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Rebel GOP lawmakers in Ohio seek to impeach Gov. Mike DeWine, a fellow Republican, claiming he violated federal and state laws by requiring the wearing of masks and ordering businesses to shut down to slow the spread of Covid-19.
Accusing that DeWine has “assumed dictatorial powers”, State Representative John Becker on Tuesday accused the governor of “placing nearly 12 million people under house arrest”.
“We can debate the effectiveness of these measures in stopping the spread of the virus. I don’t know if they did, ”Becker told NBC News. “What I know is that he did it outside the law.
DeWine, who defied President Donald Trump by imposing sweeping restrictions at the start of the pandemic that for some time managed to flatten the coronavirus curve, has rejected renewed efforts to oust him, after a failed similar movement during the summer.
“I guess they’re allowed to go and file whatever they want, but you know we’re going to stay focused on what we need to do,” DeWine said Tuesday in an interview with CBS News.
Lawmakers, said DeWine, “want to criticize measures like wearing a mask and the basic things we know – absolutely everything – work.
“You know they should go talk to these frontline health workers because I think when they listen to them it’s pretty clear we have to do whatever we can to slow this virus down,” DeWine said. .
DeWine reimposed a statewide mask mandate and other restrictions following the presidential election last month after the number of new Covid-19 cases exploded in Ohio.
Becker, along with state officials Candice Keller, Nino Vitale and Paul Zeltwanger, filed a dozen articles of impeachment on Monday. Among other things, they accused DeWine of “militarizing” the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Board to “intimidate and harass businesses and people” into wearing masks in public.
“Rather than hearing the screams of the people of Ohio, Governor DeWine continues to stifle those screams by finding more inventive ways to use masks to stifle people’s voices,” Becker said in his statement.
Christopher Devine, assistant professor of political science at the University of Dayton and an expert on Ohio politics, said, “This is not a serious attempt to remove the DeWine government.”
“It will almost certainly fail, as did a similar effort by some of the same lawmakers in August,” he said. “The four lawmakers leading this effort are marginal members of the Ohio Legislature who have little credibility with their colleagues and seem more focused on getting attention on social media than on any constructive contribution to the response to the pandemic. ”
Yet, Devine said, it highlights DeWine’s “vulnerability among the more extreme rank-and-file members of the Republican Party as he seeks re-election and re-election in 2022.”
At the start of the pandemic, DeWine garnered bipartisan praise for taking swift action to contain the coronavirus crisis. He declared a state of emergency in March to postpone the presidential primary and was among the first governors to force people visiting nursing homes or prisons to undergo medical examinations.
DeWine has also resisted Trump’s calls to quickly reopen the state’s economy and lift housekeeping orders. But these moves angered Trump’s staunchest Republican supporters who demonized DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton, then the governor’s State Department of Health director.
While DeWine defended Acton, she resigned in June after the Republican-led legislature decided to restrict her powers. Soon after, Ohio’s coronavirus count began to climb rapidly again.
Ohio had reported 421,063 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 6,429 deaths since the start of the pandemic as of Tuesday, according to the latest data from NBC News. And most of the cases and deaths have been reported after DeWine began to ease restrictions over the summer.
In August, Becker, Vitale and Zeltwanger wrote 10 articles of impeachment against DeWine. But it was never voted on after Republicans and Democrats opposed.
The move by Becker, Vitale and Zeltwanger, Ohio Republican Party President Jane Timken, is “a baseless and weak attempt to garner attention for themselves.”
Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper noted that Republican supporters wanted to oust DeWine, but did not kick Representative Larry Householder from the state legislature after being accused of bribery, although they removed him from his post as Speaker of the House.
“The Ohio GOP’s message to voters is clear – corruption and bribery are totally okay for us, but having the audacity to listen to public health experts during a global pandemic is an ungodly offense, ”he said.
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