Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) hosted a fundraiser in Washington last night that likely raised over $125,000 for three of his state’s vulnerable U.S. House members—Bob Gibbs, Bill Johnson, and Jim Renacci.

According to Politico (emphasis added):

In September, an aide to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) urged redistricting officials to add the headquarters of the Timken Co. to the new district of freshmen Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio).

On September 12^th, 2011, Tom Whatman, the director of the speaker’s “Team Boehner” group wrote in an email to redistricting officials about the change. “Thanks guys. Very important to someone important to us all. I relly [sic] should have thought of this,” he wrote.

Tomorrow, July 26th, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending will hold a hearing entitled, “Lights Out: How EPA Regulations Threaten Affordable Power and Job Creation.”

Politico has named the Fair Elections ad "Where's John Boehner to the

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), the Buckeye State’s senior senator, announced today that he would not be running for reelection in 2010. Check out this sentence from his statement:

I must devote my full time, energy and focus to the job I was elected to do, the job in front of me, which seeking a third term – with the money-raising and campaigning that it would require – would not allow me to do.

Jessica Wehrman of the Dayton Daily News looks in to what elected officials in Ohio are financing out of their campaign accounts -- Attorney General Marc Dann in particular -- in this article that includes commentary from our Executive Director, Nick Nyhart.

It's tricky to know where to draw the line on what an ethical campaign expenditure is, but Dann seems to have tread much closer to the line than other officials:

Corruption was a big issue on election night - and not just the national stories of Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, and the like. Ohio has been wrapped up in the "Coingate" scandal since it broke last spring. Today the primary figure in the scandal,Tom Noe, a top Republican fundraiser, was convicted on 29 criminal counts related to his embezzlement scheme from a rare-coin investment fund he managed for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

The Toledo Blade has an in depth story on the man behind the Ohio Coingate controversy, Tom Noe. Noe, along with his wife, was a Bush pioneer, used his campaign cash to buy influence and, after submitting a request to the White House and Speaker  Hastert’s office, was granted a seat  and ultimately chairman of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. From here, he used his influence and position to get insider information that would benefit his rare coin business.  

For anybody who missed it, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) over the weekend resigned his position as chairman of the House Administration Committee. Ney has come under fire for his close ties to Jack Abramoff, particularly after he was identified as "representative no. 1" in the court documents filed as part of Jack Abramoff's guildty plea.

A report in today's Bloomberg news makes the same point we have here, that House majority leader contenders Reps. Roy Blunt of Missouri and John Boehner of Ohio are both awfully close to Tom DeLay and K Street: