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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > September > 24 > Entry
Editorial: Murky law in Husted case needs to be fixed
Anybody reading Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s 12-page decision about state Sen. Jon Husted’s residency is likely to conclude that one problem here is the law. The law is a mess.
Secretary Brunner, a Democrat, was obliged to send the Montgomery County Board of Elections her views on whether Sen. Husted, R-Kettering, should be allowed to vote in Kettering, or whether he must be considered a resident of Franklin County.
The local board had deadlocked on the issue twice, 2-2, along political party lines. The secretary of state breaks ties. The Ohio Supreme Court recently gave Secretary Brunner seven days to make her decision, criticizing her for taking too long.
This point cannot be made too often:
The issue here is not whether Sen. Husted can represent Kettering (and many other Dayton suburbs) in the Senate, but only whether he can vote in Kettering. The question is loaded with political freight for a candidate for secretary of state, as Sen. Husted is. (Secretary Brunner is running for the Democratic nomination to replace George Voinovich in the U.S. Senate.)
At bottom, this is a story about an appropriately ambitious young man who went to Columbus as a legislator, successfully sought to be speaker of the House and married a Columbus woman. Under those circumstances, the fact that he spent little time in Dayton is pardonable.
But the law must be confronted.
The mess:
Republicans on the county elections board point to a law that says that when a person “enters the employment of the state, the place where such person resided at the time … shall be considered” the place of residence.
They also point to a passage that says that when a person leaves the state to serve the state, that person shall not lose his or her residency. Sen. Husted hasn’t left the state, but the spirit of that law might be seen as protecting him.
Meanwhile, though, the Democrats on the board cite a law that says that the “place where the family of a married person resides shall be considered to be the person’s place of residence” for voting purposes. That place, in the Husted case, is clearly Franklin County.
Beyond all that, several passages in the law focus on a person’s “intention of returning” as the determining factor for deciding a voting address. Sen. Husted insists he intends to return to Kettering.
And yet he is running for statewide office. And his family seems to have no ties to Kettering.
Secretary Brunner does not mention his candidacy in her decision. But she does make the point about his family in the context of a discussion of intent.
Relying mostly on the law about where spouses live, Secretary Brunner ruled Sen. Husted is a resident of the Columbus area. She says she didn’t want to rule against him, that the last thing she wants to do is deprive a person of his voting registration. But, she says, the law is the law.
Sen. Husted responded to her decision saying, “This is another partisan, political decision that is typical of Jennifer Brunner.”
Sen. Husted’s real enemy here is the law, because it does give comfort to his critics, and because it’s ambiguous. He should help fix it, either as a senator or secretary of state.
Secretary Brunner says she hopes the Supreme Court, to which Sen. Husted has appealed, will issue guidance as to which laws trump which. Failing that, she says, the Legislature should clarify things.
Somebody needs to.
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