After months of silence, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose admitted this week that he is conducting campaign activities in the same building where he just finished moving his state agency, the one responsible for running Ohio’s elections, but he did not provide any further details or explain why Ohioans should trust him not to engage in outside politics as he runs in a three-way U.S. Senate primary just four months away.
Adding to questions about the secretary’s sincerity, his office stressed that the more than $600,000 it will cost to move and renovate the up-to-date space will not come from taxpayers. Instead, the expense will be funded by fees the secretary collects from business records, his office said.
Since both types of funds are public funds, many people may believe that there is no difference between them.
NBC4 reported in September that LaRose is quietly moving the Secretary of State’s office from the location at 180 Broad Street, which it occupied for nearly two decades, to a up-to-date location at 200 Civic Center Drive along the Scioto Mile.
This building also houses offices where LaRose registered his Senate campaign in July with the Federal Elections Commission. They belong to BakerHostetler, the law firm representing his campaign.
He claims he has no campaign headquarters, and LaRose claims it is just a coincidence that his campaign lawyers are headquartered in the building where he currently administers this and other elections as secretary of state, using taxpayer money.
For months, LaRose refused to answer questions from NBC4 and the Capital Journal about whether he had participated in campaign activities at 200 Civic Center Drive or whether he planned to do so in the future. In mid-October, when asked in person, LaRose left.
A few weeks ago, it certainly seemed like he was playing politics in the building when he posted video clip campaign interview with right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon. His office declined to answer questions, but LaRose sat in front of a window overlooking the scene, which showed almost certainly was somewhere in the building at 200 Civic Center Drive.
On Monday, LaRose’s office finally agreed with NBC4. that he used the building for campaign activities in the past.
“While the Secretary has used meeting space in the law firm’s offices temporarily in the past and there are no legal or ethical restrictions on him continuing to do so, he will not use that space now that the Secretary of State’s office has moved to this new property,” LaRose spokeswoman Melanie Amato said.
LaRose’s office did not respond to questions from the Capital Journal. They included a request for a detailed description of LaRose’s campaign activities at the building — rather than simply saying that Ohio’s top election official “temporarily used the meeting space.”
LaRose’s sincerity has been frequently questioned this year.
Among other things, he ran an exorbitant, unsuccessful campaign to make it much harder for citizens to change the state constitution. The campaign was peppered contradictory and misleading statements.
Then, as chairman of the Ohio Ballot Board, he rewrote the “vote summary” for the abortion-rights amendment that passed by a 14-point margin on November 7. The board made confusing changes and inserted loaded words like “unborn child” into the supposed summary, which was about as long as the amendment itself.
On Wednesday, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that LaRose told a group of Republicans on Nov. 17 that he was allowing several anti-abortion groups that will support with the prescriptionIn other words, Ohio’s top elections official invited opponents to write ballot language that mischaracterized the abortion-rights amendment, which supporters had gathered half a million signatures from registered voters to put on the ballot.
In delicate of such obvious duplicity, a LaRose spokeswoman was asked why Ohioans should trust LaRose to keep his promise not to campaign out of his building at 200 Civic Center Drive — or even out of the office from which he is supposed to run the election. She did not answer.
In addition, Amato’s spokeswoman told NBC4 that taxpayers are not funding the move because it is being funded by business filing fees. This ignores the fact that tax funds would have to make up for any loss in filing fees and vice versa.
Another unanswered question: If business registration fees are so high, would LaRose support lowering them to support petite businesses?
