Election Complaints Are Fun...Especially When We Win.

I had a blast yesterday with the Ohio Election Commission. And while Bill Brownson may've just got off with two violations and no fines, the outcome of yesterday's Buckeye State Blog election complaint was encouraging enough for us to hire on Coop, BSB's new GOPer Hunter. He'll be keeping an eye out for future GOPer violations through '07, and going into '08.

So how'd things go?

Well, as I mentioned previously, the day before the hearing opposing counsel for Bill Brownson, Donal Brey of Chester Wilcox & Saxbe sandbagged me with his Answer and Motion To Dismiss. The documents were filed in the afternoon on the 22nd, and he "served" me via standard mail. I say "served" because I wasn't really served at all, the documents have to get to you to be served, and there was no way anything was going to get to me in less than 12 hours via the postal service. Luckily, I found out about the documents when I called the OEC on my own, and had them faxed over to me about 4pm that day (the hearing was the next morning at 10am). Wednesday night I stayed up till about 2:30am prepping my argument and creating a rough argument both against Brownson's Counsel's documents, and finding about 7 violations of the rules of procedure why his arguments shouldn't be admitted to the hearing.

The next morning I got up at about 6:30 and headed from Cleveland to Cbus (yea, four hours sleep thanks to the magic of the sandbag). Arriving at at the OEC on the sixth floor of the Wyandotte building on Broad Street, I saw a lot of familiar faces (and I even heard a whisper "Hey, BSB's here"). Jeff Ortega from Jennifer Brunner's office was present for one of their cases, I think I saw Don McTigue, a few folks from the AG's office, I met a random guy from DC that had a complaint against him....and...oh...Bill Todd.

As Mr. Todd walked by me, I stood up and said "Mr. Todd?" Turning, he gave me a quizzical look as I extended my hand and shook his, stating "Hi, name is Jerid....Jerid Kurtz." To which he replied, "ooohhhh....Jerid, I'm not the person you think I am!" To which I responded "Of course you're not. It's very nice to meet you." Todd indicated he'd love to sit down and talk with me sometime, I think that'd be great.

As the hearing began the room packed, and Donald Breyson - Browson's counsel - approached me and handed me a copy of the Answer and Motion he'd filed the day previously (I suppose that was being considerate?). There were about 30 or so cases on the docket, and Kurtz v. Brownson was the very first one. After being sworn in I gave my opening statement to the board, and ended with a request that they disregard Brownson's documentation from deliberations in the interests of fairness, and because it was in violation of about 7 quatrillion rules of procedure (service, timing, filing, etc.). The board responded that they took a "liberal" view of the rules, to which I reminded them I'd only had about 3 hours to review his documentation. Once again, they said they took a "liberal view" and I stated "no harm in asking."

Brey took the stand and presented several arguments on why the case should be thrown out. First he said that proper parties weren't listed (and truth be told, he was correct. I only brought suit against Brownson's counsel, but via those same rules that the OEC views liberally, I should've included Bronson and his Treasurer. However, I was prepared for this and ready to request the board amend the complaint sua sponte via their delegated powers to include these parties...but it never came to that). Secondly, Brey argued that Bill Brownson was not in violation of my allegation of a late filing of Treasurer because he had never spent funds as a candidate. This is where Brownson's legal argument got really "innovative."

The law that I alleged Brownson broke with the first violation says you can't recieve contributions, or make expenditures, prior to your filing of Treasurer. Bill bought his web domain on June 2nd, but didn't file his declaration of Treasurer till the 15th. In affect, Brownson's counsel argued that no one becomes a candidate until their petitions are certified, and that there's no law prohibiting regular citizens from using their funds as they see fit. It was an interesting argument, but if accepted it would've completely neutered all campaign finance laws on this topic out there because Brownson was essentially claiming you couldn't do a late filing of treasurer at all. Somehow Brey convinced the Staff attorney of the merit of this argument, but the board rejected it.

After Brey's argument, they afforded me a chance to respond, and then the board took questions for about 10 minutes. I've been told these hearing usually go very quickly, but our hearing was stretched out and very much a back and forth process. It felt like it went for at least 20 minutes, and at the end the board was arguing with itself over the merits. The final vote was 4-2 in favor of violation, while no fine was imposed because Brownson was a first time candidate and it was his first appearance before the OEC.

Honestly...dropping all spin and politics for just a second...it was a lot of fun for me. Drafting the complaint took time and research, but it was a real world application of all the stuff I learned through my first year of law school. Later when I got sandbagged, I had to pull up all that hazy knowledge of civil procedure and respond quickly. Then the hearing was much more active than I anticipated, and I got to argue and use my rhetorical skills. All in all, it was exciting. I had a really good time with it. Thanks to everyone out there that emailed congratulations my way yesterday, or blogged it - I appreciate it.

Coop will be hunting hard for future violations. So GOPers, keep your ducks in a row.