May 19, 2010
Mike DeWine Ducks Debate with Attorney General Rich Cordray
COLUMBUS – For weeks now, former U.S. Senator Mike DeWine has attacked Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray for not filing a frivolous lawsuit against the recently enacted health insurance reform law. Cordray and DeWine, opponents this November in the race for Ohio Attorney General, have clearly set forth their views on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in newspaper opinion pieces. [Plain Dealer, 4/4/10; 4/4/10] Indeed, DeWine has made this issue the centerpiece of his puzzling campaign.
But Mike DeWine is ducking a face-to-face debate with Attorney General Cordray on this topic. Recently, two prominent legal organizations—the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society—agreed to co-sponsor a debate on the constitutionality of the recently passed health care reform. While Attorney General Cordray was pleased to accept their invitation, DeWine refused to take the stage with him.
One can hardly blame Mike DeWine for declining this debate. After all, Rich Cordray is a nationally recognized expert on constitutional law. He has clerked for two U.S. Supreme Court justices - Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony Kennedy (appointed by Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, respectively); he’s taught constitutional law for 13 years at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law; and he’s argued seven cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and many others in the Ohio Supreme Court. By contrast, Mike DeWine served a brief stint as prosecutor in Greene County, a job that he left almost thirty years ago. DeWine, a self-described defender of the Constitution, consistently voted against Second Amendment rights during his twenty years in Congress.
The health care reform repeal effort supported by DeWine has no legal merit whatsoever and would only waste taxpayer dollars. All of this vitriol from DeWine is especially amusing, given that he had taxpayer-funded health care during his thirty years in public office but didn’t lift a finger to address the health care needs of ordinary Ohioans during his two decades in Congress.
DeWine can duck a debate on the issue he’s made central to his campaign, but he cannot escape the voters who threw him out of office by a 12-point margin in 2006—the last time he was out talking about health care policy. We are confident Ohio voters will reject Mike DeWine again this November and embrace Richard Cordray’s legal judgment and record of results on the economic security issues that matter most to Ohio families.
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