John Kasich, Ohio's new governor, has come under scrutiny because he has failed to appoint to a single cabinet position someone who isn't white. Aside from that rather blatant racism, he has also made some questionable hiring decisions in other areas. Namely, his new Secretary of Corrections used to be a CCA employee.
Well it also turns out that Kasich has other ties to the private prison industry, in the form of some of his closest advisors. The man Kasich calls his "closest friend" runs a lobbying firm that represents CCA. Two other men who are partners in a separate lobbying firm that represents the GEO Group served as high-level strategists in Kasich's campaign.
All of which makes Kasich's recent pledge that there "nobody will get a special deal" all the more dubious. I hope he at least tries to live up to that promise, though I have little faith he actually will. This type of revolving-door politics is one of the biggest contributors to our current prison industrial complex. I fear the repurcussions of having industry lobbyists serve as high-level advisors and strategists to people in positions of power, because these types of relationships almost inevitably screw over average citizens.
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