Josh Mandel
Age: 37
Party: Republican
Hometown: Beachwood
Education: Ohio State University bachelor’s degree; Case Western Reserve University law degree
Political & Military Experience: United States Marine Corps Reserve veteran, staff sergeant; Lyndhurst City Councilman; Ohio House; Ohio Treasurer since January 2011.
Connie Pillich
Age: 54
Party: Democrat
Hometown: Cincinnati
Education: University of Oklahoma bachelor’s degree, University of North Dakota master’s in business administration, University of Cincinnati law degree
Political & Military Experience: United States Air Force veteran, captain rank; state representative since January 2009
SPECIAL ELECTION SERIES
Starting Monday with a look at the candidates for Ohio’s attorney general, we kicked off a series taking an in-depth look at candidates running in November for statewide offices. Look in the newspaper this week for stories on the following races:
* Ohio Auditor
* Ohio Secretary of State
In the Oct. 5 and Oct. 12 papers, we profiled Ohio Gov. John Kasich and his Democratic challenger Ed FitzGerald. If you missed those stories or Monday's preview of the attorney general race, you can read them and learn more about the candidates in our voters guide at vote.daytondailynews.com
ONLINE ELECTION GUIDE
Compare the state treasurer candidates on issues such as taxes, protecting the state's money and more in our interactive voters guide. Also, learn more about other candidates and issues on the ballot at vote.daytondailynews.com
Democrat Connie Pillich wants to take a page from Republican Mary Taylor’s playbook and pull off the improbable: win a low-profile down ticket race when the top of the ticket is weak and the political tide seems to be against her.
In 2006, Taylor, a certified public accountant now lieutenant governor, was the only Republican to win a non-judicial statewide office when she was elected auditor. This year Pillich, a state representative from Cincinnati, is challenging incumbent Republican Treasurer Josh Mandel.
Mandel has the power of incumbency and a fundraising advantage over Pillich, as well as the name identification that comes from being on the statewide ballot three times in four years.
Pillich and Mandel served together in the Ohio House and are both military veterans. Both are married, have two children and hold law degrees.
And they both want to lead an office that has been plagued by scandals – big and small – over the past decade. During Republican Joe Deters administration, his chief of staff Matt Borges, who now chairs the Ohio Republican Party, was convicted of ethics violations. Democrat Richard Cordray returned a $10,000 in campaign contributions from relatives of bond broker Montford Will, whose firm received business from the Cordray administration.
More recently, during Democrat Kevin Boyce’s administration, deputy treasurer Amer Ahmad masterminded a scheme that netted his high school friend $3.2 million in trading commissions and routed $523,000 in kickbacks to Ahmad and his co-conspirators. Ahmad, who escaped to Pakistan, is scheduled to be sentenced in absentia just after Election Day.
Mandel said he inoculated the office against Ahmad-like problems by hiring a talented and trustworthy staff.
But Mandel had his own brush with scandal involving Canton businessman Benjamin Suarez, who bundled $100,000 in campaign contributions to Mandel’s bid for U.S. Senate in 2010. Those donations came shortly after Mandel sent letters on treasurer letterhead to officials in California advocating Suarez’ business interests there. Suarez was convicted of obstruction of justice but acquitted on other federal charges. He is scheduled for sentencing just after Election Day.
Mandel’s response to the Suarez case is: “Our office didn’t do anything wrong.”
Josh Mandel
Mandel grew up in a close-knit family in suburban Cleveland, near his grandparents, two of whom were Holocaust survivors.
“My grandfather Joe was always big on hard work – very hard work ethic,” Mandel said. “And he was always big on people being able to defend themselves. He felt that in Europe he and his family were not able to defend themselves. He lost both his parents and all his siblings in the camps. He was the only survivor. So he was part of my inspiration to ultimately join the Marine Corps.”
After serving on the Lyndhurst City Council, Mandel jumped into state politics in 2006 by winning two terms in the Ohio House. Young and ambitious, Mandel ran for state treasurer in 2010 but was heavily criticized for beginning a campaign for U.S. Senate just months after his swearing in as treasurer – especially since he was on record pledging that he would serve the full four year term. Mandel lost the Senate race to Sen. Sherrod Brown in 2012.
This time around, Mandel isn’t making any such pledges. He said, “I’m not going to make any specific pledges about the future, other than I’m going to keep doing a good job as state treasurer.”
Mandel boasts that Ohio’s financial condition improved with him as treasurer: the projected deficit in the state budget was erased and the state’s rainy day fund grew from 89 cents to $1.5 billion. But credit for those accomplishments goes largely to the General Assembly and governor – not the treasurer’s office.
Mandel did reduce the treasurer’s office staffing to 117 people from 140 employees to reduce annual payroll costs by $1.7 million, switched to an electronic banking system to avoid driving checks to Cleveland for deposit, refinanced debt to save $23 million and added a higher-yield short term investment option for school districts and local governments.
“It’s easy to look at the metrics and know we’ve done a good job and we’ve improved the operations of the treasurer’s office for the taxpayer,” Mandel said. “These are black and white metrics. Any objective observer would look at this and say, you know what, this guy is doing a good job.”
He also put state and local school district employee salaries online as a transparency project but the move largely duplicated work done previously by private, conservative think tanks.
Mandel has faced criticism over the past four years, though. He criticized Boyce in the 2010 treasurer’s race for hiring politically connected friends, yet Mandel hired six former campaign staff into the treasurer’s office for jobs ranging from community outreach to debt management director.
Mandel also spent $129,545 in taxpayer money on 21 tele-town hall calls between April and July. Pillich says the calls are an example of Mandel using the office to advance his own political career.
Connie Pillich
Pillich grew up in a small town outside of Buffalo, the youngest of five kids in a middle class family. As she watched her mother work with special needs children and her father raise money for a local hospital expansion, she learned the importance of public service. But it was her older sister who suggested she’d be a good fit for a military career. Pillich decided as a tenth grader that she would seek an ROTC scholarship.
Pillich served in the Air Force in Mississippi, North Dakota, Germany and Cincinnati. She earned undergraduate and graduate business degrees, taught ROTC classes and then changed careers when she met her husband.
She went to University of Cincinnati law school when her daughter was just 2 years old and then built a private practice firm. “I know how to set up an effective organization, put the right people in place and get the best out of them when they’re there,” Pillich said.
She pledged to serve all four years as treasurer and added: “Under my leadership the office will not be a holding pen for political operatives just waiting for the next campaign opportunity to open up. A commitment to public service will be number one but also the skills, background and training to do the job.”
Pillich also said she would make other changes to prevent corruption. She is calling for the creation of an inspector general post in the treasurer’s office. The IG would be hired by the four legislative leaders, be prohibited from political activity, investigate tips on waste, fraud or abuse, and report findings to the legislative leaders and public, she said.
She also said she would have the internal auditor report to the treasurer and IG.
Pillich pledged to institute an investment policy that stresses safety, liquidity and yield – a common refrain from most state treasurers.
“I want to be a hands on treasurer. I’m going to show up and be on the job every day. I will not be going to the Bahamas instead of the Board of Deposit meetings,” she said in a swipe against Mandel who missed a long string of meetings early in his tenure as treasurer.
“I think we can do better. We have to do better. The treasurer’s office is not real well known but it’s pretty important. It’s where all the money is kept and we need someone there who has an eye for detail, who understands the terminology and what’s going on, and who is committed public servant,” she said. “Someone who is going to make sure that at the end of the day there is someone in Columbus who is fighting to protect our tax dollars and safeguard the pension systems and grow the economy.”
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