As a Republican, I believe public service requires character, sound judgment, and personal responsibility – especially from those who ask voters to trust them with public office.
That is why I am deeply concerned that Rep. Haraz Ghanbari employed Stephen Woytek as a legislative aide after Woytek had posted white-supremacist imagery online, including material involving Nazi soldiers. Woytek’s posts were serious enough that Sen. Jon Husted’s campaign terminated Woytek as its political director.
Rep. Ghanbari rightly takes pride that he is a professional communicator for the U.S. military, working in public affairs. That role demands judgment, attention to risk, and careful vetting. Why were those standards not applied when he hired his sole legislative aide?
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated lapse in judgment. In the prior Republican primary, I was smeared as less American because I am a naturalized citizen. That is not principled Republican politics. Naturalized citizens are fully American. As the son of an Iranian immigrant, Haraz knows better than to invoke bigotry as an election tactic, but he seemingly holds others to standards he refuses to observe himself.
Rep. Ghanbari built his political career on the back of Speaker Larry Householder, receiving his 2019 appointment before Householder’s eventual imprisonment for the FirstEnergy bribery scandal. Haraz even voted to keep Householder in power after his arrest.
Rep. Ghanbari’s use of Matt Bartow as a campaign manager further reflects troubling judgment. Mr. Bartow was previously indicted and admitted taking thousands of dollars in campaign money for work he did not complete.
Associating with people of low character can no longer be attributed to a series of unfortunate events for Mr. Ghanbari. It is a pattern. And I today call for Republicans to uphold our own standards. We should expect our representatives to be of high moral character, to respect every American citizen, and demonstrate the integrity and judgment that public office demands. On those grounds, Haraz has failed time and time again.
Sally Culling
Perrysburg
