BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Lawyer John Burlew, a longtime Republican, is the Hamilton County Democratic Party's new candidate for a juvenile court judgeship. Republican party officials say they will make sure traditional Republican voters are aware that their candidate is Thomas Lipps, the former juvenile court administrator who was recently appointed to the juvenile court bench.
Mr. Burlew, 50, who has declined GOP judicial appointments in the past, was endorsed Saturday by the Democratic Party after its original candidate, lawyer Jeffrey Adams, withdrew.
After the GOP endorsed Mr. Lipps for the seat of retired judge David Grossman earlier this year, Mr. Burlew began circulating petitions to run as an independent candidate. He qualified for the ballot as an independent in May.
Democratic Party officials said at the time that they might switch their endorsement to Mr. Burlew, if Mr. Adams withdrew as a candidate.
Party affiliations are not listed on the ballot in judicial contests, but political parties endorse candidates.
Republican Party officials said Mr. Burlew filed as an independent candidate because he was miffed at being passed over by the party, but Mr. Burlew said that wasn't the case.
"I'm running to win," Mr. Burlew said Monday. "I'm a Republican running as an independent with Democratic Party backing. I'll take support from whoever wants to give it to me."
Hamilton County GOP chairman Mike Allen said Monday that "as far as I am concerned, he is a Democrat; he has cast his lot with them." "If (Mr. Burlew) thinks he is going to be able to run as an independent Republican, he had better think again," Mr. Allen said.
Mr. Allen said he believes Democratic Party leaders had planned all along to replace Mr. Adams, who has never run for office before, with Mr. Burlew.
"I don't see the problem if we did," said Hamilton County Democratic chairman Tim Burke. "We saw an opportunity to endorse a highly competent attorney for a job for which he is well qualified. And we are interested in seeing an African-American on the juvenile court."
Mr. Burlew, a Kennedy Heights resident, had been approached by GOP leaders at least twice in the past about judicial appointments, but he turned them down, saying he was interested in the juvenile court.
"This is a job I have wanted for a long time," Mr. Burlew said. "I'm going to do my best to win it."
Mr. Burlew, a past president of the Cincinnati Bar Association and member of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, has represented defendants in a number of high-profile cases, including the drug trial of former Cincinnati health commissioner Stanley Broadnax and the horse-punching trial of former University of Cincinnati basketball player Art Long.
