LaRose
File Photo | The Lima News
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday held that six Democratic candidates for various political offices can appear on the ballot in the rescheduled Aug. 2 primary election.
The court voted 4-3 to reverse Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s decision to disqualify potential candidates who did not file to run for their respective offices until the beginning of May. That came amid the state’s continued redistricting turmoil and well after the February deadline for the initial primary date of May 3 had already passed.
Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, joined Democratic justices Jennifer Brunner, Michael Donnelly and Melody Stewart in the opinion. The justices said that state law sets the deadline for candidates to file for primary elections at 90 days before the date of the primary election for candidates and 72 days for write-in candidates.
Because the primary was moved for Statehouse candidates to Aug. 2 over redistricting issues, the justices found that the candidates did meet the deadlines.
The court rejected the requests of Shay Hawkins, a Broadview Heights Republican, who sought the GOP nomination for Ohio House District 15, as well as Mehek Cooke, Columbus-area Republican running for a state legislature seat. He did not file to be placed on the ballot until June.
The court ruled in favor of Ohio Statehouse candidates William DeMora, Elizabeth Thien, Anita Somani and Leronda Jackson. It also ruled for state Democratic Party Central Committee candidates Bridgette Tupes and Gary Martin, who filed before the 90- and 72-day windows from the Aug. 2 date would have closed.
Justices Sharon Kennedy, Patrick DeWine and Patrick Fischer each authored dissents in which they said all candidates should have been rejected.
The decision comes a week after the state had already begun mailing out absentee ballots to military and overseas residents without the candidates’ names.
A LaRose spokesman said the office is still reviewing the opinion and declined to comment further.
The redistricting saga dates back to when voters in 2015 approved reforms to the way the state’s legislative maps are drawn every 10 years in an effort to curtail gerrymandering. The state’s redistricting commission submitted its first proposed maps in September 2021, and voting advocacy groups challenged the maps in court as violating the charter by unfairly favoring Republicans.
The Supreme Court invalidated the map in January, with the May 3rd primary deadline drawing near in February.
But as the deadline came and went, the commission continued proposing maps that the court’s majority rejected as unconstitutional. The districts continued to shift, and candidates were being drawn into different districts, leaving them uncertain where to file to run.
The state had to postpone the May 3 Statehouse election because there were no maps in place, and a set of Republican lawmakers asked a panel of federal judges to intervene. The federal court judges ordered the state to adopt the third map proposal that was ruled unconstitutional, and the state set the primary for Aug. 2.
Thien did not file to run in the primary by the February deadline because the Ohio Senate district she lived in under the second proposed set of maps did not have an election this year. But the third set of maps moved her to a different district with an open seat up for grabs this year, and she filed to run for the seat. DeMora was also moved to the same district from one with an incumbent senator.
Somani lived in the same Ohio House district as House Minority Leader Allison Russo under the second map proposal and did not seek to challenge her. The third map moved Russo to a different district and left Somani’s district without a declared candidate.
All three candidates, as well as Jackson, Tupes and Martin, filed petitions in May.
Hawkins initially filed to run in District 15 on time but withdrew his candidacy to run against Max Miller, a former staffer to former President Donald Trump, in U.S. District 13 after the district was redrawn. After Hawkins lost the GOP primary on May 3, he asked the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to reinstate his candidacy.
LaRose held that, when the candidates filed their petitions in early May, the Aug. 2 election date did not exist yet. That date was not in place until May 28, so when the candidates filed their petitions, there was no election day set. LaRose’s office argued in court filings that “a person cannot file a valid declaration of candidacy and petition for an election date that does not legally exist.”
He also reasoned that, because the Aug. 2 primary date was less than 90 days from the date it was set, the deadline had already technically passed so no new candidates could have filed.
He ordered all eight candidates to be left off the ballot.
The Supreme Court’s majority rejected that argument.
“By its plain language, the statute says that the filing deadline for partisan-primary candidates is 90 days before the primary,” the opinion said. “To read the statute to say that that deadline applies only to certain primaries, depending on when they are formally scheduled, we would have to add words to the statute. And it is settled that if the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, a court will apply the statute as written and will not add or delete words.”
