Politics

Howard Wilkinson: Politics and More

0000017a-3b40-d913-abfe-bf44a4f90000Howard Wilkinson joined the WVXU news team as the politics reporter and columnist in April 2012 , after 30 years of covering local, state and national politics for The Cincinnati Enquirer. On this page, you will find his weekly column, Politically Speaking; the Monday morning political chats with News Director Maryanne Zeleznik and other news coverage by Wilkinson. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Wilkinson has covered every Ohio gubernatorial race since 1974, as well as 16 presidential nominating conventions. Along with politics, Wilkinson also covered the 2001 Cincinnati race riots, the Lucasville prison riot in 1993, the Air Canada plane crash at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 1983, and the 1997 Ohio River flooding. And, given his passion for baseball, you might even find some stories about the Cincinnati Reds here from time to time.

Former state representative Stautberg appointed to appeals court

91.7 WVXU | By Howard Wilkinson

Published March 6, 2015 at 8:21 AM EST

Former State Rep. Peter Stautberg has been named by Gov. John Kasich to fill a vacancy on the Ohio 1^st District Court of Appeals.

Stautberg, a 50-year-old three-term Ohio House member from Anderson Township, will take the seat left open when Judge Patrick Dinkelacker decided last year to run instead for a seat on the Common Pleas bench. Dinkelacker won election to that judgeship.

Last year, Stautberg lost his bid for a fourth two-year term in the Ohio House when he was defeated in the Republican primary by Tom Brinkman Jr. Brinkman was elected easily in the November election.

The irony was that Stautberg was first elected to the Ohio House in 2008 when Brinkman, who had served eight years as the 34^th Ohio House District’s representative, was prevented from running by the state’s term limits law.

Brinkman had challenged Stautberg in the 2012 GOP primary and failed, but, in 2014, he defeated Stautberg.

Stautberg was chairman of the House Public Utilities Committee while serving in the Ohio House.

He is currently an in-house legal counsel and vice president for Fifth Third Bank. Stautberg has a bachelor of arts degree from Kenyon College and a masters degree in business administration from the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. He is a graduate of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.