Thursday, April 20, 2000

By SANDY THEIS

and T.C. BROWN
PLAIN DEALER REPORTERS

COLUMBUS - Three statewide Republican officeholders helped the governor raise money for a fund that promoted access to high-ranking GOP officials in exchange for pledges of $25,000 to a state party operating account.

Attorney General Betty Montgomery, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and State Treasurer Joseph T. Deters told The Plain Dealer yesterday that they helped raise funds for the state GOP account but were unaware of a promotional brochure that touted "access to key GOP officeholders and candidates" in exchange for the donations.

All three also emphasized that their fund-raising was legal.

Over the last five days, Gov. Bob Taft has been under fire for his role in Team Ohio, a state GOP-hatched plan to court high-dollar donors to the party’s operating fund with promises of a reception at the Governor’s Mansion, seats in the governor’s box at an Ohio State University football game and VIP seating at Republican Party events.

Taft has announced he no longer will offer perks involving state property to Team Ohio donors, and he joined others who called this week for passage of a law that would require political parties to disclose donors to their operating accounts.

While Taft’s top aides hoped his call for reform would quell the criticism, the newly disclosed role of the other GOP officeholders raised new ethical questions and exposed additional loopholes in Ohio’s campaign finance laws.

Top GOP officials admit roles in Team Ohio’ fund-raisers

"The only way for it to be resolved is ... for the Republican Party to disclose these donations." DAVID J. LELAND, Ohio Democratic Party chairman GOP 1-A

The disclosure prompted Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David J. Leland to renew calls for the GOP to disclose its donor list. Leland voluntarily released donors to the Democratic Party’s operating account on Tuesday.

"The web of intrigue surrounding this secret fund just gets bigger and bigger," Leland said. "The only way for it to be resolved is ... for the Republican Party to disclose these donations."

Ohio law limits the amount of money individual candidates can receive and requires all candidate donations to be disclosed. Political parties, however, can collected unlimited funds to pay salaries, utilities and other operating expenses, and operating fund donors do not have to be disclosed.

Because the donors are secret, it is unclear whether Montgomery, Blackwell or Deters helped collect money from people who were legally banned from giving to their candidate campaigns at the time.

Lawyers hired by the attorney general to help the state collect delinquencies and do other legal work, for example, cannot donate more than $1,000 to Montgomery’s campaign over a two-year period.

Montgomery said her fund-raiser, Eric Sagun, solicited donations on behalf of Team Ohio and that he "probably" solicited lawyers under contract with her office.

When asked if such solicitations circumvent laws designed to restrict giving by such attorneys, Montgomery replied, "It does circumvent, to some degree. But it’s a legal way to raise money."

Taft said he agrees with the Republican Party’s decision to keep the donors’ names private, saying the money was collected from those who expected anonymity.

"I think the issue is to change the law so that everybody knows what they have to do, so everyone is on equal footing," Taft said during an impromptu news conference yesterday.

Taft also said he never made fund-raising calls on state property, and he said he takes full responsibility for what happened.

Montgomery’s fund-raiser, Sagun, also served as Deters’ fund-raiser, and solicited money for Team Ohio on the state treasurer’s behalf.

Rather than work through a fund-raiser, Blackwell said he personally called Republican donors during his 1998 campaign.

He made his appeals without promises of access for money, Blackwell said.

The "trading and merchandising and selling of access, in my case, that was absolutely never done," Blackwell said. He said he does not believe he saw the brochure that touted team members’ "access" to Republican Party leaders, and he said he privately told state GOP Chairman Robert T. Bennett that he disagreed with the fund-raising because the donors did not have to disclosed.

"I know that I did it because I made a fuss about it," Blackwell said. "I was getting ready to campaign on full disclosure."

Blackwell, who served as state treasurer at the time, said he did not raise money from any municipal bond firms seeking work from his office but did solicit those who already had given his campaign the legal limit allowed.

He said he did not circumvent the law by asking those who had given him the maximum to give more to the party.

"There’s nothing that skirts the law on that," Blackwell said. "That is solely legal to do. The issue becomes what we’re going to do now."

For more than two years, Blackwell has called for political parties’ operating accounts to be made public.

A spokesman for Deters said the state treasurer’s staff supplied photos for the brochure but said Deters did not see the now-disputed section that boasts of the access-for-money trade.

While it may be appropriate for the party to ask for help, it is wrong for anyone to be asked to play the "access card," Deters said.

Petro said he had raised money for the state GOP. "But never for Team Ohio," he said. "I’ve never been asked to raise those kinds of amounts."

Two Republican sources who requested anonymity, however, said all the statewide elected officials received a list of possible donors to call, and each officeholder or his designee signed off on the accompanying brochure.

"The party divvied up a list of the big shots and everybody was asked to make some calls," one Republican said.

Gary Abernathy, a spokesman for the state Republican Party, said he did not know what specific requests were made of the officeholders, but said it was common for both political parties to ask their members to help raise money.

E-mail: stheis@plaind.com

Phone: (216) 999-4213

E-mail: tcbrown@plaind.com

Phone: (216) 999-4213

©2000 THE PLAIN DEALER. Used with permission.