Jane Murray began her political career in Portsmouth in 2008 by spearheading a recall effort against Howard Baughman, who was at the time president of Portsmouth City Council. She took out and circulated petitions to have Baughman removed from office, in accordance with the Portsmouth City Charter. (Baughman resigned rather than facing recall.) Murray's strongest supporters (who some refer to as the Citizens Against Virtually Everything, or the "CAVE People") have used and/or have threatened to use the recall provisions of the Charter against city councilmen and mayors many times in the last decades. Finally, when Murray was sworn into office, she took an oath to uphold the City Charter, which includes the recall section, which she previously used against Baughman.
Yet when Citizens of Portsmouth used the recall provision against her, Murray's first response was to call the citizens corrupt.
Then rather than choosing to face the voters and defend her outrageous actions since January, she hypocritically challenged the rights of the citizens: first at the Scioto County Board of Elections, and ultimately to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Her supporters on City Council, Rich Noel and Kevin Johnson, railed against the recall effort. Noel's complaints were complete hypocrisy.
Johnson's response was to those who had collected the signatures of 1400-plus citizens, twice, "incompetent," "sloppy," and "stupid."
City Council, in accordance with the requirements of the City Charter, approved the recall petitions and passed an ordinance so that the Board of Elections would place the issue of the recall of Jane Murray on the November 2 general election ballot, which would not have been an additional cost the city or county. However, Jane appealed to the County Board of Elections and convinced them to reject the petitions on a technicality, forcing the recall committee to once again solicit the required number of signatures.
(It is Murray's futile fight to keep the recall off the ballot, not the "recall leaders' incompetence," to use Johnson's words, that will ultimately cost the citizens $15,000 to $20,000. )
When the committee was once again successful, Murray and her attorneys again appealed to the Board of Elections. This time the Board rejected Murray's complaint.
Murray then appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio---in the form of a lawsuit against the Board of Elections! (in hopes that the County would be forced to pay Murray's legal fees.) Now, the Elections Board was only doing its job, and complying with the City Charter of Portsmouth (which, as we said, Murray is sworn to uphold), but Murray's suit accused them of "abuse of discretion and disregard of applicable law."
THE SUPREME COURT DECISION
The decision of the Supreme Court was released on Thursday of last week (12/2). It was a compete repudiation of Murray's arguments. The decision vindicated those whom Jane and her cronies accused of wrong-doing.
The ruling was UNANIMOUS. All eight of the Supreme Court Justices indicated their complete agreement with the decision, and that Murray's arguments had "no merit."
Here are some key statements from the ruling:
"Because the board of elections neither abused its discretion nor clearly disregarded applicable law by determining that the recall petition contained a sufficient number of valid signatures, we deny the writ of prohibition. We dismiss the mandamus claim for lack of jurisdiction.""Therefore, the board of elections neither abused its discretion nor clearly disregarded applicable law by denying Murray’s protest premised on the recall petition’s purported failure to comply with R.C. 3501.38(E)(1).""But for the reasons previously set forth, she [Murray] has failed to establish either an abuse of discretion or a clear disregard of applicable law by the board of elections that would result in an insufficient number of signatures on the recall petition.""Therefore, Murray is not entitled to the requested extraordinary writ of prohibition to prevent the recall election. We deny the writ of prohibition and dismiss the mandamus claim."
We hope this fateful decision and the results of the Dec. 7 recall election will end Jane Murray's tragic political career in Portsmouth.
Jane Murray has repeatedly claimed that she has the experience in goverment and the judgment that Portsmouth needs. However, Murray's embarassing defeat in the Ohio Supreme Court, is just more proof, if any were needed, that her judgement is as poor as it ever was.
Her loss in the Supreme Court is just another in a long string of failures in goverment that have followed her throughout her career, from Lexington to Washington, and now in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Anyone who doubts Murray's incompetence and poor judgment should read the precedent-setting, unanimous Supreme Court decision:
(click for link)
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