“I think people are dissatisfied with the political system just in general,” said Cory Hoffman (D-Delaware).

Hoffman is running against state Sen. Kris Jordan (R-Ostrander) for the District 67 seat in the Ohio House of Representatives, which covers the western half of Delaware County.

When Hoffman was asked if he has met his opponent, he said, “I’ve not met Kris Jordan, but he sends out a lot of mailers about me though. If the worst thing they have on me is that I gave some money to Ted Strickland, compare that to Sen. Jordan.”

Hoffman said he has attended as many events as possible but has not seen Jordan at any of them.

“I’d like to meet him,” he said.

Jordan has reached the term limit in the Ohio Senate and is now looking to be elected as state representative for District 67.

Hoffman said his platform is based on the things he had heard from his constituents after he canvassed the district over the summer.

Since people are dissatisfied with the current way politics are conducted, Hoffman said he would push for a proportional voting system “like in some other western democracies.”

“That is something I’m going to introduce if I get elected,” he said. “A system where if you vote for a third party, your vote is not wasted.”

Hoffman said he also wants to address the funding of Ohio’s school districts.

“We have growing school districts here in Delaware County and in the 67th District in particular,” he said. “The state funding formula, I believe, encourages more reliance on local property taxes. If you look at how many of our districts went to the ballot with a property tax levy to support our growing schools, it clearly indicates that.”

Hoffman said state legislature needs to find a way to fund “local public schools from the state level.”

During a candidates night sponsored by the Ostrander Civic Association in early October, Hoffman said, leaning on his experience in tax law, the best type of tax is a very broad based tax that is a low rate.

“In 2014, the Kasich administration and the Republicans created this financial institution tax,” he said. ‘This tax would allow for very low tax rates, statewide, that raise substantial revenues substantially more than the current tax bases. Then allocate statewide monies to the schools based on the cost to teach a child in each district.”

Hoffman said he thinks it’s a solution that the Republican majority would support. He also said he opposes the idea of funding schools based on a sales tax.

“Once you have a recession and sales tax revenues go down, you now have a Trojan horse to defund public schools,” he said.

Hoffman added he is personally against Issue 1.

“I don’t want it to be a Constitutional amendment,” he said. “Why do people go and put something like that, that maybe shouldn’t be in the Constitution on the ballot? Because legislature doesn’t get anything done.

“I want to get back to a world where the legislature can solve problems,” he said. “With this sports betting coming up, I don’t want to go to a world where we have to go to the ballot with a Constitutional amendment to get sports betting. I want it done the right way.”

Hoffman added going to the ballot with Consitituional amendments has become a systemic problem.

For more information on Hoffman, visit https://www.hoffmanforohio.com/.

Jordan was unavailable for an interview at the time this article was written.