In the House

Class projects, Data, The New Political

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Many Ohioans are unable to name their elected representative or even identify which of the state’s 99 districts they live in.

Despite this lack of recognition, Ohio’s state legislators, both in the House and the Senate, put significantly more time into their jobs than legislators in many other states do, from deciding how to vote to simply finding a way to get to and from the statehouse.

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Data: Ohio House of Representatives 2015

Data

I recently compiled a spreadsheet of every vote taken by the Ohio House of Representatives in 2015. It was extremely tedious and time-consuming, so hopefully someone else out there who needs this information can benefit from downloading my data set here rather than having to sort through all those session journals themselves.

HSBC and state governments reach $470 million settlement deal

The New Political

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Ohio, 48 other states and D.C. have joined a $470 million settlement with HSBC, a mortgage lender and servicer. Attorney General Mike DeWine announced the settlement last Friday.

According to a press release, the settlement will provide payments to almost 20,000 Ohioans who borrowed from HSBC between 2008 and 2012.

“Former and current borrowers will get relief. Current borrowers will get relief in the form of reduced terms of their mortgage, either reduced interest rates or forgiveness of a portion of a loan,” Dan Tierney, spokesperson for the Ohio Attorney General’s office, said. “People who may have lost their homes would receive direct cash payments, and moving forward there’s criteria that the company agrees to abide by for the protection of homeowners and borrowers and potential borrowers.”

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