Ohio: Parties at odds on damage limits

Ohio: Parties at odds on damage limits

	Published : Mon, 29 Jan 2007 23:41 By : Agencies Print this Story

(AFX) - COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Republican-dominated Ohio Legislature intends to go to court over Gov. Ted Strickland's veto of a bill that the GOP contends was finalized before Strickland took office, House Speaker Jon Husted said Monday.

'We are going to seek a remedy through the courts clarifying the process whereby an issue becomes law in this state, because we feel this act was in violation of the (Ohio) Constitution,' Husted told The Associated Press.

The lawsuit, once filed, stands to engage Ohio's three branches of government in a constitutional faceoff over a veto scenario lawyers in the state have never seen before.

It was less than 15 hours after Strickland, a Democrat, took office on Jan. 8 that he vetoed the bill, which placed a $5,000 limit on certain court damages and created new protections for companies that once sold lead-based paint.

New Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, also a Democrat, allowed the veto by returning the bill to the new governor after outgoing Gov. Bob Taft had decided to let it become law without his signature. Brunner argued that a 10-day window before the bill was to become law had not yet expired, giving Strickland the right to the veto.

Husted said Brunner had no right to return the bill at that point, because her predecessor, Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, had already certified it.

'Once the governor chooses to take his action and the secretary of state certifies it, it is now not something you can send back,' Husted said. 'That document can't be altered.'

Lawmakers, normally represented by lawyers from the Attorney General Marc Dann's office, took Dann up on his offer for independent attorneys, and their contract for special counsel was approved, Dann spokesman Ed Simpson said.

Husted said lawyers are working out particulars of the lawsuit.

Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said he did not know enough about the Legislature's intentions to comment on the legal claims. However, he said the administration stands behind the veto.

'We remain fully confident that the Constitution is clear and the law is firmly on our side,' Dailey said. 'We believe the bill has passed, was vetoed, and therefore is not law.'

Patrick Gallaway, a spokesman for Brunner, also defended the secretary of state's action.

'There's definitely a difference of opinion on the situation,' he said. 'Her position is that she was doing what she knows to be statutorily correct as secretary of state. If the governor asked for the bill back, then she was required to return it to him.'

Vetoes are often challenged in court, said Brenda Erickson, a senior research analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, but rarely have an adjourning legislature, the window for enacting a pending bill, and a new governor's inauguration all converged as in this case.

Erickson said Legislatures in many states adjourn well before any changeover in administrations would occur, making it impossible for an incoming governor to get access to a bill passed before he or she took office.

'For Ohio, it could be called the perfect storm, because all these came together at one time,' Erickson said.

Kent Markus, Strickland's chief legal counsel, said an opportunity arose for Democrats because Taft neither signed nor vetoed the bill, choosing to allow it to become law without his signature.

Ohio law states that the governor has 10 days from the time the bill was presented to the governor's office to act on the bill. That period ended on Jan. 8, by Democrats' count, the day that Strickland, Brunner and Dann took over three offices that had been controlled by Republicans for more than a decade.