By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Ohio election law requires that campaign donors and those who pay for election ads must be identified.
But one campaign in the last election is refusing to identify the source of more than $10,000 in advertising against the school levy. As of Friday’s deadline for campaign finance filings for the Nov. 5 election, the entity called “Bowling Green Levy Facts” submitted its finance report to the Wood County Board of Elections.
However, unlike all the others who spent money on election campaigns, this entity refused to identify any donors – claiming anonymity protected by the First Amendment.
“I’ve never seen this before,” said John Miller, who handles the campaign finance forms at the Wood County Board of Elections.
Attached to the form was a letter from attorney Donald J. McTigue, Columbus.
“We are filing the enclosed report on behalf of our client who wishes to remain anonymous,” the letter stated.
“Under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution the individual who made the expenditures in the enclosed report is entitled to anonymity,” the letter continued, citing the U.S. Supreme Court decision in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, in 1995.
The Wood County Board of Elections has no plans to challenge the filing.
“We are not going to pursue anything,” Deputy Director Carol DeJong said on Friday afternoon, suggesting it was a matter to be handled by the Ohio Secretary of State.
However, Maggie Sheehan, of the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office, said late Friday afternoon that the issue is a local matter.
The anonymous campaign finance report details the more than $10,000 spent to oppose the Bowling Green school levy, which lost by 32 votes. More than $7,000 was spent on ads in the Sentinel-Tribune, and the rest on billboards.
The Ohio Campaign Finance Handbook states that contributors may not remain anonymous by request. “If a donor does not want to be identified, then the contribution should not be made,” the handbook states.
The ads that appeared in the Sentinel-Tribune were in many ways identical to ads that appeared in the newspaper opposing the previous school levy attempt in the spring of 2018.
In that case, the campaign opposed to the levy was called “Wood County Citizens Against Higher Property Tax,” and the donor who paid for the ads and billboards was identified on campaign finance reports as Bud Henschen, of Bowling Green.
Henschen had tried to remain anonymous in 2017, when he sent out 8,400 mailers opposed to the school bond issue. Those mailers – which had no identification of who created or financed them – included incorrect tax numbers.
In that case, the Wood County Auditor’s Office said that the school bond issue taxes were calculated incorrectly on the mailers sent out to Bowling Green School District voters. The mailers portrayed the taxes as much higher than they actually were, according to the auditor’s office.
