Thursday, April 27, 2000

BY Joe Hallett
Dispatch Politics Editor

Gov. Bob Taft's acceptance of $2,688 worth of Buckeye football tickets -- some of which he offered to $50,000 contributors to the Ohio Republican Party -- might have violated state ethics laws regulating gifts.

The governor received eight free tickets, valued at $48 each, to seven games at Ohio Stadium in 1999.

David Freel, executive director of the Ohio Ethics Commission, declined to comment directly on Taft receiving the free tickets, a gift given to Ohio governors by Ohio State University for decades.

"We generally advise public officials always to pay for their own tickets,'' he said.

But Freel gave no such advice in early 1999 when Taft invited him to the governor's first cabinet meeting to discuss proper ethical behavior, said Scott Milburn, Taft's spokesman.

"What's unfortunate is that if the executive director of the ethics commission thought there was any problem with this 30-year old tradition, then he should have raised it with prior governors and with this governor,'' he said. "This is a well-established and well-known tradition. It's been fully reported and documented.''

Taft disclosed the tickets as gifts on his ethics statement for 1999.

"If we have to take a further look at it to see whether there is any further remedy beyond disclosure, then that's what we'll have to do,'' Freel said.

In a case that could be applicable, the commission ruled in 1995 that it was illegal for members of the Cleveland City Council to receive free season tickets from the Cleveland Indians.

Merome Brachman, chairman of the commission and a member since 1974, said that case dealt with a private entity potentially seeking favor from public officials.

"I believe the commission then, and probably now, views public institutions in a different context,'' Brachman said last night, contending that public institutions should have "the opportunity to work with high public officials to further the purposes of the institution.''

Taft and three former governors -- Republicans George V. Voinovich and James A. Rhodes, and Democrat Richard F. Celeste -- all have booths in the Ohio Stadium press box, replete with eight free tickets per home game.

"We've been making these boxes available to governors of Ohio for many years,'' said William Napier, OSU government-relations chief. "It's been a courtesy we've extended to Ohio governors for generations.''

Napier said that he was unaware of the Cleveland case and that university lawyers would review it.

"If we think it applies to us, then we'll just start charging (the governors) for the tickets in the future,'' he said.

Milburn said that if the commission determines that Taft should pay for his football tickets, "the governor would be happy to do that.''

David J. Leland, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, linked the furor surrounding Taft's solicitation for Team Ohio, an exclusive group of GOP contributors, to the Cleveland case.

In a Sept. 10 fund-raising letter, Taft invited Republicans to join Team Ohio by donating at least $25,000 to the Ohio Republican Party. Among other perks, an attachment to the letter offered a seat in Taft's box for an OSU football game to contributors of $50,000.

"I don't see any difference,'' Leland said. "This just adds more concern to the governor getting these tickets for free and then scalping them for $50,000 a pop. It seems to me the rationale used in the 1995 ethics opinion would apply to Governor Taft.''

On Feb. 8, 1995, the commission advised Cleveland City Council members that state law prohibits them from accepting free season tickets from the Indians.

The opinion cited two sections of state law: One prohibits a public official or employee from soliciting or accepting a gift that could improperly influence the official, and the other prohibits a public official from receiving something of value from a party regulated by, or seeking to do business with, the agency employing the public official.

Taft and his predecessors have had a major influence on how much money OSU receives from the state. In his proposed fiscal 2001 capital budget pending in the Ohio House, Taft recommended that OSU receive $102 million in state construction money.

In the Cleveland ruling, the commission said gifts covered by the law must have "substantial'' value. In 1994, each member of the Cleveland City Council received a season ticket valued at $860. In 1995, the Indians offered each council member a season ticket valued at $1,400. Such gifts, the commission said, are "clearly substantial.''

Although an individual ticket to an athletic event might not "cross the line'' of what constitutes a substantial gift, "certainly a season's worth of tickets does,'' Freel said.

Although the commission noted that the Indians baseball team is a privately held entity not doing business with or seeking to do business with the city, it found a public connection that might appear to be applicable to OSU giving season tickets to governors.

Because the Indians play in a publicly owned stadium regulated by the city and operated by a council-approved board, "the team is interested in matters before the City Council, and as such, the acceptance of a substantial thing of value by City Council members from the team could affect the objectivity and independence of judgment of City Council members.''

The commission said it didn't matter if council members gave the free tickets to their constituents because the law does not require a public official to "accept a thing of value for himself in order for a violation'' to exist.

In a similar case, the commission advised Cleveland City Council members that state law prohibits them from accepting free season tickets from the Indians.