Wednesday, July 07, 1999
Term limits start a candidate flood
GOP to thin ranks before primary
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ohio's term limits law for state legislators has set off a stampede in Hamilton County.
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TIME'S UP
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In southwestern Ohio, nine of 13 Ohio House seats will be open in 2000 because of term limits:
• 2nd District
(Warren County)
Incumbent: George Terwilleger (R)
• 32nd District
(Northern Hamilton County, including Sharonville, Springdale, Forest Park and Greenhills)
Incumbent: Dale Van Vyven (R)
• 33rd District
(Delhi Township and several wards on Cincinnati's west side)
Incumbent: Jerome Luebbers (D)
• 34th District
(Most of western Hamilton County, including Whitewater, Miami and Green townships)
Incumbent: Cheryl Winkler (R)
• 36th District
(Northeastern Hamilton County, includ ing Loveland, Symmes Township, Indian Hill, Madeira, Terrace Park and Montgomery)
Incumbent: Robert Schuler (R)
• 37th District
(Anderson Township, Norwood, Newtown and some east-side wards in Cincinnati)
Incumbent: Jacqueline O'Brien (R)
• 60th District
(Western portion of Butler County and all of Preble County)
Incumbent: Gene Krebs (R)
• 71st District
(Northern Clermont County, including Batavia)
Incumbent: Sam Bateman (R)
• 72nd District
(Eastern Clermont County and Brown and Clinton counties)
Incumbent: Rose Vesper (R) |
A long line of about 60 Republicans — township officials, council members in suburban cities and villages and a host of other first-time candidates — is forming outside Hamilton County Republican Party headquarters to run for one of five Ohio House seats that will be open because of the term limits law in 2000.
“By March the trickle of candidates we had heard from turned into a flood,” said Hamilton County GOP Chairman H.C. “Buck” Niehoff.
But party leaders are hoping to weed out the field before the primary next March and will use campaign money to help them do it.
Next year's election will be the first in which Ohio's term-limits law will kick in. The law limits representatives to four consecutive two-year terms and senators to two consecutive four-year terms.
Voters nationwide have adopted term limits as a way to refresh the composition of city councils, legislatures and Con gress. Opponents argue that limiting terms means less-experienced lawmakers at the mercy of an entrenched bureaucracy.
Forty-two members of the 99-member House will be gone in 2000. An additional seven members re-elected in 1998 to their last terms have already left the Ohio House for other jobs.
In the Senate, five of 33 senators will leave because of term limits. None is from southwest Ohio.
Five of the House members are from Hamilton County — Democrat Jerome Luebbers and Republicans Cheryl Winkler, Dale Van Vyven, Robert Schuler and Jackie O'Brien.
Warren County's George Terwilleger, a Republican, also cannot run again. Neither can Republican Gene Krebs, whose districts includes part of Butler County.
Both of Clermont County's state representatives, Republicans Rose Vesper and Sam Bateman, will be out.
In all, nine of 13 southwestern Ohio incumbents will be term-limited out next year.
The open seats in Hamilton County could draw a number of Democratic contenders, but the fact that these five districts are suburban and mostly favor Republicans has potential GOP candidates multiplying like rabbits.
Mr. Niehoff and other Hamilton County GOP leaders began having nightmares of primary contests next March with a dozen or more candidates going to war in each district.
So Mr. Niehoff has devised a plan to whittle down the field and come up with party-endorsed candidates in each of the five districts. The chairman and Shannon Jones, the party's executive director, have set up a detailed screening process which begins this month, where each potential candidate can come in and talk to party leaders and make his or her case for being the party's anointed candidate.
Party leaders will explain the process to prospective candidates at a July 17 meeting at the Queen City Club, Ms. Jones said.
In early December, the party will endorse candidates for each district, well before the Jan. 7 candidate filing deadline for the March 2000 primary.
“There will be no favorites going in,” Ms. Jones said. “We want it to be absolutely open, so that, when it's over, everyone will feel he or she had a fair chance.”
Charles Tassell of Pleasant Ridge, a former aide to Cincinnati Councilman Charles Winburn who plans to run in the 36th House District, with or without the party endorsement, said he thinks the July 17 meeting, will be a “wake-up call” for many of the would-be candidates.
“I think that meeting is going to thin out the field considerably,” Mr. Tassell said.
The fact that the GOP will be running an endorsed candidate by no means precludes the possibility that nonendorsed candidates will enter the primary as well.
The party has a considerable hammer to use on candidates who don't get the picture. Mr. Niehoff said the party already has a $175,000 fund for House candidates — a fund that is expected to grow to about $250,000 by the end of the year.
“That money is intended for the general election, but we are willing to spend it in the primary on our candidates if we have to,” Mr. Niehoff said.
Few village or township officials who challenge a party-backed candidate could compete with that kind of money.
Some of the open districts — Mrs. O'Brien's, Mrs. Winkler's and Mr. Schuler's particularly — are so overwhelmingly Republican that coming through the screening process with the Republican party endorsement is tantamount to being elected.
Even Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke said it would be difficult for the Democrats to compete in those three districts — just as it would be difficult for the Republicans to beat Sam Britton and Catherine Barrett, the two Democratic incumbents whose districts are in Cincinnati and not yet subject to term limits.
But Mr. Burke said he expects the Democrats will be competitive in the Delhi Township and west-side Cincinnati district of Mr. Luebbers, a conservative Democrat who has championed laws to restrict the availability of abortions.
“We can keep that seat with a candidate who fits the district,” Mr. Burke said. “A conservative Democrat.”
Mr. Burke said he expects at least three Democrats to run in a primary in Mr. Van Vyven's northern Hamilton County district.
But Mr. Burke said he doesn't expect that there will be any kind of screening process or party endorsement on the Democratic side in any of the districts.
“We'll probably face the same kind of situation two years from now when Sam Britton is term-limited out,” Mr. Burke said. “I would think that seat is going to draw a lot of Democrats.”
Mrs. Vesper said she has not seen the kind of stampede for the Clermont County seats that is taking place in Hamilton County. She expects two Republican candidates to vie for her seat.
“At first, I had a lot of people coming to me saying they were interested in taking over for me,” Mrs. Vesper said. “A lot of them thought it was a part-time job. Then I showed them my schedule. That weeded it out quite a bit.”
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