Canton Repository...
It’s just so easy to cry ‘politics’
Repository Editorial
Posted Aug 21, 2011 

The issue: Dismissal of JobsOhio challenge 

Our view: If lawsuit has merit, it’s worth refiling 

A liberal group that is challenging the constitutionality of JobsOhio, Gov. John Kasich’s economic development corporation, lost a round Friday when the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed its lawsuit. 

The court didn’t rule one way or the other on the merits of the lawsuit. Instead, six of the seven justices agreed that ProgressOhio needs to file the lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court — the very route that The Columbus Dispatch reports was specified in legislation that created JobsOhio. 

Sounds reasonable. That wasn’t enough to keep ProgressOhio from flinging an accusation of “playing politics” at the court for allegedly delaying its ruling until the day after Kasich sent the Legislature his 56-page vision of how JobsOhio will work. 

It’s a free country, so an accusation of politicking by a court can be made without a shred of evidence to back it up. Unfortunately, even if it’s unfounded, it can poison the well of public opinion about the judicial system a little more. 

As a private economic development arm of state government, JobsOhio is a radical departure from business as usual in Columbus. That is what’s needed. But not — as we think most Ohioans would agree — if it comes at the expense of the will of the people as expressed in the state Constitution. 

If ProgressOhio’s lawsuit has merit, then the organization is doing Ohioans a favor by challenging the legality of JobsOhio. 

That can’t be said of its own insistence on “playing politics” in its response to the Supreme Court’s ruling. 

Read it at the Canton Repository