Ohio: Voinovich

One is a measure co-written by Republican Voinovich and Democrat Brown. It authorizes $1.8
billion nationally over five years to help communities pay for federally mandated repairs to sewer
systems. The communities would have to bear 75 percent of the cost. Many Ohio communities face
billions of dollars worth of such mandated improvements.

Another is a measure co-written by Voinovich and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and co-sponsored
by Brown. It authorizes Congress to send out up to $1.8 billion in federal grants to help modernize
sewer systems that often overflow into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water.

Both proposals were

included in a broader funding bill for water infrastructure that was approved Thursday by the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, on which Voinovich serves.

"Our legislation holds

the federal government responsible for paying its

fair share for the nation's pressing water- and wastewater-infrastructure needs," Voinovich
said.

WASHINGTON — Museums, greenhouses, parks and sewer projects are just a few of the special spending priorities that lawmakers from Ohio put in the $410 billion spending bill that could pass the Senate tonight. Called "earmarks," these spending requests were not debated as national priorities, nor were they left to federal agencies to decide.

Rather, members of Congress said that they knew best when it came to spending federal money on their state.

The Plain Dealer recently highlighted a number of Ohio earmarks, including money for art museum cataloguing in Columbus (courtesy of Sen. George Voinovich) and promotion of the visual arts in downtown Toledo (thanks to Rep.

Sen. George V. Voinovich was one of a few Republican senators to vote yes last week on granting District of Columbia residents a House member with full voting rights.

The bill passed 61-37, and a similar measure is expected to be approved by the House as soon as this week.

The Ohio Republican has been a longtime supporter of voting rights for the District.

The District of Columbia

is populated with mostly Democratic-leaning voters and a new House member likely would be a Democrat. The bill balances that by

offering another seat to Utah, a GOP-leaning state. But most Republicans oppose the

measure because they say it

is unconstitutional to let a nonstate have a full House member.

WASHINGTON -- The race among Democrats to be the next U.S. senator from Ohio is getting more fun by the minute. Lee Fisher and Jennifer Brunner already were planning a spirited primary contest, to say the least, and now a third Democrat -- arguably less viable -- is getting in.

You might have never heard of Tyrone Yates if you're in Cleveland. If you're in Cincinnati, though, you have. (The 2010 elections seem to have drawn a number of people with similar geographic-name challenges, including Rob Portman and, running for governor, John Kasich.)

Yates is a state legislator who used to be Cincinnati's vice mayor and was an assistant state attorney general.