Politics

A former secretary of state who stirred up controversy in the Republican Party when he ran in 2006 seems to be interested in shaking up the GOP again. Ken Blackwell spoke to about 30 people at the Columbus Metropolitan Club today, talking about the debt ceiling crisis. Blackwell wrote on Twitter last week that Tea Party Congressman Jim Jordan of Urbana should run for the US Senate next year if his district is erased in redistricting.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio will stop mailing state tax forms and instruction booklets in a change expected to save $1.2 million.

The Columbus Dispatch reports the paperwork won't be delivered to taxpayers' mailboxes starting next year. The Ohio Department of Taxation was already only sending forms to those who filed their taxes by mail the year before.

Taxpayers who mailed in their 2010 returns will receive postcards with their options for obtaining booklets and forms.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate has headed home without authorizing roughly 2.5 billion dollars of construction funding for the Federal Aviation Administration.

As a result, for the next five weeks the FAA can’t collect $1.2 billion in aviation taxes and almost 4,000 furloughed FAA workers are jobless.  The FAA’s web-site Associated General Contractors (AGC) estimates that 70,000 workers in construction and related fields will be affected.

CINCINNATI, Ohio - A federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit by an anti-abortion group that claimed Ohio law restricts political speech.

The judge also Monday refused to dismiss former U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus' defamation lawsuit against the group over advertising criticizing his vote on the health care overhaul.

The lawsuits stem from disputes over billboards the Susan B. Anthony List planned during Driehaus' unsuccessful 2010 re-election campaign. The Democrat sought an Ohio Election Commission order blocking the billboards over possibly false claims.