Something's rotten in the state of Ohio

Governor Taft is up on four misdemeanor charges for ethics violations. The charges were announced at a joint press conference held by the Democratic city prosecutor and Republican county prosecutor. There are only four charges since the law only allowed one charge for each year of unreported gifts and outings. Among the received gifts that the governor didn't report were approximately 50 rounds of golf at various private golf clubs, tickets to Columbus Blue Jackets games, and various other gifts.

This makes Taft the first Ohio governor charged with crimes of any sort while in office. This in over 200 years of statehood (and going back 218 years to the first territorial governor). And he's the latest in a line of Taft Administration officials to be brought up on charges related to unreported gifts and various graft and corruption in the last three years. We're stuck with this guy as our governor until January 2007, at this point. He refuses to resign, and the charges he is facing only carry fines as penalties, and no jail time.

In reality, I'm happy that he's not resigning and won't be forced to. It would be awful if he could gracefully back out of this. First of all, that would allow the GOP the opportunity to distance themselves from this administration. Also, the current Lieutenant Governor, an appointee, is Bruce Johnson. He was a state representative or senator from the Columbus area when I was in grad school, and he was running for city prosecutor when I met him. He was on a COTA bus I was taking (to a meeting with a Democratic candidate for a different office), where he shook hands and passed out campaign literature. He just gave me this really weird vibe when meeting him. Then I looked at the literature and about gagged on the "family" and "tough on crime" themes contained therein. And I've found that Republican prosecutors in college towns result in crackdowns on underage drinking that lead to high conviction rates while real crime is ignored.

So, between not wanting "Governor Johnson" and not wanting the GOP to be able to distance themselves from this mess over the next year, I'm glad Taft is going to fight this. It's not like he can screw up this state, or its economy, any more than he has.