Plunderbund

(via email) Columbus, Ohio – Subodh Chandra, Democratic Candidate for Ohio Attorney General, announced today at a press conference his plan to make the Ohio General Assembly fulfill its responsibility to guarantee every child in Ohio access to an adequately funded education.

“The Attorney General’s clients are the people of Ohio and that includes Ohio’s children,” Chandra said. “If Ohioans hire me as their Attorney General, I’ll fulfill a very basic responsibility of the job that the last two Attorneys General have ignored when it comes to education funding. I’ll enforce the law.”

The Ohio Supreme Court determined in its 1997 DeRolph decision that the State of Ohio’s reliance on property taxes to fund its public school systems was unconstitutional on the grounds that it failed to fulfill the state government’s constitutional mandate to maintain a system of schools that was fair and equitable. The Supreme Court charged the Ohio General Assembly with the responsibility of creating a school funding plan that would pass constitutional muster. The plans subsequently submitted to the Ohio Supreme Court have all been ruled inadequate and unconstitutional.

“Just because the General Assembly drafts the laws, doesn’t mean that it can ignore them,” Chandra said. “Ohio’s school-funding system is an unlawful enterprise – if a person or corporation openly ran a multi-billion dollar unlawful enterprise for a decade, they would be labeled public-enemy number one. When state government does it, Ohio’s chief law enforcement officer shrugs and says that it can’t be fixed.”

Chandra referred to Attorney General Jim Petro’s 2002 argument that “fair and equitable” funding of Ohio’s system of schools is a right with no remedy and that as a result the Ohio Supreme Court no longer has authority over school funding matters.

“Jim Petro abandoned his clients—Ohio’s children—and argued he should not have to enforce the law,” Chandra said. “Just because politicians couldn’t agree on a solution does not mean no solution exists. It’s the Attorney General’s job as chief law-enforcement officer to insist a solution is found.”

Chandra, upon becoming Attorney General, would alert the Ohio General Assembly that there is a new chief law-enforcement officer at the helm and would advise General Assembly members that they are not complying with state law on school funding.

Chandra explained that he would work with Ohio’s new Governor and other state leaders to give the legislature several workable plans, in a good faith effort to find a solution. If the General Assembly fails to act on these plans, it would establish a factual predicate of “willful non-compliance” that would give the Attorney General the power to revisit the case in court.

“We put more effort into enforcing parking tickets than we do in enforcing school funding,” Chandra said. “The past two attorneys general have fought against the court’s ruling and against the interests of their clients. I will not. I will insist the State of Ohio follow its own laws and give every Ohio child the education he or she deserves.”

“Ohio is the state that sent John Glenn around the world as a response Sputnik and Neil Armstrong to the moon to show that we could compete with the Soviets. Ohio is threatened by global competition. If we don’t fix our school funding problem, Ohio will not survive,” Chandra concluded