In a new television advertisement, Ohio Democratic congressional candidate Greg Landsman, who is challenging longtime Cincinnati-area incumbent Steve Chabot (R-OH-1), suggests in contrast to his actual record that he consistently supported robustly funding police.
The spot, which features Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey (D) and Cincinnati City Councilman Scotty Johnson (D), posits that Landsman actually backed substantially increased funding for law enforcement in his tenure as a Cincinnati City Council member. These officials blast Republicans for insisting that Landsman wanted to defund city police.
“This ad from Congressman Chabot’s Friends is just wrong,” Johnson begins, referring to a commercial run by the GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund. “Landsman increased police funding by $20 million. $20 million. Greg funded public safety to its highest level ever…. The Chabot attacks are just not true.”
The actions Johnson describes in the ad, however, refer to general budget votes that Landsman cast alongside the rest of the council. And he voted in June 2020 for an ordinance to remove $1,015,000 from budgeting accounts dedicated to the Cincinnati Police Department and bestow that money on municipal recreation and jobs programs. Landsman also authored a policy to shift $200,000 from the police budget to the Citizen Complaint Authority, an independent entity probing accusations of police misconduct.
The candidate’s critics find these moves particularly troubling in light of the major rise in crime that the city experienced in 2020 and 2021. During the former year, 94 homicides were committed in Cincinnati, breaking 2006’s record of 88 killings. The following year, gun-related deaths again reached a near-record high.
“Greg Landsman is blatantly lying about his record,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Camille Gallo told The Ohio Star. “He literally wrote a proposal that would defund the police and I think that should show Ohioans that he is going to go to Congress if elected and support a defund-the-police agenda.”
The candidate’s supporters featured in his commercial also have their controversial histories where law enforcement is concerned. McGuffey has campaigned for her office with the endorsement of organizations that back police defunding, including the Working Families Party and Democracy for America. The sheriff has also been convicted of disorderly conduct and public intoxication and underwent demotion as a prison-security professional.
Johnson meanwhile supported a measure to facilitate firing police officers who are accused of using profanity, depriving them of recourse to challenge their dismissals. He also once said “police should be the last call citizens make because the community knows more than the police know.”
Landsman’s campaign did not return an email seeking comment.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Ohio Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Greg Landsman” by Greg Landsman.
