$215m lost - new scandal in Ohio, calls for Gov. Taft's recall

If you don't already know there has been another scandal brewing up in GOP kingdom of Ohio. A story broke yesterday about how the politically connected investment firm MDL Capital Management lost $215 million in Bureau of Workers' Compensation money. This is a different scandal than the Coin-Gate scandal involving all the GOP bigwigs. Both the scandals have links to Bob Taft (Governor), Jim Petro (Attorney General), Betty Montgomery (State Auditor) and Ken Blackwell (Sec of State).

This has started calls by Democrats for Gov. Bob Taft's recall. Here is the complete story from Cleveland Plain Dealer:

State loses $215 million
Investment mess leads to calls for Taft's recall

http://www.cleveland.com/budgetscandal/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/111822309248360.xml&coll =2

more below the fold..

The "R" word was first pronounced by Democratic Senate Minority Leader C.J. Prentiss. The state and national Democrats should start talking loudly about the recall of Taft to get the nationwide coverage of the GOP scandal. It will clearly show how one should not trust GOP with their money.

The Recall election will be a very good idea for number of reasons:

• Better to have the new governor while these scandals are still fresh in the minds of voters.
  
• Gov. Bob Taft will be easily kicked out of the office in a recall election. He is so unpopular that his approval ratings were in 30's before both of these scandals broke.
  
• It will be easy for a Democrat to win the recall election since they will have a strong candidate in Ted Strickland or Mike Coleman.
  
• All the GOP probables for 2006 gov race are linked to these scandals.

Take this poll of whether Bob Taft should be recalled.

Toledo Blade is doing excellent work in covering these scandals. Here are some of their links to the latest scandal:

Democrats cite GOP 'culture of corruption'

Workers' comp bureau concealed $215M loss; Taft, Petro knew about fund's woes many months ago

What do you think??

•  A recall would be phenomenal

  and would draw massive bipartisan support.  For those not familiar with the situation, Taft is HATED by more than half of Ohio GOP voters.

  BUT I'm not aware of the specifics, but from what I've discussed with a GOP political consultant friend who hates Taft, Ohio's laws make a recall much different/harder than, say, California and Gropenator replacing Gray Davis.

  by BlueEngineerInOhio on Wed Jun 08, 2005 at 09:43:29 AM PDT

  •  great info

    the recall would bring out whistleblowers on other thug corruption.
    Perp walks make great tv.

    by seesdifferent on Wed Jun 08, 2005 at 11:06:19 AM PDT

•  Just as long as Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't run

  Otherwise I'm cool with the idea.  Does anyone know if DeWine's popularity is falling at all?  I wish this scandal would hurt him too.

  by SoCalLiberal on Wed Jun 08, 2005 at 10:12:05 AM PDT

•  Ken Blackwell and Joe Watkins

  There are some long-standing political links between Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and the Reverend Joe Watkins (who used to be affiliated with MDL Capital).  

  MDL Capital has been losing clients.  MDL Capital primarily invests in fixed income securities (e.g., bonds).  Seattle's public employee fund dropped MDL Capital as an investment manager (after placing the firm on its watch list).  MDL Capital also is a fixed income manager for a number of public employee pension funds.  

  Pay-for-play is no stranger to the world of public pension investing.  The SEC initiated proceedings against Fred Malek of Thayer Capital for hiring a "consultant" to help bring in Connecticut's pension funds.

  Like Governor Dean says, you can't trust Republicans with your money.

  by eafredel on Wed Jun 08, 2005 at 10:17:23 AM PDT

•  I think it would have to be a two step process

  Based on my brief research, I have not found any provision in the Ohio Constitution that would provide for a right by voters to recall the Governor.  It does provide for impeachment by the legislature, but that's not practical.  The most feasible scenario would be a referendum to amend the Constitution to provide for recall of the Governor by some sort of vote, and then the subsequent use of that power to remove the sitting governor.  Given the difficulty of getting something like that on the ballot (it would likely have to be done by petition with the peition being completed and filed with the secretary of state not later than 90 days before the next general election). The peition needs to be signed by 10 percent of the electors.  This would need to be done around the first of August.  So the soonest probably something could get done would be early 2006, and it's an election year anyway.  

  It might be possible to try and enact a law (without a constitutional amendment) under Article II, Section 1b of the Constitution, but I really think it would be difficult to draft a law that would operate to remove a sitting governor automatically.
  

  by klw1963 on Wed Jun 08, 2005 at 10:31:04 AM PDT

•  Pulse poll

  The Cleveland "pulse poll" appears to show a lot of support for toasting Governor Taft (in the 80s).   Just removing the Governor is pointless unless one does some investigation to figure out who knew what when, and what they did or didn't do about it.   How can one lose 2/3rds of the funds invested with them?   Honestly, doesn't that dwarf Whitewater?  who were those goons bothering voters during the 2004 election.   Was this where the funds for that came from?   and potentially for a lot else?  A couple of hundred million can buy (or delete) a lot of votes.

  by arthura on Wed Jun 08, 2005 at 11:07:19 AM PDT

  •  laundered money to Bush campaign

    Its becoming very clear day by day that Noe, the GOP fundraiser and henchman of CoinGate, laundered the money to Bush capaign in 2004. He diverted the money from Workers Comp fund to the GOP politicians and his staff which in turn made big donations to Bush campaign. Bush knew he could not win without Ohio and he made sure that he won Ohio with his henchmen like Noe with the use of the laundered money.

    by Observer on Wed Jun 08, 2005 at 12:15:42 PM PDT

    •  Maybe, but...

      Maybe it was all just old-fashioned theft of public funds.  Heck, we don't know for sure that these folks were using funds to create political slush funds to pay for polling site intimidators and to bribe people to change the number of votes cast on equipment that created no auditable paper trails, so it would be premature to make ANY such suggestions.  And I am not doing so.

      On the other hand, where there is smoke, sometimes there is a bit of fire as well.   It might be worth a bit of investigation to see whether in fact some of these uber-patriots actually, that is actually, turned out to be complete pole-cats.  Think of it.   You rob the Worker's Comp Reserve Funds, then use them to fund a dirty-tricks squad to fix the election results.  What elegance, what style!  Gosh, you could almost make a movie about that, couldn't you?

      by arthura on Wed Jun 08, 2005 at 12:47:19 PM PDT