Roberts: Corruption should be main issue in prosecutor's race

Next week, for the first time in 56 years, Cuyahoga County voters will choose a new prosecutor.

Since John T. Corrigan won the job in 1956, there's always been an incumbent prosecutor on the ballot. Now, as the county corruption scandal nears its climax in federal court, longtime columnist Michael D. Roberts imagines Corrigan's statue near the Justice Center coming alive with wrath.

"Corrigan would have been enraged at what has passed for government here since his retirement in 1991," Roberts writes in the March issue of Cleveland Magazine. "Chances are, with Corrigan in office, corruption never would have become the epidemic it did."

Roberts argues that corruption should be the major issue in the prosecutors' race. He thinks voters in the March 6 Democratic primary should seize the opportunity to demand a prosecutor who will fight political corruption as aggressively as Corrigan did.

Looking at the Dimora-Russo scandal and the Nate Gray case before it, Roberts argues that Corrigan's successors, Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Bill Mason, neglected their duty to deter wrongdoing by public officials. He sizes up the four most experienced candidates to replace Mason -- James McDonnell, Tim McGinty, Subodh Chandra and Bob Triozzi -- and finds some more eager than others to make political corruption a main target.

Roberts' column, "Office Politics," is essential reading before going to the polls. It's in the March issue of Cleveland Magazine, out now.

Mason mum on race to succeed him, but he's watching

I ran into Bill Mason last month at an event and asked him if he was endorsing in the race to succeed him as Cuyahoga County prosecutor. No, he said, and gave the standard diplomatic line of an incumbent laying low, some variation on, "There's a lot of good candidates out there."

Then Mason told me about a vote the Democratic Party ward leaders had taken the day before on whether the party should endorse a candidate. Like an NFL fan obsessing over his betting pool, he recited the numbers from memory:

28 votes to recommend

James McDonnell, 26
Kevin Kelley, 16
Tim McGinty, 7
Subodh Chandra, 4
Bob Triozzi, 1

Mason may not be running or endorsing, but the veteran political pro still loves the game.

I was surprised at the results. McDonnell, a defense attorney and brother of county judge Nancy McDonnell, is the least known of the five candidates. (Kelley is a Cleveland councilman, McGinty a county judge, Chandra and Triozzi former Cleveland law directors.)

Mason said McDonnell had been working hard for the endorsement, spending months making the rounds of ward meetings to introduce himself.

I knew this was true. I met McDonnell this summer at Zagara's grocery store in Cleveland Heights, where he was wearing a James J. McDonnell For Cuyahoga County Prosecutor T-shirt. He told me he was visiting Democratic neighborhood picnics and the like.

Back then I might've agreed with Mark Naymik's description of McDonnell in an October report on the race: "He's amiable but over-confident and is relying on a decent ballot name to propel him." Guess he wasn't over-confident after all. All that hard work is paying off.

Just how much it pays off, we'll see today. The county Democrats are gathering at the Music Hall to vote on whether to endorse in the March primary. A winner could get a big advantage. Ed FitzGerald's party endorsement in last year's executive race helped propel him through the primary.

But it won't be easy for McDonnell or anyone else to get that endorsement. As Mason, the experienced party politicker, pointed out, a candidate needs 60 percent of the vote to get it. So the five-way race could remain wide open until the voters get a chance to decide.

Update, 12/8: No one got the endorsement. Anastasia Pantsios describes the meeting and vote on Ohio Daily Blog: McDonnell had support in the western suburbs, Chandra in the eastern suburbs, Kelley in the city of Cleveland.

Update, 12/15: Mark Naymik reports that every Parma Democrat voted for McDonnell. Hmm...

Race to replace Mason taking shape; Triozzi resigns to run for prosecutor

People call Labor Day the start of the fall campaign season, but that's much too simple. Here in Cleveland, the 11th Congressional District parade marked the point when two campaign seasons sped up.

The Democrats' campaign to repeal Senate Bill 5 in November got the attention -- it was Labor Day, after all. But it also marked the start of the 2012 race to replace Bill Mason as Cuyahoga County prosecutor.

Subodh Chandra, who was Cleveland law director in the Campbell Administration, and James McDonnell, former North Royalton city prosecutor and brother of county judge Nancy McDonnell, both marched in the parade as candidates for the prosecutor's job.

They launched their campaign websites earlier this summer, but you're forgiven if you didn't know that. Only serious party loyalists have been paying attention so far, with the all-important Democratic primary still eight months away, in May (or March, if the Democrats' petition drive to stop Ohio's new election law succeeds).

Not to be outrun, Cleveland law director Bob Triozzi resigned today and declared he's a candidate too. Triozzi ran for mayor in 2005 and got about 10 percent of the vote, impressing Frank Jackson enough to win City Hall's top-lawyer job as a consolation prize.

Chandra ran for attorney general in 2006 and lost in the primary to Marc Dann, a decision state Democratic primary voters surely regretted after Dann's ridiculous scandals knocked him from office.

It's the first wide-open prosecutor's race in Cuyahoga County in 55 years, the first since Frank Cullitan, Eliot Ness' partner in crusading anti-corruption battles, retired in 1956 and John T. Corrigan won the race to take his place. We've only had three prosecutors since then, and Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Bill Mason both got the job through mid-term appointments by Democratic party insiders.

I wouldn't be surprised if even more candidates jump into this race. Given the office's history, it's an opportunity that opens up once in a lawyer's lifetime.