MANSFIELD — Judge John P. O’Donnell cautioned Richland County Democrats on Saturday evening about the politicization of the federal judiciary.
The Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge then told attendees at the local party’s 52nd annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner that he will run again in 2020 for the Ohio Supreme Court.
“I should say I am running for the Ohio Supreme Court,” O’Donnell said near the end of his 28-minute speech at the Conard House on Blymyer Avenue. “I am extremely grateful to be here again. I appreciate the hospitality I have been shown here in the past and today.”
O’Donnell, first elected to the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in 2002, narrowly lost a bid to the state’s high court in 2016 to Cincinnati Republican Patrick Fischer.
He said after his remarks that a formal announcement for the 2020 ballot will likely come in January. Current justices Sharon Kennedy and Judith French, both Republicans, will both be up for re-election that year.
Justices are elected to six-year terms. O’Donnell also ran unsuccessfully for the Ohio Supreme Court in 2014, losing to French during her bid for re-election.
During his speech, O’Donnell went over details of the new “fetal heartbeat” law that was approved by the Ohio General Assembly this week and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine.
The new law bans abortions in Ohio after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, usually around week six of pregnancy. Ohio became the sixth state in the country to outlaw abortions at the time such a heartbeat is detected and allows for criminal prosecution of physicians who perform such abortions.
O’Donnell, who received his undergraduate degree from Miami University in 1987 and his law degree from the Cleveland Marshall School of Law in 1993, said lawmakers and DeWine have made their intentions plain.
“At a news conference, the governor essentially said this is our way of teeing up a legal challenge to (the 1973 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision) Roe vs. Wade and those legal challenges will come,” said O’Donnell, adding he was not speaking against abortion or a woman’s right to have one performed.
The judge said earlier this month a panel from the Cincinnati-based U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in favor of a new Kentucky law requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound and make the fetal heartbeat audible to the patient is constitutional.
The 6th Circuit Court rulings cover Ohio, as well as Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.
O’Donnell, who said the Kentucky law is similar to the new Ohio law, said the appellate panel voted 2-1 to overturn a lower court decision. He said the appellate judge who wrote the opinion is a President Trump appointee and the judge who sided with him was appointed by former President Reagan. The dissenting vote came from a judge appointed by former President Obama.
“These are what politics a little bit tough,” he said. “These touch on all areas of our lives. Our (legal) opinions are not defined by our party affiliation. (But) when you think about the person in the White House, who some consider to be vulgar, you often hear as justification by people who otherwise are more interested in people who are civil, open, intellectual and honest, they say, ‘At least we got the judges,’ ” O’Donnell said.
Trump has appointed two Supreme Court justices during his first term in office, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both considered to be politically conservative.
“(Judges) are not consciously political. We are who are. We view things the way we view things. I guess we have a party affiliation because we tend to agree with one party more than the other,” he said.
O’Donnell said the Kentucky case is likely to make it to the U.S. Supreme Court before any challenge to the Ohio law. The Kentucky law, approved in 2017, requires women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound at least 24 hours before the procedure. Doctors who perform the ultrasound must also explain the images on the screen and allow the woman to hear the fetal heartbeat.
The abortion provider challenged the law, citing the 1st Amendment, which guarantees free speech and also the right not to speak.
“Judges have become, for better or for worse, almost another political branch,” O’Donnell said. “So whatever your issue may be, my message to you tonight is please, remember in Ohio, we don’t have appointed judges. We have, as you know, an elected judiciary. If certain things are important to you, please pay attention to who the judges are, what their record is and, to the extent it may be an indicator, of course, their political party.”
O’Donnell said he was gratified to say in a room full of Democrats “that the person listed on the letterhead of the White House has not been mentioned here tonight.
“That’s a good sign, because — I can’t be very political, I am a judge, after all — but I can observe that it can be exhausting to catalog the grievances one might have with the occupant of the White House. There is nothing wrong with having a night where that can be ignored or forgotten about for a few hours. I am glad this is such a night,” O’Donnell said.
“I hate to bring up a (abortion) topic that is reasonably controversial, which men and women of good faith and good will can disagree, but that’s whats makes politics interesting. If we all agree on everything all the time, what fun would it be?” he asked.
LOCAL DEMOCRATS HONORED: In addition to O’Donnell’s remarks and the introduction of locally elected Democrats and those seeking office this year, the Richland County Democratic Party honored two of its own with special awards Saturday evening.
Local party Chairman Joe Mudra announced that Venita Shoulders had been chosen the Democrat of the Year. Former Mansfield Mayor Lydia Reid presented Kathy Clevenger with the John Rinehardt Lifetime Achievement Award.
Shoulders could not attend the event, though Clevenger was on hand to accept the surprise award.
