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Cincinnati Enquirer...
Shannon Jones: The
force behind SB5
By Barry M. Horstman
Photo: Jones speaks
during a hearing about Senate Bill 5. Columbus Dispatch/Fred Squillante
If nothing else, state Sen. Shannon Jones’ central role in the
acrimonious battle over a dramatic remake of Ohio’s
collective-bargaining law shows that she is not shy about tackling
white-hot issues - or stepping into the political spotlight.
It’s not the first time in her still-young political career, though,
that she has vividly proved that point.
As a freshman state legislator, Jones received the kind of attention
most first-termers can only envy, shrewdly grabbing onto several
headline-producing issues. Among them: legislation to ban state pension
funds from investing in companies that do business with Iran and Sudan,
and tightening state access to confidential personal data, a plan born
of the “Joe the Plumber” controversy from the 2008 presidential
campaign.
After only one year in Columbus, she rose to a party leadership post in
the Ohio House.
And two years ago, forced to weigh friendship against tantalizing
political opportunity, Jones made a decision that proves, if not the
old maxim about politics making for strange bedfellows, at least that
politics sometimes makes for strange roommates.
Tempted by the prospect of an open state Senate seat, Jones elbowed her
way past her political mentor and Columbus roommate, former Rep.
Michelle Schneider of Madeira, despite what Schneider insists were
Jones’ repeated assurances to “never, never run against” her.
“She stabbed me in the back,” Schneider said. “Some friend.”
While Jones offers a more benign explanation, what the episode
illustrates, her allies and opponents agree, is that she is politically
savvy, willing to swing away in bare-knuckles fights - and extremely
ambitious.
All of those characteristics were evident in the Senate Bill 5
showdown, as Jones and Senate GOP leaders forcefully pushed through a
massive rewriting of Ohio’s 27-year-old collective bargaining law
against opposition that was every bit as aggressive, if not more so.
Even fellow Greater Cincinnati Republican, state Sen. Bill Seitz of
Green Township, complained he got “nothing” from Jones’ hearings except
a headache from the union protesters and suggested there was “a better
process.” Jones’ response: he’s entitled to his opinion, but “change is
hard.”
The controversy over SB 5 kept Jones’ name on the front page of
newspapers across the state for weeks, rocketing her public profile to
a level that perhaps positions her for a run for statewide office in
the near future, some GOP leaders believe.
Jones insists, though, that she is not looking beyond the state Senate,
saying for now she is content being a Wii-playing, movie-loving mother
of two from Springboro not eager to spend any more time in Columbus.
“I put my kids on the school bus Tuesday morning, drive to Columbus and
hope to be back home Thursday in time to see them off the bus,” the
40-year-old Jones said. “I’d like to keep it that way.”
Her unusually early start in politics, however, and the path she has
traveled since then - before being elected, she spent a decade as a top
aide to a U.S. senator, congressman and state treasurer - makes some
scoff at her protestations about future ambitions.
‘Someone to watch’
While still a senior at the University of Cincinnati, then-Shannon
Walker in 1992 challenged state Rep. William Mallory Sr., at the time
Democratic majority leader in Columbus.
She was, in political parlance, a “sacrificial lamb,” a Republican
newcomer running against a 13-term Democratic powerhouse in an
overwhelmingly Democratic district in a contest that, from the start,
was a race in name only.
Even so, the campaign had a bit of cachet, drawn from the fact that
Mallory - the father of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory - taught a state
government and politics course at UC that Walker had taken. In an
election billed as the professor versus the pupil, the professor won
overwhelmingly, 68 percent to 32 percent.
What Mike Allen, then county Republican chairman, recalls most about
that race was not the lopsided result, but Walker’s reaction to it when
they had lunch shortly afterward at a Clifton restaurant.
“She was so enthusiastic and so committed to staying active in
politics,” Allen said. “When someone’s coming off a whuppin’ like that
and still has that attitude, that really impressed me and told me this
was someone to watch.”
The race also caught the attention of Hamilton County Commissioner
Steve Chabot, then planning a 1994 run for Congress against freshman
U.S. Rep. David Mann.
“She had worked tirelessly in a very tough race,” Chabot said. “I knew
that’s the kind of energy I needed in what was going to be a difficult
campaign.”
With Jones as his campaign manager, Chabot knocked off Mann in the ‘94
GOP landslide. She stayed on to serve as Chabot’s chief of staff for
five years, then became a regional representative for state Treasurer
Joe Deters and district director for U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine.
The deep experience on local, state and national issues - as well as
valuable political contacts - that she gained through those jobs served
her well in her first serious bid for public office in 2006.
After state Rep. Tom Raga from Mason vacated his 67th District seat to
become gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell’s running mate,
Jones and two other Republicans ran to succeed him. Jones edged her
major opponent in the primary - Corwin Nixon, the grandson of a
longtime state legislator of the same name - by about 200 votes, then
easily won in November in the comfortably Republican district, which
included Mason, Springboro and parts of Hamilton, Warren and Butler
counties.
The bitter breach with Schneider erupted about two years later.
When state Sen. Robert Schuler died of cancer in June 2009, Jones, to
Schneider’s shock and chagrin, sought appointment by the GOP caucus to
fill the 7th District vacancy - and got it.
What made the episode especially grating to Schneider was that when
Jones arrived in Columbus as a relative unknown, she had used her
Republican leadership post to help the younger woman quickly rise
through the ranks. Their close relationship was underlined by the fact
that Jones lived in the extra bedroom in Schneider’s German Village
home near the Statehouse while the Legislature was in session.
But while undeniably subject, on a personal level, to plenty of
how-could-you recriminations, Jones’ decision to take on her
soon-to-be-former roommate was the politically smart choice. Had Jones
not run for the Senate in 2010, Schneider likely would have had a lock
on the seat in Warren County and eastern Hamilton County until 2018.
Seeing a chance that perhaps might not come again, Jones seized it.
“This is a business of ideas, and if you want to make a difference, you
have to be willing to put yourself out there,” Jones said. Although
acutely aware of how Schneider would react, she also realized, Jones
said, that a Senate seat would afford her an opportunity to “have more
of an impact on the issues I care about.”
The resulting bad blood shaped the 2010 primary, which saw Jones at one
point fire this salvo at her ex-roommate: “Some people view public
service as an entitlement. I view it as service.” Aided considerably by
her appointed incumbency, Jones handily won the primary by about a
3-to-2 margin over Schneider and was elected in November by an even
wider margin.
Facing ‘tough issues’
The genesis of her sponsorship of Senate Bill 5, Jones says, was her
belief that Ohio, with an $8 billion budget shortfall on the horizon,
is “at a really critical point where we have to face up to some tough
issues.”
In discussions with a wide range of local and state officials, Jones,
now the Senate majority whip, said she was struck that collective
bargaining and how it increased the cost of government “was the issue
they kept coming back to again and again.”
Jones knew the issue would be extremely controversial, but that did not
prepare her for the thousands of protesters who descended on the
Statehouse this week. On Wednesday, the Senate, by a single vote,
approved the measure, which would overhaul collective bargaining for
about 360,000 state, local government and university employees. The
issue next heads to the House, where the GOP holds a 59-40 advantage.
While supporters have thrown accolades her way, Jones self-effacingly
says: “I think the other side’s been throwing something else at me,
too.”
Opponents have attacked Jones’ bill as a union-busting plan that could
financially harm countless middle-class families and perhaps even put
public safety workers’ lives at jeopardy. “I think the Senate has
forgotten Ohioans,” said Mark Sanders, a Cincinnati Fire Department
lieutenant and statewide firefighters’ union president.
After weeks in the political cross-hairs, Jones says she will not be
displeased if the media glare lessens after the collective bargaining
debate is resolved.
Many, though, believe she will be back in it again soon enough.
“To move up the political ladder as far as she has, as quickly as she
has, is quite an accomplishment,” Allen said. “I don’t think that
story’s going to stop at the state Senate.”
For this weekend, at least, Jones claims to have a more modest
objective: perhaps beating her 11-year-old son at Guitar Hero.
“We haven’t played for a while, but I have to admit I take some
pleasure in winning from time to time,” Jones said, laughing. “That’s
as far as I’m thinking ahead right now.”
Read it at the Enquirer
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