Ohio Republican Party fumbles in its first elections complaint against Ed FitzGerald

[BlueToTheBone]

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2013/09/ohio_republican_party_fumbles.html

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Republicans have hit a snag in their effort to draw more scrutiny to a contribution to Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald's campaign for governor.

Matt Borges, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, told reporters Monday that the party was filing a complaint against FitzGerald with the Ohio Elections Commission. But Philip Richter, the commission's executive director and staff attorney, said the party's complaint was rejected because it did not accuse the Democrat of violating a specific section of Ohio Revised Code. State law requires such specificity.

"The reference included in the complaint was to an administrative code provision," Richter said Tuesday. "The commission is limited to hearing things in our jurisdiction."
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Jerid Kurtz, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, brushed off the initial complaint as an attempt to distract from JobsOhio, the privatized state development agency that Kasich pushed to create and that FitzGerald criticized at a Monday news conference.
"Gov. Kasich's lackeys were so desperate to distract from the scandal at JobsOhio, they didn't even allege FitzGerald did anything wrong," Kurtz said in an email Tuesday afternoon. "This do-over is just another sign of a panicking campaign."