the place.

So I'm confident not only that we're getting the message across, but Ohio is not a red state, right, Ohio.

We there's been campaigns won and lost.

But Ohio's a place much like my home county of Athens County.

Got blue areas.

You've got red areas.

And in my hometown of Nelson Ville is is a more split post-industrial place, a place that used to be run with mills and coal mines.

And you don't see those anymore.

And that's where we're where elections usually are won and lost.

And I think Ohio's like that as well.

When I travel across the state, I see folks who understand corruption needs beat, money needs spent wisely.

And almost universally, almost universally, people understand that the statehouse and our leaders have become extremist in Ohio in a way we haven't seen in a long time.

We didn't just used to lead this nation an opportunity in education and research and union membership and wages We used to lead this country in governance and innovation.

And unfortunately, we've gotten off track on everything I just mentioned.

Later this week, I talked with Keith Faber, the Republican former state representative, then state senator and Senate president, and now current state auditor.

I like being in the legislature.

I love being state auditor.

We've had an opportunity to do good government.

And whether that's being one of the first auditors in the office in the nation to catch the unemployment fraud and overpayments, which is now resulted in more than $5 billion in fraud and overpayments just in Ohio.

We think convincingly that if we hadn't called that problem out earlier, the problem would be billions of dollars bigger.

If you look at the other states that didn't get on it as fast as we did, and we've got national recognition for that, they have a much bigger problem than we do.

It's that kind of good government.

It's catching and convicting more than 87 individuals for lying, stealing and cheating with government money.

We get the opportunity every day in the state auditor's office.

I have a staff that's very large, but they're professionals to do good government.

And on that note, you my your staff tells me that you've done six of what are called special audit ones.

88 special audit tools compared to 17 special all at once, and 54 special audit tools in the four years of your predecessor, Dave Yost.

One of those was the $3.8 billion in fraud and overpayments in the unemployment compensation system.

Yeah, those designations are really irrelevant.

What you're doing is using an internal designation to determine whether our criminal division our special investigation unit does 100% of the work or does coordination with other units in the office.

That's a one Satou Essay three.

What we did was made a conscious effort to have our best people are criminal investigators are fraud examiners.

Those folks spend time on bigger cases and the numbers, if you really want to look at numbers, is the number of convictions, the amount of money we financially recovered.

All of those numbers are up compared to Dave Yost, first term.

In fact, some areas significantly add to that during the pandemic, our intake, the amount of cases that we initially evaluate, which is done primarily by those special investigators, those consummate career professionals, has gone up in 2000 2001, for example.

It went up more than four times.

And so they're doing more work.

They're doing it more efficiently.

The other good news, the switch that we made from doing special audit is the special audit twos and threes is that twos and threes generally can be done faster and cheaper.

And so we're trying to be more efficient and use our our staff better.

So you really try to look at internal numbers that just simply don't mean anything.

And these are some big cases, the unemployment compensation fraud that you found.

Eckert, you said it still owes the state $117 million.

One audit that I think a lot of people are waiting on and we've covered it on the show is the audit of the state teacher retirement system.

What's going on with that?

That was announced last October.

Well, we continue to work on that.

And the fact what we did is go out and hire an independent actuarial consultant.

We had to find somebody who didn't do work for the plans that took us a little longer than we anticipated.

But they are in it.

We actually just last week got some more information from other people who are giving us information, additional things to look at.

And so we're doing that audit.

We anticipate that it's going to be done by year end, but we continue to work on that and we're going where the information takes it.

But don't forget, there are other individuals and entities who do oversight on the state pension plans.

The Retirement Study Council is the big one.

They're the ones that are supposed to be looking at the investment.

And that history, we look generally at the numbers and whether the information that they're sharing is accurate.

We've got some concerns.

I will just tell you that audit's going to have some concerns.

We don't talk about audits while they're pending, but we have some concerns and things that we're identifying but we are on it.

We are working aggressively.

And the reality is, is that's taking more work than we initially anticipated.

Democrats are pushing the issue of corruption in government, saying that House Bill six, which has been called the largest corruption scandal in state history, is an example of that.

Your opponent says you could be doing more to investigate House Bill six and not just leaving it to the FBI.

What do you say to that?

Well, again, if my opponent understood what the office did more, he would understand that, first of all, House Bill six is being fully investigated by the FBI We have people on the public corruption task force that are permanently assigned there.

And the reality is the FBI has all of the resources to do a complete and full investigation of this issue.

They've shown that that's what they're doing.

But the bigger question is, what is the primary jurisdiction of the state auditor's office?

House Bill six seems to evolve around legislature issues.

Campaign finance issues in a private company.

We don't have jurisdiction over auditing legislative activity and corruption.

The Legislative Ethics Commission does that.

We don't have jurisdiction over campaign finance.

The sector of state's office does that.

And we certainly don't have jurisdiction over private companies.

So the reality is, as we are watching that we continue to participate where we can.

And don't forget that we do have people permanently assigned to the public corruption task force.

And in fact, it was that public corruption task force which has made a number of bust in Ohio that our people have been actively involved in.

As auditor, you're also on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which has gotten a lot of criticism.

The Republicans on that commission for maps that were ruled unconstitutionally gerrymandered by the Ohio Supreme Court, some have said you're breaking the law.

You should have been held in contempt for that.

If you and the other Republicans on the commission are reelected can you say that things will be any different once we start this process over again?

Well, let's start out for a second of what redistricting really supposed to do.

I helped draft the constitutional amendment that we're operating under And the constitutional amendment really requires us to do three things avoid unnecessary splits of cities, counties and townships.

It requires us to draw districts that are compact and essentially allow people to be represented by people who share their values.

And ultimately, that, to me is the primary focus of what we've been doing.

I've been trying to do that as a commission member.

I've been trying to work across lines.

And as you know, I am the only member of the commission that has voted against my own party.

I've done it not once, but on three separate occasions.

The reality is, is that I think we need to draw districts that are compact.

I think we need to draw districts that keep cities, counties and townships together.

If you do those things, you will have fair districts where people can be represented by people who share their values.

But as you mentioned, you were involved in the drafting of these constitutional amendments.

You were in the legislature in 20, 15 and in 2018 when these passed.

Is this really what the goal was?

I mean, look, I have said this process has not worked like we anticipated.

It has not worked very well.

And in reality as I said in the first court case, I think the people went to their respective sides and anticipated litigation instead of cooperation.

I tried to work with the Democrats initially.

I've tried to work with the Democrats as recently as the last maps that we passed.

And in order to try and get a bipartisan map, the answer is it has been very clear that both sides okay, you need four votes to pass a map.

Both sides have have been entrenched in their own positions.

I still believe compromise is possible.

And the fact of the matter is, is that I think we can find maps that do what I said.

Don't unnecessarily split cities, counties and townships and draw compact districts.

The issue of abortion may not seem to have a whole lot of connection to the government, to the auditor's office, but it's certainly a key issue for Democrats, including your opponent, Taylor Abington, and others.

Do you see the issue of abortion as an issue, especially if it could be firing up voters as something that you need to address?

Look, my position on abortion is clear.

It's colored by my personal faith.

It's colored by the fact that my wife and I lost a set of twins at 21 weeks.

Having said that, the auditor's office has absolutely nothing to do with abortion.

In Ohio.

This is an issue that if you want to if you are campaigning on abortion, if you want to run on abortion, you probably ought to be running for the state legislature.

That's where that issue is.

And so from the state auditor's position, you know, we continue to be nonpartisan.

We continue to keep an eye on public tax dollars.

And we do a pretty good job at that.

You talk about being nonpartisan.

What do you want, Democrats and moderate Republicans, to know about you?

Because I think you're associated a lot with very conservative ideals.

Well, look, I am a conservative, but the reality is, is we've run a very professional.

And somebody said this to me the other day.

Faber, you've stayed in your lane.

You've done your job as state auditor.

That's what I want people to know as auditor.

I don't care if you're a Republican or Democrat if you're abusing public tax dollars.

We're not your friends.

We're coming after you.

And our record proves that we are pushing almost 90 convictions since I become state auditor of people who are lying, cheating and stealing with tax dollars.

And it ranges from the Deputy Clark County Auditor that we just convicted a couple of weeks ago that stole $1.8 million to a corrupt county sheriff down in Pike County.

One of the very first guys at the road and murder scene that got him some attention we got tips that he was a corrupt cop.

And lo and behold, before the first person went on trial for those murders, I already have him in prison serving time for being a corrupt cop.

I've been asking all of the five statewide executive candidates on the Republican side.

This because you've all been endorsed by former President Trump.

He endorsed Governor Mike DeWine last week.

So with no evidence to support Trump's claims of a stolen election, do you affirm the results of the 2020 election and that Joe Biden won?

He is the president.

Look, I said this.

Joe Biden is our president.

I do think that that if other states ran elections the way Ohio runs elections, we would have a lot less reason for question.

There are issues to question in the election.

When you do know fall are when you do unsolicited mail in absentee ballots that people only have to request when you have unsecured drop boxes, when you have other issues, there are reasons to question those things.

And certainly it warrants an investigation.

But Joe Biden is our president.

I think it's better to look at the ways we can do better elections going forward.

And if other states operated the way Florida and Ohio did, we would have a lot less questions about elections all around the country.

And to me, that's the issue we ought to be spending time on here is how do we make sure election integrity is something that everybody can have greater confidence in?

The unsolicited ballot applications didn't.

Wasn't that a project of Republican Secretary of State John Houston?

Now, that's not in Ohio.

What you're talking about is applications.

There are states who actually sent you a ballot, whether you like it or does not do that.

Remember, Ohio does elections pretty well.

We learned our lesson after the 2004 election.

We have one of the things Ohio does in other states, though, as we require a Republican and Democrat to be in charge of that ballot from start to finish.

One of the things we do is we require that there be a paper backup for every single vote.

And one of the things we do is we do manual audits of every election.

And so the paper ballots are counted against the electronic ballot and a random sample by the secretary of state's office.

Somebody said, Faber, you ought to audit the election.

I said, the secretary of state does that.

I don't have jurisdiction over that.

And so staying in your lane is an important component as a statewide elected officeholder.

But understanding what other people do to give confidence is also important.

And so in that regard, look, I think Ohio did a pretty darn good job.

Are there things we can improve?

Sure.

And the way you improve what you're doing is you do an assessment, you figure out where your weaknesses are and you modify your activity to improve on those weaknesses.

That's what we do in the state auditor's office all the time.

It's the reason that for example, we're saving more than $400,000 on just rental space by being more efficient in our leases.

We're looking at ways to improve our operations.

It's what we do in our performance audits of state government.

It's why we have saved literally hundreds of millions of dollars of efficiency recommendations throughout state government.

And finally, are you going to be at former President Trump's rally with J.D.

Vance this weekend in Youngstown?

I will be.

I think it's a great time to connect to Republicans and other candidates that are running for office.

Next week, our conversation with the candidates series continues with the contenders for attorney general.

Republican incumbent Dave Yost and Democratic challenger Jeffrey Crossman.

Early voting starts October 12th That's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State Newstalk and follow us and the show on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio.

Comes from medical mutuel 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 Right is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Puerto right 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.