LEWIS CENTER, Ohio–The embattled chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, Robert A. Paduchik, successfully oversaw a contentious 3.5-hour meeting Friday of the state party’s central committee held at the Nationwide Hotel and Conference Center here, culminating in the committee voting 36-26 in a secret ballot to endorse Gov. R. Michael DeWine, along with the other statewide Republicans incumbents as a slate.
Joining DeWine on the slate are Lt. Gov. Jon A. Husted, Attorney General David A. Yost, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Treasurer Robert C. Sprague and Auditor of State Keith Faber.
DeWine, who did not attend the meeting, tweeted out a video thanking the central committee for the endorsement, but 19 members voted on a secret ballot to strip the governor’s name from the slate.
“I’m so honored by the outpouring of support that we’ve received from all four corners of our great state,” said the governor for himself and Husted.
“Thank you. Thank you to our supporters across Ohio, and thank you to the Ohio Republican Party for endorsing Lt. Gov. Jon Husten and me to serve for four more years,” he said. “We will keep fighting and winning for Ohio.”
Thank you to the @OhioGOP for endorsing @JonHusted and me to serve you for four more years.
We will keep fighting and WINNING for Ohio! pic.twitter.com/ZWzEA0IfjP— Mike DeWine (@MikeDeWine) February 18, 2022
The governor’s top challenger in the May 3 primary told The Ohio Star he was not impressed.
“36-26 is five votes short of a tie; it was hardly unanimous,” said James B. “Jim” Renacci, the former congressman challenging DeWine for the gubernatorial nomination.
“There are 16 to 19 members of the central committee, who are conflicted by jobs or appointment with the candidates on the slates — with one or two actually working directly for candidates,” Renacci said. “If they had been disqualified, this endorsement vote would have failed bigly.”
DeWine cannot be proud of how split the central committee was when they were asked to endorse him,” he said. “The party failed today to endorse that slate of candidates properly.”
Central Committeeman Mark A. Bainbridge, who with four other members of the committee is suing Paduchik and the state party for more financial transparency, among other grievances, told The Ohio Star the chairman did the job DeWine hired him to do — back a year ago when the governor pressured committee members to name Paduchik chairman upon the resignation of Jane E. Timken as chairwoman.
“There were 36 people on the committee of 66 that voted for Mike DeWine to be endorsed, and the position of most of us on the committee that are in opposition to Bob Paduchik is that we don’t believe the Ohio Republican Party should endorse anyone,” he said.
Bainbridge and his allies argued that the party should be neutral before the primary, and it was improper for Paduchik to send the DeWine campaign more than $1 million in cash and other services.
“We think the voters, the Republican voters in a primary, should decide who their candidates are for governor, Senate, House, the whole deal,” he said.
“Once you get the endorsement of the Ohio Republican Party, millions of dollars in money and in-kind contributions come to you and cheap mailings and all kinds of things that nobody else, the challengers, have no access to, and that’s really not fair,” he said.
Central Committeewoman Melanie Leneghan told The Ohio Star she was disappointed her amendment to remove DeWine from the slate only garnered 19 votes.
“I argued that Governor Mike DeWine has violated the Constitution and his oath of office — he has not done what he said he would do, and he probably has the popularity of Joe Biden,” the Liberty Township resident said.
Leneghan said she and her reformist allies were blocked by committee members with ties to the party leadership, whom she called opportunists.
“My goal was not to endorse anyone before the primary,” she said. “We don’t have the numbers for that because we have too many opportunists at the state central committee, but a lot of points were made to the chairman and to the state central committee that needed to be made.”
Before the vote on the slate endorsement that closed the meeting, Shannon Burns, the president of the StrongsvilleGOP, challenged the appropriateness of the endorsement process, which he said violated the bylaws.
At issue was that there was no policy for endorsements passed by the central committee and that the Endorsements committee was operating on its own with its own rules, Burns said.
Paduchik ruled that Burns was out of order.
When Burns challenged the ruling of the chair, he insisted on a secret ballot, which he lost.
Ohio Republican Party Central Committee does not have roll call votes
Paduchik does not allow roll call or recorded votes at the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee meetings. This is despite the fact the committee’s bylaws specifically defer to Robert’s Rules of Order for procedures not specified in the bylaws, such as roll call voting.
When Burns pressed the parliamentarian for an explanation, the parliamentarian told the committee that it was true that the bylaws defer to Robert’s Rules, which would on its face mean that the central committee should have roll call votes.
However, the parliamentary said Robert’s Rules also allow for an organization to follow its own customs and traditions, which meant there would be no roll call votes for members of the central committee.
Bainbridge said he was not surprised by the parliamentarian’s ruling since he comes from the law firm Bricker & Eckler, which he said receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Ohio GOP.
The certified public accountant, who retired as a partner from a three-decade career at Ernst & Young, said he is despondent about the future of the Ohio Republican Party under the leadership of DeWine and Paduchik.
Meeting restricted to committee members, party staffers, select guests
When he entered the lobby of the conference center, he was greeted with applause by members of the public, who were not allowed inside the meeting.
The chairman also denied access to a number of reporters and photographers, some of whom were denied outright, but others, like Duane Pohlman, the chief investigative reporter and anchor for Sinclair Broadcast Group’s WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, were turned away at the door.
When The Ohio Star asked Pohlman if he had applied for credentials, he said: “I don’t ask permission to enter a public meeting.”
The veteran reporter said in 30 years, he had never seen a political meeting, such as the central committee meeting, where members of the public and the media were locked out.
When Bainbridge approached the entrance to the meeting room, a young party staffer handed him a lanyard with his access badge.
“What do I need that for?” he asked.
The staffer told Bainbridge it was necessary for him in order to have access to the meeting.
Bainbridge held up his party business card and replied: “What about this?”
Not good enough, the staffer said.
Then, Bainbridge asked the staffer and others around him about the five Russell County Sheriff deputies on detail in the lobby and at the meeting entrance: “Why are the police here? Are you afraid?”
Before the staffer could answer, Ohio Republican National Committeeman James F. Dicke II walked past him and tapped him on the shoulder: “You’re going to love the strip search.”
Dicke flew in for the meeting Thursday night straight from Milwaukee, where he and other members of the Republican National Committee toured the city as a possible site for the 2024 Republican National Convention.
The CEO of Crown Equipment is a stalwart supporter of the party and Paduchik. The night before the meeting, speaking with party insiders, Dicke said he questioned Bainbridge’s motives when he asked about more than $3 million in unaccounted-for funds missing from the party’s balance sheets.
“He knows the money’s there,” Dicke said.
For his part, Bainbridge said he will continue to ask questions about the party’s books.
“When I ran for my election to the state central committee, the governing board of the Ohio Republican Party, I wanted to help the party move forward positively,” he said.
“I am very sad about what I have learned about party leadership and the financial cover-up that ORP Chairman Bob Paduchik is promoting,” said the central committeeman who, with four others, is suing Paduchik and the party.
“After a year, it has become clear to me that Governor DeWine and his cronies have not only corrupted state government, particularly through involvement in the HB6/First Energy scandal, but now have corrupted the Ohio Republican Party,” he said.
Bainbridge: ORP does value financial transparency
“They have no interest whatever in correcting these financial issues, and it calls into question why. There is no accountability for any donations made to the Ohio Republican Party,” Bainbridge said.
When the party’s treasurer, David W. Johnson, made his report to the party, he shook off questions from Bainbridge and others: “I will only answer questions in writing through staff.”
This came as Bainbridge pressed Johnson on the as yet unfiled report from the state party’s campaign fund for the last six months of 2021, which was due Feb. 1, the committeeman said.
“It’s the biggest campaign fund that the Ohio Republican Party has and it’s used for the state campaign, so it would be money that could be given to the governor and all these people that we endorsed today that are running for statewide office,” he said.
“Now, it’s 17 days late, and to me, it’s just a big question,” he said.
“Why is it late? They wouldn’t answer the question,” said the certified public accountant, now in private practice.
“Somebody got up and asked the question and he ignored them,” Bainbridge said. “He didn’t answer the question. He just ignored it and went on with the meeting, so that’s how he operates.”
The chairman is equally brusque, he said.
“The chairman is basically pretty ruthless in not letting open transparency at a meeting and having his side heard and shutting down discussion and dissent, and that’s what he did today,” Bainbridge said.
One example is how the Bainbridge-Paduchik dynamic in the meeting was in the minutes before the committee members voted whether to endorse the incumbent slate.
Bainbridge made a motion that the committee should only endorse incumbents without challengers, but the chairman ruled it out of order because the meeting had gone past three hours.
“I have to be mindful of the committee members’ time,” Paduchik said.
Bainbridge said there is no rule in the bylaws that allows the chairman to dismiss motions because he thinks the meeting has gone on too long.
“There’s none obviously, so that’s just his way of controlling the meeting.”
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Neil W. McCabe is the national political editor of The Star News Network. Send him news tips: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @neilwmccabe2.
