Marc's Dannage Just Beginning

Fraudulent GOPper astroturf blog Stark Politics notes that State Sen and Congressional candidate John Boccieri (D-New Middleton) was asked about whether Marc Dann should resign. StarkPol of course drops a somewhat constricted version of the quote. Here's the discussion of Boccieri's position in full from the Repository:

"It's sad to see," said state Sen. John Boccieri, D-New Middletown. "At the end of the day, all of us as elected officials are held to a higher standard of accountability for our conduct in and out of office. These jobs take a lot out of the families; that's for sure."

Dann said the relationship was between consenting adults. He said it came during "a difficult time" in his marriage to Alyssa Lenhoff, a journalism professor at Youngstown State University. They have three children. He said the extramarital affair was wrong "and I deeply regret it."

Boccieri was satisfied with that.

"It's a personal matter as long as there were no criminal or ethical standards crossed," he said. "Clearly with the others, there were ethical and criminal issues that are pretty serious."

StarkPol has the obvious take: That boinking a staffer in itself crosses ethical lines. I would add that larding supervisory staff with unqualified drinking buddies also constitutes a breach of public trust if not more.

Sympathies to Sen. Boccieri. He's faced with the impossible mission of threading between party loyalty (and loyalty to a former Senate colleague from an adjoining district, no less) and maintaining assured clear distance from the slow-motion car crash ahead.¹ Point is, he didn't pass the test², and every other Democratic elected official and candidate faces the same test as long as Dann remains in office.

Stop the bleeding, Marc. Do the right thing and step down.

¹ By my count that sentence mixes three metaphors. I defy anyone to do better in the same number of words.

²Fourth metaphor in two sentences. Is this some symptom of Dann Derangement Syndrome?

Dann's Incredible Deposition: The Gutierrez Hire

A favorite sport arising from Marc's Mess is sifting through the various sworn statements and depositions for guns, smoking or otherwise. Bill Sloat, Eric Mansfield, and ModernEsquire have each spent quality time with the transcript.

The most compelling case against Marc Dann begins with his staffing the office with longtime FoMs who were initially unqualified for their jobs and were allowed to conduct themselves abominably. The passages concerning how the AGs office hired accused serial harasser Anthony Gutierrez suggest that Dann is either lying in the deposition or is so incompetent an administrator that he should resign for that reason alone. Dann essentially denies any involvement in either hiring his friend or overseeing his work. Here is the passage, with some italicized annotations.

Q. And during your transition period, you identified employees that could work within your office?
A. That's correct.
Q. And was one such employee Anthony Gutierrez?
A. Actually, not. My understanding is -- again, I had -- at the time, I wasn't aware of whether he had applied for a job. But I have become aware since this investigation started that he applied sometime in the second month that we were in office, sometime in late January or early February. So he was not in what I call the transition period, but after that.
Q. It's been reported that he is your neighbor back in West Liberty.
A. Liberty Township, Ohio. Tony lives at 607 Northlawn. I live at 637.


Wait a minute. Gutierrez has been a longtime friend, worked on the campaign, and lives a block away but Dann only heard about his application through channels? Given what we've heard about Gutierrez's outsized sense of entitlement, this defies credulity.

Q. When did you find out he applied for a position with your office?
A. Sometime in January or early February of 2007.


According to the timeline published by the Plain Dealer, Gutierrez applied in December and was officially hired as Director of General Services on Feb. 5.


Q. Do you know how he applied?
A. I don't.
Q. Do you know who interviewed him for the position?
A. I don't.


Gutierrez was hired to take care of all the material needs of the office. Doesn't that sound like a position the AG would want a personal hand in filling? And given that Gutierrez had no experience in either government or this kind of work, how is it he was the most qualified applicant in the pool? And if he wasn't, isn't that in itself proof that Dann took part in the hiring decision?

There's more where that came from.

Dumping Dann: Sign the PlunderPetition

Eric at Plunderbund has posted an online petition asking for Attorney General Marc Dann's resignation. Go.

ABJ Is All About the Street

Posted on Ohio.com breaking news tonight:

An Akron man was bound to a chair, beaten and robbed of his wallet and weed before freeing himself and calling police.

Word? Homeboy had weed? Was it bud or just shake? A full lid or an eight-ball? Don't leave us hangin', yo.

Dumping Dann: What Comes Next

Dann must go, and the sooner the better. Not
only must he go, he must go soon. The citizens of Ohio deserve an Attorney General who will restore confidence in the office.

And Dann's party deserves a legitimate chance to hold on to the office. If Dann leaves anytime between now and late September, the person appointed will have to run for the unexpired term. The Ohio Constitution provides:

§ 3.18 What vacancies governor to fill

Should the office of Auditor of State, Treasurer of State, Secretary of State, or Attorney General become vacant, for any of the causes specified in the fifteenth section of this article, the Governor shall fill the vacancy until the disability is removed, or a successor elected and qualified. Such successor shall be elected for the unexpired term of the vacant office at the first general election in an even numbered year that occurs more than forty days after the vacancy has occurred; provided, that when the unexpired term ends within one year immediately following the date of such general election, an election to fill such unexpired term shall not be held and the appointment shall be for such unexpired term. [Emphasis added.]

More from this AG opinion (written in the Montgomery era, but archived on the current AG site.)

Forty days prior to the November election is September 25. It seems unlikely that Dann will resign after digging in for that long. So if the chorus is to be successful in showing Dann the door, it needs to be sooner rather than later. I would note that this offers another argument in favor of Subodh Chandra as replacement since Subodh already has some experience running a statewide campaign.

It also puts the kibosh on my favorite replacement scenario -- the double switch. A few weeks ago I suggested the following, then later that day heard it back as "the rumor around town." Here it is: Appoint Treasurer Richard Cordray to AG, and some high-level Deputy Treasurer (or assistant, I'm not sure what their terminology is) to be Treasurer. The theory being that Cordray has been shining and can get both himself and his chosen successor elected. Problem is, the party won't want two special elections this Fall. One is bad enough.

Marc's Mess: Blogpile on Dann

If you haven't heard (either because you just got back from Mars or have spent the last 30 hours avoiding the internet the better to work through a Matterhorn of fin-de-semester grading), today saw a rapid-fire series of developments in the cluster-scandal enveloping the office of Attorney General Marc Dann.

Dann fired Services Director and accused serial harrasser Anthony Gutierrez and allegedly perjury-suborning Communications Director Leo Jennings. He also admitted to having an "inappropriate relationship" with a staffer who, following the clues, turns out to be Jessica Utovich, the shiny-faced scheduler who has been his rumored paramour. Utovich resigned last night reportedly as an alternative to being further involved in the investigation into sexual harassment allegations aimed at Gutierrez. The AG's Chief Deputy of policy and Ed Simpson

All of this coincides with today's scheduled release of the report of Assistant AG Ben Espy's investigation in the the -- er -- affair.

It's apparent that Dann will resist stepping down and that for now the ODP apparatus will stand behind him. It's equally apparent that Dann would be hard pressed to win an election and that he shouldn't after the disgrace he has brought to himself and the office.

I stand with all who are calling for Dann's resignation, and calling for the party leadership to impress upon Dann the importance of doing so. It will be difficult to remove Dann from office short of his resignation, so pressure to resign is the best course.

Happily the blogosphere appears in unanimous agreement on this, and we have a role to play. The 'sphere is assembling, in our Wisdom of Crowds way, the brief against the AG and is stepping up to be the voice those members of the party who are done with him.

More to come.

What I Would Be Blogging About if I Had Time to Blog

The semester is winding down, so my workload is amping up. I have a ton of papers to grade before tomorrow so my class has them to study for their final.

So, with the possibility that I will not get to everything and may not get to anything on my To Blog list, here's the quick version

• Alex Arshinkoff won and won big in the vote for control of the Summit County GOP. ANN has a liveblog plus audio posted of the event, with some nice tidbits, including anti-Wayne Jones lapel pins. The vote is over, but the bloodletting has just begun. If Alex accomplishes anything other than exacting revenge upon those who opposed him, I will be surprised.


• Speaking of ANN, I'll get around to responding to the ANN critics who commented on this post. I agree that ANN isn't what ohiodotcom is yet, but they are moving in opposite directions. ANN is starting as a website with web functionality and building credible content within that framework. Ohio dot com is starting as an e-version of a dead tree paper and trying to make the web fit that paradigm. If ANN is able to catch up, that will be why.

• Women's Voices Women's Vote, a group supposedly unaffiliated with any campaign was behind a series of robo-phone calls that looked a lot like voter suppression. They have apologized and offered explanations (for whatever reason, I got an email from them.)
  
  Either they were involved in some extremely clever and subtle voter suppression aimed at likely Obama supporters, or they were extraordinarily incompetent. In any event, people like Jill Zimon who was a candidate for their Best Woman Blogger contest are getting unwarranted crap for having promoted the group. If the worst of the allegations turn out to be true, then among other things, WV² used a bunch of bloggers to build net cred. We should be outraged, but not at the bloggers.
  
  Jill has a pretty good roundup of posts on the subject.
  

• Susie at BlueOhioan has left blogging because politics has gotten too "toxic." Normally I don't call people out as they are leaving but, seriously? The woman who called Obama a "petulant little snot" worried about the toxicity of politics? Toxic is as toxic does, Susie. If the kitchen is too hot, fine. But could you please turn off a couple of the burners you lit before you leave?

• The Dann drumbeat rolls on. ModernEsquire has been the most out front as new allegations. I want to see Dann gone as much as the next guy. But there is no clear path to getting rid of him short of the next election. I hope Redfern and Strickland are working behind the scenes to persuade him to step down into some sort of soft landing job. In any event, everything we know about the guy indicates that calling him out publicly as some have advocated will just make him dig in deeper.
  

• And yes, I have more to do on the Supreme Court voter ID case. And plenty more besides. Let's just say I'm OK with the semester ending.