Jessica Dickinson, Ohio Fair Courts Alliance
Introduction
$6,715,000 million dollars. That’s how much dark money poured into the 2024 Ohio Supreme Court race on ads for and against candidates for justices. Nearly $7 million was spent on 14 ads. Just five groups made independent expenditures. These shadowy groups had ambiguous names such as “Ohioans for a Healthy Economy” and “Ohioans for Judicial Integrity.”
Check out the ads on Judge the Ads and our attempt to find out who paid for them. This short video provides a quick summary of the dark money actors and their ad spending in the 2024 Ohio Supreme Court election and features Evan Vorpahl from True North Research.
Ohio Supreme Court Elections
A seat for the Ohio Supreme Court is decided by an election with a six-year term. There were three seats open in 2024. All three Republican candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court won, increasing the GOP majority to 6-1. Newcomers Megan Shanahan and Dan Hawkins joined incumbent Justice Joe Deters on the state’s highest court.
This was just the second election (and the first during a presidential election year), in which candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court appeared on the general election ballot with partisan labels. In 2021, the state legislature passed a law requiring the partisan affiliations of the candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court and the Appeals Court on the November ballot for the first time in more than 100 years. Since partisan labels were added to these races, only Republicans have won.
Why Should We Vote for Judges?
Decisions by the Ohio Supreme Court impact Ohioans' daily lives. The state’s highest court determines whether utility companies can raise their rates and by how much, and how insurance laws are interpreted. The Ohio Supreme Court has determined and will continue to decide which government records are available to the public and the constitutionality of voting districts. When a defendant is sentenced to death, the case is appealed directly to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Judging the Ads & Following the Money
While it wasn’t hard to find the contributors to the candidates’ campaigns on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, it was more challenging to “follow the money” spent by groups not directly associated with the candidates’ campaigns as they took great pains to make it hard to see who was really paying for ads. The well-known Ohio Chamber of Commerce created an obstacle to easy transparency by running ads via their affiliate Ohioans for Healthy Economy.
Ohioans for a Healthy Economy and the Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative (RSLC-JFI) invested heavily in the 2022 Ohio Supreme Court races and did so again in 2024. Both organizations’ ads focused on the familiar “tough on crime” and safety/danger tactics with ads like “We’re Not Safe” from Ohioans for a Healthy Economy and “Strong Judges” from the RSLC-JFI – this despite the fact that the Ohio Supreme Court rarely deals directly with law and order issues. Those are routinely dealt with at the lower court level.
Ohioans for a Healthy Economy Action reported spending over $2.3 million backing the Republicans in the race. The Chamber affiliate received $1 million from Richard Uihlein’s Fair Courts America, and had some other large backers including the Haslam family (which owns the Cleveland Browns) and billionaire politician Vivek Ramaswamy.
On November 5, 2024, in celebrating the Republican victories, RSLC released a statement describing nearly $1 million in spending in the race, “The Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative launched a nearly one-million-dollar independent expenditure campaign in support of Deters, Hawkins and Shanahan in the final days of the cycle that included a $600,000 investment on television advertising alone.”
New “dark money” organizations came on the scene this election: the Frecka PAC, Ohioans United for Public Education, and Ohioans for Judicial Integrity. The Frecka PAC spent $1.3 million supporting the GOP candidates and leaned into crime fighters on the state’s highest court with an ad literally titled “Law and Order.”
Ohioans United for Public Education attacked Deters’ record as state treasurer with “Joe Deters is Corrupt.”
Ohioans for Judicial Integrity, funded by Michael Bloomberg and other liberal-aligned groups, spent nearly $2 million in Ohio backing the Democratic candidates, ran four attack ads against the Republican candidates, focusing on corruption, voting rights, and Ohio’s reproductive rights amendment approved by voters in 2023.
For a deeper dive into the money spent to influence the Ohio Supreme Court races in 2024, check out Judge the Ads’ Follow the Money. Experts Lisa Graves and Evan Vorpahl from True North Research also explored the Citizens United decision, the impact of the deluge of money and wealthy special interests on our court system and democracy in this video.
It’s time to shine a light on dark money!
Secret money in elections can hide conflicts of interest and obscure the influence of the wealthy on courts and other elected officials. To reduce the influence of dark money and keep judicial integrity intact, the public’s ability to “follow the money” is crucial. We deserve to know who is trying to influence our elections.
Take action! Tell your State Representatives and Senators to put forward legislation to create better disclosure laws and create greater transparency and end dark money spending in Ohio judicial elections.
About the Judge the Ads Project
The Ohio Fair Courts Alliance’s Judge the Ads project encourages Ohioans to question and critique political advertisements. To that end, in 2022, we created an online tool/website to help the public’s ability to “follow the money.” Our focus is on the ads surrounding the races for the Ohio Supreme Court. We aim to root out misinformation about the judicial system and empower voters to identify ads funded with secret money.
Unfortunately, it is often difficult to tell who is behind political ads, including those for judges and justices. That is not an accident. Individuals and groups take pains to make it hard to see who is paying for ads by using “dark money” groups set up specifically to hide the source of funding. This makes it difficult for voters to figure out which candidates share their values and will work to promote the voter’s interests—not the interests of the dark money donors.