Primary delay case might go to high court
COLUMBUS – In the early hours of March 17, four Ohio Supreme Court justices rejected a last-ditch effort to keep the polls open for the state’s primary after Gov. Mike Dewine’s administration ordered them to close.
Rep. Tom Brinkman, R-mount Lookout, says the state’s top court owes Ohioans an explanation, and he’s taking his fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The day after the delayed primary, Brinkman asked the Ohio Supreme Court to explain why they ruled against keeping the polls open. He cited a 1912 amendment to the Ohio Constitution, which requires the Ohio Supreme Court to explain its decisions.
“They did this in the dark of night,” Brinkman said. “They can’t be above the law.”
Brinkman didn’t want the same four justices who ruled on the delayed primary to rule on his request for more details. The two Republicans and two Democrats had a conflict of interest, and other judges could be appointed to fill their spots temporarily, he argued in court filings.
But all four – Chief Justice Maureen O’connor and Justices Pat Fischer, Michael Donnelly and Melody Stewart – said there would be no conflict. In August, they dismissed Brinkman’s case.
Now, Brinkman is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on whether his due process rights were violated because he couldn’t get a “fair and impartial judicial panel.” He filed a petition for writ of certiorari, a request for the U.S. Supreme Court to take his case, on Monday.
“We were turned down from them doing the right thing,” Brinkman said. “This was our only recourse.”
Brinkman’s attorney, Curt Hartman, said the petition seeks to answer a question of fundamental fairness: Can a person be a judge in his or her own case?
Ohio Supreme Court spokeswoman
Anne Yeager said the court will review the filing and respond as appropriate. She declined to comment further on pending litigation.
The U.S. Supreme Court is selective in which cases it agrees to review, accepting between 100 and 150 of the more than 7,000 cases submitted each year. So the odds are against Brinkman.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on whether state supreme court judges should have recused themselves.
“We believe that the people of Ohio are entitled to an explanation as to why state law could be ignored when it came to conducting the election,” Hartman said. “It’s out of fairness, out of respect to the people of Ohio.”