Ohio Toledo Blade: Lawyers who gave to GOP got state work

[rumpel]

Article published Sunday, March 26, 2006

ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE
Lawyers who gave to GOP got state work
$170M in legal fees went to contributors

The GOP state campaign fund sent $1.49 million to Jim Petro, top, and $1.27 million to Betty Montgomery.

By STEVE EDER
and JAMES DREW
BLADE STAFF WRITERS

COLUMBUS - Lawyers who contributed more than $1.8 million to an obscure Ohio Republican Party fund that backed the campaigns of Jim Petro and Betty Montgomery for attorney general have received more than $170 million in legal fees working for the attorney general's office since 1998, a Blade investigation shows.

An analysis of payment records from the attorney general's office to "special counsel" - private-sector lawyers hired to do legal work for the state - reveals that the firms that contributed the largest amounts of money to the Ohio Republican Party state candidate fund received among the most in fees from the state.
Lawyers, many of whom contributed the maximum amounts allowed under state law to Mr. Petro and Ms. Montgomery, also contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the Ohio GOP's candi-date fund, an account created in 1998. In turn, the party has directed contributions totaling $1.49 million to Attorney General Petro, a candidate for governor, and $1.27 million to State Auditor Montgomery, a former two-term attorney general who is running this year to become attorney general once again.

continued at
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060326/NEWS24/603260335

[babylonsister]

1. Payola in action; is anyone in the GOP honorable? nt

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Guardians Of Plutocracy -- "honorable"? It is to laugh. Ha! Ha! nt

[TexasLawyer]

2. K and R'd

Really disgusting. And why am I NOT surprised?!?

[Lefty48197]

3. Ohio seems to be "ground zero" when it comes to GOP corruption.

.

[tanyev]

5. Maybe it's their laboratory--a testing ground to see which

corruption techniques will be the most successful before using them in other states.

[salin]

6. Just more examples of Pay to Play politics in Ohio's GOP.

[formercia]

7. OHIO is where the Bush family came from

and they still have a lot of connections there.