DeWine’s Office Tries to Distract from Growing Pay-To-Play Scandal

COLUMBUS – After a string of negative news stories about how Mike DeWine has personally met with lobbyists of firms seeking State contracts and documents showing changed scoring sheets to rig bids to benefit an inexperienced DeWine donor, today Mike DeWine’s office suddenly rushed out a press release claiming to have a record year in collections the last fiscal year, which ended a month ago.

In response to DeWine’s release this morning, Ohio Democratic Deputy Communications Director Brian Hester released the following statement:

“As editorials across Ohio have said, the amount his office has collected is an insufficient excuse for DeWine’s rigged bidding process to benefit his campaign donors to personally benefit himself.  If any other elected official awarded contracts in such a corrupt manner, Mike DeWine would hold a press conference to announce he was bringing charges.”

BACKGROUND

Akron Beacon Journal Editorial says amount DeWine has collected under his pay-to-play scheme doesn’t matter.  “Hard to shake the impression of a deal wired to a favored bidder. Or that David Pepper, the Democrat challenging DeWine in this election year, makes a worthy point about Ohioans deserving better from the attorney general’s office.

“DeWine defends the decision by citing how successful Spitalieri has been in his business ventures. That just isn’t good enough. Neither is it sufficient to note the amount of collections, though the annual sum has slipped the past two years after a steady climb since 2001.” [Source: Akron Beacon Journal (July 23, 2014), “Where legal work meets political money.”]