David Karmol Pt 1 of this talk with Fred LeFebvre

I mentioned earlier today, Dave Carmel would be in studio. If you want to follow along, use the website that I gave you earlier. Carmel for Ohio.com, K-A-R-M-O-L-O-O-Hio.com. We may have time for calls. So if you want to call in, 419-214-1370, Fred at W-SPD.com. If you have a question for Dave. You can also use the talkback feature on iHeartRadio if you want. All right. Dave, thanks a lot for coming on this morning. Absolutely. Can I call you, Dave? Absolutely. Because some people get real particular about that. Yeah, I'm sure being in politics, you always get called worse. How long has it been? When did you get started? Well, I think about the time you did, I was in the, I was an assistant prosecutor in Columbus, Ohio in 1979. My mother was in the legislature, died in a car accident. Oh. I was appointed to her seat in April of 79, ran for reelection in 80 and was elected to a full term. And then. I was redistricted out of my seat in 1981. What district were you in back then then? That was the 44th district, which a lot of the current 43rd district is in that, but it's different. Okay. My district back then went all the way down to the turnpike on the south side. This district goes to the Michigan line and only as far south as UT and the Scott Park campus. All right. So this, and this is 43? 43. Correct. 43. And right now, Michelle Grimm holds that seat, right? That's correct. So describe the district. You said it starts at the border? It's Michigan border. And on the east, it's Talmadge Road, essentially. There's a little bit. to the west of that, but not much. And then to point place on a part of point place, not all of it, like half a point place. Typical redistricting on the east side. And then on the south side, it includes Old Orchard and Ottawa Hills and the university area down to and including Scott Park. So how would you describe that? Because some districts are mostly urban, some are mostly industrial, some are just a bunch of neighborhoods cobbled together. It's urban and it's mostly Democrat. It was designed to be a Democrat district and it's elected a Democrat each time since the last redistricting. Well, the last redistricting, though. went through the current house, which is run by Republicans. So how did they miss that district? Well, if you're going to make Republican districts, you also have to make a few Democrat districts. Nah, you don't. They can make them as small as you want when you're in charge. Well, actually, you have to have pretty much the same number of people, so you do have to make some Democrat districts, especially in urban areas. Yeah, and that's what people ask all the time. The thing is,

It's hard to do just a normal district, just based on population, because the government, the federal government, says you also have to include, you know, a certain quota of African Americans, a certain quota of this particular race, a certain quote of this particular economic group and everything else. So there's no way to get around it. How do you manage to represent all those people then, since it's so varied? Well, you know, that's a great question. Well, I'm the host. But it goes to the heart of it, though, Fred. And one of the things I've kind of complained about, both about my party and the other party, is that sometimes they lose the fact that the job title here is representative. So if the voters vote for something that's put on the ballot. And especially if they vote two to one in your district for or against something, you should represent that. You shouldn't go down to Columbus and try to undo what the voters voted for. And I'm very strong on that, no matter what the issue is, even if I disagree with how the voters. You feel that's happening now with Grimmin place? Well, it's happened repeatedly over the years. I'll give you one prominent example. The voters voted. you know, I have a big majority to legalize pot in Ohio. Make it legal to buy recreational marijuana. Same as it is in Michigan. But in Michigan... The legislature said, all right, let's set up basic rules and we'll send some of the tax money to the local school districts, 25%. Some to the local governments, 25%, 50% to the state. What did the state of Ohio do? Screwed it up. Oh, sorry. Yes. Well, they put all sorts of restrictions on it. They made it almost impossible to, you know, run a business. You can't even advertise. You can't even put a sign outside that says what you sell. Yeah. And guess what? Michigan brings in over $500 million in tax revenue just on marijuana sales, Ohio, about $100 million. So you're running as a Republican, right? Yes, sir. Well, that's not typically a Republican stand, you know, oh, yeah, let everybody smoke pot if they want to smoke pot and take the money and the profits from the evil weeds. How did you reach that point? Is this where the common sense part comes in on your campaign sign? It is common sense, in my opinion, and it's also being a representative. I'll go back to that. The idea here is I'm representing the views of my constituents. They voted in Toledo two to one in favor of that. proposition why would i go down to columbus and do the opposite of the people i am representing that's that's what i'm talking about that's common sense well i know chris who uh lights up every morning at uh 420 because he has a medical dispensation so uh free the weed i just might vote for this guy he's a smart dude um and you're probably going to find a lot of that are there other

Issues that you think you veer away from what would normally be a Republican or a conservative stand? Well, I will talk about one issue in particular that I got pushed back within my own party for bringing up, and that is the... using tax dollars, public funds by Judge Puffenberger on TV ads during the primary campaign when his son was on the ballot. He ran ads morning and night, drive time, expensive ads on Channel 13, saying, Judge Puffenberger wants you to know this, Judge Puffenberger that. And... This is the first time in his 34 years on the bench that he's decided TV advertising is needed to tell people what the probate court does. They weren't saying elect my kid to office or anything, but it was clear. And in fact, a couple of years ago when his kid first ran, they had campaign signs up on Monroe Street, really huge ones that were blocking people's line of sight. down Monroe Street because I complained about it because I used to go to the parking a lot where it was all the time. And the response was, yeah, well, that was the response. Yeah, well. So it's obvious they don't, once they get elected, they don't really give a crap. Was his kid elected? Is he up for re-election? No, his son has been defeated twice. Okay. For judge. And I think that's why he ran these ads because they do boost the name ID. Well, sure, you get the name out there. Yeah. Yeah. And we know that in Lucas County. If you throw the name out there, I could change my last name to Copeland and probably get elected to something at some point. We've got a weather break, weather and traffic to take here. Dave Carmel's in the studio. If you have a question, email me or get on the phone, 419, 214, 1370.