Marc Dann isn’t home free

COLUMBUS

A few thoughts following the latest chapter in the still-kicking Marc Dann saga:

Is there any remaining doubt that Dann, forced to resign following sexual harassments allegations against one of his hand-picked managers and the resulting scandal that brought to light his extramarital affair and questionable use of campaign and transition accounts, will face some kind of criminal charges?

Three of his underlings have already pleaded guilty to various counts uncovered by investigators, and all three, as part of their plea agreements, are cooperating with prosecutors.

The criminal complaints to which Leo Jennings and Edgar Simpson pleaded guilty in Columbus prompt an obvious question: What planet are these people living on?

Seriously, $21,000 from the Ohio Democratic Party for work done on the campaign? And a $1,000-plus commission for coming up with the wording on the inaugural ball invitations?

“There’s really no allegation that I didn’t earn the money, because I did,” Jennings told reporters after his court appearance. “Quite frankly, I’m good at what I do, and so I was paid for it.”

Nice work, if you can get it.

What the heck is going on with Substitute House Bill 5, the legislation that was prompted by the Dann scandal to limit transition accounts, which officeholders use to pay for inauguration parties and other expenses as they assume elected or appointed posts?

Unlike other campaign finances, candidates have not been required to disclose who donated to their transition accounts or how the funds were spent.

David Freel, executive director of the Ohio Ethics Commission, said Dann and some of his underlings used the transition account as a “personal piggy bank.”

“For a long time in Ohio, public officials in Ohio used the money that was given to them after their election to their first day of service to pay for expenses in between,” Freel said. “In this case, the transition account without any transparency, without any disclosure, was used ... to pay loans to Mr. Gutierrez, his commercial loans, to pay living costs for the two of them in their public service and for other payments that there was no ability of the public for you to know about.”

The legislation would continue to allow transition accounts for state officeholders. But it would cap individual donations, limit the use of those funds, require disclosure statements be filed with the secretary of state and require the accounts to be closed after 120 days.

The legislation is tied up as the House and Senate haggled over an amendment, added by the Senate, to stop statewide candidates from using issue-oriented campaigns and taxpayer funding to support their own candidacies.

It’s a shame that Dann will be remembered for the scandal that led to his early exit from office, rather than for some of the good things he did as attorney general.

“I wrote a speech that Marc gave at the City Club in 2007, two and a half years ago, where he laid out quite clearly that the nation was headed for very serious problems because the referees had been pulled out of the game as it relates to the big banks and the investment houses,” Jennings said. “Our office was the first in the country to file an action against a predatory lender. Our office was the first in the country to drag the ratings agencies in, to talk about their role in rating what were basically junk bonds based on bad mortgages as Triple A securities.”

He added, “I think one of the really unfortunate things is that the great work that was done in the office has been submerged beneath what’s happened at the personal level.”

Marc Kovac is The vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com; Twitter at Ohio Capital Blog.