Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
The re-drawn district includes Kettering, Oakwood, parts of downtown and east Dayton, plus Riverside. In the district’s previous form, White narrowly won it two years ago, defeating Oakwood Democrat Addison Caruso by fewer than 500 votes in a year when neither candidate faced primary opposition.
Lounsbury, 43, is a small business owner and a former public school teacher. She has been a Montgomery County Democratic Party volunteer for candidates and ballot issues.
Lounsbury earned a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from Western Michigan University and a master’s degree in teaching from Miami University.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
White, 63, has been in the Ohio House for four years. Before that, she was elected to three, six-year terms as clerk for Kettering Municipal Court, which serves Kettering, Centerville, Washington Twp. and Moraine.
White earned a bachelor’s degree from Wright State University and ran a small business for more than 15 years.
In interviews with the Dayton Daily News, both Lounsbury and White said daily living expenses and the ability for families to cope with economic issues are among the biggest problems in their district.
They also each favor the ongoing effort called the Fair School Funding Plan. But they differ widely on legislative priorities and stands on issues such as abortion, gun rights and state Issue 1, which proposes to create an appointed commission for redistricting.
Lounsbury’s priorities
One of the most significant reasons Lounsbury said she is seeking the office is to attract and keep younger residents in Ohio’s workforce.
“I have seen our state become more and more extreme,” she said. “We’re driving our young people away from Ohio, and we see all of these jobs that need to be filled. They’re struggling to get people to fill them.”
Lounsbury said her legislative priorities include public school funding changes, and “protecting personal freedoms” involving voting and abortion.
She’s against school vouchers, which Lounsbury said are “funneling money to private schools.”
Instead, “I would like to 100% fund our Fair School Funding Plan,” which now is funded at about two-thirds the full level, she said.
That would likely require a “need to stop giving handouts to wealthy families to send their kids to private schools,” Lounsbury said. “Because we can’t. There’s not enough money in the public school fund to fund our public schools fairly.”
Ohio’s continued reliance on property taxes to fund schools increases the economic burden as real estate “taxes have gone up exponentially for homes,” she said.
This is “sometimes very overwhelming, especially for some of our older citizens … who might be living on a fixed income,” Lounsbury added.
She would also seek easier voting access, saying that Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s measures are “preventing” voters’ ballot box access.
“We have the strictest voter ID laws in the nation in a state where we do not have any evidence of voter fraud,” Lounsbury said. “So it would be looking at the laws around voting so that voting is — as it should be -— everyone’s right. That it is accessible. That it is something that is easy for people to do.”
Last year, Ohio voters approved a state constitutional amendment granting abortion rights. And Lounsbury said she would work to eliminate “every law that exists on the books that is in opposition” to the law.
White’s priorities
With the constitutional change, White said, “Ohio voters have decided the abortion issue.”
Part of her focus, she said, will be on lowering the state’s “high infant and maternal mortality rates and helping our state’s youngest citizens — and their parents — learn, grow and develop to their fullest God-given potentials.”
White pointed to her work in co-sponsoring HB 7, called the Strong Foundations Act, which the House approved in June.
It would expand access to prenatal, postnatal, infant and toddler services and supports, state records show.
White said she’s working to get the bill through the Senate while also seeking “quality early learning and safe, affordable childcare.”
White touts herself as a problem solver. Other legislative priorities focus on mental health and drug addiction, better equipping families and children to succeed, and safer neighborhoods, she said.
White said her time as Kettering Municipal Court clerk helped her better understand the relationship those issues have on each other.
“I work hard to protect our community and ensure that both victims of crime are protected and we’re holding criminals accountable,” she said. “I feel like all of these priorities will help our kids grow up emotionally, physically and academically healthy.
“They’re going to help reduce violent crime and help us build healthy adults, families and workers so our communities can flourish,” White added.
The state needs to “spend smarter and measure outcomes,” she said. “And we need to keep fully funding our (public) schools.”
Providing money for these priorities is key, White added.
“We’ve got to focus on the economy and jobs and growing skills so people can earn a living that supports themselves and their families,” she said.
Making “sure that our streets and our neighborhoods are safe” while helping children and families become “strong and stable” is a “major deterrent to crime,” according to White.
Gun rights and Issue 1
Lounsbury said a crime deterrent she favors would be “common sense gun safety measures.” Among these are universal background checks, mandatory waiting periods, reinstating permits for concealed carry permits and limiting magazine capacities to “no more than 10 rounds,” she said.
Lounsbury said she, her husband and sons are gun owners.
“Common sense gun safety laws are not in opposition to responsible gun ownership,” she added. “We can and should have both.”
White said she supports the 2nd Amendment and gun ownership for law-abiding citizens.
“The vast majority of gun crimes are committed by people obtaining guns illegally through theft, gangs, the drug trade and other illegal avenues — and by proven criminals who are not legally permitted to have guns in the first place,” White said.
She favors laws to increase penalties for those criminals.
Boundaries for this statehouse district that includes Kettering and Oakwood were redrawn in recent years to include Dayton and surrounding areas.
The future of how Ohio’s districts will be formed is the focus of state Issue 1, which proposes to create an appointed commission for redistricting. Lounsbury supports the change. White said there is a need to modify the process, but she has concerns with Issue 1.
Lounsbury said the current method “silences the voices of the majority of Ohioans” and disenfranchises them.
“I strongly support the Citizens Not Politicians initiative, because … democracy rests on people’s votes counting and people’s votes mattering,” she said. “And if you’re voting but your vote doesn’t matter, you might as well be voting in Russia. And a lot of people in Ohio are voting that way.”
White said she agrees with Gov. Mike DeWine that redistricting must be modified “to ensure that the focus is on compact, competitive districts that are drawn regardless of party.
“The concern with Issue 1 is that it places the highest priority on proportionality at the expense of keeping communities of interest whole and not gerrymandered to the extreme to ensure a pre-determined outcome,” she said.
White said she’s concerned that the majority of funds promoting the issue’s passage “is from out-of-state special interests” and could impact control of Congress.
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