House District 16: Tommy Greene hopes to bring a new voice to the Ohio House of Representatives
By Alex Vicarel
Democrat Tommy Greene is running against Republican Dave Greenspan for the District 16 seat in the Ohio House of Representatives. This is the first time Greene has run for elected office. Although Greene is a rookie, he is very passionate about the issues he stands for.
According to his campaign website, Greene was born in Westlake and raised in Bay Village. After graduating from Bay High School in 2006, Greene went to Ohio State University and studied journalism. He then worked in Washington, D.C., as well as Columbus.
Greene has come back to Ohio to “fight for Ohio’s working families,” the website says. And Greene mentioned at the Greater Cleveland League of Women Voters’ Westside Candidate Forum in September that he currently resides in Rocky River. He is running to represent the community where he grew up and has chosen to make his home again.
A Cleveland.com article mentioned that Greene is the head of business development for North Water Partners, a small business in Ohio City.
Greene says he is trying to give the working people a voice in government. At the League of Women Voters’ candidates meeting, he said he wants to be an advocate for regular working people. He is going to fight to restore early voting hours on evenings and weekends, and is supportive of a more accessible ballot. At the meeting (see the video below), it was clear that Greene is enthusiastic and well informed. His answers included many statistics and facts, especially on questions relating to gun control and school funding.
On his campaign website, Greene is endorsed a long list of organizations, including Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the Fraternal Order of Police.
Coming from a family whose was father a steelworker and mother a teacher’s aide, Greene said his passions lie with the schools and working families. He mentioned at the League meeting that when his father lost his job, he saw many elected officials at a rally for the workers, and that was what inspired him to fight for working people himself.
He also said that tax dollars going to charter schools should instead go to the local public schools in need, and that local school boards should be deciding the standards for testing.
Greene is a strong supporter of unions and said at the League meeting that he is against Right to Work legislation, which exempts workers from having to join the union that represents their workplace.
School funding and unions aren’t the only things that Greene is passionate about. At the League meeting he also talked about the need for urgency in restoring Lake Erie to health.
“There is no time to wait on this issue. Lake Erie is suffocating. There are over four thousand residents in Toledo who went without clean drinking water. That is embarrassing in 2016.”
He pointed out that everyone in Ohio needs to work together to solve this issue because “clean drinking water is something that we all need.” He stated that there still need to be common sense regulations on farming practices as well as the storage and application of fertilizers, since these things are major contributors to the algae that secreted toxins into Toledo’s water in August 2014. He also mentioned funding more infrastructure projects to prevent water run-off from contaminating the lake.
Greene also told voters at the League Candidate Forum that if he gets elected, he will fight the drug problem in Ohio. He said that he will make sure that first responders are equipped with naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of opioid overdose, and work with doctors and hospitals to slow the over-prescription of addictive painkillers. He would also give teachers and administrators more tools to help educate children on the effects that drug addiction can have on people.
In the League meeting, he mentioned that his family owns two funeral homes.
“The amount of families that have come to us because they have lost a loved one to addiction is on the rise and one funeral that results from heroin is one too many.”
Greene is a strong advocate for women’s rights. He said at the League meeting that he believes decisions about a woman’s health should be made between the patient and her doctor, not “politicians in Columbus.” If elected, he said he will fight bills that try and restrict women’s access to health care. He is a big supporter of Planned Parenthood, saying it is “a health care organization that provides life-saving treatment, like cervical exams, breast exams and HIV screenings to thousands of patients in Ohio. … For many of [them] it’s their source for primary care.”
In his closing statement, Greene said
“I’m going to wake up every day, I’m going to bust my butt for the working people of the 16th house district. …You can always call me. You can always email me. I’ll never turn you away. I’m always going to tell you the truth. But this is my community, this is where I grew up, and I am absolutely confident that our best days are ahead.”
Although Greene, if elected, will be new to the House, he will be bringing his passion and voice for the working family.
