COLUMBUS (TNS) — A state appeals court panel on Thursday threw out a legal challenge to House Speaker Jason Stephens control over the Ohio House Republicans’ campaign fund, as well as an injunction preventing him from spending money from the account.
The 3-0 ruling unravels a July legal win handed to Stephens’ rivals from within his own House Republican caucus. Some House Republicans have sought to undermine the Lawrence County lawmaker’s power since Democrats helped elect him speaker last year despite receiving votes from just a third of his GOP colleagues.
David Leland, a 10th District Court of Appeals judge and former Ohio Democratic Party chair, wrote in the court’s opinion that Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Mark Serrott erred by not dismissing the lawsuit outright, on the grounds that courts shouldn’t get involved in political questions.
Republican state Reps. Ron Ferguson of Jefferson County and Phil Plummer of Dayton, two of the plaintiffs in the OHRA lawsuit, each said Thursday that they intends to appeal Leland’s decision to the Ohio Supreme Court.
However, Ferguson portrayed the decision as a win for his side, noting that Serrott’s injunction resulted in Plummer now having control over at least one of OHRA’s bank accounts, as well as the keys to the group’s office in downtown Columbus.
Now, Stephens can’t ask a court to force his opponents to return that control, Ferguson said, as the whole point of Thursday’s appeals court ruling is that the judicial branch should stay out of the dispute.
Stephens, in a statement, said Leland’s ruling provides “certainty” and called on Republicans to come together to elect their party’s candidates up and down the ticket this fall.
“On to victory in November,” he stated.

Legislative campaign funds like OHRA have a number of advantages, including that individual campaign contribution limits are higher than the limits for contributions to individual candidates. Even more importantly, state lawmakers can transfer unlimited amounts of money from their individual campaign accounts to legislative campaign funds, which allows caucuses to amass millions of dollars that they can then dump into top-priority races.

OHRA had nearly $137,000 in its bank account as of April 26, according to its most recent campaign-finance filing. That amount, at last check, had shrunk to about $50,000 to $60,000, said Rob Tucker, the lawyer representing Stephens and the other defendants, during Friday’s hearing.

However, that was after OHRA shelled out millions of dollars on advertising to help incumbent House Republicans who faced opponents in the state’s March 19 primary election, including many of the 22 House Republicans who voted to elect Stephens speaker. Despite that spending, four pro-Stephens House Republicans lost their primary race.

Republicans currently hold 67 of 99 Ohio House seats. Under a redistricting map negotiated by Stephens last year, only a dozen or so of those House races this November are considered to be competitive.

Jeremy Pelzer covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

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