BY SANDY THEIS
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS -- When is a crime fighter no longer a crime fighter?
When he gets a new boss -- even if his duties stay the same, according to Brian Hicks, who manages Republican Bob Taft's campaign for governor.
The question -- and rather unusual answer -- were prompted by a Taft campaign commercial that accuses Democratic rival Lee Fisher of cutting "crime fighting by 15 percent" while he served as attorney general.
Mr. Fisher, however, said that the number of crime-fighting employees actually increased during his four years in office. Mr. Taft's tally does not count 28 employees who were transferred from the AG's Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation (BCI) to the agency's Environmental Enforcement Section, according to the Fisher campaign.
Mr. Fisher insists that the employees' duties did not change. They still investigated violations of environmental law and conducted mandatory background checks on landfill operators. During a news conference Friday, reporters questioned Mr. Hicks about the transfers.
He was asked, "If somebody is doing a background check on somebody who wants a landfill permit and is working for BCI one day, and then they're doing a background investigation on somebody who wants a landfill permit but they're under the Environmental Enforcement Section on the next day, you're telling me that in job A they're fighting crime and in job B they're not?"
His reply:
"I'm telling you that's my opinion. In Job A they are fighting crime and in Job B, they are not fighting crime."
The Ohio Elections Commission, a panel charged with determining whether campaign commercials contain false statements, is to hold a hearing on the ad next week.
Also Friday, both campaigns unveiled new TV commercials, and Fisher supporters have asked a Franklin County Common Pleas Court to block the Taft commercial from airing.
"This is intentionally misleading," said Fisher campaign chairman Alan Melamed.
By Friday evening, the judge had not determined whether to grant or deny the motion for a temporary restraining order or order a hearing on the matter.
The commercial attempts to discredit Mr. Fisher's proposed property-tax cut, as well as a recent Fisher campaign commercial noting that Hamilton County's property taxes became the highest in the state during Mr. Taft's tenure as a county commissioner. The ad opens with an announcer saying that Mr. Fisher's commercials are "way wrong. Bob Taft never raised property taxes. Says right on the front page of the Plain Dealer . . . "Taft didn't raise the taxes . . .' "
Fisher supporters say the Taft campaign's use of the newspaper quote is misleading because it is incomplete. Here's what the newspaper article said:
"But Taft didn't raise the taxes himself. Rather, he gave voters the right to decide whether they should be increased. He conceded that he campaigned for some of the proposals, but could not say how many."
Taft spokesman Brett Buerck said the commercial is truthful. "It's a fact that Bob Taft did not raise property taxes," Mr. Buerck said. As a county commissioner, he simply put the proposed increases before voters.
Despite persistent questions over the accuracy of the Taft campaign's commercials, they appear to be working.
Republican insiders say internal polls show voters are wary of the tax-cut plan, in part, because of Taft commercials that question Mr. Fisher's credibility.
The plan calls for the state to pick up a larger share of homeowners' property taxes. If approved, it would trim taxes by up to $275 annually. Rather than continue to trumpet the tax cut, Mr. Fisher has shifted his message -- a shift that normally signals the old message isn't working.
The Fisher campaign's latest TV commercial, which opens around the state today, criticizes Mr. Taft for accepting campaign contributions from the Cincinnati-based Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
The firm recently abandoned its plans to drop about 20,000 rural Ohio members from its Medicare HMO. Anthem backed down after a torrent of criticism, led by Piqua resident Becky Howe, who stars in the latest Fisher for Governor commercial.
"We called Bob Taft, but he turned his back on us," she says in the commercial. She also called Mr. Fisher, who met with her and wrote letters to Congress on her behalf.
Mr. Melamed said the new commercial "goes to the heart, we believe, of what this election is all about. It's about . . . who will give the people of Ohio a voice and who will turn their backs on them . . ."
Mr. Buerck, the Taft spokesman, said he does not know whether Mrs. Howe called the Taft campaign but called the Anthem controversy "tragic."
