LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

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Since 2004

Author: Loveland Magazine

  • Ohio Secretary of State says he didn’t call for Supreme Court chief’s ouster

    Ohio Secretary of State says he didn’t call for Supreme Court chief’s ouster

    (Photo by Susan Tebben, OCJ.) 

    BY: MARTY SCHLADEN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Tuesday denied that he had called for the impeachment of Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor after she had repeatedly ruled against LaRose and the rest of her fellow Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

    LaRose’s comments come four days  after he told a group of Union County Republicans that Justice O’Connor had “violated her oath of office” and that for the legislature to impeach her  “may be the right thing to do”.

    Audio obtained by the OCJ of Secretary Frank LaRose speaking at a Union County Republicans breakfast last week.

    The state’s top elections official was at the Franklin County Board of Elections on Tuesday as he kicked off early voting for most of this year’s primaries. It won’t include ballots for state legislative candidates because of a dispute over gerrymandering — a fracas over the boundaries of the districts in which members of the state House and Senate will run. 

    Tired, apparently, of partisan gerrymandering, Ohio voters in 2015 overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that requires districts be drawn so that the partisan makeup of the legislature resembles the partisan breakdown in recent statewide elections. 

    That’s not how things stand now. Republicans have won recent elections with about 54% of the vote, but they control 65% of the seats in the state House and 78% of the state Senate.

    This year, using the new system for the first time, the five Republicans on the seven-member redistricting commission have passed four sets of maps that O’Connor and the three Democrats on the Supreme Court have ruled are too partisan.

    Republican Justice Pat DeWine has continued to sit in the case even though several ethics experts have said he has a clear conflict because his father, Gov. Mike DeWine, is a member of the redistricting commission. Justice DeWine has voted in favor of upholding the maps that his father and the other Republicans have passed.

    Meanwhile, Republican frustration with O’Connor, who will leave the court at the end of the year, has been boiling over. Some Republican members of the legislature last month floated the idea of impeachment.

    Gov. DeWine called the notion “extraordinary” and said it’s a bad idea to talk about removing judges whenever one disagrees with their decisions. But LaRose, the secretary of state, wasn’t so reticent on Friday when asked at a Union County Republican breakfast if O’Connor should be impeached.

    “I think that she has not upheld her oath of office, and that to me is a basic test of a public servant,” he said. “That’s up to the state legislature, whether they want to impeach the chief justice or not. I certainly wouldn’t oppose it.”

    LaRose stipulated that any impeachment would take so long that “it may feel really good, and it may be the right thing to do because she’s violated her oath of office by making up what she wants the law to say instead of interpreting what it actually says. But I don’t know if it would accomplish much, but I’d be fine with it if they did.”

    At Tuesday’s event, LaRose tried to draw a distinction between saying impeachment may be the right thing to do and actually calling for it.  

    “The thing that I did was not call for anybody to be impeached,” he said. “I answered a question that was asked at a little breakfast gathering where I was with a group of supporters in Union County and what I said was, ‘It’s up to the state legislature.’ There are 33 senators and 99 representatives. If they gather evidence and hold that trial for an impeachment, if they decide as the people’s representatives to do that, then I don’t oppose that.”

    LaRose and some legislative Republicans are not alone in being frustrated by the redistricting battle. For the second time, the Supreme Court has ordered members of the commission to show why they shouldn’t be held in contempt for failing to pass maps that comply with the court’s interpretation of the state Constitution. Responses were submitted on Monday.

    Some members have argued that they shouldn’t be held individually liable for the actions of a seven-member body they don’t control. And some have argued for the court to simply impose maps on the commission would overstep its powers as a judicial body.

    LaRose on Tuesday said holding contempt proceedings is another overreach.

    “It’s a ridiculous idea that a co-equal branch of government would be held in contempt for doing our job in a way that the court doesn’t like,” he said. “What we have attempted to do all throughout this process is follow the rules that are set out in the Constitution — and not just the one part of the Constitution that the court seems to be focusing on, but all of the line-drawing rules in the Ohio Constitution.”

    LaRose was asked if he was attacking a co-equal body by publicly saying that he, a statewide official, was OK with the impeachment of a Supreme Court justice who had ruled against him.

    “Certainly not,” he said. “The Constitution lays out the process for impeaching and removing a justice from the Ohio Supreme Court or other elected officials. That’s not a power I have. I can express my opinion as a citizen just like any of us can and what I was telling this group of supporters in Union County a couple days ago is that if the state legislature found evidence and carried out that process, then I wouldn’t stand in the way of that.

    “And I certainly have concerns that the court has delved into really the politics of this more than they should have. But that’s a choice up to the General Assembly and certainly not a choice I get to make. I was simply expressing my opinion,” he said.

    Democratic Secretary of State candidate Chelsea Clark said LaRose’s comments about O’Connor make him unfit for his office.

    “It’s now obvious to anyone that Frank LaRose can’t be trusted to administer organized elections and now when he’s called out for the chaos, he wants to blame the referees,” she said in an email. “To claim ‘it would feel good’ to impeach the chief justice because he disagrees with the court’s rendering is pathetic. For someone who claims to believe in separation of powers, Secretary LaRose has no problem trying to overturn the will of the people.”

    LaRose on Tuesday said primary elections for legislative seats most likely will take place in August.

  • Early voting starts today. Here are the basics

    Early voting starts today. Here are the basics

    Getty Images photo of voters in line.

    BY: JAKE ZUCKERMAN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Despite drawn out legal battles over district lines for state legislative and U.S. House seats, yes, there’s still a May 3 primary in Ohio.

    Monday was the final day to register to vote in time to participate in the May 3 primary. Early voting starts Tuesday. Here are some of the basics from there.

    What are we voting on?

    May’s election will finalize who will represent the Democratic and Republican political parties in the 2022 elections. That includes:

    • Governor
    • Statewide offices (attorney general, auditor, treasurer, secretary of state)
    • U.S. House and Senate
    • Ohio Supreme Court

    Some races, like the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate or Democratic gubernatorial primary, are hotly contested. Some, like the Supreme Court races, are uncontested. Depending on where you live, various political subdivisions have local judicial and municipal candidates and ballot issues like school levies on the ticket as well.

    What aren’t we voting on?

    Ohio House and Senate races. Those district lines, which form 99 state House seats and 33 Senate seats, are typically reconfigured every 10 years. However, in the maiden voyage of an anti-gerrymandering amendment added by voters into the state Constitution, the Ohio Supreme Court has rejected three maps proposed by the Ohio Redistricting Commission along party lines. State Central Committee elections for both parties missed the May 3 ballot as well.  Last week, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose issued a directive calling for elections to proceed, minus the races caught in the redistricting quagmire.

    State lawmakers, who control when primary elections occur, have yet to set a date for the legislative primary contests.

    Read about the third rejection here and the latest fallout here.

    How can I vote absentee?

    Complete an absentee ballot request form by April 30 and mail it to your county board of elections. The board should then provide absentee ballots. The ballot can be sent by mail by May 2 but must be received by no later than 10 days after the election, so the earlier the better.

    Voters should ensure they fill their applications out accurately and thoroughly, include their email and phone number, and track their ballot online, to ensure it’s counted, according to Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

    It can also be delivered to the board in person.

    And early voting?

    Early, in-person voting in Ohio starts April 5. It runs weekdays from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. in the first three weeks of April and for an extra two hours in the final week of the month. It is also available the Saturday and Sunday (April 30 and May 1) before the primary.

    Do I need identification to vote?

    Yes. Acceptable forms of identification include a current, federal or Ohio government-issued photo identification card; a military identification card; a utility bill; a bank statement; a government check; or a paycheck. The Ohio Secretary of State offers further guidance and specifics on its website. Identification issued by non-Ohio states, passports, insurance cards, birth certificates and social security cards do not suffice.

    People who vote at their precincts without such identification can vote provisionally. Their vote will be counted if they return within seven days to provide qualifying identification.

  • Should courts limit jury awards for child rape victims? Supreme Court weighs arguments

    Should courts limit jury awards for child rape victims? Supreme Court weighs arguments

    Photo Courtesy of the Ohio Supreme Court

    BY: JAKE ZUCKERMAN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Columbus, Ohio – Lawyers for a woman who was repeatedly raped and sexually abused as a child argued Wednesday the Ohio Supreme Court should overturn or at least pare down a law that limits millions in damages a jury awarded her.

    In 2005, Ohio lawmakers passed a “tort reform” law that among other provisions, sets a limit of $250,000 on non-economic damages, which are awarded to victims to cover more intangible harms like pain, suffering, stress, anxiety, etc.

    Amanda Brandt was awarded $34 million in noneconomic damages after Roy Pompa, her friend’s father, abused her repeatedly over 18 months starting when she was 11. Court records show he would drug and rape her and record the abuse. Brandt won full damages for abuse that occurred before the tort reform law passed ($14 million), though the other $20 million in punitive damages for abuse after the law passed was cut down to $250,000.

    She still won $100 million in punitive damages — which are only available because Pompa was convicted of a felony (17 counts of rape, five counts of kidnapping, 55 counts of pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor, and 21 counts of gross sexual imposition).

    The Supreme Court has previously denied an effort to nix damage caps as they were applied to another child who was raped by her priest in Delaware County. Her $3.5 million in noneconomic caps was reduced to $350,000 (the law also creates a formula that can provide up to $350,000 pending economic damages like missed days of work and medical bills).

    Brandt’s attorneys asked the court for one of two remedies. The justices could overturn the damage caps outright and restore juries with the power to set damage maximums, as opposed to state lawmakers. Or, the justices could determine that the trauma Brandt sustained should apply to an exception to the damage caps within the law available to people who become deformed or disabled by an injury.

    “These kinds of injuries meet the same level,” said Robert Peck, an attorney representing Brandt.

    Damage caps, he said, infringe on the U.S. Constitution’s right to trial by jury. It’s a jury that hears the facts of a case and decides what kind of penalty is appropriate.

    “With a cap, you’re saying that that cap overrides that jury decision,” he said.

    Pompa, via attorney Marion Little, said it’s untrue that anyone was denied a right to trial by jury. Brandt still won $114 million. The intent of tort reform, he argued, was to create more legal predictability and consistency, which it accomplished without infringing on anyone’s rights.

    As for the reduced non-economic damages, Little said the evidence suggests Brandt has recovered. She still requires counseling, but she has a family, a job and stability and should be “applauded for her success” moving forward.

    In court filings supporting Brandt, lawyers with the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence criticized this line of thinking.

    “[It] puts Ohio judges in the unenviable and morally fraught position of holding against child abuse victims the moments in their life where they have made progress — where they have taken the most basic steps to achieve normalcy despite the abuse they suffered,” wrote attorney Camille Crary in a brief.

    Outside interests 

    Overturning Ohio’s noneconomic damage would significantly reshape Ohio’s legal climate in favor plaintiffs. It applies far beyond the narrow realm of child sex abuse and into products liability and other genres of lawsuits that can result in huge payouts, often from large corporations and institutions.

    As such, the case generated tremendous outside interest. Attorney General Dave Yost argued the law should be upheld. He said it’s perhaps surprising — “some might even say callous” — that Ohio law limits available damages for a child victim of sexual abuse. But “foolish policy” is not necessarily unconstitutional, he argued. He urged lawmakers, as some have tried to do, to lift damage caps in claims against rapists. But that change should come from the legislature, not the Supreme Court, he said.

    The Chamber of Commerce, which represents business interests, said the unpredictability of “runaway” jury awards creates huge risks for businesses. Ohio’s damage caps, its lawyers argued, are reasonable and within the mainstream compared with other states.

    “The extremely sympathetic facts of this case should not blind this Court to the enormous consequences of that invitation: Invalidating the law or opening the door to a vague new exception will expose businesses, nonprofits, and others to unlimited and unpredictable awards and excessive settlement demands in personal injury lawsuits when no more than negligence is alleged,” its lawyers wrote.

    The Product Liability Advisory Council — an association representing large car, tobacco, chemical, firearms, pharmaceutical and other companies — filed arguments in the case supporting the noneconomic damage caps and emphasizing Brandt’s current jury award.

    One mystery in the case, homed in on briefly during oral arguments, is whether Pompa can even pay the $114 million judgement — let alone the additional $20 million if the court overturns the damage cap. Peck, during arguments, said the plaintiffs have not yet sought to collect from him until the court finalizes the issue.

    In an interview after oral arguments, Little said there’s no evidence in the record suggesting Pompa can pay either $114 million or $134 million. He said the plaintiffs’ target is more likely the law and precedent than the specific case at hand.

    Little — a prominent defense attorney currently working on high-profile, white collar cases — declined to answer whether Pompa is paying for his legal services.

    “I think that the, as a practical matter, the plaintiff does not have a financial stake in the results of this case,” he said. “There may be others outside the case, such as the plaintiff’s bar, that have interest in this.”

    Organizations representing trial attorneys argued the right to trial by jury and that jury’s autonomy to set awards for plaintiffs who have been harmed are inextricably tied. Juries, they wrote, are the fact finders in court cases — not policy makers.

    “The General Assembly has not demonstrated a willingness to protect the right to trial by jury, nor is it the role of legislators to draw boundaries around the legislative power,” they wrote. “As a result, it falls on this Court to jealously safeguard that right and protect all Ohioans, not just those with the most lobbying power.”

  • Ohio Supreme Court denies Dem request to change primary

    Ohio Supreme Court denies Dem request to change primary

    State Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, speaks with press alongside House Minority Leader Allison Russo in a February press conference. (Photo: Susan Tebben, OCJ)

    BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Democrats weren’t successful in convincing the Ohio Supreme Court to change the May 3 primary date, according to a Thursday afternoon filing.

    The motion was filed by House Minority Leader Allison Russo and state Sen. Vernon Sykes, both members of the Ohio Redistricting Commission, who said moving the primary date would help the commission be able to finish their work without worrying about the election deadlines.

    They also said the supreme court had the “inherent” authority to force the change, despite laws that state the General Assembly controls changes to the election dates and times.

    The state’s high court disagreed, firmly planting the power of election dates and times on the Ohio legislature.

    Justice Patrick Fischer made a point to issue an opinion agreeing with the court decision, and emphasizing the General Assembly’s power to establish the date of the primary election, and its authority to “ease the pressure that the commission’s failure to adopt a constitutional redistricting plan has placed on the secretary of state and on court boards of elections by moving the primary election, should that action become necessary.”

    Republicans who responded to the request to move the primary accused Democrats of attempting to “circumvent the power of the General Assembly.”

    “They apparently cannot muster enough support for legislation to move the primary election date so they’ve come here asking this court, improperly, to do it,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose told the court.

    Legislative measures by other Democratic legislators are still pending in the General Assembly. Senate President Matt Huffman said the temperature of at least the Ohio Senate hasn’t changed, meaning there isn’t enough support for changing the primary. He said the situation is “dynamic,” especially as the Ohio Redistricting Commission continues a week of work to revise legislative maps for the fourth time.

  • Expert: Hard to know if COVID variant will surge in U.S. or how badly

    Expert: Hard to know if COVID variant will surge in U.S. or how badly

    BY: MARTY SCHLADEN – Ohio Capital Journal

    The last thing people want to hear right now is that the coronavirus might have mutated yet again into yet another deadly variant, extending the pain, death, and inconvenience of a pandemic that we long hoped would be over.

    However, whether the subvariant of omicron known as BA.2 will hit the United States as hard as it’s hitting other parts of the world is hard to say at this point, an expert at modeling the disease said Wednesday.

    The pandemic has been full of unpleasant surprises and BA.2 is no exception. Scientists estimate that it’s one-and-a-half times as transmissible as the original omicron strain, BA.1, and is overtaking it.

    Europe, and particularly the United Kingdom, have seen an increase in the new variant in recent months, but that hasn’t been the case everywhere, said Stephen Kissler, a research fellow in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases of Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

    “The question of if and when a surge is coming and how large is very open,” Kissler said in a Zoom conference with reporters. “I know that we’ve seen surges that are dominated by BA.2 across much of Europe. But in contrast, for example, in South Africa we saw a major BA.1 wave — that’s where we saw the omicron wave first — and now there’s a lot of circulation of BA.2, but it hasn’t really caused an increase in cases so much that it’s lengthened the decline and given the epidemic a very long tail.”

    Kissler explained that vaccination rates in the U.S. are lower than those in Europe, but higher than those in South Africa. That could mean that more Americans have developed antibodies against the omicron variants than have Europeans.

    “To the extent that that gives us protection against BA.2 we might see dynamics that are more similar to what happened in South Africa,” he said.

    Seasonality and other factors likely will play a role, Kissler said, with spring in the United States being a season of relatively low spread and fall a season of relatively high spread.

    So if there is a surge here of the new variant, how will it affect Americans of varying ages?

    “In many ways it will likely resemble our experience with COVID-19 up to this point,” Kissler said.

    And past experience has shown one factor to be hugely important: vaccination. 

    Kissler said that being vaccinated, along with a booster dose, “really goes a long way toward helping to protect you from symptomatic disease and especially severe disease. The biggest delineation I imagine seeing is that people who are boosted will probably fare better than people who are unboosted.”

    Another important factor is age, with the elderly having less natural resistance to all variants of the coronavirus than the young. Vaccines and boosters, though, can be a great equalizer.

    “A vaccinated and boosted person over the age of 75, their risk is probably on the order of — if not lower than — an unvaccinated 20-year-old,” Kissler said.

    COVID eventually will go from being a pandemic disease that spikes rapidly and overwhelms resources to an endemic one where a background level is present, sickening and even killing people, but in semi-predictable ways. Sadly, however, hopes that it will disappear altogether are small.

    Looking forward, one simple public-health measure might be most effective, Kissler said.

    “In many ways, one of the best things we can do to manage outbreaks is to just to continue to keep informing people how much COVID is circulating in their communities and make it just as accessible as a weather report,” he said. “A lot of data suggest that people tend to adjust their behavior accordingly.”

    He said that probably won’t be enough to quell future waves of COVID, or be adequate in the face of major new variants.

    “But as we continue to deal with COVID and we think about this permanent circulation of COVID-19 in the population — recognizing that there’s going to be different dynamics in different places, different patterns across the year — making it clear what’s happening in any given community at any given time through passive surveillance is probably the best thing we can do right now,” he said.

  • Legal mediators added to the Ohio redistricting fold

    Legal mediators added to the Ohio redistricting fold

    House Speaker and Ohio Redistricting Commission co-chair Bob Cupp, center seated, speaks with House Minority Leader Allison Russo, right seated, as fellow co-chair state Sen. Vernon Sykes looks on. The ORC agreed to hire two outside mapmakers to assist in the process of legislative redistrict after a third set of maps was struck down by the Ohio Supreme Court. (Photo: Susan Tebben, OCJ)

    BY: SUSAN TEBBEN –  Ohio Capital Journal

    Legal mediators were added to the mapmaking team on Tuesday by the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

    Two members of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals were approved by the commission to act as mediators as the process of creating a fourth map dictating legislative maps.

    Catherine C. Geyer and Scott Coburn were chosen after talking with the commission at their Tuesday meeting. They both are listed as circuit mediators on the 6th Circuit’s website, with Geyer listed as having alternative dispute resolution experience and Coburn noted for his work in civil mediation since 2005.

    “Mediators manage the process and the parties manage the solution,” Geyer said when explaining their role.

    Neither of the mediators have experience with redistricting cases, they told the commission.

    The legal mediators act as neutral parties to address issues that come up as the mapmakers come up with map ideas and commissioners wish to register input in the process, or when disagreements come up.

    “I think the advantage you have in this scenario … here, there’s the advantage of everyone trying to get to the shared goal,” Coburn told the commission.

    The mediators are “the best deal you can get,” according to Geyer, because they are “on loan from the court,” so come at no cost to the commission.

    House Speaker Bob Cupp and other GOP members of the commission asked about confidentiality rules and legal privilege when it comes to the mediators. He said it may be necessary for commissioners to be able to have confidential conversations, even as the Ohio Supreme Court directed them to make the process even more transparent.

    Geyer said the commission and the mediators would have to lay down rules on what constitutes legal privilege and confidentiality, but state Sunshine Laws on public meetings would still apply, meaning any decision making would have to be done in the open.

    The mediators also emphasized that while the process has a lot to do with the mapmakers, the commission members should be committed to being available as well.

    “I think access to the decision-makers would be the most important thing from the mediator’s perspective,” Geyer said. “We could get headed down a particular path, only to find out that one of the commissioners is not in agreement.”

    Geyer and Coburn will now join the original four caucus mapmakers, along with Professor Michael McDonald and Douglas Johnson, chosen by the commission on Monday night to act as independent mapmakers.

    Also at its Tuesday meeting, the commission set a schedule up to their March 28 deadline. Meetings are set for:

    • Wednesday – 5 p.m.
    • Thursday – 7 p.m.
    • Friday – 2 p.m.
    • Saturday – 4 p.m.
    • Sunday – 4 p.m.
    • Monday – 10 a.m.

    Thursday and Friday’s meetings are set to have virtual options, so members of the commission who may not be able to attend in-person can still call in. They will also be streamed for the public on The Ohio Channel.

  • Ohio Republican Senate candidate forum devolves into near fight

    Ohio Republican Senate candidate forum devolves into near fight

    Mike Gibbons, left, and Josh Mandel, right, have a heated exchange. Photo by Nick Evans, OCJ.

    BY: NICK EVANS – Ohio Capital Journal

    The leading candidates for the Ohio Republican U.S. Senate nomination met in Gahanna Friday. Two of them nearly came to blows.

    The candidate forum hosted by FreedomWorks didn’t make it through opening statements before former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel began attacking investment banker Mike Gibbons. The other candidates, state Sen. Matt Dolan, former GOP chair Jane Timken and author J.D. Vance did their best to avoid the fracas.

    The substance

    The moderator took candidates through foreign policy, big tech “censorship” (twice), critical race theory, the opioid crisis and their feelings on Donald Trump’s presidency. The candidates largely agreed on support for Ukraine, but complained about how Congress approved a nearly $14 billion support package.

    “You can not just put, in the dark of night, all of these spending provisions into a bill, plop it on peoples’ desks and say you’ve got 12 hours to vote for this,” Dolan argued.

    Vance has argued against engaging the Ukraine war — raising eyebrows by saying he didn’t really care what happened. His position hasn’t really changed, but the framing has. Instead of emphasizing neglect, he uses the conflict to criticize establishment Republicans who couldn’t fund Trump’s border wall and to warn against American adventurism.

    “The only thing that will salvage Joe Biden’s presidency is if a bunch of stupid, weak-willed Republicans let this guy bumble us into a war that we have no business fighting,” he told the crowd.

    Biden has, from the outset and repeatedly since, insisted that American troops will not be sent to fight in Ukraine.

    Timken decried big tech as, “the weapon of the cancel culture and the woke left.”

    But beneath the red meat rhetoric, their arguments weren’t that dissimilar from what many on the left have demanded. Break them up, don’t let companies profit on your data, reform or eliminate section 230, the candidates argued.

    “There is no reason that Facebook or Meta as it’s called should be as powerful as it is, and also, meddling in our elections,” Timken said.

    The confrontation

     From left, moderator Brandon Boxer, Matt Dolan, Mike Gibbons, Josh Mandel, Jane Timken and J.D. Vance. Photo by Nick Evans, OCJ.

    Almost immediately, it became clear that Mandel would use the forum to attack Gibbons. In his opening statements Mandel argued the fight for the “soul of the Republican Party” was even more important than the fight against Democrats.

    “Here’s the fork in the roads,” he argued. “Down one path goes these squishy, RINO Republicans many of whom have been pro-China over the years.”

    He rattled off the list of excommunicated Republicans — Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney — before turning to Gibbons.

    “(He) had all these companies here in America and made money selling them to China,” Mandel said. “That is not the path that we should be taking in this country.”

    Mandel repeatedly steered his answers into Gibbons’ investment holdings criticizing him for shipping Ohio jobs overseas, selling companies “to China,” or simply holding stock in Chinese firms. By the third time he tried it, Mandel’s tactic was met with sustained boos from the crowd.

    “Again Josh is showing his ignorance,” Gibbons said after one critique tied to Lordstown Motors. He then turned to the former state treasurer and asked, “Josh, do you know anything about economics or finance at all?”

    Gibbons also made a dig he uses regularly on the campaign trail — Mandel has “zero” experience in the private sector.

    That’s incorrect. Mandel has served on corporate boards and advised payday lenders since leaving office in 2019. He also served in the military.

    The confrontation between the two became more heated, with Mandel jumping out of his seat after Gibbons told Mandel, “You might not understand this,” about a stock trade.

    “You’ve never been in the private sector in your entire life,” Gibbons insisted. “You don’t know squat.”

    “Two tours in Iraq,” Mandel growled, “don’t tell me I haven’t worked.”

    The other candidates traded uncomfortable laughs as the moderator broke up the incident while the crowd booed.

    “You’re dealing with the wrong guy,” Mandel said returning to his seat. “You watch what happens, p—-, you watch what happens.”

    The incident is in keeping with Mandel’s increasingly belligerent campaign. He’s taken to ending campaign ads with the tag line “send in the marine.”

    A few minutes after the confrontation, Vance, who is also a marine corps veteran, chastised Mandel.

    “I think the way you use the U.S. Marine Corps, Josh, is disgraceful,” Vance said. “It’s not a political football for you to toss around.”

    After the event ended, Gibbons waded out into the crowd to shake hands with attendees, but refused to talk to reporters. Instead, his campaign sent out a press release after the fact calling Mandel “unhinged, unfit and flailing.”

    Mandel handled things differently.

    When the forum concluded, he shook hands with his opponents and rushed off stage. He weaved through attendees and made a beeline for the service kitchen.

    In a straw poll, Mandel got just 4.6%, dead last among the candidates on stage. The winner was J.D. Vance with about 43% of votes.

    Speaking after the event Vance called Mandel’s conduct “embarrassing,” but he didn’t want to belabor it, instead focusing on how the crowd had reacted to the points he made during the evening. But asked about Mandel’s exit, Vance smiled and paused.

    “Well,” he said. “If I’d had his debate I may have run for the kitchen, too.”

  • Both FirstEnergy and its shareholders seek secrecy around company’s bribes

    Both FirstEnergy and its shareholders seek secrecy around company’s bribes

    BY: JAKE ZUCKERMAN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Both FirstEnergy Corp. and its shareholders argued to a federal judge that they shouldn’t be forced to publicly disclose which executives ordered the payment of political bribes that the company admitted to in a related criminal case.

    The two parties are awaiting judicial approval of a proposed settlement from a derivative lawsuit filed by FirstEnergy’s shareholders. The settlement would call for FirstEnergy’s insurers to pay the company $180 million for damages incurred via the company’s role in what prosecutors have described as the largest public corruption manifestation in state history.

    In an agreement with prosecutors reached in July 2021, FirstEnergy as a company admitted to a $60 million bribery scheme anchored by the then-Speaker of the Ohio House, and another $4.3 million bribe to Ohio’s then top utility regulator.

    The statement of facts in that agreement, however, anonymizes the FirstEnergy officials involved in the scandal. The agreement also called for FirstEnergy to pay a $230 million penalty and cooperate with investigators to possibly avert a charge of wire fraud against the company.

    Delaying any possible approval in the shareholder’s derivative case, U.S. District Judge John A. Adams asked the shareholders’ attorneys last week to state who at FirstEnergy ordered the bribe payments,

    Jeroen van Kwawegen, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, demurred and didn’t answer the question, prompting Adams to cut short the hearing. Adams then issued an order calling for any “interested parties” to either provide an answer to his question or offer a good reason why they can’t divulge the information. He threatened the lawyers with contempt and possible expulsion from the case for failure to answer.

    The shareholders, in arguments submitted Wednesday, offered to privately tell the judge who at FirstEnergy ordered the bribes. They said they couldn’t do so publicly because doing so would breach confidentiality rules associated with discovery (the pre-trial evidence exchanging process) and mediation.

    The shareholders’ lawyers said their obligations are to their clients and to FirstEnergy itself — not the public.

    “Such public disclosure could also be harmful to FirstEnergy considering the myriad related criminal and civil proceedings, the ongoing regulatory investigations, and the securities class action pending in the Southern District of Ohio where FirstEnergy is a defendant,” they wrote.

    Kwawegen attached emails attached to the filing showing he asked lawyers FirstEnergy and its former executives if they’d agree to voluntarily disclose some of the information. He was rejected by the company, its former CEO Chuck Jones, Dennis Chack, and Mike Dowling (whose lawyer said they are not inclined to provide a “blanket waiver” but asked for specifics). Jones, Chack and Dowling were all fired in October 2020 amid an internal investigation.

    FirstEnergy made similar arguments. The lawsuit and settlement, its lawyers said, are aimed to recover for harm done to the company because of its actions. Any public accountability, they argued, “risks harm to the interests of FirstEnergy and its stockholders, which is exactly the opposite of what a derivative litigation is supposed to do.”

    Notably silent on the issue: federal prosecutors. They didn’t weigh in either way before the court. A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Kenneth Parker didn’t respond to an inquiry.

    The derivative lawsuit traces back to the passage of House Bill 6 in 2019. The energy overhaul legislation, among other provisions, provided a massive bailout of two nuclear power plants owned at the time by a FirstEnergy subsidiary. Federal prosecutors said the legislation was worth $1.3 billion to the company.

    To ensure it passed and thwart a referendum attempt to repeal it, FirstEnergy admitted to providing $60 million to a nonprofit secretly controlled by then House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford. Householder allegedly used the funds to elect a slate of candidates that would support his bid to become the House Speaker, engineer the bill’s passage, thwart a repeal effort, and enrich himself personally. He has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial, scheduled for January 2023.

    FirstEnergy also admitted to secretly paying $4.3 million to energy attorney Sam Randazzo just before Gov. Mike DeWine named him chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Randazzo has not been accused of a crime and has denied wrongdoing.

  • House GOP leader on Justice Maureen O’Connor impeachment: ‘All options are on the table’

    House GOP leader on Justice Maureen O’Connor impeachment: ‘All options are on the table’

    BY: JAKE ZUCKERMAN AND NICK EVANS – Ohio Capital Journal

    Columbus, Ohio – A ranking House Republican left open the possibility of impeaching the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, which this week rejected Republicans’ third proposed legislative redistricting map. 

    During a private GOP caucus phone call Thursday, House Majority Leader Bill Seitz and Rep. Jon Cross voiced support for impeaching Justice Maureen O’Connor, according to a person on the call. O’Connor, also a Republican, has acted as a swing vote on two high-stakes redistricting cases and sided with Democrats on the bench finding the maps disproportionately favored Republicans in violation of the Ohio Constitution. 

    Justice Maureen O’Connor

    Through a spokesman, Seitz, a longtime Cincinnati lawmaker and influential caucus member, declined to comment on caucus discussions but said Friday “nothing has been decided, and that all options are on the table.”

    Cross, a Kenton Republican, declined comment, noting “we (I) don’t comment about caucus meetings.”

    The call, held Thursday afternoon, lasted about 20 minutes, the source on the call said. In it, Seitz presented an argument that included old precedent for the House moving to impeach a justice after an unfavorable court decision. 

    When Cross offered what was described as a more fiery argument for impeachment, House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, ended the call, according to the source. Cupp’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the caucus call or his position on impeachment. 

    Cupp spent six years on the Ohio Supreme Court bench, serving alongside O’Connor for his entire tenure.

    On Facebook Thursday, hours before the caucus call, Cross wrote “enough is enough,” and that O’Connor had violated Ohio law related to altering the time, place or manner of an election.

    The claim about Seitz’ support marks the most senior legislator in favor of the possibility of impeaching O’Connor. Also Thursday, Rep. Scott Wiggam, R-Wooster, a committee chairman, said on social media “it’s time to impeach Maureen O’Connor now.

    https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiggam/status/1504496308584919044

    The hubbub comes in response to the court’s redistricting ruling late Wednesday evening. A four-justice majority found “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the most recent maps violated the constitution, particularly the provisions prohibiting partisan favoritism. While uncertainty remains, the ruling could force lawmakers to either move the May primary election date or create a second primary election date for non-statewide races. In a letter this week, Secretary of State Frank LaRose indicated the plan for now is to proceed with two separate primary elections.

    The decision on whether to pursue impeachment won’t be up to him, but Gov. Mike DeWine advised against the move Friday. 

    “This is an extraordinary measure to take,” he said. “I think we don’t want to go down that pathway, because we disagree with a decision by a court, because we disagree with a decision by an individual judge or justice. Not a good idea.”

    Three House Republicans publicly floated the concept of impeaching DeWine himself in 2020 for his COVID-19 response. The idea went nowhere. 

    The Supreme Court is currently reviewing a second, GOP-proposed congressional redistricting map after overturning the first effort on constitutional grounds. 

    Not long before the redistricting fiasco, O’Connor publicly broke from Republicans on judicial integrity. The Ohio Republican Party, with the 2020 presidential election looming, blasted a lower court’s ruling on election procedures and Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Richard Frye as a “partisan judge.” In an unusual move, O’Connor called the statement “disgraceful” and “deceitful” and emphasized the concept of judicial independence. 

    “This is a blatant and unfounded attack on the independence of the Ohio judiciary,” she wrote. 

    “To accuse a judge of deciding the matter before him on partisan politics and further accuse the judge of ‘obstruction of his judicial responsibility’ is without merit and is meant to further the false narrative that judges have no conscience, no legal responsibilities, and no capacity to decide what the law is beyond the raw politics of the issue.”

    An impeachment would be an extreme, though not unprecedented reaction. In fact, the Ohio Legislative Service Commission notes all eight impeachments in Ohio’s history were against judges. For instance, in 1808, members of the Ohio House grew angry enough at a ruling by Justice George Tod that they sought his impeachment. He survived via one vote in the state Senate, according to the court. Justice Calvin Pease was impeached and acquitted as well around the same time. 

    The Ohio Supreme Court gave state lawmakers until March 28 to submit a new proposal. The Ohio Redistricting Commission, a bipartisan panel of statewide and legislative officials, is scheduled to meet Saturday. 

    Morgan Trau contributed to this story.

  • Ohio Supreme Court rejects GOP-drawn Statehouse district maps for the third time

    Ohio Supreme Court rejects GOP-drawn Statehouse district maps for the third time

    Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons..

    by Susan Tebben, Ohio Capital Journal March 17, 2022

    A bipartisan majority on the Ohio Supreme Court has for the third time rejected Statehouse district maps passed along partisan lines by Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

    The most recent versions of legislative maps that had been approved by the ORC were struck down in a 4-3 decision Wednesday night by the state’s high court.

    A majority of the court justices said the map challengers had shown “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the most recent maps violated the constitution, particularly the provisions prohibiting partisan favoritism.

    “Substantial and compelling evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the main goal of the individuals who drafted the second revised plan was to favor the Republican Party and disfavor the Democratic Party,” the majority wrote in its Wednesday opinion.

    The court sent the job back to the commission with a March 28 deadline to file an “entirely new” district plan for the General Assembly with the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office. A copy of the plan should then be sent to the court the next day.

    The breakdown of votes matched previous votes by the court striking down maps, with Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, Justice Michael Donnelly, Justice Melody Stewart and Justice Jennifer Brunner forming the majority opinion. Justices Sharon Kennedy and Patrick Fischer dissented. Also dissenting was Justice Patrick DeWine, son of governor and commission member Mike DeWine.

    Justice DeWine recused himself from an issue in the case in which the commission members could be held in contempt of court for not filing new maps within the last deadline, but did not recuse himself from the entire case.

    The justices in the majority once again pointed to Senate President Matt Huffman and House Speaker Bob Cupp as controllers of the map-making process, saying the evidence in this case “is just as strong, if not stronger” than it was in previous map-making attempts.

    “The Democratic members of the commission had no opportunity to provide input in creating the second revised plan, and they had no meaningful opportunity to review and discuss it or to propose amendments once it was presented at the commission hearing on February 22, 2022,” the majority wrote.

    The court said they have “identified a flawed process” in all three of its rulings on the legislative maps, plans adopted after being the “product of just one political party.”

    “The evidence shows that the individuals who controlled the map-drawing process exercised that control with the overriding intent to maintain as much of an advantage as possible for members of their political party,” according to the ruling.

    With these new maps, the court agreed with arguments made by anti-gerrymandering groups who said a disproportionate number of so-called “Democratic-leaning” districts were actually toss-ups, with less than a 1% advantage for the Democrats.

    The newest plan had 19 House districts considered toss-ups, and seven Senate districts in the same toss-up range.

    “The result is that the 54 percent seat share for Republicans is a floor, while the 46 percent share for Democrats is a ceiling,” the court wrote (italics their own).

    That amount of toss-up districts, the court found, is “evidence of an intentionally biased map,” and is just one piece showing partisan lopsidedness on the part of the GOP.

    Justices also made a point to single out Huffman in saying he appears to have voted against a Democratic map proposal “based, at least in part, on a misunderstanding” of the constitutional provisions regulating redistricting in the state.

    Huffman called out the plan introduced by commission co-chair state Sen. Vernon Sykes and House Minority Leader Allison Russo because, according to him, the plan would have impacted the ability of Republican incumbents to keep their seats.

    “Making that observation demonstrates, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Senate President Huffman misunderstands the requirements of Article XI and the reasons for their adoption,” the majority stated. “Senator Huffman’s concern for protecting incumbents is not grounded in Article XI.”

    Kennedy and DeWine wrote their own dissent, that shamed the majority opinion for issuing a judgment “guaranteed to disrupt an impending election and bring Ohio to the brink of a constitutional crisis.”

    The Ohio Secretary of State, yet another member of the redistricting commission, has issued frequent warning about the lateness of the redistricting effort, though he has yet to go against the Republican majority vote.

    With the May 3 primary approaching quickly, Secretary Frank LaRose all but begged the General Assembly to approve extra money to speed up the delivery of absentee ballots to overseas and military Ohioans, and to extend the amount of time the county boards of elections have to send out the ballots, from 45 days before the election to 30.

    In previous court filings and public comments, LaRose said the primary likely couldn’t withstand another map delay.

    In shutting down the most recent map effort, the dissenting court justices say the majority of the court did much of what it did in previous rejections of redistricting maps by allegedly overriding the power of the constitution with its own interpretation.

    In previous dissents, Kennedy and DeWine accused the majority justices of “moving the goalposts” by putting requirements in the constitution where none could be found, but this time, they say, “the majority tears down those goalposts altogether.”

    “Through its actions today, the majority undermines the democratic process, depriving the voters of the constitutional amendment they enacted and leaving in its place only the majority’s policy preferences,” Kennedy and DeWine wrote. “In so doing, it threatens the very legitimacy of this court.”

    The majority of the court added a new level to the next steps in redistricting by ruling the map-drafting “should occur in public” and that the commissioners should “convene frequent meetings to demonstrate their bipartisan efforts to reach a constitutional plan within the time set by this court.”

    Dissenting justices say that the majority finding the most recent maps unconstitutional because this transparency method didn’t happen the first (or second) time “is ludicrous.”

    “Nothing in the constitution requires the seven commissioners to sit down together to draft the plan – effectively handing each one of them an unbridled veto power,” Kennedy and DeWine wrote in their dissent.

    The majority on the court also had a suggestion for the commission: “The commission should retain an independent map drawer — who answers to all commission members, not only to the Republican legislative leaders — to draft a plan through a transparent process.”

    After the Ohio Redistricting Commission passes a new plan, map challengers will once again have three days to object after the maps are submitted.

    The Secretary of State’s office declined to comment on the court ruling Wednesday night.

    The Ohio Supreme Court’s isn’t done: It is still considering court challenges to congressional maps passed earlier this month. The court also hasn’t said whether it will reschedule a contempt of court hearing it brought up after the ORC didn’t come up with legislative maps by its February 17 deadline.