Rob Frost, hoping to roast another Democrat, may take on Kucinich in 2012

Did you see Dennis Kucinich and Rob Frost on the The Daily Show last night? With Frost playing the bewildered Republican, mystified that people keep re-electing Kucinich? And Dennis peacefully, confidently enduring the usual peacenik and hot-wife jokes, demonstrating his ventriloquism skills, and talking about taking his talents to Edgewater Beach?



Turns out that may be a preview of Cleveland's hottest race for Congress next year.

Frost, the Cuyahoga County Republican chairman, just sent out a sly, burying-the-lead press release. Almost all of Kucinich's redistricting-survival fund is coming from outside Northeast Ohio lately, Frost reports, and he's spending it fast.

Oh, and (in the fourth paragraph) Frost says he's preparing to run against Kucinich for Congress.



Now we know why Frost resigned from the board of elections last week. Here's his press release:

According to reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Cleveland) had only $138,200 on hand as of March 31, 2011.

Kucinich was able to raise just under $215,000 during the first quarter of this year, but showed $112,771 in operating expenses despite being so early in the election cycle, and increased his campaign fund balance by only $96,134. Kucinich’s prior report, the 2010 year-end report filed with the FEC as amended in March, showed him with $42,067 on hand to begin the 2011-2012 election cycle.

Of the $214,361 raised by Kucinich in the first quarter of this year, exactly $1,000 came from donors within Ohio’s 10th Congressional District. Kucinich, an incumbent in his eighth term in Congress, was fined $52,443 by the FEC earlier this year for improper use of public matching funds in his 2004 bid for the US Presidency.

At a time when Kucinich appears vulnerable and out of touch with his Northeast Ohio district, a potential challenger has emerged in Rob Frost, who on Friday formed a Federal Campaign Committee, according to FEC records. Frost, 42, of Lakewood, is Chairman of the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County, a former member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and a former Rocky River City Councilman.

Can Frost beat Kucinich? Match them up solely by political talent and experience, and it's not even close. In 40 years of thrilling and infuriating Clevelanders, Kucinich has demonstrated a remarkable ability to survive and connect with local voters. Frost has never personally won an election outside Rocky River.

So far Frost's shrewdest political move came when he skewered Jimmy Dimora with his "News From the Pork Barrel Buffet" missives in 2007 -- a year before the corruption scandal broke, back when Jimmy still seemed impregnable. He'd surely launch more ruthlessly effective attacks against Kucinich than Jim Trakas' surprisingly weak 2oo8 campaign.

Beyond that, there's no way to handicap a Kucinich-Frost race today, because there's no way of knowing where the two guys would end up running. There's also no way to predict whether Kucinich could survive a Democratic primary battle against, say, Betty Sutton or Marcia Fudge. We don't know whose votes they'd be competing for. Ohio's congressional district lines may not be redrawn until fall.

But guess who'll draw them? Frost's Republican allies in Columbus.

To read "Pork Roast," my profile of Frost from 2007, click here. To read my Kucinich profile from the same year, "The Missionary," click here.

Rob Frost stokes draft-Mandel movement for Senate

Josh Mandel, the young state treasurer from Lyndhurst, is living a charmed political life. The 33-year-old Iraq war vet just got his new job, and already, conservatives are cajoling him to run fo the U.S. Senate against Sherrod Brown next year.

Last week the Washington Post profiled Mandel in its series "The Rising" about young elected officials with promising careers. Next, conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt hyped Mandel in his Washington Examiner column as Brown's "worst nightmare."

Rob Frost, Cuyahoga County's Republican chairman, likes the buzz. "Hugh has joined the chorus of Ohio conservatives, Republican leaders and business leaders who are trying to draft Josh into the Senate race against Sherrod Brown," Frost writes in an e-mail this morning. Frost wants to draft Mandel too: "Josh has made it clear that he's focused on running the Treasurer's office, but the consensus that is developing in Ohio and across the country is that Josh is our best bet to beat Sherrod."

Ohio Republicans have Sherrod-hunting on their minds this week. The senator is learning, the hard way, the first rule of cyber-era political debate: The first person to invoke Hitler loses the argument.

Meanwhile, Mandel's working to repair his biggest campaign foul, his fall TV ad against Kevin Boyce, widely criticized as Muslim-baiting. From the Post profile:

"I made a mistake, and I learned from it and put it behind me," says Mandel now. "I regret running the ad, and I've broken bread with my opponent and we've both put it behind us."

I get why Republicans dream of a Mandel candidacy, why his quote to the Post — "I'm not ruling it out" -- sounded to them like a horse race's opening bell. War veterans are attractive candidates, and experience in the Iraqi desert adds gravitas to Mandel's baby face. More mathematically, Republicans would be shrewd to run a Jewish candidate from Northeast Ohio -- it'd scramble the electoral map, peel away votes the Democrats usually count on.

Still, the buzz isn't entirely convincing. Hewitt's dismissal of Brown as an "off-the-rack lefty, tired, worn out" underestimates the Democrat's political talents, especially his ferocious campaign skills. I thought Brent Larkin sized up the race right last month: "A Mandel candidacy remains unlikely," he wrote, "as would an eventual victory." So far I haven't seen anything to lead me to disagree.

Lynne Thompson profiled Josh Mandel for Cleveland Magazine in 2008. You can read her piece here. I profiled Sherrod Brown in 2007, after his election to the Senate, and Rob Frost a few months later, when his entertaining missives, "News from the Pork Barrel Buffet," began to poke the seemingly impregnable Jimmy Dimora.

Frost, Garson's joint statement on Tucson shooting

A lot of local politicians have released statements on the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. But this one from Rob Frost and Stuart Garson stands out. It's a bipartisan gesture, especially thoughtful about the biggest question emerging from the shooting: the way we talk about our political opponents.

--
Joint Statement of the Chairs of the Cuyahoga County Democratic and Republican Parties

On behalf of the officers, leaders and members of the Cuyahoga County Democratic and Republican parties, we wish to convey our profound condolences for the victims and their families in the senseless and tragic shootings that took place in Tucson this past Saturday. We have no sufficient words to describe our horror and disdain for such intolerance and wanton disregard for human life.

However it is our intention to demonstrate that, although on occasion, our respective parties may share a different philosophical approach to our political issues, we do not perceive one another as enemies. Our democracy can only flourish and thrive in an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for each other's views. As local party chairs we are dedicated to civil discourse that at all times strives to advance our respective positions in a thoughtful and constructive manner.

We hope all our residents of Cuyahoga County will join with us in reflecting on this tragic moment in our hopes that we can achieve a new spirit of political conciliation and cooperation for our families, community and country. We could not ask for any more of ourselves or from each other in the New Year.

Sincerely,
Stuart Garson, Chairman, Cuyahoga County Democratic Party
and Robert Frost, Chairman, Republican Party of Cuyahoga County
--

The whole country is debating whether vicious rhetoric and violent political metaphors had anything to do with the shooting, or whether Jared Loughner is just a lone nut job whose act had no larger meaning. (Essential viewing: this video of Giffords, who happened to read the First Amendment during Congress' recitation of the Constitution last week -- and put special emphasis on the word peaceably.)

But if the shooting becomes any sort of turning point in our politics (and it might not), it could be a moment when "restoring sanity" becomes a bipartisan project, not just Jon Stewart's. That's what Frost and Garson are reaching for here.

Rob Frost rips Ken Lanci for ‘exclusive’ deal with Zack Reed’s festival

Now we know Ken Lanci is a serious candidate. Rob Frost, the county Republican chairman known for his Dimora-baiting, just sent out his first anti-Lanci press release:

While the FBI is investigating Frank Russo, Jimmy Dimora and their cronies for using public money to gain influence and reward friends, we hear news that Ken Lanci bought "exclusive rights" to an area at the Family Unity Festival. The Festival is held in a public park, has historically been partially financed by tax payer dollars and is advertised by the City of Cleveland.

Lanci's actions just go to show that Lanci thinks because he has money, fairness, public access and democracy don't apply to him.

Apparently, Lanci was the only county executive candidate allowed to pass out campaign literature at Zack Reed’s festival in Luke Easter Park over the weekend. On his website, Lanci calmly explains he bought exclusive sponsorship rights to Reed’s festival fair and square. And if his opponents want to pass stuff out at the Glenville Community Festival Aug. 14, they’d better pony up, or he’ll buy that one up too!

“Both local political parties were asked to sponsor Family Unity in the Park, as were other individual candidates. We were told they declined. So I stepped up to help make this event successful,” said Lanci.

This is definitely a new type of campaigning, way more creative than ads on 75 buses. Your average Republican or Democrat just assumes they can hit the neighborhood festival circuit every weekend and meet voters for free. Cheapskates!

But I think I know the real reason Frost is jealous. Who wouldn’t pay to get on the same bill as Morris Day & the Time?

The Professor, still missing, rises again to bait Dimora

Longtime readers know my favorite local political blogger was the anonymous Professor, author of Political Science 216, who gleefully mocked and caricatured local elected officials from 2007 to 2009. He disappeared last summer, soon after Seven Hills Mayor Dave Bentkowski's lawyer declared he had "a plan" to unmask him for a libel suit. The Professor pulled the plug on his blog and deleted his alter ago, Peter Boyd, from Facebook.

But he left behind a Facebook group. "Recall Dimora," he called it originally. But when he learned that Dimora can't be recalled, he renamed it, "Resign, Dimora, You No Good, Corrupt Pig!"

Well, a year later, Jimmy Dimora has finally learned about the group. NewsChannel 5's Duane Pohlman and WKYC TV 3's Tom Beres both asked him about it in interviews on Thursday. "It's appalling, it's disgusting, uncalled for, unwarranted," Dimora told Pohlman. "They've already found me guilty."

Dimora's angry that the Cleveland FBI chief's 19-year-old son was a member (he quickly deleted himself this week) and that Bob Bennett and Rob Frost, the Ohio and Cuyahoga County Republican chairmen, are still on it. Frost tells the Plain Dealer's Tipoff he won't quit the page.

Somewhere on Cleveland's West Side, an attorney and anonymous former blogger -- that's all I know about the Professor's true identity -- is secretly laughing. I'd love to hear what he thinks about this!

For the record, Dimora also said the allegation that he saw a prostitute in Las Vegas is "totally ridiculous." Yes, he saw a woman in his hotel room, he told Pohlman, but she did "exactly what I asked for! The massage! And that’s on phone tape! I didn’t ask for a hooker on the phone. I didn’t ask for a prostitute on the phone." There was "no sex," he added. Prosecutors charged contractor Ferris Kleem with paying the woman $1,000 as part of a conspiracy to bribe Dimora. "I know I paid her!" Dimora said. "It wasn’t nowhere near no thousand dollars!"

Here's Pohlman's story below. Or, to see Beres's piece, click here.

Roldo: Run Dimora and Russo out

Roldo Bartimole says it's time for citizens to get "off their asses" and swarm the county building every week until Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo resign. From his blog post:

It’s time for citizens to take the action themselves. A protest should begin at the Cuyahoga County Administration Building at the corner of Ontario and Lakeside every Thursday, the day Commissioners meet. Hopefully, such a demonstration would get larger and larger each week until Dimora and Russo find it uncomfortable enough that they get the hell out.

It'd be great political theater. Could it happen?

I see two problems. Weekly Thursday morning protests require a special kind of protester, the unemployed kind. How many of the 234,346 people who voted to throw out the county government in November are angry enough to show up every week and have the free time?

Also, Roldo can't mobilize them on his own. So he calls on local bloggers to get the word out. This brings up the question: Could the blogosphere round up a better turnout than the county Republican party? Last July, Rob Frost & Co. tried to pack a meeting with protesters who wanted Dimora to quit. I was there, and if memory serves, they only made a small dent in the crowd in the commissioners' tiny meeting room.

A county executive, or not?: the City Club debate

“A single county executive will provide us with leadership and direction that we so sorely need,” Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti said at today’s City Club forum about the opposing paths to county reform.

Zanotti has a plan: he helped draft a proposed charter for Cuyahoga County, on the November ballot, that would replace the three commissioners with a county executive and council and make several elected officials appointed. “To suggest there are checks and balances in the current system — they’re just not there,” he said. “The county is the only form of government with no separation between the executive and legislature.”

Harriet Applegate, the local AFL-CIO head, is against Zanotti’s idea. “It gives too much power to one person,” she said. The county council would be weak compared to the executive, she argued: “They, at best, could serve as an adviser to this very powerful executive who hires, fires, and decides rates of pay.”

Applegate’s running for a proposed charter commission that would draft a second proposal and put it before voters next year. But she won’t take a position on how to change the government, leaving Zanotti shadowboxing an invisible idea.

“We don’t have a proposal — We have a process,” Applegate said. Her slate promises to write a charter that will create “real, substantive change” and “facilitate economic development,” then put it before the voters in 2010. It’ll base its work on public input, while the proposal Zanotti backs was written by a small group, she argues.

“The worst time to come up with a new form of government is in the heat of a crisis,” Applegate said. “If you feel betrayed by your office holders, you don’t just throw out the entire system and pick up the first alternative that comes along.”

Rob Frost, county Republican chair, argued for action, not process. Cuyahoga County has seen failed efforts to create a charter in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1969, 1970, and 1980, he said, and none resulted in change.

Eric Brewer, who sounded like he didn’t want a charter at all, was the forum’s wild card. He debated in his usual style, throwing out a flurry of facts and figures faster than his opponents could respond. He, like Applegate, spent more time addressing the county corruption investigation than Zanotti or Frost did.

“As mayor of East Cleveland, a city that’s had 18 elected and appointed officials go to jail between 1995 and 2005, I think that we are well aware of what corruption does to a community,” Brewer says. Creating a county executive form of government is no guarantee against corruption, he argued, naming several counties nationwide with county executives and corruption scandals, including Summit County a decade ago.

Supporters of the county executive plan seemed to outnumber the charter commission supporters at the City Club — or, at least, they were louder. Applause broke out twice, once when Frost defended the county executive plan. “What we have here is a plan that calls for greater efficiency and a more accountable and transparent government,” he said. “I would say that the signatures of 80,000 people of this county to put this on the ballot speaks more loudly than the votes of two commissioners to put the alternative proposal on the ballot.”

The other big crowd reaction came when Joe Amschlinger, head of the Cuyahoga County Young Republicans, challenged Applegate’s assertion that the current government has checks and balances.

“The FBI is not listed in anywhere in the county charter,” Amschlinger said, “and far as I can see, they’re the only checks and balances we’ve seen in years!” The crowd laughed and clapped.

“One check and balance you have is three commissioners,” Applegate replied. “I don’t want to defend the status quo necessarily, but three people is a check and balance. I think it’s superior to one, under the two proposals, if you compare that. That’s a check and balance right there. Even some of the independence of the row officers — which, there’s lots of things to say for, and many more to say against — but they’re independent.”

By row officers, Applegate means the other elected officials: recorder, auditor, treasurer, sheriff, clerk of courts, et cetera. Her quote is somewhat confusing, but it gives us some sense of what we'll get if voters reject the charter proposed by Zanotti's group and elect Applegate's slate to a charter commission instead.

If you want a county executive and council, vote for the charter Zanotti’s group has put on the ballot.

If you like having the three commissioners in charge, but want some elected officials to become appointed, you might get that from the county commission process Applegate supports.

County reform debate today at City Club

Pistols at 50 paces: The dueling reformers are taking their battle over how to change county government to a showdown at the City Club today. I'll post a report this afternoon.

Fighting for a county executive and council: Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti, part of the group that wrote the proposed charter on the November ballot, and county Republican chair Rob Frost.

Firing back against it: Harriet Applegate, local AFL-CIO head, and East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer. If we're lucky, Brewer will repeat his accusation that the county executive plan would leave us defenseless against "political thuggery."

I profiled Frost in 2007 ("Pork Roast") and Brewer in 2006 ("Ready To Rumble"). I got to question Applegate on WCPN last week -- and discovered that although she's running for charter commission, she is not taking a position on what county government should look like.

Dan Moulthrop of WCPN will referee the fight. No kidney punches, no rabbit punches...

The Russo subpoenas: round 2

On WCPN's Reporters' Roundtable today, Dan Moulthrop and I talked about the subpoenas Frank Russo's lawyer fired off at the petitioners who want the county auditor's books examined. Here's a link to the show -- we talk about Russo starting at the 31:40 mark.

Russo's lawyer, John Climaco, says the exam would disrupt the county auditor's office and the state auditor's annual review of its finances. Climaco says he'll try to require the petitioners to pay for any damages. He's sent a second subpoena to county GOP chair Rob Frost -- a story about it just went up on cleveland.com. Climaco says he has a copy of an e-mail Frost used to recruit the other petitioners.

That brings up the question Moulthrop asked me on the air this morning. If Climaco can prove the petition is a Republican effort, so what? Even Cuyahoga County Republicans, that rare and reviled breed, have the right to petition the government and to join political parties. (I think that's Jeff Darcy's point in his editorial cartoon today.)

OK, so this law that Frost and the other petitioners are using is definitely old and strange. Any 20 people can force an examination of the county auditor or treasurer's books! The best evidence that it's an ancient law (almost as old as our county goverment structure itself)? The examiners get paid $3 a day!

On the other hand, the petitioners have this going for them: it's hard to call their effort frivolous when the office they want examined was raided by the FBI.

Dimora "attacking my integrity," says Zanotti

How does Martin Zanotti feel about making it onto Jimmy Dimora's enemies list?

"Why he brings me into his conspiracy theory is beyond me," Zanotti said yesterday. "The only reason I can assume Jimmy is doing this is because he was trying to get at county reform by attacking my integrity."

I called Zanotti for two reasons. One was to get an update on the petition drive for a new county charter. The other was to see how the Parma Heights mayor would respond to Dimora's recent accusations against him.

Zanotti is pushing for a new county government, and he's dissed Dimora while doing it. So Dimora lashed out at Zanotti during his angry comments last Thursday and this Monday. Dimora, whose April 2008 Las Vegas trip with J. Kevin Kelley is a subject of the federal criminal case against Kelley, prodded the media to look into whether Zanotti had gambled with Kelley as well.

"Marty Zanotti admitted to one trip, to Las Vegas or Detroit, he’s not sure which, with Kevin Kelley," Dimora said at last week's commissioner's meeting. "I think if pressed, if the media cares about that, it would be more than one trip. It could be many trips over the years, along with other Republicans, along in the car ride."

I asked Zanotti if that was true. "I have gone to Detroit on my own with a group of guys a couple times," he said. "One time, a few years ago, Kevin Kelley went with us to Detroit."

Zanotti later said Kelley (the former president of the Parma school board) might have joined him in Detroit "once or twice." He said he thinks Kelley came to Detroit to meet him and his friends from Johnson's Island, where Kelley had a second home.

"I wonder what those conversations were like?" Dimora asked Thursday. "I wonder if there were gaming chips exchanged? I wonder who paid for the meals?"

So I asked Zanotti: Did anyone other than you pay for your trip, meals, or gaming chips? "Not in a million years," Zanotti replied. He said he didn't make any deals about public business with Kelley during the trip, and that none of the others he traveled with were public officials.

At his Monday press conference, Dimora accused Zanotti of joining with former state Republican chairman Bob Bennett and current county Republican chair Rob Frost on the county reform effort.

"I've met Rob Frost one time for 30 seconds," Zanotti responded. "I wouldn’t know Bob Bennett if walked up to me and hit me with a two-by-four."

Dimora: "I will prove my innocence"

"I am innocent," Jimmy Dimora said this morning at the county commissioner's meeting. "If I have to have a day in court, I will prove my innocence."

Provoked by county Republican chairman Rob Frost, the embattled Dimora launched into a long speech at the end of the meeting today, attacking Frost and responding to the federal corruption investigation.

"I haven't done anything wrong," Dimora told Frost. "I'm innocent. I'm not resigning."

After the meeting, reporters asked Dimora about J. Kevin Kelley, the former county employee and former Parma school board president now facing federal bribery charges. "I know Kevin, just like anybody does," he said. A reporter asked if Dimora had ever taken bribes from Kelley. "No, absolutely not," Dimora replied.

Dimora confirmed he'd traveled to Las Vegas with Kelley. But he said he had not gone there with Ferris Kleem, an executive for Blaze Building and Phoenix Concrete. "He was not with us," he said. "It was a whole separate trip."

The charging document against Kelley claims a Blaze and Phoenix executive gave casino chips to a Public Official #1 -- apparently Dimora -- while they were in Las Vegas in April 2008. Phoenix had received a contract from the county commissioners two weeks earlier and received another weeks later. Dimora said he couldn't respond to a question about the allegations involving gaming chips.

Asked if he was Public Official #1, Dimora said, “I have no idea.” But later, he seemed to acknowledge that he recognized himself in the prosecutor's filing. “I hope there’s no – any kind of charges that are filed [against me]," he said. "I saw people, saying statements and making some allegations, that are in trouble. And I guess sometimes people do that to lessen their penalties or their consequences. But I was the smallest amount of portion in that issue, I think.”

During the meeting, Frost had asked the commissioners if they could guarantee that no lobbyist for any of five contracts they were considering was under federal investigation.

Dimora accused Frost of not understanding how the commissioners work. He said he had never pressed the other two commissioners to vote a certain way on any contract, and noted that most commission votes are unanimous. He also defended himself against press accusations of patronage and cronyism by saying none of his relatives had ever worked for the county while he was commissioner.

Speaking from handwritten notes, Dimora launched into a long counterattack on Frost, the county and state Republican parties, the Plain Dealer, and Parma Heights mayor and county reform advocate Martin Zanotti. Dimora argued that the Republican-prompted audit of the work of county auditor Frank Russo, Dimora's close friend and ally, was redundant because state auditor Mary Taylor already audits the county's books. He also called Frost's threat to petition for removal proceedings against Dimora an effort to set up a "kangaroo court."

Dimora questioned whether Frost, a member of the county board of elections, had any relationships with elections contractors. He claimed Zanotti, like himself, had traveled with Kelley. (Update, 7/2: See more details, and Zanotti's response, here.)

Dimora also suggested that former Ohio Republican Party chair Bob Bennett had teamed up with Plain Dealer editor Susan Goldberg and former editorial page editor Brent Larkin in March of April of 2008 to attack him. (This, like a similar accusation he levied last April, seems inspired by Dimora seeing Bennett having lunch with Goldberg and Larkin back then.) He even brought up the decision that Bennett and other former board of elections members made in 2005 to buy thousands of ill-fated Diebold voting machines.

"I think the federal government is doing a detailed and thorough investigation of me," Dimora said to Frost. "I know my family and myself have been living through hell for the past year. And I don't wish that on my worst enemy. And I guess that would be you."

Frost to start removal petition against Dimora

You can't recall county officials, but it turns out you can sign a petition to get a court to remove them for misconduct in office. So local Republicans have discovered, and today Cuyahoga County Republican chair Rob Frost threatened to use the removal law against Jimmy Dimora. He says he'll start circulating petitions to dislodge Dimora if he doesn't resign by July 1.

This is the second obscure Ohio law that Frost and Co. have aimed at a local Democrat in the past week. They've also forced an audit of county auditor Frank Russo's books. Frost has targeted Dimora and Russo because they are targets of the FBI's county corruption probe.

If Republicans can gather 68,000 signatures, they can force a court to consider whether Dimora has misused his office. Dimora could choose whether to have a judge or jury hear the case.

Here is the law, which says a public official is guilty of misconduct in office if he or she:

willfully and flagrantly exercises authority or power not authorized by law, refuses or willfully neglects to enforce the law or to perform any official duty imposed upon him by law, or is guilty of gross neglect of duty, gross immorality, drunkenness, misfeasance, malfeasance, or nonfeasance...

(I especially like the "drunkenness" part.) *

The Republican Party would have to write a complaint leveling charges against Dimora. If they can get enough signatures on the petitions, then a judge or jury would decide if any of the charges are true. The removal proceeding would follow evidence rules from civil cases, and unlike in a criminal trial, which requires a unanimous jury verdict, a 9-3 vote would be enough to remove Dimora. He could appeal to the court of appeals.

It's interesting to know we have a recall-like way to get someone out of office. But what would Frost's complaint say? My guess is it'd be a rewrite of the federal allegations against "Public Official #1" in the prosecutor's filing against J. Kevin Kelley and others.

Frost is betting that an anti-Dimora petition drive and the threat of a removal proceeding could push Dimora to resign earlier than the feds' investigation might. That theoretical scenario reminds me of the end of Detroit's huge scandal last year. Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick held onto office for months in the face of obstruction of justice and perjury charges. (Kilpatrick fired cops who were investigating him, then lied under oath about that and about an affair with his chief of staff.) But the day after Michigan's governor began a removal hearing to examine his conduct, Kilpatrick pled guilty in the criminal case and resigned.

(*I should probably add that I have no reason to think the "drunkenness" part applies here. They wrote laws kind of funny in 1953.)

Audit the auditor: Republicans file petition to examine Russo's books

Well, this is inventive! The local Republican party, using an obscure law, filed a petition today to force an audit of county auditor Frank Russo's office.

“With Commissioner Dimora and Auditor Russo as caretakers of the county finances for the last decade," citizens "deserve a thorough review of the county finances," says Cuyahoga County Republican chairman Rob Frost in the press release. The Republicans point to the references to an anonymous "Public Official 2," who is obviously Russo, in the federal corruption charges (pdf) filed against three former county employees last week.

The Republicans have found a 1953 state law that says -- get this -- any 20 citizens can file a petition saying they want the county auditor or county treasurer's books and papers examined. Then the local common pleas court judges shall -- that is, they must -- appoint a three-person committee to examine the books and make a public report. The examiners have subpoena power (enforced by "any constable or sheriff") and can compel witnesses to appear.

The Republicans, who had no trouble getting the 20 signatures, risk having to pay for the exam. One of the petitioners has to put up a bond and has to pay for the audit if the three examiners finish their job and decide there was no good reason to do it. The examiners get paid the princely sum of $3 a day.

Dimora vs. Frost: now on video!

Curious about the confrontation between commissioner Jimmy Dimora and county Republican chair Rob Frost today?

Well, first, of course, I'd like to refer you to my blog post from the commissioners' meeting, posted this morning.

Also, cleveland.com has posted their exchange on video. They spliced in Dimora's kiss-off to the reporters who gathered to ask him questions after the meeting: "Clean up!" he growled.

Meanwhile, here's the Republican Party's press release. "Today, Dimora's colleagues..., Peter Lawson Jones and Tim Hagan, took great pains to point out the deep cuts projected in Health & Human Services spending in the upcoming state budget," it quotes Frost as saying. "How outraged will taxpayers be when it turns out that Commissioner Dimora was using the recent Health & Human Services levy as his personal piggy bank for gambling trips to Vegas...?"

Republican chair challenges Dimora at meeting

County Republican chairman Rob Frost appeared at the county commission meeting today and publicly challenged Jimmy Dimora.

When the commissioners prepared to approve several amendments to contracts, including one to the juvenile justice center, Frost asked to speak. He cited the federal prosecutors' allegation that "public tax dollars [are] being diverted to personal gain" and asked the other commissioners, Peter Lawson Jones and Tim Hagan, if they would ask for Dimora's resignation.

Hagan replied at length that Dimora, like anyone, is innocent unless proven guilty. He did acknowledge that "this board has expressed its concern about the integrity of the system with respect to voting" -- an apparent reference to his and Jones' suggestion that Dimora recuse himself from all votes on county business. But Hagan added, "My colleague has every right to his day in court."

Then Frost tried to address Dimora. Dimora turned to Hagan, who was presiding over the meeting, to cut him off. "Are we going to get into personal attacks and issues on individual commission members?" Dimora asked Hagan. Hagan told Frost to address the agenda item, the amendments.

Frost cited the Plain Dealer story about Hagan and Jones asking Dimora to recuse himself. He mentioned Jones' characterization of Dimora's response, which was that not voting would be an admission of guilt.

"That is not my quote," Dimora answered. "My quote is, I’m doing my job that I was elected to do. If I don’t do my job, then you’ll be up here saying, 'He should be removed for not doing his job.'"

"Do you feel you are able to vote on the juvenile justice center?" Frost asked.

"Yes, I do," Dimora said.

A minute later, he did: approving a list of 29 agreements, contracts, and amendments, including one expanding the steel contract at the juvenile justice center.

Removed from that list was an expansion of the concrete contract on the project. Unexplained at the meeting was the reason it was removed. According to Jones' comments in the PD yesterday, it's because the contract is mentioned in Friday's federal charges.

Republican chair: Dimora, Klaiber should resign

Rob Frost, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Republicans, is calling for commissioner Jimmy Dimora and engineer Robert Klaiber to resign. Here is the party's press release.

Frost asks citizens to call commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones, U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Marcia Fudge, Gov. Ted Strickland, and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, and demand that they call for Dimora and Klaiber's resignations.

The call for Klaiber to resign is interesting. The engineer has not been implicated in the corruption scandal. However, his former chief of staff, Kevin Payne, and former employee J. Kevin Kelley, were among those charged with bribery Friday. Klaiber held a wrenching press conference Monday. "I had trust and confidence in these people and that trust was, ultimately, betrayed," he said then. Klaiber announced he would not seek re-election in 2012.

Frost says Klaiber's press conference showed that "he has, at a minimum, failed as an administrator and manager and is not fit to continue as our County Engineer." He calls on citizens to attend tomorrow's 10 a.m. county commission meeting and call for Dimora's resignation.

Peter Lawson Jones on the McFaul controversies

Should Sheriff Gerald McFaul go? That's the other big question in Cleveland politics this week.

Right now a cleveland.com headline says, "Jim Rokakis and Peter Lawson Jones expect Sheriff Gerald McFaul to resign within days."

Not so, Jones just told me. He thinks McFaul will wait to see if the special prosecutor's probe gets him indicted. Then he might make a deal and resign, months from now.

But should McFaul resign now? In today's PD, county Republican chair Rob Frost blasts local Democrats for not calling for him to step down.

Jones said some of the "host of allegations" against McFaul "appear to have the ring of truth." Combine his poor health with the scrutiny he's under and the allegations against him, "that would normally lead one to resign," Jones said.