Jen to Ken: Give back that money
Jon Craig reports from Columbus:
Ken Blackwell doled out more than $80,000 in bonuses to 19 outgoing staff members after losing the November election.
His successor wants an investigation – and the state money returned.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, asked State Auditor Mary Taylor Thursday to determine if Blackwell broke state law when he awarded the bonuses. If Taylor, a Republican, rules against Blackwell, Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann could move to recover the money.
Blackwell, a Republican from Cincinnati, could not be reached for comment.
But Monty Lobb of Glendale, Blackwell’s former assistant secretary of state, said Brunner’s action “smacks of petty politics.’’
Read more here
1 Comments:
at 11:30 AM, June 01, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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Post a Comment*from Craig's article:
"Dann issued an opinion that bonuses paid mainly to departing staff members were not legal in that they::
Were not appropriate payment of compensation.
Were not appropriate severance payments.
Were not made through a lawfully-established bonus program.
Were not allowable fringe benefits."
The OH AG's opinion says a lot.
Blackwell has a multitude of problems that are coming back to haunt him besides this:
The US Attorney Scandal is widening and appears to point to GOP "caging" practices directed at people of color. Sound familiar? If not, think Blackwell directives and practices for the '04 election:
Fixing America's Broken Elections
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
February 08, 2005
My staff reviewed thousands of pages of primary source materials, including copies of actual ballots, voter registration databases, and poll books. They also met with several individuals having firsthand knowledge of irregularities. What they found indicated problems in multiple areas, from machine tampering and malfunction, to the intimidation and caging of minority voters in urban and rural areas, to the purposeful misallocation of voting machines and the unjustifiable restrictions that were placed on the use of provisional ballots.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/fixing_americas_broken_elections.php
GOP SUPPRESSION FLYERS
http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection/voter-suppression-flyers.html
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
February 08, 2005
My staff found substantial evidence, admitted by a Triad voting machine company employee—in public, videotaped testimony— that he developed documents and manipulated voting machines for the purposes of allowing county officials to forgo a legally required full hand recount of ballots. Other instances of inappropriate political advocacy by voting machine company officials are well known.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/fixing_americas_broken_elections.php
Ohio GOP Challenges 35,000 Voters
Saturday, October 23, 2004; Page A09
The Ohio Republican Party challenged the eligibility of 35,000 newly registered voters yesterday, an action that party officials said was unprecedented but necessary to prevent election fraud in a state where polls show President Bush and John F. Kerry in a statistical tie.
Most of the 35,000 voters live in urban, Democratic areas, party spokesman Jason Mauk said. Local party officials, joined by Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie at a news conference, said the voters were mainly registered by "shadowy" Democratic-leaning groups and were chosen after the GOP sent them mail that was returned as undeliverable.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55472-2004Oct22.html
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