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Columbus
Dispatch...
Candidates
for state’s top court rake it in
By David Eggert,
Jim Siegel
and
Darrel Rowland
Wednesday
February 1, 2012
A 6-1
majority on the state Supreme Court is not enough for Ohio Republicans.
Butler
County Domestic Relations Judge Sharon L. Kennedy raised more than
$152,000
since Nov. 7 — which Ohio Republican leaders are touting as a record
for a
challenger at this stage of the campaign — in her bid to unseat
Democratic
Justice Yvette McGee Brown.
However,
McGee Brown has raised nearly $214,000 in just the past three weeks,
campaign-finance reports due yesterday show.
McGee Brown
was appointed to the high court by outgoing Gov. Ted Strickland a
little more
than a year ago, ending a 7-0 GOP majority. The only Democrat in a
statewide
office other than U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, she is running to retain her
seat
through 2014.
Kennedy
said the amount of money she raised demonstrates widespread support.
She said
she expects the Republican Party to fully back her run with financial
support —
despite the party’s sizable majority on the court.
“They’re
going to do what it takes to win because they believe in me,” she said.
McGee Brown
is the most-successful fundraiser in the Supreme Court race so far,
more than
doubling the totals of two GOP justices seeking re-election.
“I’m very
humbled by the broad base of support,” said McGee Brown, citing backing
from
business groups, lawyers and others. “It’s a great start to the
campaign.”
The
campaign-finance reports yesterday also showed that a former director
of Lehman
Brothers was Gov. John Kasich’s top individual contributor in the last
half of
2011.
Jerry
Grundhofer, now retired in Las Vegas, wrote a $5,000 check to his
former Lehman
colleague in October. Kasich’s role as a managing director of Lehman
Brothers
until the company’s collapse in 2008 was a major campaign issue in the
2010
race for governor.
About 30
percent of the Kasich campaign’s outlay last year went to a Virginia
campaign-finance consultant. Almost $17,000 was spent on food.
Secretary
of State Jon Husted’s campaign kitty exploded in the final two months
of the
year with multiple fundraisers. He got almost 200 donations of at least
$1,000
apiece in November and December, pushing his total for the year over
$400,000.
Republican
Attorney General Mike DeWine raised more than $1.7 million during his
first
year back in state office. He got $226,000 in November from the Ohio
Republican
Party but still had $525,000 in loans outstanding.
GOP Auditor
Dave Yost’s two largest donors were corporate heavyweights Wayne M.
Boich, who
heads an Ohio coal company among other business interests, and Karen
Wright,
owner of Ariel Corp. in Mount Vernon.
Kasich,
Husted, DeWine and Yost aren’t up for re-election until 2014.
The heavily
lopsided campaign-finance totals for legislative caucuses reflect the
political
realities in the Statehouse: Republicans have long controlled the
Senate and
now dominate it with a 23-10 majority; they recaptured the House in
2010; and
now they have new gerrymandered districts that help them keep those
margins.
House and
Senate Republican caucuses combined last year to raise $8.72 million
and have
$7.7 million left to spend. Legislative Democrats raised about
$839,000, mostly
in the House. Senate Republicans have about 90 times as much money on
hand as
the Democratic caucus, which did not top $75,000 in contributions for
the year.
But House
Minority Leader Armond Budish, D-Beachwood, said folks should not worry
about
the Democrats’ money disadvantage, part of which can be attributed to
the
Senate Bill 5 campaign last year, which sucked up huge amounts of union
money.
“People are
energized, and by the time the election rolls around, we’ll have plenty
of
funds for our campaigns,” he said.
Dispatch
reporter Catherine Candisky contributed to this story.
Read this
and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch
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