Saturday, December 11, 1999
GOP bloc: No power grab for Hamilton Co. party
Opposition candidates to give voters a choice, Alliance says
BY MARIE McCAIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Members of the conservative Republican bloc Pro-Family Alliance denied Friday that the group has plans to seize control of Hamilton County's Republican Party.
Comparisons, they say, to a decade-old faction that made an unsuccessful bid to take over the local GOP are far off the mark and draw attention away from the group's real purpose.
“This is not about starting a fight with(in) the Republican Party,” said Chris Finney, an attorney and member of the anti-tax group Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) that has joined the alliance. “There is no shred of truth or a single fact that anyone in our organization wants to ... revive the platform of the early 1990s.
“All we are doing is working to succeed at the ballot box and the polls. We want voters to have a choice (of Republican primary candidates),” Mr. Finney said.
His comments came Friday during a Pro-Family Alliance news conference to introduce the group's candidates in the upcoming primary.
Besides COAST, Pro-Family Alliance is composed of five conservative political organizations that collectively espouse smaller government, lower taxes, anti-abortion, anti-pornography, anti-gay rights and pro-family ideologies.
Members have balked at the par ty's selection of three specific candidates to make up the Statehouse ticket come the March primary.
Instead, they have endorsed opposition candidates who have proven records favoring Pro-Family Alliance's philosophies.
“This is about character and principle,” said Phil Burress, a Pro-Family Alliance member and chair of Equal Rights, Not Special Rights. “If the candidates are on the right side of the issue I don't care who gets elected,” he added.
Tanya Lee, a political action committee director with Ohio Right To Life, said her agency merely wanted a “fair and honest” race in March. “We want voters to have a choice,” she said.
The GOP Statehouse candidates are:
• Tawana Keels Simons, 32nd district. She is a board member with the Princeton City School District.
• Michelle Schneider, former Madeira mayor, in the 36th district.
• Steve Adams, 37th district. He is a former assistant Hamilton County prosecutor and now works in the state treasurer's office.
The Pro-Family Alliance candidates are:
• James Raussen, 32nd district, a former Butler County township official who now resides in Springdale.
• Charles Tassell, 36th district, a director of governmental affairs with the Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky Apartment Association..
• Michael Gentry, 36th district, a member of the Symmes Township Board of Trustees.
• Tom Brinkman Jr., 37th district, a Mount Lookout resident and founder of COAST who successfully fought against the tax levy for the Cincinnati Public Schools.
In 1990, Hamilton County Republican Party dissidents formed a group called Platform Republicans that espoused anti-abortion ideology and tried to take over the party by winning a number of precinct seats.
The group died out after winning about 130 of 1,008 precincts.
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