CQPolitics.com - Rep. Bob Ney on Monday formally withdrew as the Republican nominee in Ohio’s 18th District, renouncing the nomination he won in a May 2 primary and ensuring that a special primary election will be held to determine his replacement on the November ballot.
Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) on Monday formally withdrew as the Republican nominee in Ohio’s 18th District, renouncing the nomination he won in a May 2 primary and ensuring that a special primary election will be held to determine his replacement on the November ballot.
The announcement presents a mixed blessing for Republican strategists, who face a tough job defending what had been a relatively safe seat -- until Ney became embroiled in the controversy surrounding now-convicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his efforts to influence individual members of Congress.
Ney’s official withdrawal, which followed by seven days his announcement of his plans to drop his re-election bid, clears the way for the Republicans to replace him on the November ballot with a candidate who does not have the same kind of political baggage. But picking that replacement may not be as simple as hoped by Republican officials, who quickly tapped state Sen. Joy Padgett as their preferred candidate after Ney announced his intentions. Because Ney withdrew before Aug. 19, Ohio law requires that the now-vacant GOP ballot slot be filled in a special primary election, for which Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a Republican and the party’s nominee for governor, will set the date.
This means that Padgett may have to spend money and time fending off other candidates seeking the Republican nomination, and that the eventual nominee will have just a few weeks to build an organization and raise money for the general election campaign.
Ney announced Aug. 7 that he was ending his re-election bid rather than continue a campaign that was jeopardized by his past professional associations with Abramoff, who said he provided gifts to Ney in exchange for legislative favors. Ney also was implicated as the thinly veiled “Representative No. 1” in prosecutor reports on the convictions of other Abramoff associates convicted in the influence-peddling scheme.
Ney, who stated in his withdrawal announcement that he was leaving the race because of the negative impact of the controversy on his family, has consistently denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime in what still is an ongoing investigation. But polling showed that he was vulnerable to defeat in his contest with Democratic nominee Zack Space, the elected law director, or city attorney, in Dover.
The incumbent transmitted his request to be removed from the ballot in a brief letter to the board of elections in Tuscarawas County, the most populous jurisdiction in the east-central Ohio district that Ney has represented since 1995, which read, “I, Bob Ney, do hereby withdraw as a candidate for election to the 18th Congressional District. I officially request that my name be taken off the ballot.”
Padgett — who is backed by Ney and House Majority Leader John Boehner, the representative of Ohio’s 8th District — remains the front-runner for the GOP nomination. She was the lieutenant governor candidate on a ticket with gubernatorial candidate Jim Petro, Ohio’s attorney general, in the May 2 primary, but they lost to the ticket headed by Blackwell.
Democrats, however, are contending that Padgett’s lieutenant governor bid earlier this year may make her ineligible to run in the 18th District contest under Ohio’s so-called “sore loser” law, which bars a candidate who sought a statewide office in the primary election from running for Congress in November “by nominating petition or by declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate.”
Padgett’s House candidacy received clearance in a legal opinion sent to Blackwell Aug. 10 by the state attorney general. He said that the election code bars candidates who lost primary elections from waging independent or write-in campaigns later in the year, but that its restrictions would not apply to Padgett in this case since she is seeking the Republican nomination.
But the fact that the attorney general who drew up that opinion is former Padgett running mate Petro has hardly placated Democrats, who plan to challenge that finding in court and also sought to turn the flap to their advantage by accusing Republicans of bending the law for political purposes. “First Bob Ney and John Boehner decide in some backroom in Washington that Joy Padgett is going to be their nominee, and then they go to Padgett’s former running mate — the attorney general of the state of Ohio — to write a legal opinion to make that happen. Is anybody really surprised at the legal determination that Jim Petro came up with?” said Brian Rothenberg, communications director for the Ohio Democratic Party.
CQ rates the Ohio 18 race as No Clear Favorite. Please visit CQPolitics.com’s Election Forecaster for ratings on all races.
08-14-2006, 08:45 PM
