The U.S. Senate race in Ohio looks to be one of the most critical Senate races in 2024 in terms of Republicans’ willingness to flip seats currently held by vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Polls show a tight re-election race for Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), which may be why Ohio Democrats are paying attention to how Brown’s potential opponent, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, has moved his office .
LaRose moved from 180 E. Broad St. in September. to a modern location on Civic Center Drive. The move drew attention and criticism from many state Democrats, including a state senator. Bill DeMora, a Democrat representing Columbus, because it is the same building where Baker Hostetler’s campaign attorneys work.
Townhall received a letter from the Registry with the letterhead of the Secretary of State, sent electronically to the following address: DeMora. Letter of September 12 comes from Paul Disantis, general counsel and director of public policy for the Secretary of State.
“First, I will note that although you acknowledge during the interview that our decision to relocate the office “is not illegal under the law,” you proceed to conduct your own “smell test.” “I suspect this test is heavily biased based on your background as a long-time partisan official who regularly criticizes the Secretary of State,” the letter reads, quoting DeMora quoted in in a local NBC report about his concerns about the secretariat building and the location’s proximity to the campaign.
At one point in the letter, Disantis addresses concerns about LaRose’s office because the secretary is close to his campaign. “The address listed in the documents is for the Columbus office of Baker Hostetler, the law firm representing Secretary LaRose’s federal campaign. His campaign does not have a formal office,” the letter reads.
“It is important to note that if the Secretary wanted to find an office close to a law firm providing political representation for his campaign’s interests, we would not have to leave our current location. Our current location is home to the law firm Dickinson Wright, which represents the Secretary General’s state campaign committee,” the letter continues. “No concerns were ever expressed about our closeness to this law firm because this entire narrative is stupid, based on false information and clearly intended to score political points, which is why no serious journalist believes it is just a story.”
The letter also explained problems experienced by a secretary at the 180 E. Broad St. location. The case partly comes down to “rising crime rates in the greater metropolitan area” as well as “evidence of financial distress.” The threats to employees at this location were also mentioned:
Let me start by talking about the timeline of our decision to move to a new location. This process began shortly after Secretary LaRose took office in 2019, when he asked his senior team to begin examining relocation options. To say our current location, Continental Plaza at 180 E. Broad St., is struggling would be an understatement. This is certainly a difficulty that many downtown properties are facing amid the post-pandemic economic recovery, the rise of remote work, and rising crime rates in the greater metropolitan area, but we have been seeing signs of current property financial distress for several years, from the poor condition of the property to reduction of support staff. In May 2023, enforcement proceedings against the property began, as a result of which a receiver was appointed and the date of the bailiff auction was set. These changes are there well documented in Business First.
Since taking office in 2019, Secretary LaRose has been particularly concerned about the lack of protected parking spaces in the building as threats against election staff are a real and growing problem across the country. Some of our employees have had their lives and property threatened simply because of their work, and we regularly work with law enforcement to mitigate such realities. Most of our 135 employees must find and pay for parking on their own in nearby garages, car parks and paid spaces. Due to the nature of our work, these steadfast team members are sometimes required to arrive early and work tardy, especially during elections. This often requires employees to accompany each other to and from vehicles, as some employees have experienced vandalized vehicles and even aggressive harassment from people approaching them in unsecured parking garages or on nearby sidewalks outside of classic daytime work hours.
This move also had to wait many years before LaRose announced his candidacy for the Senate:
Secretary LaRose has determined that this security threat poses an unacceptable risk to our employees and has asked our senior team in 2021 to re-examine relocation efforts with a focus on efficiency and safety. By then, the post-pandemic economy had created more affordable options downtown. The Secretary asked his team to prioritize locations with an attached parking option to enhance employee safety. Politically, these efforts began more than a year before Secretary LaRose declared her candidacy for re-election to the position she currently holds and 18 months before she filed campaign documents with the Federal Election Commission. Hence your claim that “suddenly they have to move because Frank LaRose needs to be close to his own [U.S. Senate] campaign” is patently false.
The letter goes on to detail how the decision was made to also come to this location, including mention of the unanimous and bipartisan consent the Secretary had received:
In partnership with the Department of Administrative Services, our exploration of several properties in and around the Columbus area continued from 2021 through 2022. Our staff first visited the property at 200 Civic Center Drive (our new location) in June 2022. As Z News reports indicate that we explored other options that were either too costly or did not provide adequate parking for our employees. Simply put, the Civic Center Drive location provided overall rent reduction, as well as an attached garage that could safely accommodate our full-time office staff. This has proven to be a difficult challenge to achieve, but we expect that the more streamlined and modern facility offered at the new location will also help with employee recruitment and retention. We made the decision to finalize this property after consulting with our entire bipartisan staff, including those in our bargaining department, some of whom began working with this office under then-Secretary of State Sherrod Brown in the early 1980s.
We appeared before the General Assembly Oversight Board twice this year to explain relocation efforts and secure funding for the move. We first received unanimous, bipartisan approval to expend relocation funds in January 2023, again nearly six months before Secretary LaRose filed paperwork with the FEC…
The issue of cost to taxpayers, which has been the subject of numerous media reports, was also raised, although the letter noted that “no taxes will be spent to finance the transfer.” Disantis’ letter explains that “[t]The total cost of the new lease agreement is lower than in the case of our current agreement, and one-off costs related to moving will be covered by the revenues obtained by our office as part of business fees.
Despite the letter’s clear information, the Ohio Dems website remained implacable in covering LaRose’s move in its news section, which included at least 10 articles from September 8. The Ohio Dems X account also posted several posts about the move, including one in late September in which LaRose was wearing an obviously fake moving outfit.
Great deal on a new moving company! No upfront costs – just $600,000 in hidden fees.
Contact Frank LaRose at 200 Civic Center Drive for all relocation inquiries, Secretary of State official business and campaign information. pic.twitter.com/qOewKAMGn1
— Ohio Dems (@OHDems) September 28, 2023
This has been all over the liberal media in Ohio, with one particularly outrageous example coming from the Ohio Capital Journal: who tried link the move to “ethical issues” and how LaRose’s “ability to do this job impartially” is being questioned.
Such examples, however, amount to partisan politics, as when it comes to efforts to pass Amendment 1, which LaRose led, the failed amendment that would have required ballot initiatives to pass 60% support, and the rabidly pro-abortion Amendment 1 ballot initiative in next week’s elections. It is worth noting that the OCJ was misleading within their reach Issue 1. One example is even LaRose’s decision to support former and potentially future President Donald Trump, who won the state by about 8 points in both 2016 and 2020.
Businessman Bernie Moreno and state Sen. Matt Dolan are also running in the Republican primary to face Brown next November.
According to an Emmerson College poll released last month, Dolan leads Brown by 2 points (38-36 percent), LaRose leads Brown by 1 point (39-38 percent) and Moreno trails Brown by 2 points (33-35 percent). ). This is all within the margin of error, and the poll description notes “Competitive General Election for Brown Faces.” All the forecasters they currently consider the race to be in the “Throw” category.
