BLACKWELL DECISION
Candidate kept off ballot over GOP ties
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Robert Vitale and Mark Niquette
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

A former Republican primary challenger can't run
against U.S. Rep. Deborah
Pryce as an independent candidate this fall,
Secretary of State J. Kenneth
Blackwell ruled yesterday.

Charles R. Morrison II, a conservative businessman
who Republicans feared
would steer votes away from Pryce in an already
tight race against Democrat
Mary Jo Kilroy, doesn't meet Ohio's requirements for
independents because of
his GOP ties, Blackwell said.

Blackwell's ruling broke a party-line tie last month
among the four members
of the Franklin County Board of Elections.
Republican leaders from Franklin,
Madison and Union counties had asked the board to
declare Morrison
ineligible as an independent candidate because of
his links to the GOP.

Blackwell's ruling runs counter to one that he
benefited from in 1984 when
he was a candidate for Congress. He filed that year
to run as a Republican,
even though he voted as a Democrat in the 1980
primary election.

The Hamilton County Board of Elections tied on
whether Blackwell could run,
and Democrat Sherrod Brown, the secretary of state
at the time, ruled in
Blackwell's favor, allowing him on the ballot for a
primary race that he
lost.

Blackwell also certified Robert Fitrakis as an
independent candidate for
governor this year, even though elections records
show that Fitrakis, like
Morrison, voted in the Republican primary the day
after filing as an
independent. No one has challenged Fitrakis'
candidacy.

The ruling late yesterday from Blackwell, the
Republican nominee for
governor in the Nov. 7 election, immediately brought
accusations of
partisanship from Morrison and Democrats.

"It's a shame that democracy was denied to Charles
Morrison by Ken Blackwell
and the Republican Party," Kilroy said in a written
statement.

"He's lost my respect," said Morrison, who said he
voted for Blackwell in
the May 2 primary, contributed to his candidacy and
asked to be his campaign
chairman in Madison County.

That, according to Blackwell, was the problem.

Ohio law requires independent candidates to have no
affiliation with a
political party, and the GOP chairmen who protested
Morrison's candidacy
said he had plenty.

The day after he submitted his nomination papers as
an independent, Morrison
voted in the primary as a Republican. He also was on
the ballot that day as
a candidate for the state and Madison County GOP
central committees.

Morrison circulated his petitions for Congress and
the party offices
simultaneously.

"The facts show that Mr. Morrison was never truly
independent at any point
relevant to this matter," Assistant Secretary of
State Monty Lobb wrote
yesterday to Matthew Damschroder, Franklin County's
elections director

Damschroder said the elections board considers the
matter closed.

Morrison said he plans to challenge Blackwell's
ruling in court, although he
hasn't decided which one. Blackwell spokesman James
Lee argued that the
circumstances are different in Morrison's case.
Blackwell filed to run as a
Republican four years after voting as a Democrat -
his wife was a 1980
delegate for President Jimmy Carter - while Morrison
filed to run as an
independent May 1 and the next day voted as a
Republican, Lee said.

Blackwell also was a co-chairman in Hamilton County
(with Jerry Springer)
for Democrat Richard F. Celeste's unsuccessful 1978
gubernatorial campaign.

Donald J. McTigue, a Democrat who was assistant
elections counsel in the
secretary of state's office under Brown, argued that
the facts weigh more in
favor of placing Morrison on the ballot than they
did for Blackwell in 1984.

That's because Blackwell was allowed to run despite
a law clearly
prohibiting it, McTigue said. Brown ruled in
Blackwell's favor on grounds
that federal courts had deemed the law
unconstitutional.

In Morrison's case, the law governing independent
candidates is ambiguous,
McTigue said. He argued that a person doesn't become
a candidate until he or
she is certified, so when Morrison sought to be
certified as an
independent - even after voting in the primary as a
Republican - that could
under current law be considered adequate.

Morrison, 56, owner of American LED-gible Inc., a
Far West Side business
that manufactures electronic and LED signs, said
yesterday that if he's kept
off the fall ballot, he will encourage conservatives
in the 15 th
congressional district to vote for Kilroy.

Pryce's campaign stayed out of the fight over
Morrison's candidacy but
welcomed Blackwell's ruling.

"We're delighted to be able to concentrate our
resources, our effort on Mary
Jo Kilroy," spokesman George Rasley said. "Anything
that distracted or
diluted that message was unhelpful."

Dispatch Senior Editor Joe Hallett contributed to
this story.

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