Originally published by: Mark Niquette and the Columbus Dispatch
September 8, 2010
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said that although she can sympathize with nine doctors trying to overturn a state ban on Medicaid providers contributing to certain candidates’ campaigns,she supports the ban.
“As a question of principle, I believe that the law in question provides a valuable safeguard against corruption in government,” Brunner said yesterday.
She was responding to a federal lawsuit filed last week by the Cleveland-area doctors, seeking a court order declaring Ohio’s ban an unconstitutional violation of their free-speech rights and preventing Brunner from enforcing it.
At issue is a 1978 law that bars Medicaid providers from making political contributions to candidates for Ohio attorney general or county prosecutor because those officials prosecute Medicaid fraud.
The doctors argued that barring them from contributing presumes that they are “fraudsters” and could face prosecution. By that logic, they say, no contributions should be allowed because anyone could break a law and face prosecution.
But Brunner said the doctors are not the only Medicaid providers operating in Ohio, and that striking down the law would put the attorney general in a position of accepting contributions from providers of services paid for with public funds.
Brunner, who heard Medicaid-fraud cases as a Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge, noted that those cases were prosecuted directly by the attorney general, and she said lifting the ban is not “in the best interests of the public” – especially after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision relaxing restrictions on corporate spending in political campaigns.
Because the attorney general normally represents the secretary of state and is part of this lawsuit, Brunner said she will have special counsel advise her.
Link to the article: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2010/09/08/brunner-backs-ban-on-election-donations.html