The Ohio coin-gate scandal has now become a coast-to-coast national story from Big Apple to City of Angels.
New York Times covered the story couple of weeks ago, and now
the LA Times is all over the story. In an article today, the Times gives an overview of the story. Nothing new in this article for those folks who have been closely following this story here on our blog, but it does have a California angle to it:
Noe gave campaign contributions to five of Ohio's seven Supreme Court justices and to President Bush's reelection campaign. He gave money to newly elected California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the spring of 2004.
[...]
And as state officials prepare to file criminal and civil charges against Noe, 50, the GOP is stampeding away from the former Lucas County GOP chairman. Dozens of Republicans -- including Bush, Schwarzenegger and Ohio Gov. Robert A. Taft -- are returning more than $100,000 in donations.
Toledo Blade as usual has lot more - zeroing in on this story's growing national implications, including concerns over whether one party dominated "
culture of corruption" in the Buckeye State might have impacted the November 2 elections this past year:
The controversy has Democrats questioning whether the Ohio Republicans who permitted the state's rare-coin investment could have been capable of wrongdoing at the polls last November.
U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Lorain, said his Republican counterparts in Washington and Columbus have left a trail of misdeeds that was highlighted during last year's presidential race. If President Bush collected illegal money in Ohio, Mr. Brown said, it casts some questions about the results of the election.
"When you see one party with this much power, corruption sets in," Mr. Brown said. "I don't know of any state that has seen it this bad.
More from our friend
Cliff Arnebeck, from the same article:
Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney and co-chairman of the Alliance for Democracy, said the news of Mr. Noe's coin deal has provided some optimism for people who believe the election was swayed by wrongdoing.
"There's an excitement that we are getting to the bottom of this," said Mr. Arnebeck, who filed lawsuits on behalf of voters after last year's election.
"It is happening at a fairly rapid time frame. It's phenomenal in terms of what has been uncovered. It dramatizes what I think is fair to describe as a culture of corruption," he said.
Culture of corruption? Cliff must be
reading our blog! And, speaking of that topic - LA Times also has a
story on DeLay and his connections TRMPAC, an issue we wrote about the day a Texas Judge issued a stern rulling against DeLay's political action committee from home for breaking. DeLay, Ohio, CPB, election reform - looks like we are going to have another busy week ahead. Happy Sunday everyone.
