State Auditor Dave Yost...
The Wreck of Edward FitzGerald
August 30, 2011 

Among the sloppy and untrue ideas that stain our civic fabric is this: that governments may do whatever they deem proper, as long as the ends are good.  I emphatically disagree – and that’s how I ended up in a fight this week with Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald. 

For the last several years, Cuyahoga County has mailed out an absentee ballot application to every registered voter, along with a postage-paid reply envelope – one of three big counties statewide to do so.   It seems excessive and expensive, but that’s a question for the county, not the Auditor of State.  There are worse ways to waste money, and governments all over Ohio have found some of them. 

Then Secretary of State John Husted issued something called a directive – a rule governing elections that has the force of law.   Because it’s important that every county has the same rules about elections, he said, there were to be no more unsolicited mass mailings of absentee voter applications.  Voters should be treated the same, whether they live in a rich county like Cuyahoga, or a poor county. 

Mr. FitzGerald announced the rule did not apply to him, since he is not a Board of Elections.  He’s going to spend the public’s money to mail the applications anyway, using the budget of the Service Department instead of the BOE. 

But here’s the problem: whether you like Secretary Husted’s rule or not, running elections in Ohio is his job.   Another government agency isn’t allowed to just take it over.  As I told the press, if you’re not allowed through the front door, that doesn’t mean the back door is OK. 

Imagine if the EPA decided it didn’t like the way the state runs the public schools, so it decided to use its own budget to run its own schools.  Running public schools is a proper public purpose — but it’s not a proper public purpose for the EPA. 

Reviewing public expenditures is part of my job.  So I wrote a letter to Mr. FitzGerald, and questioned his plan.  I asked him for more information, and told him that if he spends money without any authority to do so, next year’s audit could include a large finding for recovery. 

He didn’t even hesitate.  He plans to go ahead. 

This is a lot more important than just this election.   By his actions, Mr. FitzGerald has declared that he is his own law, that his own judgment is the only standard for his official conduct.  That way lies the lawlessness that has marked the courthouse there in recent years – and a blemish on the career of a man who began 2011 by cleaning up and trimming down Cuyahoga County government. 

Read it at Auditor Yost’s website