Tex Fischer

The appointment of political consultant Tex Fischer to the state House ends a brief period in which the officeholders representing Mahoning County in Congress, as well as both chambers of the General Assembly, changed hands.

“This is the complete upheaval in essentially two, three weeks,” Fischer said Wednesday, the day he was appointed to the state House.

The state House met Wednesday and likely won’t meet again until after the Nov. 5 election, Fischer said.

“This is all very new,” he said. “I’ll have to get an office assignment and likely get committee assignments. I’m in the dark” as of Wednesday.

Everything was set in motion with the Jan. 21 resignation of Republican Bill Johnson as the congressman from the 11-county 6th District to become Youngstown State University president.

Michael Rulli, a Republican state senator from Salem, was elected June 11 to fill out the remainder of Johnson’s unexpired term.

Rulli resigned from the state Senate the day after the election. He was officially sworn in to Congress on Tuesday.

That left Rulli’s 33rd Ohio Senate District seat vacant.

Al Cutrona, a Republican state House member from Canfield, was appointed June 13 to the post by a 4-2 vote by the county Republican chairs in that district: Mahoning, Columbiana and Carroll counties.

Cutrona was officially sworn in Wednesday to the state Senate for the 33rd District for the rest of the year, leaving open his Ohio House position.

The district is currently the 58th. It is keeping much of its current population though it will become the 59th District with the 2024 election as a result of redistricting.

The district includes Boardman, Canfield, Struthers and Campbell and will include rural parts of Mahoning County and two Columbiana County townships when the new boundaries take effect.

The new district favors Republicans by 12% based on partisan statewide voting results during the past decade.

Fischer, co-founder and partner of the H&F Strategies LLC political consulting firm and Mahoning County Republican Party first vice chairman, was chosen from among seven Republican candidates for the state House seat.

Fischer, who has done work for Rulli, Cutrona and several other Republicans in the Mahoning Valley, said he wasn’t planning to seek the vacancy.

“I never envisioned doing this,” said Fischer, 28, of Boardman. “I was happy to work behind the scenes. I got a lot of encouragement and decided to go for it.”

APPOINTMENT PROCESS

The appointment process, which was initially to be finished in early July, had to be rushed because the Ohio House session concluded Wednesday and members won’t be back until after the election, said Tom McCabe, Mahoning County Republican Party chairman.

The Ohio House Republican Caucus “said if you want the person to be the incumbent, you need to do it right away,” McCabe said.

Fischer was the clear choice of a 25-member Republican screening committee — consisting of district leaders, donors and volunteers in the House district — among the seven candidates interviewed Sunday, getting every first-place vote in a ranked-choice process, McCabe said. Overall, 22 of the 25 people in the committee voted, he said. McCabe said he wanted to be impartial so he didn’t vote.

The party chairmen and secretaries in Mahoning and Columbiana counties, which comprise the new 59th Ohio House District that Fischer will represent through the end of the year, will meet next week to formally select him as the party’s nominee for the Nov. 5 ballot, McCabe said. McCabe said all four making the appointment strongly support Fischer.

The other Republican candidates seeking the appointment were Christine Oliver, Canfield City Council president; Joey Cilone of Canfield city, co-owner and president of Inspira Health Group; Jim Murphy of Boardman, a Republican precinct committee member; Meghan Hanni of Canfield Township, Aim Leasing Co.’s supervisor of licensing and permits; Nico Morgione of Canfield Township, associate director of business development and industry partnerships at Youngstown State University; and Juan Santiago of Boardman, vice president and community development officer at Farmers National Bank.

Once Fischer is selected as the Republican candidate on the Nov. 5 ballot, which McCabe said should be next week, he’ll face Democrat Laura Schaeffer, a Beloit councilwoman and integrated library systems administrator for the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.

FLAG ISSUE

Mahoning Democratic Party Chairman Chris Anderson said, “Mahoning County voters are going to have a choice between a fringe partisan hack who has only ever worked in politics and a dedicated public servant who doesn’t care what party you belong to and only aims to improve your life.”

Anderson added, “We’re confident that voters will be able to draw their own comparisons between someone who wants to defund the post office, who is proudly flying the flag carried by Jan. 6 insurrectionists and someone who has a proven track record as a bipartisan public servant.”

Fischer said he supports defunding the post office as well as the IRS as he’s a “fan of limited government.”

As for the flag, the reference is to what is called the Pine Tree Flag, or the Appeal to Heaven Flag, that has a pine tree and “An Appeal to Heaven” written above it. It dates back to the Continental Army in 1775 under George Washington’s authority.

The flag has garnered controversy as it was carried by some protesters during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot — using it in an effort to remake the government in Christian terms — at the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president, according to The New York Times.

Also, the flag flew outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel Alito of the U.S. Supreme Court. Alito and his wife have attracted criticism for flying an upside-down American flag, which is also a symbol of the Jan. 6 riot.

Fischer said he made the flag the background on his social media pages a few weeks ago “as a sign of protest for the people who flip out that it’s about insurrectionists. As a history buff, I like the flag. I’m doing it now because it’s stupid that people are using it to tie in with insurrectionists. It has nothing to do with that. I love all variations of the American flag.”

Fischer said he’s flown the flag at his Boardman home and doesn’t see it as an issue.

As a state House member, Fischer said he’ll give up working for other House members. While Fischer said he’s not legally prohibited from working for fellow House members — the only prohibition is lobbying or advocating, which he said he and his firm haven’t done — he is supporting the caucus candidates and doesn’t feel it’s appropriate.

Fischer filed last year as a write-in candidate for an open seat on the Boardman school board. Fischer said he did so because he was concerned that no one else would file.

Candace Rivera ended up filing, and Fischer said he was pleased with that and did no campaigning, confident that Rivera was a good candidate.

Rivera got 1,910 write-in votes. Fischer got 81.

Have an interesting story? Contact David Skolnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.