Subject: article

Blackwell wins when he rejects Libertarian bid
Monday, December 08, 2003



STEVE STEPHENS

With Republicans spending tax dollars like drunken
sailors - or sober 
Democrats - Ohio no longer has a small-government
party.

And it won't have one on the November ballot, thanks
to Secretary of 
State J. Kenneth Blackwell.

He rejected 57,000 petition signatures last week
that had been 
collected by the Libertarian Party, which desires a
government about 
the size and cost of a two-car garage. (The Supreme
Court meets in 
one bay, the legislature in the other, and the
governor paints the 
place every couple of years.)

The petition would have put the Libertarians on the
Ohio ballot in 
2004, which would have given them momentum and a
good shot at ballot 
access in 2006, said Dena Lynn Bruedigam, vice
chairwoman of the 
state party and a member of the Libertarian National
Committee.

The politician who might benefit the most from no
Libertarians on the 
ballot? Blackwell.

He is positioning himself to run as a tax cutter and
champion of 
smaller government in the 2006 Republican
gubernatorial primary. And 
he's leading a petition drive to repeal the state's
recently enacted 
sales-tax increase.

With no Libertarian on the ballot, he stands to pick
up the 2 percent 
or 3 percent of Ohio voters who might have signed up
with the third 
party.

But that's coincidence, Blackwell spokesman Carlo
LoParo said.

Blackwell had no alternative but to trash the
petition, LoParo said.

The Libertarians' error: using essentially the same
petition they 
used to get on the ballot in 2000.

Those forms state, "The penalty for election
falsification is 
imprisonment for not more than six months or a fine
of not more than 
$1,000 or both."

But, LoParo said, election laws changed last year.
The new petition 
should have replaced the old language with the
warning: "Whoever 
commits election falsification is guilty of a felony
of the fifth 
degree."

I doubt that any of the 57,000 Ohioans who signed
the Libertarians' 
petition would have been dissuaded by the change.
But that's not 
Blackwell's concern, LoParo said. "This is not a
discretionary 
decision. We're strictly bound by law."

Had Blackwell any choice, he surely would have
allowed the 
Libertarians on the ballot, LoParo said. "When there
is ambiguity in 
the law, we always lean toward putting the
individual or party on the 
ballot."

Blackwell apparently had a choice in a ballot
controversy earlier 
this year. Despite some problems on the petition for
Republican 
Columbus City Council candidates, he didn't
invalidate it.

Denny White, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party,
said that move 
was "purely a political decision."

And when Attorney General Jim Petro - another likely
Republican 
candidate for governor - ruled that language on
Blackwell's tax-cut 
petition "was not fair and truthful," the secretary
of state cried 
foul. Petro's objections were political, Blackwell
said.

Petro, who took three weeks to verify some
signatures and complete a 
legal analysis of the petition language, was
stalling, Blackwell said 
in statewide radio ads.

However, Blackwell took nearly a month to rule on
the Libertarians' 
petition, Bruedigam noted.

"We think he checked the petition, hoping we didn't
have enough" 
valid signatures, she said. "When that didn't work,
he looked for 
another reason" to throw it out.

"Apparently when Libertarians are involved,
Blackwell is by the book. 
When Republicans are involved, he lightens up a
little bit."

The state and national Libertarian parties spent
more than $50,000 on 
the petition drive, Bruedigam said. That's chicken
feed to the big 
parties but a blow to Ohio Libertarians.

Libertarians, though they receive few votes, can
certainly affect the 
outcome of close races. In the 2000 election for
Franklin County 
commissioner, Libertarian Jeff Wolfe pulled in
17,000 votes, far more 
than the difference separating the winner, Democrat
Mary Jo Kilroy, 
from Republican Bill Schuck. Schuck blamed Wolfe for
his defeat.

No doubt the Libertarians' small successes in 2000
did not go 
unnoticed by other Republicans, including the
secretary of state.

Steve Stephens is a Dispatch Metro columnist. He can
be reached at 
614-461-5201 or by e-mail.

sstephens@dispatch.com 

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