OHIO SUPREME COURT Bar association, groups create guide for voters

The groups' effort is designed to make voters more informed.
By JEFF ORTEGA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- Civic groups have teamed up with the Ohio State Bar Association and academics to create what they say is a nonpartisan voters guide to the four of seven seats up for grabs this November on the Ohio Supreme Court.
The League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund, Ohio Citizen Action and the Ohio Common Cause Education Fund joined forces with the bar association, the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at and the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy to create the voters' guide.
The Bliss Institute is affiliated with the University of Akron while the John Glenn Institute is affiliated with Ohio State University.
"It gives voters a tool. It makes them more informed," Citizen Action's Catherine Turcer said Monday.
About the guide
The guide, available on the Web site of the Next Steps forum for judicial reform, www.thenextsteps.org, as well as the Web sites of the LWV-Ohio and Ohio Citizen Action, features such information as campaign contacts, legal background and experience, an unedited campaign statement and OSBA ratings.
The LWV of Ohio's Web site is www.lwvohio.org, while the Ohio Citizen Action Web site is www.ohiocitizen.org. All of the affiliated groups are also distributing the guides to their members as well, officials said.
Guide creators say they chose to include an unedited candidate statement because they didn't want to filter information for voters.
"We want the voters to make their own decisions," said Linda Lalley, vice president of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.
Guide creators say they hope that guides such as theirs will allow voters to get the candidates' message so that candidates won't have to spend so much time and energy on raising campaign funds.
So far, two Republican candidates for the high court -- Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justice Terrence O'Donnell -- have raised more than $1 million for the campaign funds, according to the Ohio Secretary of State's Office.
Campaign fund balances
According to filings, Moyer's campaign fund has a balance on hand of $1.131 million. O'Donnell's campaign fund has a $1.096 million balance on hand with less than two months to go until the November General Election.
A third GOP high-court candidate, Judge Judith Ann Lanzinger of the Toledo-based 6th Ohio District Court of Appeals, has a campaign-fund balance on hand of $970,712, according to filings.
Republican Justice Paul E. Pfeifer is unopposed and has raised $98,678 for his campaign fund, according to the secretary of state's office.
Among Democratic candidates, Lanzinger's opponent, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst, has a balance on hand of $406,684 in her campaign fund, filings show.
C. Ellen Connally, the Democratic candidate who opposes Moyer, has about $72,000 in her campaign fund while Judge William O'Neill of the Warren-based 11th Ohio District Court of Appeals, a Democrat, has a little bit more than $25,400 for use in his race against O'Donnell.
According to news reports, O'Neill is accepting only minimal campaign contributions.