Neither Beagle nor the RSCC responded to requests for comment.
“I think voters are fed up with that kind of personal attack,” said State Sen. Lou Gentile, D-Steubenville, who chairs the Ohio Senate Democrats, the caucus campaign committee. “The ads are misleading.”
On October 19 the Dayton Daily News published a story debunking the ORC claim that Gillis gave herself a raise. The ORC had sent out print mailers saying she gave herself a 400 percent raise and depicted her smoking a cigar and drinking a martini. Now, the RSCC is running two television ads saying she voted to raise her pay.
It is illegal in Ohio for elected officials to give themselves a raise and Gillis did not do that, the Dayton Daily News found. The Tipp City Council in 2013 voted to raise the annual pay of future council members from the current $1,000 to $5,000, effective in January 2016. To receive the additional compensation, each member who voted, including Gillis, would have to get re-elected.
Gillis says she would actually lose $13,078 in annual compensation if she is re-elected to the council because, in a cost-saving move, the council voted to eliminate city-paid health insurance.
Since 1976 Ohio has had a law banning false statements in political advertisements, but it was declared unconstitutional last month by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black. His ruling is on appeal, but for now there are no official sanctions for lying in a campaign ad.
The Beagle-Gillis race is one of the hottest local contests in next week’s election. At Tuesday’s news conference in Dayton, City Commissioner Jeff Mims, and a Gillis supporter, said Beagle has supported state cuts to local governments and schools that he says have caused reductions in public safety forces and teaching staff.
Gillis said Beagle helped the “extreme right Republican majority” raise sales taxes and increase property taxes by cutting the homestead exemption for elderly and disabled people and removing rollbacks on property taxes.
In an earlier interview with the Daily News Beagle defended his votes on taxes saying, “We cut taxes by $3 billion. It’s a tax reform. Sales taxes go up, other taxes went down.”
The winner of the Beagle-Gillis matchup will serve a four year term and represent a district that includes much of Dayton; all of Trotwood, Brookville, New Lebanon and Farmersville; part of Clayton; all or part of Perry, Jackson, Jefferson and Harrison townships; and all of Miami and Preble counties and the southern portion of Darke County.
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