Thomas Suddes: Moyer not content to coast through final months in office

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By Thomas Suddes 4:34 PM Friday, November 27, 2009

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer faces mandatory retirement in 13 months. But Moyer, unlike the lazybones in the legislature, isn’t taking it easy.

The genial Columbus Republican, chief justice for 23 years, wants to re-do how Ohio elects its highest court.

The “appointive-elective” set-up Moyer wants would not end Ohio voters’ right to elect the seven-judge Supreme Court. But it would reduce voters’ choices. So the concept wins no applause in this corner. But it’s a good-faith plan, and it deserves fair consideration.

Moyer, with the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the Ohio State Bar Association, will firm up the specifics in 2010. But they’ve said that they’ll ask voters for something close to this:

When a Supreme Court vacancy opens up, the governor would pick a new justice from a list cleared by a screening or nominating commission. After the new justice served a couple years, he or she would face Ohio voters, but he or she would not have an opponent.

Rather, voters would decide whether to “retain” that justice. If they voted in his favor, the retained justice would periodically face more “retention” elections. If voters said “no” to keeping him on, that justice would leave the court, to be replaced by someone else picked from a list.

Moyer and his allies want to end donnybrook, one-on-one elections that call into question winners’ impartiality. That’s a worthy goal. But there are hurdles:

• In 1938 and 1987, Ohio voters trounced “merit-selection” plans for judges.

• Both times, advocates for merit selection got on the ballot through laborious petition drives — not via the General Assembly; the same would likely happen in 2010.

• Picking appointees by “merit” isn’t a science. Since 1983, governors have appointed the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio from a screened list. It’s hard to see how that’s been good for consumers.

• Foes of an “appointive-elective” Supreme Court will surely argue that the new system would “take away your right to vote.” In 2010 in Ohio, that could be a killer argument.

In 1938, 33.4 percent of voters supported merit selection; the idea didn’t win in a single county.

The 1987 plan got 35.4 percent of the votes cast, carrying eight counties: Montgomery and Greene counties; Lucas (Toledo); Allen (Lima); Belmont (St. Clairsville); Fulton (Wauseon); Shelby (Sidney); and Wood (Bowling Green).

Bottom line: Moyer doesn’t aim to spend his final year as chief in a La-Z-Boy.

A follow-up to last week’s column

Another officeholder who works hard is Sen. Dale Miller, a Cleveland Democrat. He e-mailed about last week’s column, which revealed a sweet federal tax break some General Assembly members can claim. According to Miller, the tax break can cut a legislator’s federal income tax, but not his or her Ohio income tax. I said the break reduced legislators’ Ohio tax obligations as well.

The income tax Ohioans pay Columbus is based on the amount of Adjusted Gross Income on a taxpayer’s federal income tax form, Miller said. The AGI is the amount of income reported before federal deductions. So, because the Ohio tax is based on the (pre-deductions) federal AGI, the Internal Revenue Code section 162 (h) tax break for state legislators “has no impact whatsoever” on an Ohio legislator’s state income tax, Miller said.

As for a federal tax benefit from section 162 (h), that’s limited by the Alternative Minimum Tax, which “increases my federal income tax liability significantly in most years,” Miller wrote.

That aside, he added, “The benefit of section 162 (h) on federal tax liability for (Ohio) legislators is very significant.”

Readers might care to ask their state legislators how significant.

Thomas Suddes is an adjunct assistant professor at Ohio University. Send e-mail to tsuddes@gmail.com.

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