In what could be another big win for Republicans in that it lets them again call out and refer to the scandals for which their political enemies are prone, a Democratic lawmaker in Cincinnati known mainly for being scandal-prone is considering resigning his position and looking for other “opportunities.”
The lawmaker at issue is Rep. Sedrick Denson, who represents a swath of the East Side of Cincinnati, including Pleasant Ridge, Oakley, Hyde Park, and Mount Washington, in the state legislature. He faces being turned out because he has hit the term limit cap at the end of 2026, when he finishes his current two-year term.
He is infamous for a 2019 incident in which he was arrested while drunk driving in the Columbus area in March 2019, getting pulled over by an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper at about 2:45 in the morning. The trooper found him to smell like alcohol and be highly intoxicated.
Entertainingly, Denson asked the trooper at one point if the trooper suspected him of being intoxicated, leading to the trooper saying, “You’re definitely intoxicated, bud. We’re gonna figure out how intoxicated you are. So, we’ve got to do field sobriety. We’ve got to do it for everybody.”
The field sobriety test showed the state representative to be very much under the influence. In the wake of the incident, State Rep. Denson pleaded guilty to both a misdemeanor counterfeit controlled substance possession charge, as Aderall was found in his vehicle, and a misdemeanor charge for control of a vehicle while under the influence.
That’s not all. State Rep. Denson was also caught up in a scandal earlier in 2025, when it emerged that he has the worst attendance record amongst all the state legislature for the past two years, having missed eight of the 29 sessions in the 2023-2024 assembly, including the last day of the “lame duck” session where a slew of bills were voted on. Then he missed the opening day for the 2025-2026 session. He was reportedly in Belize instead of showing up for the end of the 2024 or beginning of 2025 session.
Now Denson is planning on resigning from his position to look into next steps before the term limits catch up to him. Reporting as much, the Cincinnati Enquirer noted: “Denson told The Enquirer he is ‘looking into’ resigning his $71,000-a-year position and considering his next steps. He is term-limited at the end of his current two-year term, which ends in December 2026. ‘This is when different opportunities start to come your way,’ he said.”
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Adding more in a tweet, the Ohio news-focused account going by “The Rooster” noted that the resignation will come at some point soon, and there is already a successor being lined up to replace him. It said: “Rep. Sedrick Denson (D-Cincinnati) will be resigning sooner rather than later. Much will be made about the ‘full interview’ process to replace him, but the name to watch is Ashley Bryant, the sister of Christie Kuhns, who co-chairs the Hamilton County Dems screening committee.”
While the constituency Denson represents is highly Democratic, it is expected to be “hotly contested” and so will give Republicans the opportunity to insert lurid details of Denson’s past scandals into the conversation, thus causing potential problems for the state Democratic Party as it has internal squabbles over with whom it should replace Denson.
Watch Denson comment on his attendance record here:
Featured image credit: The Rooster