Candice Keller

Following the 2019 Dayton shooting, Keller posted an essay on her personal Facebook page on August 4, 2019. This essay blamed the Dayton shooting on the breakdown of the traditional family (including due to transgender rights, gay marriage and "drag queen advocates"), video game violence, recreational marijuana, open borders, disrespect of military veterans and law enforcement, failed school policies, former President Barack Obama, and "snowflakes, who can’t accept a duly-elected President".[10][11] She later deleted the post.[12] As a result, many local officials (including Jane Timken, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Ohio) have called for Keller to resign. Keller, who is a candidate to replace fellow Republican Bill Coley in the state senate, countered, "Establishment moderates have never been fans of mine because I ran against their endorsement and won. As the only conservative in this race, I will be taking my Senate campaign to the voters to decide."[13] In 2020, she lost the Republican primary.[14]

In 2019 Candice Keller and Ron Hood sponsored legislation that would ban abortion in Ohio and criminalise "abortion murder". Doctors who performed abortions in cases of ectopic pregnancy and other life-threatening conditions would be exempt from prosecution only if they "[took] all possible steps to preserve the life of the unborn child, while preserving the life of the woman. Such steps include, if applicable, attempting to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy into the woman's uterus".[2][3][4][15] Reimplantation of an ectopic pregnancy is not a recognised or feasible medical procedure.[2][16]

In August 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, she joined John Becker, Nino Vitale, and Paul Zeltwanger in sponsoring a move to impeach against Mike DeWine, Ohio's Republican governor.[17] The move was widely and immediately panned on both sides of the aisle and by legal scholars and commentators.[18][17][19][20] Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken "issued a scathing condemnation of the trio of conservatives",[21] calling the move “a baseless, feeble attempt at creating attention for themselves.”[17] Ohio House Speaker, Republican Bob Cupp, called it an "imprudent attempt" to cause "a state constitutional crisis".[22] Legal scholar Jonathan Entin said the proposal "means that we’ve distorted our understanding both of what impeachment is supposed to do and how people – especially, elected officials – are supposed to disagree with each other. Do we really want to say that the government can’t act in an emergency because the officials are afraid that if they do anything, they’ll be removed from office? Of course, if they don’t do anything, maybe the response is going to be ‘Well you should be impeached for not acting.'"[19] CNN's Chris Cillizza analyzed it as one of several examples of how Donald Trump had politicized public health matters to the point Republican lawmakers felt they needed to make extreme and pointless moves in order to satisfy the base.[20] DeWine responded by recommending his foes visit a hospital and talk to nurses.[23]