Acton faces a cabinet puzzle: Where does she find her team?

Ohio PoliticsActon needs a cabinet. Where does she find people she can trust?Because Amy Acton served in the administration of Gov. Mike DeWine, she knows who his best cabinet members are. Maybe she will ask some of them to stay as she becomes governor in January. Today in Ohio hosts talked Monday about where she can find cabinet members in a state with no Democratic bench. By Today in Ohiocleveland.comSome of the people Amy Acton needs to help run Ohio might be sitting in law firms, earning considerably more than state government would pay them. Others might already be working for the Republican governor she is replacing. With little time and a thin Democratic bench, Today in Ohio hosts argued Monday that she needs to look beyond the usual political recruiting pool. Hosts Chris Quinn and Lisa Garvin discussed the challenge of assembling an administration after years of Republican dominance. Their conversation, prompted by Jeremy Pelzer’s reporting, centered on a difficult combination: Acton needs capable people she can trust, and she needs them ready by January.“We need really smart people that want to help her succeed,” Quinn said.Garvin described the task as much larger than choosing a few familiar names for prominent jobs. Gov. Mike DeWine’s cabinet has 28 members, she said, although Acton could change that number. Those leaders would help fill other positions beneath them, making the first selections consequential throughout the administration.The budget office is a priority, Garvin said. And although civil service protections cover most state employees, the governor’s aides, agency heads and top deputies serve at the governor’s pleasure. Keeping the government running and assembling a team committed to Acton’s agenda are overlapping challenges.“She has a very short window,” Garvin said. “She only has until Inauguration Day in January to pick her staff and appointees.”One source of help is former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland. Garvin said Acton had brought his former chief of staff onto the transition team, giving her access to experience from the last Democratic administration. Garvin also offered two names of her own: Former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley and Annette Blackwell, the Democrat who lost the auditor’s race to Frank LaRose. Quinn looked toward another source of talent: accomplished lawyers with experience in government and enough financial security to accept lower salaries.“I also think we have some very smart people working for some of our best law firms and they’ve made a lot of money,” he said. “They could afford to take the pay cut to go do public service.”He hoped people with that background would volunteer to help. His concern was finding people who combined ability with an understanding of government and support for what Acton wanted to accomplish.“I don’t know what I would do if I were her to come up with people that I could trust, who were smart, who would be supportive of the agenda she’s trying to create,” Quinn said.Garvin raised another possibility from the reporting: Acton could retain a substantial number of DeWine appointees. University of Cincinnati professor David Niven expected that approach, she said, and Acton’s own experience as state health director could make it practical. She had worked with many of these people already.“She might keep a lot of DeWine’s people at first,” Garvin said.For Quinn, that suggested a way to build an administration that reaches across political lines when the familiar Democratic recruiting pool offers too few choices.“A team of rivals kind of strategy,” he said.Listen to the conversation here.Govern Ohio, rebuild a party, inspire girls: The expectations piling onto ActonAmy Acton won Ohio. Can she build a political operation that lasts?A lame-duck power grab against Amy Acton could backfire on Ohio RepublicansListen to full “Today in Ohio” episodes where Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Editorial Board member Lisa Garvin, Impact Editor Leila Atassi and Content Director Laura Johnston.