Clipped this out of today's PD - sounds like they've been taking lessons from Tom Delay.
Hagan told to drop suit over contracts, or else
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Sandy Theis
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus
-- Ohio's attorney general sent a not-so-subtle message to Democrat Tim Hagan: Drop your corruption case against Ohio Republicans or we'll come after you.
Hagan, the Democrats' unsuccessful 2002 candidate for governor, offered a counterproposal: He'll withdraw the lawsuit -- if Republicans pass a law banning the use of no-bid state contracts.
Although a complete ban is unlikely, some reforms are under review, said House Republican spokeswoman Karen Tabor.
"With or without the lawsuit, procurement reform is something we're looking into," she said.
Contracts that are not competitively bid are at the heart of Hagan's case.
The lawsuit, filed in August 2004, contends that Gov. Bob Taft, Attorney General Jim Petro and other Republican officeholders awarded billions of dollars in unbid contracts to vendors who artificially inflated their prices to cover contributions they kicked back to GOP political funds.
In a Nov. 18 letter to Hagan's lawyer, Ken Seminatore, Ohio's Senior Deputy Attorney General Arthur Marziale warned that the state "will seek sanctions, including attorney fees and costs." He called the case "frivolous, unsupported and libelous."
On Nov. 11, a private law firm representing two nonelected officials issued a similar warning.
Hagan called the letters "matters of great concern."
"I'm not a person of personal wealth," he told The Plain Dealer in an interview Monday. "If I had money to burn, I wouldn't blink from the intimidation. At the very least, they have my attention."
Republicans griped about the case from the beginning, but began to turn up the heat after Visiting Judge Joseph R. Kainrad's ruling Sept. 30 that denied their motion to dismiss the case. The ruling allowed Seminatore to begin issuing subpoenas.
Christopher Fairman, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, said it's too early to tell whether the case is frivolous, but added, "The fact that the judge allowed the case to proceed signals that he thought there might be something there."
Lawyers and their clients can be sanctioned and assessed legal fees if a judge determines they did not have a good-faith basis to pursue the case, Fairman said.
Seminatore declined to comment on the specifics of the evidence he has gathered, other than to say, "I believe that it's cumulative and consistent" with the political shenanigans already referenced in the initial complaint.
The 41-page filing alleges -- among other things -- that GOP county committees laundered contributions from lawyers who received unbid special-counsel contracts to candidates for attorney general. The practice allowed the lawyers to indirectly give more than the maximum $1,000 allowed and still remain eligible for state legal work, according to the lawsuit.
Petro has benefited from such a system.
Campaign finance reports show that on Jan. 31, 2002, the Clark County Republican Party's state candidates fund received $6,500 from Columbus lawyers hired by the attorney general to perform unbid state legal work. On the same day the money flowed into Clark County, the county sent $6,500 to Petro's campaign, draining the account of all but $1.39.
At the time, Petro and the donors defended the payments, saying they were legal and properly disclosed. Legislators have since banned the type of county accounts that were used.
