Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com Look at previous State Supreme Court Notes on the website. Political Note $274 Jill Karofsky WI Supreme Court, Political Note #296 Ohio Supreme Court (John P O’Donnell and Jennifer L. Brunner), Political Note #302 MI Supreme Court (Bridget Mary McCormack and Elizabeth Welch), Political Note #443 North Carolina Supreme Court (Sam Erving IV and Lucy Noble Inman)
Jennifer Brunner. Marilyn Zayas Terri Jamison
February 6, 2022 Political Note #444 Ohio Supreme Court
2022 General election
In 2018, Ohio voters agreed to an amendment to the state constitution which revised the criteria for congressional redistricting. The vote was 74.89% to 25.11% — 1,178,468 to 395,088.
As a result of that vote, the Ohio constitution
- Had the following goals regarding redistricting: Avoid unduly favoring one political party, keep communities together within districts, and make districts compact
- Have a redistricting commission create proposed redistricting plans
- Involve the public in the redistricting by publishing proposed redistricting plans and conduct public hearings for comment on those plans.
- Adopt redistricting plans for ten years if there is sufficient full legislative support and minority party support on the redistricting commission and in the legislature. Otherwise, the map is in effect for four years.
In 2021, the Ohio legislature took the four-year route and was sued. In January 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the proposed redistricting plan was unconstitutional; that it unduly favored the Republicans. Ohio’s political mix, based on past elections, is 54% Republican, 46% Democratic. The four-year map would yield a much higher percentage of Republican members of Congress. The Ohio Redistricting Commission is required to create new maps.
The Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling did not exactly reflect its partisan composition. Ohio has a seven member Supreme Court:
- Jennifer Brunner is a Democrat who is not up for election until 2026. If she were reelected, because she is now 64, she would be required to retire in 2027. Brunner is a former Ohio Secretary of State.
- Sharon Kennedy is a Republican who is not up for election until 2026. If she were reelected, she would not be subject to mandatory retirement until 2032. Before she went to law school she was a police officer. After law school she represented police.
- Melody Stewart is a Democrat who is not up for election until 2024. If she were reelected, she would not be subject to mandatory retirement until 2032. Stewart is a former Dean and Law professor.
- Michael Donnelly is a Democrat who is not up for election until 2024. If he were reelected, he would not be subject to mandatory retirement until 2036. Donnelly is a former prosecutor.
- Pat DeWine is a Republican and the son of the Governor. He is a Republican up for election in 2022. If he were to continue to be reelected, he would not be subject to mandatory retirement until 2038. He was a city councilor and county commissioner.
- Patrick Fisher is a Republican up for election in 2022. If he were reelected he would be subject to mandatory retirement in 2028. He is a former president of the Cincinnati Bar Association.
- Maureen O’Connor would be a Republican up for election in 2022 except that she must retire by the end of 2022. She is a former Ohio Lt. Governor. She was the Republican Justice who voted with the Democratic Justices to create a 4-3 vote finding that the Congressional redistricting was unconstitutional.
The Ohio Supreme Court, then, is 4-3 Republican, with three Republican seats up for election in 2022. It gets more complicated.
The Chief Justice position is voted on separately. Jennifer Brunner https://www.justicebrunner.com is running for that office as is Sharon Kennedy. The loser will remain on the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice. The winner, of course, becomes Chief Justice. Her seat becomes vacate and the governor appoints a replacement.
Pat DeWine is running for reelection. His Democratic opponent is Marilyn Zayas https://judgemarilynzayas.com, a judge of the 1st District (Cincinnati) Court of Appeals. Patrick Fisher is running for reelection. His opponent is Terri Jamison https://www.votejudgejamison.com, a judge of the 10th District (Franklin County or Columbus) Court of Appeals.
If Jennifer Brunner were to be elected Chief Justice, Sharon Kennedy would remain on the Court and Governor Mike DeWine would replace Jennifer Brunner with a Republican. Of the five seats, excluding the other two up for election, the court would be 3-2 Democratic. Democrats would need to win one of the other two seats up for election for the Court to have a 4-3 Democratic majority.
If Sharon Kennedy were to be elected Chief Justice, Jennifer Brunner would remain on the court and Governor Mike DeWine would replace Sharon Kennedy with a Republican. Of the five seats excluding the other two up for election, the court would be 3-2 Democratic. Democrats would need to win one of the other two seats up for election to have a 4-3 majority.
Let’s take a look at these candidates for Ohio’s Supreme Court. I will be asking you to donate to these candidates. In our world, we have judges whose reasoning brings them to a decision we think is harmful. We also have judges who simply want a result that we think is harmful. We can oppose judges of either sort.
We are not being simply partisan in seeking to elect judges whose views will create fairer elections, greater opportunities or more liberty for those who are currently limited. Consider who you would prefer making important judicial decisions for one of the country’s great states and support that candidate. In the case of the Chief Justice, consider who you would prefer overseeing that state’s judicial system and leading its highest court.
Jennifer Brunner https://www.justicebrunner.com for Chief Justice of Ohio’s Supreme Court.
A 1978 graduate of Miami (OH) University with a 1982 JD from Capital University in Columbus, her career has always had a political element. She began her work in Sherrod Brown’s Secretary of State office as the legislative counsel to the General Assembly. In private practice after Brown left for Congress, two qualities stand out to me reviewing that part of her career.
- She had a particular interest in fair elections. She sued candidates for false claims in their political advertising, represented Democrats in a redistricting battle in 1990 and the AFL-CIO in 1995 regarding election rule changes.
- She was willing to represent unpopular clients – lawn care chemical companies, bars and entertainment companies, an X-rated site condemned to make way for a MacDonald’s and so on.
Jennifer Brunner was elected Secretary of State in 2006. She defended a same day registration law successfully and successfully opposed the McCain presidential campaign that complained of the Secretary of State’s implementation of the Help America Vote Act. She had additional tangles regarding voting procedures which she lost. She created a Voting Rights Institute to support additional voting and received a Profiles in Courage Award in 2008 for her efforts on behalf of voters, particularly for her efforts to ensure the availability of paper ballots in elections.
In 2014, after losing a primary in 2010 for the US Senate, Jennifer Brunnerhttps://www.justicebrunner.com was elected to Ohio’s 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2020, she was elected to the Ohio Supreme Court. She is now running to be Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court against fellow Associate Justice Sharon Kennedy.
Sharon Kennedy graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1984 with a degree in social work. For four years, she worked for the police in Hamilton, Ohio, her home town. After law school, also at Cincinnati, she was in private practice primarily represent police and police organizations.
Democratic Associate Justice candidates
People have made an argument that the United States Supreme Court is too elite, too much oriented toward the most high profile law schools. Currently, the count for Law Degrees at the US Supreme Court is: 5 Yale, 3 Harvard, 1 Notre Dame. The Ohio Supreme is nothing like that. Only one of its Justices as a Harvard degree. The two Democratic Associate Justice candidates are truly voices for the democratization of the courts. They are women who came from low income backgrounds, women who came late to law school, women who could be considered elite only for their accomplishments.
Marilyn Zayas https://judgemarilynzayas.com to be an Associate Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court
She came to Ohio in 1988 to work for Proctor and Gamble – not as an attorney, but as an IT manager. She was born in East Harlem in New York City, won a spot at the exam school Brooklyn Tech, and then got her BA from New York City’s City College. She stayed at P&G for six years and then went to the University of Cincinnati Law School.
Marilyn Zayas founded her own firm, practiced in state and federal trial and appeals courts, and in such varied areas as business, family, immigration, and labor law. She became known for her ability to deal with complex cases and won a variety of awards and honors including the U of C’s Nicholas Longworth III Alumni Achievement Award, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Women’s National Convention Service and Commitment Award and the YWCA Career Women of Achievement Award.
Marilyn Zayas https://judgemarilynzayas.com is running against Pat DeWine, son of Ohio’s governor. A graduate of Miami (OH) university and, in 1994, the University of Michigan Law School, he was elected in 1999 (coming in sixth out of nine electable spots in a field of 26) to Cincinnati’s City Council. He was reelected, coming in 2nd in the voting, and reelected again coming in sixth. He resigned to take a position on the County Council, ran for Congress and placed fourth in the primary. He was elected to the County Court of Common Pleas in 2008, to the 1st District Court of Appeals in 2012, and to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2016. He considered running for Chief Justice, but withdrew from that race to run for reelection instead.
Terri Jamison https://www.votejudgejamison.com to be an Associate Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court
She came to Columbus from Welch, West Virginia. There she had worked for the welfare department coordinating CETA day care providers and investigating eligibility and fraud. She left that job to work as a coal miner, one of the very few women and even fewer Black women to do that work. She got laid off from that job and left for Columbus, Ohio where she got trained, through CETA for other work including work in technology. Terri Jamison always found work.
Terri Jamison worked for Xerox and then for the Online Computer Library Center. She worked for Nationwide Insurance and became an office manager for a State Farm Insurance Agency. Then she opened her own agency affiliated with Nationwide.
Terri Jamison would not stop. She went to school – Columbus State Community College. And then to a four-year online non-profit college – Franklin University. She finished her degree and, after sixteen years in the insurance business, sold her agency. With the money from the sale of her agency, Terri Jamison went to law school – Capital University – the same law school that Jennifer Brunner went to. She did internships and externships and got a job in the County Court of Common Pleas. That led to a job as a hearing officer for the Unemployment Compensation Review Commission.
Terri Jamison had become a kind of a judge. In 2012, she ran for election to be a judge in the County Court of Common Pleas. She took what she learned and in 2014, linked unemployed people who owed child support to job opportunities. Terri Jamison became a speaker – at high school and college commencements, at national conventions and on panels discussing social justice. She writes columns for the local African-American newspaper and her work and life has been featured in two documentaries. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus joined her for the premiere of one of those documentaries.
Terri Jamison https://www.votejudgejamison.com was reelected in 2018 by a 60-40 margin. She was awarded an honorary degree from Franklin University. The regional chapter of the National Association of Social Workers named her the Elected Official of the year. Election to the Ohio Supreme Court would be an extraordinary honor. You should make a donation toward her election to the Court.
Terri Jamison’s opponent is Patrick Fisher who has an undergraduate and a law degree from Harvard. He was a partner at Keating Muething & Klekamp until he was appointed to the Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals in 2010. Prior to that his only political effort was a failed candidacy for city council in 2007. He was reelected to the Court of Appeals in 2012, and then elected to the state Supreme Court in 2016. While on the Supreme Court, he voted to reject a challenge to Ohio’s death penalty law. He is seeking reelection.
2022 State Supreme Court Elections
Alabama 2 seats Partisan Election November
Arkansas 3 seats Non-Partisan March
Georgia 1 seat Non-Partisan May
Idaho 2 seats Non-Partisan May
Illinois 2 seats Partisan November
Kentucky 3 seats Non-Partisan November
Louisiana 1 seat Partisan December
Michigan 2 seats Non-Partisan November
Minnesota 1 seat Non-Partisan November
Montana 2 seats Non-Partisan November
North Carolina 2 seats Partisan November
North Dakota 1 seat Non-Partisan November
Ohio 3 seats Non-Partisan November
Oregon 1 seat Non-Partisan November
Pennsylvania 1 seat Partisan November
Tennessee 3 seats Partisan November
Texas 5 seats Partisan November
Washington 2 seats Non-Partisan November
State Supreme Court Retention Votes
Alaska 1 seat November
Arizona 3 seats November
California 3 seats November
Colorado 1 seat November
Florida 3 seats November
Indiana 1 seat November
Kansas 5 seats November
Maryland 1 seat November
Missouri 1 seat November
Nebraska 4 seats November
Oklahoma 3 seats November
South Dakota 3 seats November
Utah 1 seat November
Wyoming 1 seat November
