By Ryan Berry

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — Congressman Warren Davidson was the featured speaker at the Darke County Chamber of Commerce’s State of the Nation luncheon on Friday, Dec. 16. The room was filled with business leaders from across the county, elected officials, and several students from Tri-Village, Versailles, Greenville, Arcanum, and Ansonia.

Davidson addressed some of the issues that have hit Washington, D.C. and the Republican Party over the past few months and how the government expects to move forward.

The first issue Davidson addressed was the Speaker of the House issue that faced House Republicans with the ouster of Kevin McCarthy and the election of Mike Johnson. “It’s been a pretty crazy year,” said the congressman. “I hope none of you have had a workplace that has been as chaotic as mine has been this year.”

“Some of the deals that have been worked out this past year, as a Republican, haven’t been what I was hoping for. It’s fallen short on a lot of fronts,” he said.

Davidson explained the issue began in January when Speaker McCarthy agreed to a rule change that would allow for any one member to call for a vote of no confidence. McCarthy wanted it to be five members, but ultimately agreed to one vote. Although that was part of the House’s rules for over 200 years, it went away under Speaker Ryan and Speaker Pelosi, but was brought back under Speaker McCarthy.

He said McCarthy’s downfall came at the end of September when they passed the Continuing Resolution to continue funding the government. Because the resolution only went until Nov. 17, many Republicans felt that wasn’t enough time to seriously consider a spending bill since the House was not in session three out of the six or seven weeks. Davidson said that the spending bill in a divided congress is leverage. Because things broke down, McCarthy lost support and then Steve Scalise lost support. Speaker Johnson received support because he had a believable game plan that, according to Davidson, “did not include some of the calls he’s made lately.” He is hoping he will hit full stride and begin working on some of the items that were brought up in his speech.

A question was asked about Jim Jordan and what happened with support for him. Davidson said he and Jordan are best friends in and out of Congress and was fully backing and supporting him. However, those on the appropriations committee were not in favor of his goal to cut spending by one percent. As Davidson explained, Jordan wanted to actually cut spending by one percent from the previous year and not just a one percent cut in the increase in spending. If Washington, D.C. increased spending by five percent last year and increased spending by four percent this year, that would be considered a one percent decrease. Under Jordan’s plan, that would have equated to a six percent decrease. “The core of the opposition to Jim was the appropriations committee,” he said. Davidson shared that more than half of those voting against him were appropriators.

Davidson also spoke about the energy policy proposed by Republicans and stressed the United State should be a net exporter of energy, but yet there are calls in Congress to abandon fossil fuels and nuclear energy. He said getting rid of coal is not a popular decision because he believes coal can be made cleaner than it is.

Davidson said he was disappointed that border security was not attached to the National Defense Authorization Act. “Border security is national security,” he said. “We are spending hundreds of billions on balance to defend another country’s border. We’ve got an administration that isn’t just failing to defend our borders, they are facilitating the invasion of our country. I don’t say that lightly and I don’t use term that loosely. It is an invasion of our country.”

He suggested the United States has witnessed nearly 10 million people come into the country illegally since President Biden took office. Comparatively, Ohio has 11 million residents. The congressman said he is for legal immigration and the country is seeing about a million new Americans every year, but “they (Biden’s administration) are treating it as if citizenship doesn’t matter.”

As for the impeachment inquiry, Representative Davidson likened it to the OJ Simpson trial, “Everyone knew OJ was guilty, but the jury didn’t find him guilty. If you have video evidence, audio evidence, computer files, wire transfers, bank records, emails, eyewitness accounts – you’d probably get a conviction.” Davidson said he asked what the Republicans having been waiting for and the answer was they keep finding more evidence.

Following Davidson’s presentation, Katie DeLand announced the Future Leaders of Darke County scholarship. She said, “Through this scholarship we hope to encourage our young leaders to stay in Darke County where they can make a positive impact on our community.

This year’s winner is Isabella Black, a student at Tri-Village High School. DeLand shared Black has been part of several extracurricular groups and organizations and is a leader in her church. “What really sets her apart is how she has shown her intent to support businesses of Darke County by starting a business herself. Isabella Black has been hired to capture important moments through photography by several families and individuals in Darke and Montgomery counties, including photographing an entire wedding on her own,” said DeLand.

Additional candidates for the scholarship included Abrianna Keller, Versailles; Desirea Crumrine, Greenville; Hannah Kendig, Arcanum; Kolin Frazee, Arcanum; Lily Johnting, Arcanum; and Makayla Stachler, Ansonia.

To contact Daily Advocate Editor Ryan Berry, email [email protected].