Gavel Grab

With big-spending judicial races a possibility this year, four candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court have taken a clean-campaign pledge proposed by the Ohio State Bar Association.

David Crago, dean of the Ohio Northern University Law School and chair of the OSBA’s Judicial Campaign Advertising Monitoring Committee, said the pledge was aimed at helping candidates and independent committees to “focus on credentials and experience.” In a press release, Crago alluded to departures from that focus in the past:

“We are concerned that recent court decisions could potentially open an influx of large sums of money into Ohio’s Supreme Court races.

“We think this could return this state to its infamous position of being the poster child of all that is wrong with judicial elections.”

Signing the pledge were two candidates for chief justice, recently appointed Chief Justice Eric Brown, a Democrat, and Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican; and  Republican Justice Judith Lanzinger and appellate Judge Mary Jane Trapp, a Democrat, according to a Toledo Blade article. Ohio has seen some of the nation’s most expensive judicial elections.

The “clean campaign agreement,” according to the OSBA, asked candidates  to take personal responsibility for the content of advertisements or statements that they or their authorized committee’s issue. The pledge also asked candidates to publicly disavow ads from other sources that impugn the integrity of the judicial system or the integrity of a candidate for Supreme Court.

At a press conference (video available by clicking here), Justice O’Connor said she would follow a rule prohibiting judicial candidates from directly soliciting campaign dollars, despite an appeals court ruling striking down a similar rule in Kentucky (see Gavel Grab).

Justice O’Connor vowed that, despite a recent federal court ruling that struck down a Kentucky rule similar to one in Ohio barring judicial candidates from directly soliciting contributions, she will follow the rule.

“In my opinion, the principle behind the rule is irrefutable,” Justice O’Connor said. “If we want to see judicial campaigns conducted in a way that supports independence and impartiality, we cannot have judges dialing for dollars.” The Toledo Blade article said she was apparently alluding to her rival.

Chief Justice Brown is the target of a Republican complaint accusing him of personally soliciting money for his campaign, a charge a Democratic adviser denied on Justice Brown’s behalf (see Gavel Grab). Justice O’Connor, meanwhile, has been accused by state Democrats of violating a rule prohibiting political endorsements made by judges. An Ohio Republican spokesman dismissed the comments at issue as “lighthearted free speech.”

Justice Brown said at the news conference this week, “”I think her pledge is perfectly appropriate, that she’s going to live by the rules that are in place in respect to fund-raising. That’s something all four of us agreed to and certainly I’m going to do.”