Group's ad links GOP Supreme Court candidates to big business

By LIZ SIDOTI
The Associated Press
10/16/02 7:31 PM

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A coalition of labor unions and trial lawyers is linking two Ohio Supreme Court candidates to big business in television ads blasted by Republicans as similar to highly criticized commercials in a high court race two years ago.

Lt. Gov. Maureen O'Connor and Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton are targeted in a 30-second television spot, which is titled "Two Sides" and is sponsored by Citizens for an Independent Court.

The two Republicans in the Nov. 5 election demanded that their Democratic opponents request that the commercial be pulled off the air. The ad was first broadcast statewide on Tuesday.

Stratton's opponent, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Janet Burnside, and Hamilton County Municipal Judge Tim Black would say only that they had not seen the ad and were focusing on their individual races.

In 2000, Citizens for a Strong Ohio, formed by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, sponsored a $4 million ad to try to unseat Justice Alice Robie Resnick, a Democrat. She was re-elected.

That commercial also attacked a Supreme Court candidate's record and was sponsored by an outside interest group.

Mark Hatch, a spokesman for Citizens for an Independent Court, said Wednesday that its ad is unlike that of two years ago and is a comparative piece.

"We do not believe it's negative," Hatch said. "We believe this is an accurate reflection of their records and their candidacies."

But Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett said: "The same trial lawyers who funded this ad were outraged only two years ago when similar tactics were used against Justice Resnick. Now they're the masterminds of the same gutter politics, and it wreaks of hypocrisy."

Stratton said the advertisements portray "absolute lies" and do not accurately reflect her voting records. She said she hoped people had learned from the Resnick ads that negative attacks do not work.

"I believe the public will be smart enough to see through this. They did in Resnick and they will now, too," she said.

The ad shows men laughing inside a limousine, which the commercial labels as "Their side" and says that O'Connor and Stratton "put large corporations ahead of working families."

"That is a baldfaced lie," O'Connor said Wednesday. "There has absolutely never been one indication in my record of public service that that has ever happened."

Burnside and Black are linked to images of a family in front of a house. The commercial identifies the Democrats as being on "Our side," noting that the two "will hold large corporations accountable for wrongdoing."

The coalition earlier dropped a plan for direct mailings that focused on the same theme. Hatch said the group decided television was a better way to get the message out.

Bennett on Wednesday also urged Burnside and Black to condemn the ad and demand that it be pulled. He said the Ohio State Bar Association's judicial campaign watchdog committee should do the same.

Bennett said the ad "uses class warfare tactics to smear the judicial integrity" of O'Connor and Stratton.

The committee's chairman, David Crago, said the ad has been sent to all 11 members and the committee will review it if three members believe there is a problem with it.