DIRTY TRICKS IN OHIO'S DRUG WAR

Gov. Bob Taft has violated state law in his effort to keep a drug-law
reform out of voters' hands, according to the Ohio Campaign for New Drug
Policies (OCNDP). A complaint with the Ohio Inspector General alleges Taft,
his wife Hope and the heads of two state agencies wrongly used their
official capacities and public funds to derail a ballot initiative.

OCNDP is working to place on the November ballot an initiative allowing
certain first- and second-time drug offenders to receive drug treatment
instead of prison terms. The initiative is similar to Proposition 36, which
California voters passed by a large margin in 2000.

To earn a ballot spot, OCNDP submitted a petition to the state attorney
general, who is responsible for verifying that the language on the petition
accurately represents the proposed amendment to the state constitution.

The attorney general normally issues verifications in less than three
weeks, often within days. For reasons never explained, the attorney general
spent nearly 11 weeks reviewing the OCNDP's straightforward 13-page summary.

Furthermore, the attorney general's office failed to follow its normal
procedure of notifying the applicant when a petition is approved. OCNDP
lawyers learned of the approval one week after the fact, while requesting
an explanation for the delay.

Former State Rep. Ed Orlett, manager of the OCNDP, says the group learned
of a fax communication from Domingo Herraiz, director of the Office of
Criminal Justice Services, derogatorily referring to the OCNDP's attorneys
and the ballot initiative. This fax, along with the unexplained delays at
the attorney general's office, led the OCNDP to believe there might have
been communication concerning the petition between the attorney general's
office and Taft staffers.

Opposition to a ballot initiative by private citizens or groups is a
healthy part of the democratic process. Public officials, however, are
prohibited from working against a ballot initiative, unless they do so as
private citizens -- on their own time, without using public funds or other
resources.

This prohibition flows from the Ohio Constitution, which guarantees the
right of all citizens to place initiatives on the ballot; and Ohio law,
which forbids public officials from using their office, employment or
authority to interfere with constitutional rights.

Suspecting the Taft administration might have been doing just that, the
OCNDP filed a public records request for all correspondence about the
ballot initiative. The group has compiled 200 pages of the resulting documents.

The collection of interoffice memos, e-mails, letters, reports and travel
vouchers provides strong evidence that members of the Taft administration
utilized public offices and spent public funds in an organized effort to
thwart the ballot initiative.

The most startling documents contain plans to not only campaign against the
initiative but to completely squelch it, denying Ohioans the right to vote
on the issue. Notes from a meeting of Herraiz's department list three
possible ways of defeating the initiative, one of which is to "defeat
signature campaign."

Strategic options outlined in the Ohio Drug Reform Handbook, a play book
compiled by the administration to defeat the initiative, include the
following entries: "Stop CNDP Initiative from Appearing on the Ballot ...
Work with AG (attorney general) and Secretary of State to Examine CNDP
Signatures."

It is the duty of the attorney general and the secretary of state to verify
petition signatures, but there is no legitimate reason for the
administration to "work with" these offices.

Whether the attorney general or secretary of state would ever have allowed
such illegal activity is unknown, but its inclusion in the administration's
play book is unsettling.

Also included is the option of meeting with Peter Lewis, the chairman of
Cleveland-based Progressive Insurance and a backer of the OCNDP initiative,
to "discourage CNDP filing its Ohio Drug Treatment Amendment Initiative."
This option was still in play one month later.

"Negotiate with Financial Supporters to Discourage Filing the Amendment,"
reads September 2001 meeting notes from the governor's office.

Asked whether public officials attempted to dissuade him from supporting
the initiative, Lewis declined comment.

According Ohio Department of Alchol and Drug Addiction Services director
Luceille Fleming, keeping the initiative off the ballot is the best option.

"The first line and best possible defense against the proposed
constitutional amendment is to keep it off the ballot," Fleming wrote in a
memo to Greg Moody, Taft's assistant for health and human services. "There
are a number of ways we can organize to address these targets."

On July 17, 2001, Fleming, Herraiz, Hope Taft and her chief of staff,
Marcie Seidel, met in Washington, D.C. with the Partnership for a Drug Free
America, a nonprofit organization that opposed Proposition 36. The purpose
of the meeting was to discuss strategies for defeating the OCNDP's initiative.

According to copious notes taken by Herraiz and Seidel, there was no
cursory analysis or research, which would have been both legal and
appropriate, into the ballot initiative or its impact. The July 17 meeting
notes, however, are full of media and public relations strategies: "Make it
appear as if everyone is against it... Attack the issues of Prop 36 that
are good from a proactive perspective... Alienate liberal voters from Prop
36 supporters... Play off the outsider perspective and the anti-California
votes."

It is readily apparent Ohio officials are developing a strategy to defeat a
citizen-sponsored ballot initiative. The group compiled a media to-do list:
"Anti-Prop 36 public service announcements ... develop a media blitz ...
use kids' stories ... keep soldiers in the field to monitor and attack the
mis-messages."

The Taft administration's campaign against the OCND was not only waged
during normal working hours and in public office space, it was also
directly funded by taxpayers -- which is prohibited by state law. Hope
Taft, her chief of staff and Fleming used public funds to fly to Washington
for the strategy session.

Hope Taft later hosted a meeting in Columbus with representatives from
Ohio, Michigan and Florida. Once again, the stated purpose of the meeting
was to defeat, not analyze, the ballot initiative and its equivalent in
Michigan and Florida. The Office of Criminal Justice Services, a state
agency, nevertheless paid all travel and lodging expenses for out-of-town
guests, as if the meeting were normal state business.

But none of this is normal state business. None of this represents, or even
resembles, the analysis of a ballot initiative. It is an organized campaign
to defeat a ballot initiative or, better yet, to keep Ohioans from seeing
it at all.

In addition to filing with the Inspector General's office, the OCNDP filed
a complaint about the use of public funds to wage the campaign. But State
Auditor Jim Petro found no evidence of wrongdoing. His analysis focused
solely on the state's right to research and analyze the initiative, while
painstakingly avoiding the glaring fact that no research or analysis took
place. Petro examines the right law but applies it to the wrong set of actions.

If, as Petro claims, the Taft administration did no wrong, then why were
Hope Taft's weekly "Prop 36" meetings changed to "SB 178" meetings
immediately after the OCNDP filed its records request? Senate Bill 178 is
similar in content to the OCNDP ballot initiative. As the Taft
administration knows, it is perfectly legal for them to fight a piece
legislation, but not a ballot initiative. Thus the name change.

The Taft administration has yet to be punished for interfering with the
composition of the November ballot and conspiring to obliterate a
constitutionally protected right.