ICYMI: Cleveland.com Editorial Board Endorses All Three Democratic Nominees for Ohio Supreme Court
September 26, 2022
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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