Woman Against Women: Kristina Roegner

Kristina Roegner, (R-Ohio) a married mother of three, Tea Party candidate and first year state representative was seated on the Hudson City Council when the Republicans discovered and decided to field her as a candidate in the 2010 mid-term elections against democrat Mike Moran. Since her election the soft-spoken Ms. Roegner, who has co-sponsored and been instrumental in the passage of three anti-abortion measures, sponsored HB 298, a measure that would de-fund Planned Parenthood, with Ohio Right to Life and Families First backed Cliff Rosenberger. The Senate counterpart of the bill was sponsored by Kris Jordan. Jordan, who was under investigation for fourth degree misdemeanor domestic violence until his wife dropped the charges, is the only legislator in Ohio to vote against the Jessica Logan Act, the bill designed to protect children from bullying and named after the young girl who took her own life. 

With some slick machinations that reek of Charmaine Yoest and AUL, HB 298 was snuck into the state budget to avoid public scrutiny and the word “defund” became “re-prioritize,” the bill passed, and Planned Parenthood is now at the bottom of the barrel for receiving federal monies for health care for low-income and poor women. If I were to hazard a guess where Ohio was planning on steering some of those federal monies I would say to   Crisis  Pregnancy Centers. Crisis Pregnancy Centers are the pro-life movement’s Planned Parenthood, with scripture and without the choice, and are currently pushing free sonograms.

Ms. Roegner’s voting record reads like a template for ALEC’s agenda. She is pro-fracking and opposed an amendment to add an extra layer of environmental protection to Lake Erie. She supported bills for re-districting, limiting collective bargaining, school vouchers, and opting out of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. She is a proud signer of the Tax Payer’s Protection Pledge and has an A rating from the NRA for supporting the bill to authorize a concealed and carry licensee to possess a firearm in a liquor permit premise, providing said licensee is not drinking, and to openly carry a handgun in a car, rather than say in the glove compartment.

In case you’ve been living under a rock the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) promotes a wide range of profit geared “model legislation” of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation. ALEC’s agenda includes, but is not limited to, gutting the rights and protections of workers (limited collective bargaining) privatizing and weakening the public school system, (school vouchers), eroding regulations and environmental laws (opposing environmental protection for Lake Erie) providing business cuts and corporate welfare (the Tax Payers Protection Pledge) undoing health care reform (opting out of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and permitting greater corporate influence in elections (redistricting).

In order to draft and promote their “model legislation” ALEC operates Task forces that bring together Republican legislators and representatives from corporations. Kristina Roegner is an ALEC Education Task Force Member. Cliff Rosenberger is an ALEC Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force Member. Kris Jordan is an ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force Member. In the past ten years ALEC has spent $9.3 million on the state; thirty-three bills were introduced in Ohio between January and October, 2011 that were identical to or contained elements of ALEC “model legislation proposals.” Nine of those bills, which contained thirty-three pieces of ALEC legislation, were signed into law. 

When Charmaine Yoest’s AUL, the legal wing of the pro-life movement, received the coveted Weyrich Award for “Grassroots Organization of the Year” she noted in her acceptance speech that eighty-eight anti-abortion measures introduced in thirty-two states were based on AUL’s “model language.” This is ALEC speak. Paul Weyrich, now dead, God rest his soul and keep it away from ours, founded ALEC in the 1970’s to oppose abortion, ERA, and to support school prayer. One of the men instrumental in ALEC’s early years was John Kasich, the Governor of Ohio, who just signed into law the bill Kristina Roegner sponsored, eviscerating Planned Parenthood and seriously jeopardizing the health care of 100,000 women, men, and children. It’s like playing six degrees of crazy conservatives and I’m barely touching the surface of a web of connections that go on and on and on.

Kimberly Yee, the subject of my last post, is an ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member. Cynthia Lumis (R–Wy), who a colleague of mine recently wrote about, is an ALEC member. Debbie Lesko (R-Ar), who said that women should be made to watch their abortion, is an ALEC state chairman. Jan Brewer was the featured speaker at the ALEC annual State & National Policy Summit in Phoenix. Rick Perry is an ALEC member. Fifty of the ninety legislators in Arizona are ALEC members, eight-two Texas legislators are ALEC members, thirty-six Ohio legislators are ALEC members, and the list goes on. It’s pretty damn clear that the more ALEC legislators there are in any given state legislature, or the House, the more legislation there is against abortion and women. The fact of the matter is the women I’ve been writing about, the so-called softer gentler face of the pro-live movement, are an integral part and intrinsic to the success of a conservative agenda that reaches far beyond women’s rights and the freedom to choose. They are part of a movement that would turn the country into a kind of feudal system run for profit by patriarchy and their God, and that is not only a crime against the tribe of women it is a crime against humanity. The backlash has started but the damage has been done and it is going to take time, pit-bull persistence, and a refusal to be easily mollified by shiny objects to undo.

Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. Katherine Manaan MAWT

(1st posted addicinginfo.org 4/22/12)