Known by the company you keep......

*  Sometimes the things you do in the past come back and haunt you.  Republican Josh Mandel might not want you to remember those horrible ads full of lies that he ran against Kevin Boyce.  Mandel might also hope that you don't know about this article from the Columbus Monthly that discusses some of Mandel's other controversial votes.

The Columbus Monthly:

...In 2009, Mandel voted against an Ohio House bill to forbid discrimination against gay or lesbian Ohioans in employment and housing. (The House passed the bill 56-39, but it died in the state Senate). Mandel, as president of Ohio State’s Undergraduate Student Government, had supported domestic-partner benefits for same-sex as well as opposite-sex couples in 2000.

He says he voted against the 2009 bill because it would have been a job-killer for small businesses. (The bill, however, only applied to employers of 15 or more people; in contrast, other Ohio employment discrimination-ban laws apply to employers of four or more people.) Last May, outside a Greater Cleveland country club, protesters picketed a Mandel fundraiser because he voted against the anti-discrimination bill, the Cleveland Jewish News reported.

Also last May, Mandel voted “no” when the House, by 61-37, passed a bill to close loopholes in a 2008 Ohio payday-loan reform law. (Voters overwhelmingly had demanded payday loan reform in a 2008 referendum.) Interestingly, Mandel mentor Batchelder was a fervent “yes” on the cleanup....

Should we assume that Josh Mandel is for discrimination in housing and jobs?

Josh Mandel showed his love and appreciation of the payday loan industry in 2009.   On March 9, 2012, according to a story in the Plain Dealer,  Josh Mandel flew to the Bahamas, attended the payday lender convention (CFSA: Community Financial Services Association of America) at the Atlantis on Paradise Island, gave a speech, and collected some campaign contributions. 

Josh Mandel's association with payday lenders has paid off for him handsomely.  Open Secrets has the following data (this is only a partial list):


Opensecrets: Checksmart PAC---2012 Josh Mandel.........$5000

Someone associated with Check into Cash, donated $2500 to the Josh Mandel campaign (see Open Secrets).

  

The Ohio Secretary of State's website indicates that Josh Mandel's PAC received $5000 from the Checksmart Financial LLC PAC on 10/25/10.

There are plenty of more connections.  The truth of the matter is that Josh Mandel appears to be very friendly with the likes and needs of the payday lending industry, over the citizens of Ohio.  When a candidate leaves to meet up with this type of industry, it tells us a lot about a person. You're known by the company you keep.

>>>>  Plunderbund has an excellent posting about Josh Mandel's claim to be interested in jobs. Ha!  As indicated in today's post at Plunderbund, Mandel has never supported any jobs bills, was against the plan to save the American auto industry, and is against the Chinese currency manipulation legislation that hurts Ohio jobs.  Plunderbund notes:

....Josh Mandel has shown that he has little interest in performing, let alone showing up for work at his current job. Claiming to be the jobs guy when you can’t even bother to show up for work comes across as pretty damn disrespectful for all the hard working Ohioans who DO show up at their job every day – and even more so for those who are unemployed or underemployed and out hunting for work.....

Exactly.  You might learn something new by reading the comments at Plunderbund.