(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Attorney General Dave Yost today asked the Ohio Supreme Court to throw out a filing by two members of the Ballot Board who lost a vote.
“If the losing members of a voting board can re-litigate their loss in court, we don’t have a democracy, we have government by judiciary,” Yost said. “A multi-member body speaks through its majority vote.”
Yost points out that the issue will still be decided by the court, but that the members of the board who did not prevail don’t get “a second bite at the apple.”
“Who else is entitled to re-litigate their losses after debate, hearing and vote?” Yost suggests in his request to the court. “Members of the General Assembly? All of them? What about members of City or Village Councils? Members of the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority? The county budget commission? The dissenting members of a public university board of trustees? Such a policy would destroy democratic institutions and the separation of powers by substituting the judiciary for all forms of government. This must not stand.”
As legal counsel for the Ballot Board, the Attorney General’s Office is defending the five-member board in a lawsuit challenging the recently approved ballot language for Issue 1, the proposed redistricting amendment headed for a vote in November. Citizens Not Politicians, the group behind Issue 1, brought the lawsuit against the Ballot Board.
Two days after the state filed its response to the suit, state Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson and state Rep. Terrence Upchurch – who voted against the ballot language – filed their own response to the lawsuit, one that directly conflicts with the state’s legal defense.
Today, Yost asked the Ohio Supreme Court to strike the rogue filing and requested a court opinion reaffirming a legal precedent: A public body can speak only through a majority vote, and members on the losing side of a vote, such as Hicks-Hudson and Upchurch, are not entitled to re-litigate their loss in court.
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Dominic Binkley: 614-728-4127
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