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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Cleveland.com Editorial Board endorsed all three Democrats – Justice Jennifer Brunner, Judge Terri Jamison and Judge Marilyn Zayas – for the Ohio Supreme Court. 

The Cleveland.com editorials point to a robust record of Republican justices putting party interests over the rule of law, including the most egregious example of ruling in favor of clearly GOP-gerrymandered maps time and again from the bench. The Cleveland.com Editorial Board also took special care to point out the conflicts of interest that have been created by Pat DeWine’s refusal to recuse himself from cases involving his own father.

Ohio is the only state in the country with the opportunity to flip the Court from Republican to Democratic control. That’s especially noteworthy with so much on the line for Ohio in the coming months – from abortion rights to redistricting to rejecting extremism from statehouse Republicans. 

“Ohioans have an opportunity this year to reject the extremism of Republicans on the bench and put the Court back in the hands of judges like Jennifer Brunner, Terri Jamison and Marilyn Zayas who believe in the rule of law. For too long, we’ve seen the GOP-led court use the bench to play politics, and it’s time to restore integrity and justice back to the Supreme Court,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Read more from the Cleveland.com endorsement of Justice Jennifer Brunner HERE and below:

• Jennifer Brunner is the clear choice for chief justice.
• Brunner said her first instinct would be to try to restore cordiality simply by talking “with existing members of the court” about their ideas for moving forward.
• Brunner’s experience in a range of courts, from trial to appellate levels, and her managerial experience, make her the best-qualified candidate to lead Ohio’s judiciary in a collegial, constructive manner. Voters should elect Jennifer Brunner as chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court on the Nov. 8 ballot. Early voting begins Oct. 12.

Read more from the Cleveland.com endorsement of Judge Terri Jamison HERE and below:

• Appellate Judge Terri Jamison, 62, the Democrat seeking to unseat one-term Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat Fischer, can be emphatically described as living the American dream. In her early 20s, when most future judicial candidates were deciding which law school to attend, the West Virginia native was working in a coal mine – deep underground as an assistant roof bolter and then material loader.
• Several years and several jobs later, she enrolled in Columbus’ Franklin University while working for an insurance agency, graduated with honors, and in 2004, at age 45, received her law degree from Capital University. After seven years as a public defender and then defense attorney, she was elected a Franklin County Domestic Relations judge in 2012, then last year won election to the 10th Ohio District Court of Appeals. Now here she is, running for a seat on the state’s highest court.
• Jamison seems more than up for the job. She is thoughtful, collegial and in command of the issues, with a strong commitment to equal justice, an end to racial disparities and criminal and civil justice reforms. 
• Terri Jamison would be an asset to the state’s highest court. Ohio voters should elect her to the Ohio Supreme Court in the Jan. 1 term on Nov. 8. Early voting begins Oct. 12.

Read more from the Cleveland.com endorsement of Judge Marilyn Zayas HERE and below:

• However, there can be no wiggle room on first-term Justice Pat DeWine’s decision to violate judicial canons by refusing to recuse himself in redistricting cases involving his father, Gov. Mike DeWine, a member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission.
• Now, the voters can weigh in. And when they do, they should elect 1st Ohio District Court of Appeals Judge Marilyn Zayas, a Democrat, in place of DeWine, 54, who seeks a second term.
• Zayas, 57, an engineer, switched careers in the 1990s to apply her reasoning skills to the law. She displays a well-honed instinct for ferreting out errors — and injustices. And she (politely) dings DeWine for more than just his recusal error. Zayas says it was DeWine’s 2017 vote, as a brand-new justice, to reconsider two recent high court rulings in which he had heard none of the arguments himself that made her start thinking about a high-court run. “The only thing that changed” in those cases, she said — one involving juvenile due process protections and the other an accurate weighing of drug evidence — “was the composition of the Supreme Court.”

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Columbus, OH – In a press call Friday, Black and Jewish leaders condemned J.D. Vance for his antisemitic and racist views on abortion and his support for a national abortion ban. 

After spending months trying to avoid saying whether he would vote for a national abortion ban, J.D. Vance confirmed his support this week for federal legislation that would impose new cruel restrictions on women. And if J.D. Vance had his way, there would be no exceptions for rape and incest victims.  

Read more below:

Cleveland Jewish News: Weinstein: Vance’s antisemitic, racist abortion comment ‘dangerous’
Courtney Byrnes
September 23, 2022

• Ohio Rep. Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson, said JD Vance resorted to the “oldest trick in the book: antisemitic conspiracy theories” in recently reported remarks on the candidate’s abortion stance.
• The USA TODAY Ohio Network reported Sept. 15 that in a January interview on the What’s Left? podcast with Aimee Terese and Oliver Bateman, Vance, who is running for the Ohio State Senate seat against U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, referenced an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
• “Let’s say Roe v. Wade is overruled,” Vance said in the January interview. “Ohio bans abortion in 2022 – let’s say 2024. Then every day, George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. Of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity … If that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening because it’s really creepy? I’m pretty sympathetic to that, actually. Hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion and California and the Soroses of the world respect it.”
• Weinstein joined state Reps. Juanita Brent, Catherine Ingram, Terrence Upchurch and candidate Erika White Sept. 23 for a news conference in which they called Vance’s antisemitic and racist remarks dangerous and telling of who he is.
• “(The remarks) play into an old antisemitic trope that Jewish people are masterminds that are, in particular, rich and powerful, that are controlling world events behind the scenes,” Weinstein said during the conference. “It’s false, it’s gross and it has real world consequences, and it’s time to call him out on it.”
• He said the use of this antisemitic conspiracy theory was an attempt to distract from his “extreme” anti-abortion stance that does not support exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Weinstein also said the remarks show no respect for Jewish Ohioans and recalled the protests that took place outside his home in January.
• “I’ve both stood up to antisemitism before when I faced protests at my home, and JD Vance’s rhetoric is the exact kind of stuff that leads to these protests at my house on Sunday afternoons in front of my kids,” Weinstein said.
• Brent, president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus – the oldest Black caucus in the U.S., led the conference to address the antisemitic and racist remarks as well as the candidate’s abortion stance. She called Vance’s comments out of touch and not in tune with the needs of the community.
• “Instead of him fighting to make sure that everyone has access, he’s encouraging that it’s going to be OK that there are going to be barriers within the state of Ohio,” she said.
• Upchurch, D-Cleveland, shared his outrage over Vance’s spreading of racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories and past comments comparing abortion to slavery.
• “The issue is over women having control over their own bodies, and inventing new conspiracy theories to explain why you want to force survivors of rape and incest to give birth is just gross,” Upchurch said, mentioning recent reports of minors who were victims of rape traveling across state lines for an abortion.
• White, a Democratic candidate running against Derek Merrin to represent District 42, spoke about the divisive nature of Vance’s remarks.
• “As we talk about struggling to find health care that women need and even crossing state lines to do so, that should be an outrage and when anyone like JD Vance calls this an amazing victory, we should be outraged,” she said. “We should come together as Ohioans and realize that women and women’s voices should not be downplayed or made into conspiracy theories to separate us.”

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Watch a Video of the Exchange HERE

Columbus, OH — This week, Dave Yost sat down with Karen Kasler for an interview on The State of Ohio. When asked about his despicable stunt of going on national television to cast doubt on the story of a ten-year-old rape victim, Yost only doubled down, smugly telling Kasler, “I don’t understand what you think I need to apologize for.” 

A judge in Hamilton County earlier this month said that Dave Yost should apologize for his disgusting comments and Ohio Democrats have called on Yost to resign. Yost, mere hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, went to court to implement Ohio’s extreme six-week abortion ban that forced this young victim to have to travel to Indiana for an abortion in the first place.  

“Dave Yost asked what he needs to apologize for. That’s quite a list, but at the top of it is questioning the story of a 10-year-old rape victim on national television and implementing the law that forced her to flee to Indiana for critical healthcare in the first place. Yost’s initial comments were disgusting and the fact that he continues to double down is despicable. These latest comments from Yost are a good reminder of why we’re calling on him to resign,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes.

Read the full transcript of the exchange below and find the full video of the interview HERE: 

KASLER: I have to start by asking you about a story that Democrats, including the judge hearing the case involving Ohio’s six week abortion ban in Hamilton County, were saying that you should apologize for–the case of the 10-year-old rape victim who went to Indiana to get an abortion. To quote you for an appearance on Fox News quote, “Every day that goes by the more likely that this is a fabrication. I know the cops and prosecutors in the state. There’s not one of them that wouldn’t be turning over every rock looking for this guy and they would have charged him. I’m not saying it could not have happened. What I’m saying to you is there’s not – there is not a damn scintilla of evidence.” And you said shame on the Indianapolis paper who ran the story and you said they had an obvious ax to grind. There was an arrest in the case. You said quote, “We rejoice anytime a child rapist is taken off the streets,” but you did not apologize. Why didn’t you apologize?

YOST: Karen, I don’t understand what it is you think I need to apologize for. What in that was untrue or inaccurate at the time it said it. By the way, you conflated two separate interviews.

KASLER: Well, yeah, there was a Fox News interview and then there was the statement that you made afterwards, true. But the [YOST: The following day] impression is that you denied the existence of this 10-year-old girl when there are 10-year-old rape victims and as a prosecutor, you certainly know that.

YOST: Of course, I know that. The quote you just read didn’t say that nor did anything else in that interview. Which I brought, helpfully, a transcript for you. Nothing in here was untrue. Nothing in here- we didn’t even know the identity, and still don’t, of that poor victim. So you’re asking me to apologize for saying what was true when I said it? Respectfully, that’s not very fair. And you’re misreading my comments.

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Columbus Dispatch reported today that two  Republican Supreme Court Justices refused to acknowledge the results of the 2020 election. Instead, Sharon Kennedy refused to answer the question and all Pat Fischer could muster was: “I don’t know. I guess. He’s the president, isn’t he?” And Pat DeWine simply answered he had no reason to believe the 2020 election results weren’t legitimate.  

This all follows the justices’ appearance at a Trump rally Saturday where he repeated his false claims about the 2020 election being stolen. 

“Republican Supreme Court justices are clearly more beholden to MAGA Republicans and their political party than the rule of law. If these justices can’t muster the courage to acknowledge the truth out of fear of political retribution, they certainly can’t be trusted to rule fairly and impartially from the bench. Ohioans deserve better,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes. 

Read more from the Columbus Dispatch here and below: 

• The three Republican justices running for the Ohio Supreme Court acknowledge that Joe Biden is president but two of them sidestepped the question of whether the 2020 election results are legitimate.

• “Biden is the president. I’m not going to talk about the election. There are cases pending,” said Justice Sharon Kennedy, who is running against fellow Justice Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, for chief justice.

• “I don’t know. I guess. He’s the president, isn’t he?” said Justice Patrick Fischer. When asked if the 2020 election results are legitimate, Fischer said: “I don’t know if I’m allowed to take a position because I understand there is still some litigation… Under our ethics rules, I can’t talk about any pending cases in the United States or its territories.”

• Justice Pat DeWine acknowledged that Biden is president and when asked if the election results were legitimate, DeWine said he had no reason to believe otherwise.

• All three Republicans attended the Donald Trump rally in Youngstown on Saturday where the former president falsely claimed, again, that the 2020 election was rigged.

• Fischer is being challenged by 10th District Court Appeals Judge Terri Jamison, who says the 2020 election results are legitimate.

• “I made an oath to uphold the laws and the constitution, both federal and state. Despite the unlawful attempts to stop it, the nation’s presidential vote was certified by Congress and no court has found that process invalid,” Jamison said.

• DeWine, who is the governor’s eldest son, is being challenged by 1st District Court of Appeals Judge Marilyn Zayas, who agrees that Biden is president. “Each state certified its electoral results, the electoral votes were cast and counted, and President Biden received 306 votes, more than the required 270 electoral votes,” Zayas said.

• Brunner, a Democrat running for chief justice against Kennedy, said “The nation’s 2020 presidential vote was certified according to the rule of law by Congress, and no governmental body or court has found the 2020 presidential election to be invalid. I respect the rule of law as a justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.”

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