Ready to Roll Up My Sleeves for Ohio.
Campaign Issues Overview
District 40 deserves a representative whose life has been spent in service to this community, not in service to a political career. I don't come to this with a fixed script - I come with open ears, because the people of this district should be the ones shaping what their representative fights for.
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What I've learned from listening is this: affordability isn't one issue, it's the thread running through nearly every challenge families are facing. It's the property tax bill that keeps climbing while corporations collect exemptions. It's the school that needs an emergency levy because the state stopped paying its share. It's rising costs that stretch paychecks thinner every month. It's the equipment you own but can't fix without paying manufacturer rates. It's the farmland that disappears to a data center that drives up your electric bill. It's the hospital that closes because Medicaid got cut.
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Every issue I stand for affects whether working families can afford to stay, raise their kids, and build a future here. In Columbus, the decisions that shape your life shouldn't be made by the powerful few -- they should be made with the people who live with the consequences. I'll work to make sure the voices of this district are heard, and that our communities get back what they put in.
Our Vision
Protecting Ohio's Independent Spirit
Restoring Public Trust
Future-Ready Neighborhoods
We champion the independent spirit of Ohio's farmers and small business owners - protecting family farms from corporate land grabs, breaking down the barriers that lock small businesses out of apprenticeships and fair markets, and making sure District 40's economy works for the people who live here.
We restore public trust by putting people over politics - closing corporate tax loopholes, keeping tax dollars in our communities, demanding absolute transparency in every deal made with Ohio's money, and making sure no backroom agreement ever shields a corporation from the accountability it owes to District 40.Â
We invest in infrastructure, education, and healthcare that prepares our next generation to lead and innovate in a changing world - not to hand it over to corporations that consume our land, drain our water, and drive up our energy bills while paying next to nothing in taxes.Â
HONESTY. GROWTH. OHIO. HONESTY. GROWTH. OHIO. HONESTY. GROWTH. OHIO. HONESTY. GROWTH. OHIO. HONESTY. GROWTH. OHIO. HONESTY. GROWTH. OHIO.
Real solutions take work.
 I can't guarantee a quick fix, I promise to always listen and never stop standing up for our community.
Creating Good Jobs & Supporting Working Families
A good job used to mean you could buy a home in the town where you grew up - whether that's Eaton, Trenton, Brookville, or Miamisburg. Today, too many working families are doing everything right and still struggling to keep up with rising grocery bills, housing costs, hidden fees, and everyday expenses that outpace their paychecks. The answer isn't just lowering costs - it’s creating more opportunities to earn a good living here at home. But when students are turned away from career-tech programs because there aren't enough seats, or small businesses face administrative barriers to setting up apprenticeship programs, Ohio is putting barriers between hardworking people and better-paying jobs. Our communities are ready to grow. Columbus needs to catch up. I will... 🌽Advocate for state capital funding to eliminate career-tech waitlists at Miami Valley CTC and Butler Tech. 🌽Cut the red tape that keeps small businesses from creating apprenticeships - simplify certification so local shops can train the workers they need. 🌽Expand adult retraining grants so workers aren't blocked by funding limits that run out before they get in the door. 🌽Safeguard local businesses against corporate consolidation - local employers shouldn't lose economic development deals to out-of-state corporations. 🌽Push for local procurement: Ohio tax dollars should go to Ohio businesses first. 🌽Enforce protections against wage theft and worker misclassification, especially in agriculture and construction where it's widespread and frequently overlooked. 🌽Prevent companies from using personal data to charge different people different prices for the same goods. 🌽Strengthen enforcement against deceptive pricing practices, including hidden fees and misleading advertised prices, and require clear, upfront costs before purchase. 🌽Increase housing affordability by cracking down on corporate investor home purchases, expanding transparency in the housing market, and restoring vacant and deteriorating homes into affordable paths to homeownership for Ohio families priced out of traditional lending.
by Jake Schneider
by Jake Schneider
Reforming Property Taxes without Gutting Local Services
District 40 homeowners, families, farmers, and seniors are being squeezed by rising property taxes, and I won't pretend otherwise. The frustration is real. But here's what doesn't get said: this didn't happen on its own. Over the past fifty years, policy decisions have gradually shifted more of Ohio's property tax burden onto homeowners and farmers. In 1975, businesses paid 54% of Ohio's property taxes while residents paid 46%. Today, those numbers have nearly reversed. During that same time, the value of corporate property tax abatements has grown from approximately $5.7 billion to $26.6 billion over the past twenty years. Property taxes help fund our schools, libraries, emergency services, roads, and other essential local services across this district. Real reform means fixing who carries the burden. It means providing meaningful relief for families, seniors, and farmers, increasing accountability for corporate tax exemptions, and ensuring the state meets its responsibility so local communities aren't left carrying the load alone. I will... 🌽Advocate for targeted property tax relief for homeowners, seniors, and working families most affected by rising taxes, while ensuring the state replaces lost local revenue so schools, fire departments, libraries, and other essential local services remain strong. 🌽Expand Ohio's Homestead Exemption for seniors on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, and qualifying veterans so the relief keeps pace with today's property tax burden. 🌽Review Ohio's property valuation system to ensure homeowners aren't taxed out of their homes based solely on rapidly rising market values they have never realized through a sale. 🌽Champion fair CAUV assessments for farmers - farmland should be taxed for what it produces, not what a developer might someday pay for it. 🌽Increase transparency and accountability for corporate property tax abatements. Every exemption should demonstrate measurable benefits for the local community and be regularly reviewed. 🌽Restore the state's share of funding for public schools and local governments to reduce the growing pressure on local property taxpayers. 🌽Support responsible property tax reform that provides meaningful relief without simply shifting the tax burden somewhere else, while protecting schools, libraries, fire and EMS services, roads, and local control.
Defending Ohio's Family Farms & Rural Economy
I grew up on a farm, I know what it costs - not just in dollars, but in early mornings, in years, and in the quiet worry that follows a farmer through every season. When outside corporations squeeze out the family farm, it doesn't just hurt the farmer. It hollows out the whole community. Right now, corporate lobbyists are in Columbus trying to rewrite Ohio's eminent domain laws so developers can seize family land before a court even decides what it's worth. I will stand steadfastly to protect our farmers, safeguard landowner rights, and make sure outside interests don't get to decide what happens to our land. I will... 🌽Stand against the 'deposit and build' eminent domain threat - no developer seizes Ohio farmland before courts determine fair compensation. 🌽Respect every landowner's right to voluntarily sell or lease their land. That decision belongs to the farmer, not Columbus. 🌽Require rigorous, enforceable environmental standards for large-scale land leases - fully protecting groundwater, drainage, and neighboring properties from runoff, noise, and pollution. 🌽Push for CAUV assessment relief so farmland is taxed for what it grows, not what a developer might someday pay for it. 🌽Reject tax incentives that reward corporations for converting farmland to data centers and warehouses - that money belongs in working farms. 🌽Advocate to expand rural broadband across Preble and Butler counties. 🌽Champion Ohio-grown procurement - state purchasing should prioritize Ohio farmers and local producers first.
Advocating for Healthcare & our First Responders
I've spent decades at the bedside as a Registered Nurse, and I've been on the truck as a volunteer paramedic. Healthcare is not an abstraction to me. It's the person in the next bed, the call that comes in at 2 a.m., and the forty-five-minute drive to the nearest ER when the closer hospital can't afford to stay open. Ohio is facing more than $5 billion in projected Medicaid losses over the next decade. Rural maternity wards are closing. Volunteer EMS call volumes are up while the number of available responders is down. This district needs someone in Columbus who has actually done this work. I will... 🌽Advocate to protect Medicaid at the state level - rural hospitals run on Medicaid reimbursements, and cutting them closes the hospital. 🌽Champion HB 521 for mandatory nurse-to-patient staffing ratios - 91% of Ohio nurses say their hospitals are chronically understaffed and patients are paying for it. 🌽Support HB 535 to put direct-care nurses in charge of hospital staffing decisions, not corporate administrators. 🌽Protect rural maternity care - no family in this district should have to drive an hour to deliver a baby. 🌽Secure sustainable state funding for volunteer fire and EMS departments - not one-time grants, but dedicated revenue. 🌽Expand mental health and PTSD support for first responders.
Protecting Our Schools, Our Children, & our Families
My family has fostered more than 100 children over forty years. I know what it means to open your home to a child who has nowhere else to go. And I know what it means when the systems that are supposed to protect children - the schools, the safety nets, the courts - are underfunded, politicized, or handed over to outside interests. Right now, over a billion dollars a year in voucher money is leaving our communities while public schools face a funding crisis not seen since the Great Recession. In some parts of this district, there are no private schools at all meaning that money simply leaves and nothing comes back. In others, voucher participation has exploded since 2023, with the vast majority of new recipients coming from families who were never low-income to begin with. Across the board, our public schools are being asked to do more with less while private institutions collect an ever-larger share of public education dollars. Decisions about our children and our schools belong to parents and locally elected school boards - not to Columbus bureaucrats and not to for-profit operators. I will... 🌽Restore the bipartisan Fair School Funding Plan - public schools in this district have been shorted by nearly $3 billion over two years. 🌽Demand accountability in voucher spending - taxpayer funding should support public schools, not private institutions that answer to no one. 🌽Oppose SB 127 and any legislation that strips communities of local control over their own public schools. 🌽Eliminate career-tech waitlists - our kids are ready to learn a trade and the state needs to build the seats. 🌽Support HB 125 to allow excused absences for FFA and 4-H events. 🌽Champion Ohio's foster families and the children in their care - better funding, better mental health resources, and a system that never gives up on a single child.
HONORING VETERANS & RESTORING ACCOUNTABLE REPRESENTATION
Our neighbors answered the call to serve. Some of them came home carrying things they've never put down. The commitment we made to them was simple: you serve, we take care of you. Right now, Ohio VA centers are facing significant staffing shortages, rural veterans are being pushed to community providers who may not always have experience with combat trauma, and changes to Medicaid funding threaten health care coverage that low-income and disabled Ohio veterans rely on for essential care. That is not honoring the commitment. Voters in this district deserve a representative who stands up just as firmly for their health care and their right to vote as they did for our country - and I always will. I will... 🌽Advocate to fully staff Ohio's VA health centers and keep veteran care in the hands of providers trained in military culture and combat trauma. 🌽Safeguard the care veterans rely on - whether through VA systems and safety-net coverage like Medicaid, and make sure rural and low-income veterans aren’t left behind when cuts are made. 🌽Support state grants for veteran housing stability and homeownership. 🌽Ensure service members leaving the military receive the transition briefings they've earned - so no one comes home unsure of their benefits or next steps. 🌽Protect every voter's right to participate -I've served as a poll worker in this community because every neighbor's vote deserves to be counted whether they mailed it in or went to the polls.
Demanding Accountability for Data Centers & Local Land Use
In 2025, our Preble County neighbors organized, showed up, and stopped a developer from rezoning 300 acres of farmland south of I-70. The Planning Commission voted 11 to 0 against it. The community won. But the pressure hasn't stopped and the deals being made in Columbus are still too often being made in secret, before residents even know what's happening. Technology matters. But no company should profit from our community without being transparent about what it costs and delivering real benefits in return. I will... 🌽Support HB 646, the Data Center Study Commission, to assess real environmental, water, and land use impacts before more Ohio farmland is converted. 🌽End secret deals; ban nondisclosure agreements that allow developers and local officials to negotiate before residents are informed. 🌽Replace automatic corporate tax giveaways with community benefit agreements that deliver real local jobs and real local investment. 🌽Require data centers to pay the same utility rates as every other business and family - no preferential treatment that shifts costs onto ratepayers. 🌽Seek to require strict environmental protections, transparent community agreements, and accountable tax incentives before any data center development proceeds on Ohio farmland.
SECURING THE RIGHT TO REPAIR FOR FARMERS, SMALL BUSINESSES & CONSUMERS
A good job used to mean you could buy a home in the town where you grew up - whether that's Eaton, Trenton, Brookville, or Miamisburg. Today, too many working families are doing everything right and still struggling to keep up with rising grocery bills, housing costs, hidden fees, and everyday expenses that outpace their paychecks. The answer isn't just lowering costs - it’s creating more opportunities to earn a good living here at home. But when students are turned away from career-tech programs because there aren't enough seats, or small businesses face administrative barriers to setting up apprenticeship programs, Ohio is putting barriers between hardworking people and better-paying jobs. Our communities are ready to grow. Columbus needs to catch up. I will... 🌽Advocate for state capital funding to eliminate career-tech waitlists at Miami Valley CTC and Butler Tech. 🌽Cut the red tape that keeps small businesses from creating apprenticeships - simplify certification so local shops can train the workers they need. 🌽Expand adult retraining grants so workers aren't blocked by funding limits that run out before they get in the door. 🌽Safeguard local businesses against corporate consolidation - local employers shouldn't lose economic development deals to out-of-state corporations. 🌽Push for local procurement: Ohio tax dollars should go to Ohio businesses first. 🌽Enforce protections against wage theft and worker misclassification, especially in agriculture and construction where it's widespread and frequently overlooked. 🌽Prevent companies from using personal data to charge different people different prices for the same goods. 🌽Strengthen enforcement against deceptive pricing practices, including hidden fees and misleading advertised prices, and require clear, upfront costs before purchase. 🌽Increase housing affordability by cracking down on corporate investor home purchases, expanding transparency in the housing market, and restoring vacant and deteriorating homes into affordable paths to homeownership for Ohio families priced out of traditional lending.