Litigation

OH Chief Justice Personally Pitched Fundraiser

By Peter Hardin

Chief Justice Eric Brown, newly named as Ohio’s top jurist, has made a personal telephone pitch inviting people to attend a campaign fundraiser.

For judicial candidates, “direct solicitation and receipt of campaign contributions is prohibited under the state?s judicial code of conduct,” according to a Dayton Daily News article. Justice Brown is a Democrat, and the Ohio Republican Party released an audio recording of his making a solicitation call, the Associated Press reported.

An Ohio Republican Party spokesman said the GOP was weighing whether to file a disciplinary complaint.

An adviser to the Brown campaign said the candidate did not break the rules. He was encouraging attendance, not asking directly for campaign contributions, the adviser said.

The fundraising event had a suggested donation of $1,000 and was headlined by Gov. Ted Strickland, who recently appointed the new chief justice after the death of then-Chief Justice Thomas Moyer.

Justice at Stake has supported reforms that insulate judges from political pressures and having to raise campaign money in judicial elections.

“No one who goes to court wants to know that their judge is trapped in a money chase, dialing for dollars,” explained JAS executive director Bert Brandenburg in a March statement, discussing legislation for public funding of state Supreme Court elections in West Virginia.

Meanwhile, a Columbus Dispatch article reported that Justice Brown “has nearly 3,900 ‘friends’ on the social-networking website Facebook, including more than a few lawyers who may try cases in front of Brown’s court.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on May 25, 2010 (boomark / email).