soapbox

I've been trying to sort out what's going on in Citizens for a Strong Ohio.

In 2000, a subsidiary of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, Citizens for a Strong Ohio, ran 4 million in non-express advocacy TV ads against Ohio Supreme Court Judge Alice Resnick. Resnick recently announced she will not run for re-election, following her plea in a drunk driving case. The ads were attacked by an east coast reform group, Alliance Against Democracy. (They actually call themselves Alliance for Democracy, but's that's a misnomer. Alliance for Democrats maybe.)
Today I finally received from the Ohio Election Commission minutes from November 10th 2005 meeting,and now I'm trying to put the pieces together.
Unpublished opinion from the 6th circuit, choosing not to get involved. Here, pdf.
Ohio Supreme Court opinion. once i find it.
Lower Ohio Court opinion. ditto. Here, pdf, at sconet. [sco = supreme court of ohio, cso = citizens for a strong ohio.]

Aha! I'm lookin for "Common Cause/Ohio v Ohio Elections Commission" 779 NE2d 766 (2002). The 6th circuit unpublished opinion was interesting, and I'm glad I read it, but it applies Younger abstention to avoid the merits, so now I'll need to go look for the state cases. It has an interesting discussion of when parties can proceed anonymously. Here, John Doe had neglected to file a motion for leave to proceed under a ficticious name, and was dismissed, as were Alpha and Omega corporations.

This is apparently not a case about disclaimers, as I had thought from the press coverage. There was an allegation that "Citizens for a Strong Ohio" was a false statement because the corporations weren't citizens, but that complaint was properly denied by the commission.

Now this is peculiar.. there's nothing at all in the 2002 opinion about whether strong ohio must disclose.. must be in some later opinion.. i'll keep working though it. Link has the list of contributors to strong ohio. It's possible that by posting this I am violating strong ohio's right to privacy.

What I need to find is yet another state court ruling, the one that imposed or upheld a fine for failure to disclose donor lists.