Latest / Taking Initiative / Meet Ohio's Attorney General Candidates: Elliot Forhan (Democratic Party)
Transcript
- Patricia Blackmon: and I am Patricia Ann Blackmon. I am having a great day and grateful for another day of learning. Elliot Forhan (he/him): Thank you so much, Laura, and great to meet both you and Patricia. I look forward to the conversation. Patricia Blackmon: Yes, the primaries are coming quickly on May you will be facing off against another Democrat, John Kulewicz. Now Elliot, talk to us about your background and qualifications to be Ohio's Attorney General. Elliot Forhan (he/him): First of all, I want to say thanks again to the two of you for inviting me on ⁓ to your podcast to give me an opportunity to introduce myself to you and to your listeners. so I am a former member of the Ohio House of Representatives. I served as a state ⁓ But more important than that, ⁓ I beat in court ⁓ once already Dave Yost's lawyers, and I'm suing him right now ⁓ together with corrupt. Ohio politicians who abuse their offices and the public trust. So I will beat Dave Yost again. Now, you know, ⁓ my campaign, actually quite simple. Just three things. Tax the rich, stand up to bullies. and prosecute Donald Trump to the fullest extent of the law. And I appreciate the focus of your podcast, ⁓ Ballot Protection. So when I was ⁓ a member of the Ohio House, a state representative, I served as a member of ⁓ the Ohio State Ballot Board, which ⁓ I suspect you're very familiar with. plays an important role in connection with the statewide ballot initiatives. In fact, when I was a member of the state ballot board, this was in the year 2023. There were three. ballot, statewide ballot initiatives in that year, ⁓ right? Two of them in November and one of them in a special ⁓ August election, This was in November, it was the Reproductive Freedom, Constitutional Amendment Ballot Initiative and also the Cannabis Legalization ⁓ Statutory Initiative. And then in August, we did the, ⁓ well, it was ⁓ at the initiative of the Republican controlled state legislature. The Republicans in the state legislature were asking Ohio voters to approve a constitutional amendment that would have made it more difficult. Exactly right. So to raise from 50 % to 60 % the minimum required vote for any future, think, and they were pretty explicit that the reason they were doing it was specifically to target the ⁓ freedom initiative that everybody expected to be on the ballot in November of that year 2023. They wanted to make it harder ⁓ to pass any future constitutional amendment. ⁓ I'm a Democrat, right? And my side of things, we were in favor of the November initiatives, both the reproductive freedom and cannabis legalization. And we were in opposition to the ⁓ special August. you know, the making it harder in the future to do those initiatives. And, you know, in fact, we prevailed with respect to each of those, ⁓ each of those initiatives. So that was, mean, you know, during my time serving as a state representative, ⁓ I am extremely proud of the results that, you know, that we got with respect to those three 2023 ballot initiatives. ⁓ yeah, I think it was really, maybe some of the most important work that I did as a state representative. Senator. Laura Lucarelli: Well, let's dive right into the process, if we can. So, the Attorney General's role has been described as the gatekeeper and legal compliance officer when it involves Ohio ballot initiatives. What are your thoughts about that description and how would you approach this responsibility? Elliot Forhan (he/him): Yeah, so I mean, the way that I see the office of the Ohio attorney general in that role, it's the top prosecutor position in the state. It's the top law enforcement officer, representative in court for the state of Ohio and ⁓ for the people of Ohio, right? ⁓ And the office ⁓ of attorney general. It's a very large office, I think between 700 and 800 lawyers working in that office, making it the largest law firm ⁓ in the state. ⁓ the jurisdiction of the office is very ⁓ It has a large ⁓ range covering uh you know, like consumer protection, also criminal prosecutions, but also the Ohio Attorney General does play a role in the statewide ballot initiative process. again, I suspect you are very well aware, right? So the statewide ballot initiative process, it includes, you know, the Ohio Ballot Board, which as I mentioned, I served as a member in 2023, but the Ohio Attorney General does play a role And under this current ⁓ Ohio attorney, Dave Yost's ⁓ tenure in office as Ohio attorney general, I do believe ⁓ that he ⁓ has played politics with respect to the ⁓ ballot initiative ⁓ process. ⁓ The way that I see the Ohio attorney general's role there in connection with the ballot initiative process, ⁓ you should be doing is should be following the law first and foremost, know, enforcing the law as written. That's the most important job, okay? Right? But in doing that, you can, ⁓ the attorney general can ⁓ slow down or speed up the process of these ballot initiatives. And that's something that Dave Yost has gotten in trouble for. In fact, I I think there was, ⁓ was it one of the qualified immunity initiatives or something like that, where a federal court, you know, they went, ⁓ He had rejected something like 10 times or something. mean an outrageous number of times, right? Okay. All right. Well, I'm sorry, Dave. I'm exaggerating, but eight's pretty close to 10. So I wasn't that far off. But a federal court basically said, you you can't keep rejecting these submissions and forced him to, ⁓ you know, to follow the law, right? So ⁓ yeah, I mean, like, look. Patricia Blackmon: was eight times. Elliot Forhan (he/him): As Ohio attorney general, the most important thing that I would do is exactly that, to follow the law as written and not, I mean, look, Dave Yost has politicized that office. He has abused that office, his rich friends get away with murder, frankly. And this is just one example of the rejecting eight times that submission. Patricia Blackmon: was wondering ⁓ if you have at what other states have done. ⁓ There are ⁓ 24 states have ballot initiative. Have looked at what they do and what they do right and see how it applies to the Attorney General office here? ⁓ And have you have you that initiative? Elliot Forhan (he/him): Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I will say just as a general matter. You know, one of the most important things as far as I'm concerned that's happening right now in our country across the United States, you know, is state attorneys general are, ⁓ are taking action, right? And in particular, as far as, you know, from my, from my perspective, you know, they're, getting results in court, you know, to stop the illegal actions by Donald Trump in this out of control federal government. Okay. And, and, you know, when I'm Ohio attorney general, I plan to, you know, not only join that fight, but, but, be leading that fight. Okay. Now, you your question is. a little bit different, you know, talking about the ballot initiative process. Now, my understanding is that the ballot initiative process in our state is governed by ⁓ our state constitutional ⁓ provisions, right? And the role as the Ohio Constitution designates for the Ohio attorney general in connection with that process is really what I was kind of describing before about approving the language, potentially ⁓ forcing ⁓ initiative proponents to break up into more than one initiative, one of their submissions, things along those lines. So I should point out, for example, ⁓ in 2024, right? So that was ⁓ a really awful situa, know, from, again, from my perspective, again, I'm a Democrat, there was a ballot initiative on... ⁓ on this in November of 2024 on the statewide this was issue one you know to to end gerrymandering in our in our state by establishing an know an independent commission to you know to remove from from the control of elected officials and other politicians the process of of redrawing our legislative district maps right which i think Most everybody that I talk to, regardless of partisan affiliation, believe is what we should do in Ohio, right? the language that Secretary of State Frank LaRose wrote that appeared on the ballot was, I mean, it was, it was a lie, right? Yeah. Patricia Blackmon: the Attorney General did approve the language. Elliot Forhan (he/him): Right, this is where I was going with all of it, right? Is that, well, it wasn't that the attorney general, so the attorney general, my understanding again, was that the ⁓ attorney general approved the language of the, because there's two, ⁓ like passage, two language, ballot languages you have to take into consideration. One is the language, the actual language of the initiative, right? Which can be like, ⁓ pages and pages, pages long, right? And then you have the other, the short, okay? It's supposed to be like maybe just a few paragraphs or something like that or whatever. And that's what, you know, the so-called ⁓ summary language, okay? And that is what the secretary of state writes. The secretary of state writes and the Ohio ballot board, you know, ⁓ votes on the summary language, okay? And so as far as I'm aware, the Ohio attorney general does. I don't think that the Ohio attorney that the Ohio attorney general plays a role in approving the summary language, although and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do know this. I do know this in 2024 when Secretary of State Frank LaRose and the Republican controlled Ohio ballot board, you know, when they when he wrote and they approved the ⁓ deceptive, you know, the the lies right of that. ⁓ that summary language, okay? Then there was a legal challenge, a litigation, right? There was a court case I know the Ohio Supreme Court made the final decision and Yost, he was arguing in that court case, before the Ohio Supreme Court, Dave Yost was arguing that the court should accept, should basically should not ⁓ order ⁓ ⁓ secretary of state and the Ohio ballot board to rewrite the language, right? Because that was what the challengers, the challengers wanted the court to order the secretary of state and the ⁓ the ballot board to rewrite the language. so David's Patricia Blackmon: I think what we're just trying to get at is that the Attorney General has the initial role, and I think Laura used it correctly when she said the gatekeeper, because actually the Attorney General has to decide whether the petition has truth, fair, and truthful language. Once the Attorney General has approved it, then you have to go through the process of getting signatures. So we get all of that. We just wanted to know if you looked at any of the other states in the country that might be dealing with this issue. Elliot Forhan (he/him): Yeah. Yeah, no, ⁓ well, here's what I would say. Here's what I would say. Again, I am very well aware, right? And we have a, you know, a very hotly contested ⁓ democratic nomination contest for the Ohio secretary of state position, you know, two different candidates. I assume you're familiar, Dr. Hambley and Representative Allison Russo. ⁓ And yeah, as I think both of them essentially would say, and I agree with both of them. Patricia Blackmon: That's okay if you haven't. Elliot Forhan (he/him): We need an independent commission. other states across the country are doing that right now, I think with really ⁓ positive and compelling results. There's no reason. There's no reason that we can't do that here in Ohio. The only reason that we don't have it right now is because Frank LaRose lied. The Ohio ballot board let him get away with it. And the Ohio Supreme Court, ⁓ as argued by ⁓ Dave Yost, the Ohio Attorney General, Let them get away with Yeah, well, I look, I think it's a similar story as far as I'm concerned. It's a similar story to, ⁓ you know, why do we need the independent commission? Why do we need it? You know, we need to take power out of the hands ⁓ of politicians, okay? Put it into the hands of, ⁓ you know, essentially just, you know, people who are not in that universe, right? Why? Because, because they're, you know, with respect to politicians, It's the you know, in some cases it's their own jobs, but it can be the jobs of you know people on whom they depend in terms of the the political party to whom or to which they they belong right and for whom they depend on whom they depend for You know endorsements and and other, know political support things like that. I mean there's like this whole you know, as I've you know I've been working in politics in Ohio now for for the past several years Yeah, I there's this whole universe, right? And the world is much smaller than you might expect, right? So everybody knows everybody else, right? And ⁓ everybody is trying to ⁓ have favors and this, that, and the other thing. And so when you let ⁓ the commission draw or ⁓ the politicians draw the maps, right? They are going to try to, ⁓ you know, benefit their friends, right, and ⁓ promote their own interests, right? And that's why we need the independent commission. It's the same story, I believe. It's the same story for ⁓ this language, right, with the ballot board, I mean, ⁓ and the ⁓ Ohio Secretary of State. I mean, I think, frankly, again, no pun intended, candidly, you know, we should take We should probably take that role out of the hands of the, ⁓ I mean, maybe out of the secret(ary) at least, how about this? At least when the subject matter of the ballot initiative has sort of a political, a valence like that, like that, the anti-gerrymandering from two years ago, right? I mean, ⁓ just so we understand each other. ⁓ In 2020, so and I just want to state for the record, I was actually no longer a member of the Ohio Ballot Board when the in November 2024. Actually, I wasn't I wasn't on the Ballot Board for the entirety of calendar year 2024 when we lost the issue one in 2024. Right. So I had been off of the Ballot Board for a year at that point, which and I, know, anyway. If I'd been on the ballot board, who knows how that would have gone. We can't replay history, right? Anyway, but in 2023, I just want to point this out. When I was a member of the ballot board and we won, we won the August special in each of the two, cannabis and abortion in November, 2023, Frank LaRose tried, he tried to write, deceptive language with respect to each of those, right? Patricia Blackmon: Yeah, well, we understand that because you're running for attorney general. You're not running for secretary of state. So there are some standards. And I'm just curious if you could tell us if there's anything that we haven't heard already as the attorney general that you would do to protect direct democracy. Elliot Forhan (he/him): Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I look, I believe that, you know, in order or, you know, ⁓ if you are eligible to vote in our state, I believe that voting, you know, exercising the fundamental right should be easy. Okay. And the efforts to ⁓ intimidate ⁓ at the polls, for example, you know, voters, I mean, your question is about direct democracy. But direct democracy is part of democracy in general, right? Patricia Blackmon: I think you make a great point. We've really explored this issue quite well. So I think Laura has a final question. Elliot Forhan (he/him): Well, because I believe I'm the best person to ⁓ be the next Ohio attorney general. Again, I served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, a state representative, but more important than that, I beat Dave Yost in court once already of suing him again together with other corrupt Ohio politicians. So I'm going to beat Dave Yost again. And I've already mentioned, I'm running to apply the law equally to everybody, including the rich, including the powerful, including the president of the United States. And on day one, I'll just, this final point. On day one, the first lawsuit that I would file as Ohio attorney general would be to enforce the guarantee under the Ohio constitution for full and equal funding for our public schools. think, know, ⁓ direct democracy, direct democracy and all democracy, ⁓ it depends on having a ⁓ population that has access to ⁓ public education. Patricia Blackmon: Thank you very much. Elliot Forhan (he/him): Thank you so much, this has been wonderful, I appreciate it.