Memo To Jack: The Right Thing

The ethics case against University of Akron trustee and Summit County Board of Elections chairman Jack Morrison is over, at least the first round. There will be appeals of his misdemeanor conviction relating to the sale of a building by his son but this argument isn't about the law, it centers on perception.

Politics is an odd game. Substance often doesn't matter, but perception can be everything. Think of the great managers perceived as incompetent boobs, or the smiling hand-shakers who barely understand the words someone else writes for them. The history of politics is full of 'em.

In the case of Jack Morrison and his continued service to the University of Akron as well as the Summit County Board of Elections, the perception is now everything. The name of the board members themselves -- trustees -- invokes the image of men and women serving the public interest, entrusted with our full confidence to do the right thing.

In this case, the right thing to do is for Jack Morrison to step down from his position as a Trustee of the University of Akron. He should consider doing the same from the Board of Elections.

Summit County, like any other collection of government agencies, has a history of leaders snared in ethical lapses. Party affiliation doesn't matter; ideology isn't a defense.

Remember a few years ago; Summit County Elections Board member Wayne Jones was caught in a scheme using false records to hide a smear campaign targeting County Probate Judge Bill Spicer. At that time, then-Secretary of State Ken Blackwell suspended Jones for six months from his position on the BOE but did not remove Jones, even though the hardball political strategy went to the very heart of rules and regulations governing the elections process Jones was entrusted to uphold and support.

Blackwell later argued it wasn't up to him to impose a political "death penalty" on Jones. Blackwell's take was it was our job to clean up our local problem. But the perception and admission by Jones was enough for him to find a solution where Jones would pay a price for his transgression. Jones served his suspension, returned to lead his party and even serves on the Board of Elections -- even as chairman last year.

Fast forward a few years, when it was GOP leader Alex Arshinkoff's time in the box. Now-Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner removed him from the Board of Elections, largely on the folder of evidence provided by Jones. Consisting mostly of newspaper articles targeting Arshinkoff as obstructionist, the Secretary of State ordered Arshinkoff's removal. No law broken, no regulation ignored -- the perception and how it impacted the reality of the Board of Elections was enough to pull the trigger.

While other actions by Brunner were later reversed on appeal by the Ohio Supreme Court*, Arshinkoff continues to guide his side of the debate, including a triumph over his harshest critics when challenged for leadership of the Summit County Republican Party.

Now we have the situation of a sitting trustee and a guardian of the very foundation of our democratic process convicted of two ethics misdemeanors. Morrison's lawyers argue his appeal, on legal grounds that insider knowledge which benefited his son and ultimately himself as shown by forgiving a loan.

That's the legal argument. This is the political: does the University of Akron and Summit County deserve better than splitting hairs over the perception of "here we go again" behavior by individuals charged with rising above the rest of the pack?

We see this play out on Wall Street. Million-dollar bonuses awarded the captains of sinking business ships draws continued outrage, and more anger at a system which doesn't seem capable of checking itself. We note it from Washington, where the same politicians serving oversight on financial and housing institutions also belly up to the trough of VIP-club mortgage deals and campaign funding paid for by the architects of the wave of real estate greed responsible for plunging the strongest economy on the globe into crisis. We see it in ourselves, even as we cry for leadership that accepts responsibility for their actions but remain in power because we won't vote.

Apathy wins because we perceive our voices and votes don't matter.

Jack Morrison has given much to our community; his years of service on behalf of the GOP on the Board of Elections has been spirited. While his opponents may not have appreciated his strategies, he has been an able public servant.

The University of Akron is a much better institution because of the leadership and dedication shown by trustees such as Morrison, and the community is well-served by individuals who pay their own way forward with their time, passion and hard work to keep the wheels turning.

But passion to serve the public doesn't trump conviction of ethical lapses. Summit County has a next generation of leaders on both sides of the political aisle capable of carrying forward the work to be done.

Just as local and statewide political institutions have survived scandal in the past, so will not only Jack Morrison and his family but the University of Akron and Board of Elections without him under a cloud.

The right thing is respecting the business of the people, and understanding that perception matters.

*Editor's note: to clarify, the Supreme Court decision involved the appointment of Brian Daley by the Summit County Republican Party to replace Arshinkoff. Daley's appointment was challenged as well but the state's high court ruled the appointment was the local party's to make, removing Brunner's appointee Don Varian from the Board of Elections.

Well, I Swear!

We're posting some of the segments available from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's videotaped deposition in the Summit County GOP lawsuit challenging her decision to boot Alex Arshinkoff from the Board of Elections -- and, as reported, local Democrat boss Wayne Jones figures prominently.

This is old news to folks following at home on this blog, our reporting on AkronNewsNow.com, the Akron Beacon Journal and Eric Mansfield's reporting on WKYC (as well as his own blog) in what is becoming the best thing since Lost for local political junkies but now the actual video chunks are available.

As detailed earlier, Summit County Democrat Finance Chairman Jones figures prominently not only in the decision making process Brunner used to depose Arshinkoff and deny the Republican Party their hand-picked replacement (Brian Daley of Hudson) but also her choice to pick Bath Township attorney Don Varian to represent the local GOP on the Board of Elections. Jones, for his part, is unapologetic about his efforts to get Arshinkoff and Daley blacklisted -- even telling reporter Tina Kaufmann he'd like to see Arshinkoff and rival Kevin Coughlin "kill each other" in their ongoing struggle for control of the local party apparatus.

What will be interesting to watch is the feedback Brunner gets from all of this; after all, her Republican predecessor Ken Blackwell only suspended Jones from serving on the Board of Elections a few years ago after a ham-handed attempt by Jones and friends to use a trumped-up political committee operating out of a Cuyahoga Falls post office box to buy media time. Now one would think that kind of thing would be enough to trigger more questions from a Secretary of State looking into the conduct of the contentious Summit County Board of Elections -- one might even opine that the political infighting on Grant Street would be enough to trigger a sweep 'em all out mentality similar to Brunner's call to replace the entire Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, but this time apparently only the GOP gets that level of scrutiny.

A GOP source who claims to have discussed the suspension at the time tells me Blackwell didn't want to impose the ultimate sanction on Jones because he felt that would be overstepping his bounds over the wishes of local political organizations charged with electing their own representatives to serve on the board. Despite the frequent criticism Blackwell earned while in the state's top Elections Office, it bears noting he did understand more about due process than what Brunner's office apparently felt was necessary before giving long-time Jones rival Arshinkoff the boot and blowing off Daley's selection as irrelevant without as much as an open hearing for both to address and rebut the charges contained in the package of clippings hand-carried to her office by a subordinate.

This may very well have unintended consequences: Arshinkoff is getting exactly the kind of support he needs because he's now under the gun of what appears to be unfair and partisan administration of executive power from Columbus. Brunner is now forced to openly testify she doesn't need to define what "competent" is after applying the tar and feathers to two duly-elected representatives of the opposite party. Jones comes off looking like a brute, something even the most rough-and-tumble political leader should try to avoid when running roughshod over his rivals.

These things have a way of stacking the deck and refocusing the debate on the process, not necessarily the substance of any discussion on whether Arshinkoff and Daley are fit to serve. The central questions Jones wanted answered seem to be lost in the swirl of Roman Empire-esque intrigue worthy of Nero without the wine and fiddling.

More From The Mud Pits...

A clarification and update this evening on the route the "anonymous" material targeting Alex Arshinkoff took from the law offices of Wayne Jones in Akron to the Columbus offices of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

Brunner's videotaped deposition was released today on DVD; at over a gig of data it is unlikely we will post the entire piece but we are working on pulling excerpts.

An update on our report last Friday: the Secretary's man in Summit County is James Hardy. He was deposed last week and noted he dropped off the envelope after picking it up from the Jones office at Roetzel and Andress. In an email today, Hardy (also an Akron School Board member) offers additional insight and a correction to our report:

"One correction: I knew the package was about Arshinkoff, I just didn't read it. And I didn't read it on purpose. Craig probably heard me wrong and I don't blame him, when he called me I was still a little flustered from my deposition. I don't normally get deposed everyday.

But I knew as soon as I got in the car to go to Wayne's office that this probably had to do with Alex. But, it's my job to send information up and send information down the food chain, and that's what I did in this situation. But I didn't want you to read my deposition and say, "Hey, James said he didn't know the package was about Alex?"

In fact, I did the same thing for Alex a couple months before. Alex was having a hard time getting Senator Coughlin's campaign finance reports from our office and so I received a phone call from Angela McMillen, the Ex. Director of the Summit GOP, and asked if I could meet her for lunch. I did, and was more than happy to get the bureaucracy working for them so they could get the info they wanted. They were very happy with my services then (I still have the emails praising me), but I doubt they feel the same way now:)"

James added his own emoticon at the end; he's always been a straight shooter since we first met just ahead of his race for the school board. It's good to see he still has a sense of humour, even after going through the deposition mill.

I've gotten other interesting responses to this story, not all in the form to share (I'm always amazed by how some have such a dominating command of at least four letters of the English language) but would like to add at no time have I ever claimed there was any law broken. In fact, my previous post on playing hardball deals with the political strategies, not any legal liability. I don't believe there's anything illegal about using the shadows of "anonymous" to plant a pitchfork in the back of one's political rivals. I do think the folks doing the pitching, however, should face the consequences when people find out what they've done.

Does this mean Alex is a lock to retain his post as Chairman of the Summit County GOP? The conventional wisdom must be that any interference from the opposition such as Wayne's actions ought to help, especially in an environment where it pays to be paranoid. Critics of Arshinkoff's rule offer a grudging admiration of how this plays to his advantage, telling me they marvel at his ability to re-focus the debate away from their questions and attacks on his performance.

What is interesting is the political junkies here in Summit County are getting a rare, more open look at the kind of back-stabbing that goes on as the players in the game pitch hardball; it's the world we pretend is the poison of Washington politics right here at home.

Pigs In Mud

The phrase "play hardball" isn't just about America's unique game; it denotes the winner-take-all mentality and whatever it takes to win mindset we voters love in our sports teams but say we don't want from our elected leaders -- but the results speak differently.

Supporters of Presidential candidates employ a constant mantra of apologies and resignation for ill-tempered, foolish outbursts designed to grab 20 seconds of air time; the candidates themselves play political pinball evading denunciation of the nonsense that erupts from the lips of friends and family, trying not to give aid to their enemies while spanking the exuberance of their allies.

A powerful state's Governor fades into exile after investigators of money-laundering hit the mother lode of sex, money and power -- even to the point of wiretapping the bedroom and phone calls of lovers. We've learned nothing from the kill 'em all impeachment pain of ten years ago. Everyone loses, but the powers-that-be continue to think as long as they lose less they win.

The latest chapter in the Summit County "Elephant Wars" battle between Alex Arshinkoff and Kevin Coughlin has now officially turned into a three-ring circus; a menage a trois of local political heavyweights that now includes Democrat Party boss Wayne Jones, thanks to his behind-the-scenes no-longer "anonymous" sniping at Arshinkoff. Both AkronNewsNow.com and the Akron Beacon Journal have provided quite a chronicle of the spectacle, a not normally seen view of what happens behind closed doors on an unfortunately fairly routine basis.

I was reminded of all this when going over some of our recent coverage, of all things, from Winter Haven and the Indians getting ready for the 2008 campaign. Manager Eric Wedge -- now with two children, a Manager of the Year award tucked in his belt and that oh-so-close season last year says he tells his players the game "Isn't your life; it's not your wife."

This is not to say Wedge doesn't want to win; it's pretty apparent he wants to bring that World Series gold to fans and a community spending far too much time as the butt of jokes from outsiders. It is a reflection of a man who's come to terms with the things that really matter in life and the journey it takes to get there. Former Indians third baseman and now Mahoning Valley Scrappers Manager Travis Fryman tells a similar tale of how the game almost destroyed his marriage, his family, and the life he worked so hard to build. Only when he realized the destructive power of such single-minded pursuit was he able to turn things around and save the people closest to him.

I admire Wedge, Fryman, and the entire Indians organization for their pursuit of a championship while keeping an eye on the core values they believe will get them to the promised land. The mindset clearly filters from the top office to the players, even down to the folks who keep the machinery of baseball's business rolling in the background, away from our view.

What does it say about Summit County's level of discourse when the whispering campaigns of political abuse, campaign shenanigans and even sexual preference (and that brush doesn't just paint one side, I must add) leak out as "evidence" placed in "anonymous" Manila folders hand-delivered by a state employee from a party boss's law office to the state official? When Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, ultimately charged with determining what "competent" means, can hold such "evidence" in higher regard without the due process of holding hearings in the open before tossing aside the wishes of the citizens who elected their duly-appointed representatives?

This entire case speaks of Gulag-type kangaroo courts employed by Soviet-style tyrants; should Ohio's business of managing elections and political parties really come down to which side does a better job of Khmer Rouge-style slash and burn attacks or is our expectation that, once elected, our public officials do the people's business with dignity and responsibility without the stench of the partisanship that got them to the dance? At what point do the bricks really start flying toward the glass houses these holders of our public trust live behind, and do we as an electorate really want to see that kind of game? When it's our game being played don't we hold the way it is conducted as high as the results?

"It's not your life; it's not your wife," says a leader of men we cheer for to bring honor and a championship back to Northeast Ohio in a game designed for boys. There have been enough attempts, especially in the past nine months, to use sleazy, shadowy attacks behind the curtain of "anonymous" as if that somehow make the attackers clean in Summit County's game designed by old men.

It doesn't.

Wayne's World, Party On!

In my last blog I asked if Jennifer Brunner was hiding anything with repeated attempts to block making her deposition in the Summit County GOP's lawsuit against her public -- the answer is, maybe she should have.

This is not exactly a pretty sight; the Democrat Ohio Secretary of State explaining the advice she was getting from the Summit County Democratic Party finance boss on how to blow out the Republican Party Chairman from the local board of elections. This could turn into a real mess and a real headache for Brunner, who to date as managed to avoid the uber partisan label that helped tag Ken Blackwell into a think-tank gig rather than the Governor's Mansion. The transcript reads less than favorable; when the video gets out it'll be worse, especially as fodder for the next statewide election when Brunner will have to better explain why four Republicans were bad enough elections officials in Ohio's 88 counties but no Democrats?

Our story details just some of the issues arising from the transcript of Brunner's deposition, as well as a key part of the story which had been missing: who dropped off the "mystery package" from Mr. Anonymous that led so quickly to Arshinkoff's unseating? It now appears it was Brunner's man in Akron, local school board member James Hardy, who told us he did indeed deliver a package (he says he didn't know what was inside) from Wayne Jones to the Secretary of State's office in Columbus. From law office to Elections Officer, hand-delivery; great service if you can get it, and in this case local Democrats targeting local Republicans got the gold standard.

The most honest individuals in this case of a political knife-fight are the two who all of this really centers around: Arshinkoff says they're trying to ruin him (they are) and Jones proudly says yes he did want his bitter rival out and even hopes Arshinkoff and GOP challenger Kevin Coughlin "kill each other" in their fight for control of the Summit Republican Party.

This latest round of blasting away may have some unintended consequences; for Brunner, it casts a shadow on her ability to remain impartial and above the fray. For Arshinkoff, it may be just the ticket to alert Republican Central Committee members that the barbarians at the gate should be turned away and in turn his leadership retained at the top of the local party. This strengthens his charges that putting him in the cross hairs has been nothing but a Jones-inspired scheme to hold real control over both parties.

There's an old adage: if it waddles like a duck, smells like a duck and sounds like a duck, it's a duck.

Quack.

Is She Hiding Something?

The ruling yesterday by the Ohio Supreme Court denying the third bid by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to slip out of having her decision yanking Alex Arshinkoff off the Summit County Board of Elections speaks volumes -- even though the state's top elections officer wants to remain remarkably quiet.

The latest is the videotaped deposition by the Secretary where she has to answer questions from her detractors, namely Arshinkoff and the Summit County GOP on just what led her to take the unique position of removing him from the Board. Just what in particular did he do to warrant this action? Arshinkoff has many detractors, most objecting to what they say is his heavy-handed use of power (or abuse of power depending on your perspective) but any decision to tell any local party their choice can't serve must be followed up by a clear, public disclosure of what the issues were.

Arshinkoff, no stranger to the machinations of hardball politics given his history of trying to build patronage jobs loyal to GOP office holders, says his woes lie at the feet of nemesis Wayne Jones (also no stranger, one must add, to hardball politics) and the alleged conspiracy of state Democrat and local Democrat banding together to control Summit County's Republican Party.

Now I'm not saying Arshinkoff is right; but I am a firm believer in the observation that"...just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you." Does it strike anyone, honestly, as a stretch to think that Jones and other Democrat power-brokers would take advantage of more friendly ears in Columbus to rid themselves of a more-often-than-not over-the-top pain in the neck like Alex? From a political power building perspective, it absolutely makes sense they would work hard to minimize their opponent's impact and power base and clear the way for their slate of candidates (and issues and cronies) to do better at the ballot box and in the halls of government. That's not corruption; it's politics, played by adults who fully understand the stakes involved and what it may take to win.

Hopefully, now that the Ohio Supreme Court has decided yet again that sunshine pokes it's rays even into the Secretary of State's decisions, we'll get an honest and clear review of just what's in that file that caused Brunner to pull the trigger on Arshinkoff and the party's properly-elected representative to replace him.

Questions we'd like to see answered:

• Just what did she say in her deposition? We'd like to hear and see ourselves, not only the tape but a transcript as well;
• What role did local Democrats and State Senator Kevin Coughlin's camp play in desposing Alex from his empire, if any? They are clearly stakeholders in this fight -- Democrats in ridding themselves of a bitter rival, the New Republicans to benefit from Arshinkoff's diminished stature;
• Does that anti-Alex file include letters from Arshinkoff critics speaking for themselves or does it resemble more a Google search of newspaper articles? Example: should an opposite-party Secretary of State really base such a decision on the controversial Free Times article alleging trolling in Highland Square, or was her investigation more substantive than a collection of clippings?

The honeymoon on Brunner should be long past on forcing the process out in the open, much as it was when she explained her reasoning for replacing the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. In that case, she was able to make a clear and compelling case that their mismanagment put the state's largest block of voters at a disadvantage and hurt the system we need the most confidence in; but in the Arshinkoff case using as an excuse an abrasive and sometimes abusive personality should require more than just saying he's a jerk and other elected officials don't like him.

Can anyone imagine Republican Ken Blackwell getting away with removing duly-elected Democrat local party representatives from local political boards because they weren't liked? Just how long would those howls of indignation have lasted?