David Pepper on Standing Up to Bullies (the NEW STRS Board)

Update: Standing Up to Bullies 

NOTE: Use this link to see the 4 videos referenced in the article below; you absolutely don't want to miss them: https://davidpepper.substack.com/p/update-standing-up-to-bullies?r=17y7a&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true 

Teachers and their Representatives Stood Up -- in Elections, and Yesterday

DAVID PEPPER
MAY 16, 2024

In this topsy turvy political world where the bullies too often win, yesterday marked a day where everyday people stood up to them. 

And won.

And I was lucky enough to see it happen in person….

Yesterday morning, I updated you  on the chaos in the Ohio’s teachers pension board over the last year, where Ohio’s Governor has displayed this terribly bad habit of meddling in election outcomes of teachers voting for pension board seats that represent them (as in, these aren’t your seats, Governor).

And shortly after I sent my post, as I worried, the next stage of that orchestrated chaos occurred when Attorney General Yost filed a suit attempting to remove two members from the board, which would again undo the now two-seat majority reform-minded teachers have elected in recent years. Just as DeWine attempted to fire a board member a year ago to undo a one-seat majority (but failed when courts found that he acted illegally).

It’s amazing how they go after the exact number of people they need to reverse the majority, isn’t it? 

Standing Up 

But then something amazing happened.

The board stood up. The new and legal majority of that board, that is.

First, at the meeting’s outset, they refused to even support approving the minutes of the prior meeting because those minutes left an impression that that meeting had been adjourned correctly—when that clearly wasn’t the case. Against efforts to dismiss their concerns, the majority refused to approve the minutes until they clearly reflected that the prior meeting had been ended in violation of Robert’s Rules of Order. And so they were corrected. A small step, but whenever you can stop the censoring of history—especially in the formal record—you do so.

When that was settled, the new majority immediately moved to replace the sitting chair and vice chair of the board.

No surprise, there were attempts to scuttle this effort, with procedural complications and legal complexity thrown up as excuses. (Trust me, I saw this when I was in office. The oldest trick in the book…legalese by lawyers used to force the hand of board members to take or not take certain positions).

But the new majority wouldn’t budge.

The Attorney General’s lawyer even suggested that they wait a month before acting. At which point one of the board members asked point blank why they should trust her advice, when the Attorney General had only hours before filed a complaint (and blasted it out to the press) to have him and another member removed from the board. And also, as he correctly pointed out, when the board’s counsel hadn’t said a word when he was illegally ousted a year ago.

WATCH:

Now that’s standing up.

Other members tried to intimidate the new majority by suggesting they were violating their fiduciary duty simply for wanting to change leadership. An absurd allegation.

And soon enough, the roll was called. The chair and vice chair were voted out.

Next came a vote for who the new chair and vice chair would be.

When the smoke cleared, one of the teacher representatives—one of the two that Yost is targeting for removal from the board through yesterday’s court action—was elected chair of the board.

How’s that for standing up to bullies?

And the vice chair they an elected is a retiree board member from Cincinnati.

Watch…and listen… 

That applause you hear at the end of the roll call is the culmination of years of demands and votes by thousands of teachers and retirees, seeking transparency and answers to questions about their pension fund.

After a short break, the seats were shifted so that the new chair and vice chair could lead the meeting. Again, this photo, and that shift, are what retirees and teachers have been demanding through their votes for years:

One other thing—during that break, one of the reform members being attacked explained the type of transparency and shift in thinking the new majority is looking for: 

Then he asked the question many of us have been wondering for the last year: what are these people so afraid of?

What’s interesting as I watch this: this is a guy (by the way, he’s a Republican and the Governor’s appointee) they are accusing of all sorts of nefarious acts. Smearing him across Ohio. But here he stands in front of the entire statehouse press corps and answers every question they throw his way. All by himself.

So….why isn’t Governor DeWine doing the same thing? When will he stand in front of the press and answer questions that need to be asked of him—did he know about the election results in advance of taking his illegal action a year ago? And his action last week? Who told him about those results? Will he turn over records from each of these crucial weeks, where he openly meddled in elections as they concluded? How does he account now for the fact that two courts have confirmed that he broke the law? And so on.

Talk about a contrast in transparency!

Final Points

I left shortly after this point.

But what’s interesting was that the meeting proceeded for hours more with no drama. The board is again meeting today.

So think about it: the Attorney General rushed to court insisting that this new board had to be stopped ASAP because they are planning an imminent “private takeover” of the fund. That’s the plot he says he and the Governor are rushing to stop, and alarming the entire world about with their dramatic announcements and interventions.

Funny thing—the reform group had the majority yesterday, no takeover.

Hmmm.

And what’s even more interesting is that later in the day, more news dropped.

The court released the schedule of the “trial” of the two members Yost and DeWine are seeking to oust.

The trial date?

June…of 2025.

One of the two board member’s term will have expired by then. For almost a year.

But my bigger question is—by June of 2025, the new “reform” majority seated yesterday will have been in control for a year. (Unless Yost and DeWine come up with another way to stop them—which they will of course try).

Which begs the question of AG Yost: if the alleged “private takeover” hasn’t happened in all that time, will you cancel the trial? Will you walk all this back?

It’s a year away. We’ll be watching.

But in the meantime, let us all learn the lesson that Ohio teachers and retirees taught us in recent years, and again yesterday:

Always stand up to bullies!