ProgressOhio

Let’s be honest. Whether it’s the stripper bill, prayer in the chamber, misspending in Bob Taft’s Office of Faith Based Services, or abstinence education – it’s all “gotcha-motivated” with one not-so-subtle message: “God is on my side.”

Ohio’s modern day Holy Grail (decoder: the cup of Jesus’ last supper that legions of knights fought to the death for in the dark ages) is in fact the race to claim God and righteousness in the Roman Colosseum we know as Ohio legislative politics (decoder: a lion’s den that has become a spectator sport.) 

But don’t cheer too loudly for the state legislature – because Ohio has a dirty little secret: We are among the nation’s leaders in human trafficking, slavery, sexual exploitation and labor exploitation.

Twenty years around Broad and High and I never knew of our distinction until Senate Minority Leader Teresa Fedor asked me to breakfast this month and dropped her bombshell about human trafficking.

All of the countless bills, endless tinkering with the Ohio Revised Code over years of sessions, ten different biennial budgets during my time in this town, and none has closed the legal loopholes that allow to have this horrible distinction. There are “Preyer’s” in Ohio enslaving Ohioans.

We’ve seen “three strikes and you’re out crime bills,” the taking away of recreational and educational materials in prison, constant tinkering with our sentencing guidelines and chest-thumping efforts to increase the penalties, tighten the definitions, lower legal blood-alcohol levels and even color the license plates of drunken drivers. But slavery – slavery remains.

We’ve voted to keep gays from marrying in the name of God, voted down gambling more than once in the name of God, and even eliminated smoking from all but the great outdoors – but do nothing to free the slaves among us.

We’ve tinkered with taxes, fought over school funding, taxed our sins for stadiums and then turned around and clamped down on sins with stripper bills and tobacco constraints, but even Phil Burress in his heyday forgot to evangelize about human trafficking and slavery in Ohio.

Last Tuesday, Senator Fedor and the National Underground Railroad Museum unveiled an exhibit in the Statehouse crypt outlining Ohio’s problem. Sen. Fedor was joined by state Sen. David Goodman and state Rep. Kathleen Chandler in offering legislation that will enable a crackdown on human trafficking in Ohio by tightening laws, increasing law enforcement education and ending the immigration and legal impediments that discourage victims from coming forward.

So, what are we waiting for? It’s bi-partisan. It’s an embarrassing blot on Ohio’s soul. Heck, it’s something we thought went away in the Civil War – something Ohioans fought and died for as an abolition state.

Studies have identified that between 14,500 to 17,500 foreign men, women and children are victimized by trafficking in the U. S. each year. Toledo is ranked as one of the top places to recruit underage girls and force them into prostitution.

You sometimes wonder, what we have an Ohio Legislature for when you hear things like this. Our government is supposed to be a Hobbesian power – where the collective nature of humankind consents to be governed democratically in our own best interest. But if modern democracy is a government we consent to – it’s most basic right is the right of freedom. After all, who consents to slavery?

A law enforcement officer at Senator Fedor’s press conference pointed out poignantly that in Ohio an adult who has sex with a minor is a sex offender, an adult who kidnaps a child is a kidnapper, but a child of 13 forced into prostitution simply by accepting money can be charged as a prostitute with no questions asked about the forced nature of her participation.

In 2005, there was a high-profile case involving a teenage girl kidnapped near Cleveland’s Public Square and forced into prostitution in Detroit – cut off from the world and abused in prostitution and slavery until fate allowed her escape. The horrifying story ran full-page in Cleveland and nationally – and still no legislation, no bills, little noticed by a Legislature consumed with false idols.

In a study by the Polaris Project (pdf 1.7mb), researchers found that Ohio is a prime location for these problems, because of its population, poor income demographics, migrant farming, foreign student population, and military bases such as Wright Patterson Air Force Base which attract foreign nationals.

Much of the trafficking is done in unregulated industries and low-wage labor sectors complicating government detection.

So for those at Broad on High sadly looking for life’s salvation via the Legislative Service Commission draft of a bill and a Bible-revival – maybe we ought to fast-track this one and leave out the political prey of “gotcha-politics” for a change.

If you truly want to play “God is on my side” – maybe just maybe you can change the “prey” to “prayer” by passing Sen. Fedor or Sen. Goodman’s bill, or heavens maybe even if there is no GOP sponsor, a Democrat like State Rep. Chandler’s bill in the House.

Then again, if history is an indicator, we can just forget human trafficking exists and move on to gay adoption or unrated, independent films at the Wexner or whatever the evangelicals choose next in our never ending quest for “salvation-legislation.”

I can’t help but conclude that St. Peter wouldn’t hesitate to open the pearly gates to those who fought human slavery.  But, hey, in Ohio’s Legislature, defining salvation is up to Phil Burress, John Husted in his quest to avoid a primary for himself and others and the prey of “gotcha” politics. 

IRONY “Gotcha” AND HB 225: Speaking of gotcha politics, this is likely the next “gotcha” bill of 2007, now that exotic dancers are no longer prey to the Legislature. As PO’s Dave Harding pointed out among other things the bill includes:

• Removal of the requirement to inform approaching law enforcement officers that the person has a license and is carrying the handgun when the person is carrying a concealed handgun. 
  
• Removal of the prohibition of carrying a concealed handgun at all institutions of higher learning (public and private), places of worship, day-care centers and homes, and government buildings other than schools, courthouses, law enforcement offices, and correctional facilities.
• Removal of the “in plain sight or secure encasement” criterion that a concealed carry licensee must satisfy to legally possess a handgun in a motor vehicle for an unlocked container/case.

So, does anyone see the irony, that at the same time our nation has locked down airports because of terrorism and won’t let you bring liquid hair gel on a plane, our Legislature now wants to all guns in colleges, churches and temples, courthouses and other public places – and hey it’s ok to approach a cop and not tell him your packing heat.

Good thing terrorists only hang out in airports.