Three strikes, but is she out?

U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt lost three Ohio Elections Commission complaints today -- two filed against her -- and one filed against her Republican primary opponent Bob McEwen.

They face each other in the 2nd Congressional District election on Tuesday. (See earlier blog item about Schmidt campaign manager Allen Freeman's complaint, which was dismissed.)

The bipartisan commission voted 7-0 to issue Schmidt and her congressional campaign committee a public reprimand for making false statements about having a second undergraduate degree. After hearing testimony from complainant James P. Urling of Norwood and a former teacher, Julie Faust of Milford, the commission found that Schmidt, R-Miami Township, failed to correct misinformation about a secondary education degree from the University of Cincinnati.

Schmidt's Columbus attorney, William Todd, said, "Yes, there was a mistake and the mistake was corrected.''

But the commission found that false reports that Schmidt had two degrees -- which appeared in government publications, voter guides, on her campaign Web site and in various newspaper articles -- were significant enough to affect the outcome of an election.

To underscore Schmidt's delay in correcting the errors, Urling's Hyde Park attorney, Christopher P. Finney, read portions of Schmidt's 68-page deposition in which she says "I don't know,'' "I'm not sure,'' "I can't answer that,'' or "I don't remember" at least 50 times.

The commission did not order any fines, or recommend prosecution, against Schmidt or her campaign.

In a separate complaint from Urling, the commission found that Schmidt made false statements by including endorsements she never received from Tom Tancredo, a Colorado congressman, and the Family Research Council on her Web site. But it also found no violation against Schmidt in that same complaint for publicizing that she had the endorsement of U.S. Rep Steve Chabot of Cincinnati. The elections commission agreed with testimony that Chabot endorsed both Schmidt and McEwen and would not ask her to remove his endorsement from her Web site.

Elections Commission member William L. Mallory Sr., a former state senator from Cincinnati, said the ultimate responsibility for anything that goes on in the campaign rests with the candidate.