In 2014, Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich was running for re-election. His campaign spent $592,000 on legal bills in a successful effort to keep the Libertarian Party from having a gubernatorial candidate on the ballot. The Kasich campaign did not report these payments in its campaign finance reports. The Libertarian gubernatorial candidate, Charlie Earl, filed a complaint against the Ohio Election Commission, but the Commission refused to act. Last year, Earl sued the Ohio Commission for its inaction. But on February 29, the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas said that the Commission has discretion on which complaints to act on, and that if the Commission doesn’t want to act, courts may not interfere. See this story. Earl may appeal. The case is Earl v Ohio Election Commission, 15-cv-5973, Franklin County.
UPDATE: on March 3, Earl filed a notice of appeal, so that the State Court of Appeals will hear the case.
Since Kasich is now campaigning for Republican Presidential nomination, it would be nice if some reporter or some person at a candidate forum asked him about this campaign “shenanigan” of his.
It wouldn’t look good for him and more importantly would bring at least a little bit of attention to major party efforts to thwart third party and independent candidate opposition.