On February 5, the U.S. District Court that is handling Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, s.d., 2:13cv-953, got closer to a final decision on the last issue to be decided. That last issue is whether Ohio applied a campaign finance law in a discriminatory manner in 2014, when for the first time it kept a candidate off the ballot because the circulators didn’t fill out a blank form on the petition, telling who their employer was. The law had never before kept anything off the ballot, whether a ballot measure or a candidate. But in 2014, it was used to keep the only Libertarian running for Governor off the Libertarian primary ballot. That kept the party from having any gubernatorial nominee in 2014, and that insured it went off the ballot, because the only way it could stay on was by polling 2% for Governor.

The February 5 activity in the case was an order denying sanctions against attorneys representing the side of the case in opposition to the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party had requested sanctions, because some of those attorneys and witnesses had made it so difficult for the truth to be revealed about who was paying legal bills to keep the party’s candidate off the ballot. Although the Court did not impose sanctions, it said, “The overall conduct of discovery in this case, especially on the part of Mr. Felsoci’s and Mr. Casey’s counsel, demonstrates a pattern of technical and begrudging responses and objections to discovery requests, which pattern was clearly designed to delay or obstruct the Plaintiffs’ ability to learn that the Ohio Republican Party was involved in the effort to keep Libertarian Party candidates off the ballot…should these particular attorneys or parties come before the Court in future cases, the history of their conduct here will strongly influence the Court’s approach to discovery, including sanctions.”