The Gonger News Service is reporting that (pro-CCW) Senator Robert Gardner (R-Bowling Green) had made the decision not to resign his seat in the Ohio Senate in order to accept the position of Lake County Commissioner.

As OFCC PAC reported last week, Gardner, the Senate's president pro tem, was repotedly weighing his options on whether he would withdraw from consideration for the Lake County post or remain in the Senate.

The prospect of a yet another legislative vacancy sparked by term limits evaporated Friday when he 18th District's Senator, who must leave the chamber in 2004, withdrew his name as a candidate for appointment to an opening on the Lake County Board of Commissioners.

Representative Jamie Callender, who OFCC PAC endorsed in 2002, simultaneously announced his intentions to seek to replace Gardner as Senator for the 18th District, when his term ends in 2004. A Callender election would, of course, ensure continued pro-CCW representation for the 18th Senate District. The move also necessitates the search for a new pro-CCW candidate for 2004 to represent Callender's 62nd House District.

Criminals could spend an average of six times longer behind bars if convicted of gun-related charges under a new Cincinnati program aimed at sending them to federal prison.

Project Disarm was launched in late 2001 as a joint effort by Cincinnati police and several federal agencies to crack down on increasing gun violence in the city.

The project's first 20 cases reveal a sharp difference in the sentences convicts get in federal versus state court.

Click here to read the full story in the Cincinnati Enquirer.

OFCC PAC Commentary:
Now if they can only stop penalizing the law-abiding citizens who wish to exercise their Constitutional right to carry a gun for self-defense.

As it did last week concerning Republicans and the governorship, the Columbus Dispatch has published a story examining who among Democrats emerge as early picks for U.S. Senate in 2004, and for governor in 2006.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.