Former Ohio Senator Shirley Smith is running for Cuyahoga County executive .....Cuyahoga County includes Cleveland....By political editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader

Former Ohio senator Shirley Smith, a Black Democrat who is making her second bid for Cuyahoga County executive  

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief. Coleman is a former public school biology teacher and a seasoned Black political, legal and investigative reporter who trained as a reporter at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio for 17 years.

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio – Shirley Smith, a former state senator from Ohio who lost a crowded Democratic primary last year for the 11th congressional district seat now held by Democratic Congresswoman Shontel Brown, is running for Cuyahoga County executive, the only Black woman in the race among Democratic contenders Warrensville Heights Mayor Brad Sellers, who is also Black, and Chris Ronayne, and Republican candidate  Lee Weingart, a former county commissioner and the only Republican in the race to date.  A Warrensville Heights Democrat up for reelection, Brown is also Black, and she is a former county council woman who also leads the county Democratic party. (Editor's note: Mayor Brad Sellers has withdrawn from the county executive race since this article was published herein)

The deadline for filing petitions with the county board of elections is Feb 2. and the primary is May 3. The winners of the primaries for county executive, Democratic and Republican alike, will square off for the Nov. 8 general election, an election that will also include some county council candidates, and candidates in judicial, U.S. Senate, congressional, state legislative and statewide races, including for governor.  

Reached by telephone on Saturday afternoon, Smith told political editor Kathy Wray Coleman of  clevelandurbannews.com and kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com that she is, in fact, making her second bid for county executive.

"Yes, I am running," said Smith " i feel that itgs time for qua;lified women to hold that offiece.

Smith told reporters that she entered the race after her friend, Maple Heights Mayor Annette Blackwell, also a Black Democrat, suspended her campaign for the county executive post. Sources say Blackwell was being groomed by current county executive Armond Budish to succeed, Budish a Beachwood Democrat and former speaker of the Ohio House who is not running for a third term, to possibly succeed him.

Smith served as a member of the Ohio Senate  from 2007 to 2014. Previously, she was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. She backed Budish' opponent when Budish first won as county executive via the 2014 general election, after he beat her and a few other candidates that year in the Democratic primary, Smith coming in third place, and after running a competitive race. She was later appointed by then governor John Kasich, a former presidential candidate who is now a CNN commentator, to the state parole board for five years, the two of them teaming up previously and when she was an Ohio senator to get unprecedented criminal justice reform legislation passed relative to expunging criminal records.

A Democratic stronghold that is 29 percent Black and Ohio's second largest of its 88 counties, Cuyahoga County, with Cleveland its largest city, has a population of roughly 1.2 million people. It is governed by a county executive, Budish, and an 11-member county council, a  county governance structure that took effect in 2011 after voters scrapped the three county commissioners and the elected offices of the county sheriff, auditor, treasurer, and clerk of courts, all of the countywide offices except the judges and county prosecutor, which is now Mike O'Malley.

Those countywide offices at issue are now appointed positions under the purview of the county executive, though county council has some leeway as to the selection of the county sheriff pursuant to a subsequent charter amendment that voters also approved.

Black leaders, led by the NAACP, then county  commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, and former congresswoman Marcia L Fudge, who is now U.S. secretary of housing and urban Development with the President Joe Biden administration, opposed the change in county governance. They argued that it would dilute Black leadership, though county voters approved the measure by a two-to-one margin.

There are four Blacks on the 11- member bipartisan county council under the relatively new county governance structure that took effect in 2011 after voters approved a charter amendment that got rid of the three commissioners and replaced them with a county executive and county council. And all of then are Democrats

Pernel Jones Jr., who is part owner of the family named funeral home on Cleveland's largely Black east side is Black and is the county council president. The other three are Councilpersons Meredith Turner, whom county Democratic party operatives appointed last year to serve out the remainder of former Congresswoman Brown's unexpired term after Brown was elected to Congress to succeed ally and HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, Cheryl Stephens, a former mayor of Cleveland Heights and a current lieutenant governor candidate on Democrat Nan Whaley's gubernatorial ticket, and Yvonne Conwell, the wife of Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell. (Editor's note: Cuyahoga County and its county lawmakers, and the 17 member Cleveland City Council, whose members pass city ordinances, are two distinct and separate governing bodies)

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.