Ohio Democrats vote to boot Dann from the party

By HOWARD WILKINSON

Dorothy McLaughlin of Struthers was the only executive committee member to vote no.

COLUMBUS — Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, mired in a sex scandal and resisting attempts to force his resignation, was booted out of the Ohio Democratic Party.

The party executive committee, in a biennial meeting Saturday morning at the Columbus Convention Center, approved a resolution saying that the state party “no longer recognizes Marc Dann as an endorsed Democratic statewide officeholder.”

It was a voice vote, with more than 100 executive committee members voting in favor of the resolution and one lone member – a Democratic state central committeewoman from the Mahoning Valley – voting no.

“What it means is that he can call himself an unaffiliated Democrat if he wants, but he is no longer a member of this party,” said state Rep. Chris Redfern, the Catawba Island Democrat who is chairman of the state party.

The 46-year-old attorney general, elected in the Democratic statewide sweep of 2006, was not at the executive committee meeting Saturday Redfern said earlier that Dann would not be allowed to speak at the Saturday afternoon state party convention if he showed up.

Dann could not be reached to comment Saturday.

Dann admitted 10 days ago to an extramarital affair with a subordinate. Three of his top aides were forced out of office in a sexual harassment case.

The firings and the admission by Dann prompted a letter to Dann last Sunday from Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Redfern and other party leaders telling Dann to resign or risk having Ohio House Democrats introduce a resolution for his impeachment.

Ohio House Minority Leader Joyce Beatty — who voted for Saturday’s resolution — is working on a draft impeachment resolution.

Dorothy McLaughlin of Struthers was the only executive committee member to vote no on the resolution Saturday.

“Nobody here can tell me exactly what it is he has done wrong as attorney general,” said McLaughlin, a retired sheriff’s deputy. “Show me something he has done to us.”

After the executive committee meeting, Redfern said that while party leaders still want him to resign, the action of the party does not preclude him running for re-election in 2010 if he decides to stay on and is not impeached and removed from office.

“Of course, he could run in a Democratic primary,” Redfern said, “but he will get no help from the party and he wouldn’t be the endorsed candidate.”

Subodh Chandra, the former Cleveland law director who ran against Dann in the 2006 Democratic primary, did not attend the session where Dann was expelled from the party, but came to the convention center for the state convention session.

During the 2006 primary campaign, Chandra questioned Dann’s competence as a lawyer and said the Mahoning County Democrat was not ready to be attorney general — something Dann admitted in his news conference May 2.

Chandra said he would not gloat over Dann’s situation.