Last year, an Ohio Republican Party activist agreed to pay an attorney $250,000 for the attorney’s work in keeping the Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate off the ballot. The Republican activist, Terry Casey, is a state employee. He promised to pay the legal bills for the carpenter who challenged the Libertarian gubernatorial candidate’s petition to get on the primary ballot. No one could legally have brought that challenge except a member of the Libertarian Party, but the carpenter was deemed to be a Libertarian because he had voted in the 2012 Libertarian primary.

Ohio election law does not permit campaign contributions to gubernatorial candidates in excess of $10,000. On April 15, the Ohio Libertarian 2014 gubernatorial candidate filed this complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission. The complaint charges that the Kasich campaign accepted the in-kind contribution of $250,000, in violation of the law, and therefore should be subject to the penalty, which is triple the amount of the excess donation.

The Ohio Elections Commission is composed of 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans, and one independent.