Taylor's Blackwell's Keeper

Yet another development in the Taylor saga...it looks like she may be pulling more than 1 page from the Blackwell Guide To Partisan Governance.

"Dear State Auditor Taylor:

The purpose of this letter is to follow up our earlier conversations wherein I requested a complete financial audit of the Ohio Secretary of State's office. You and I had discussed the possibility of a performance audit, but you recommended that our work in transition is accomplishing what a performance audit would with respect to a complete review of the operations of the office. With all due respect to your current workload and other and previous commitments, I am asking you to complete this audit within ninety (90) days if at all possible and pledge to you the prompt cooperation of my office for information you may need to complete this process."

You'll recall the Secretary has had issues in the SoS office because of Blackwell's Kringel-like doling out of $80,000 in bonuses, refusal to provide transition support, $200,000+ unpaid legal bills, and all around jerk behavior. Now it looks like Mary Taylor might be fighting to protect Blackwell by creating obstacles to an audit that could determine exactly how poorly Blackwell operated his office. Seems to me like a pretty big risk to take just to protect Blackwell, but hey, when you're the GOP standard bearer you've got to swallow a few for the team.

Check out the full Brunner letter here (courtesy Gongwer).