Six-year fight ends as OH Chamber of Commerce drops appeal

2006 closed with an AfD victory in the Ohio Court of Appeals, when the Ohio Chamber of Commerce dropped its appeal of a 2005 ruling that they had broken election laws by funding attack ads against a state supreme court judge.

AfD was the plaintiff in a suit brought by former Co-Chair Cliff Arnebeck alleging that ads run by the group “Citizens for a Strong Ohio” constituted an illegal attempt by the group’s backer, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, to influence the election of Ohio state justice Alice Robie Resnick in 2000.

The court battle over the ads lasted six years, with the Chamber appealing a 2003 ruling by a county court requiring Citizens for a Strong Ohio to publicize the names of its donors, and a 2005 decision by the state’s Elections Commission ruling that the Chamber of Commerce had illegally taken sides in a political campaign. It was not until last month that the Chamber finally dropped its appeal, ending what the Cleveland Plain Dealer called "one of the most meanspirited election campaigns in Ohio history."