[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 100 (Thursday, July 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H6312-H6313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     POLITICAL SCANDAL PLAGUES OHIO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as those listening might recall, the 2004 
Presidential election was decided in Ohio, my home State, and the 
margin in the Presidential race was razor thin. But if you have been 
paying attention to Ohio newspapers of late, you know that there is a 
broad and widening major political scandal in Ohio that relates to the 
last election. People who have paid attention to Ohio or live in Ohio 
can read about it on the Web site of our local newspaper; the 
toledoblade.com is the site.
  But what this concerns is that the highest elected officials in Ohio, 
starting with the Governor of Ohio, the Attorney General of Ohio, the 
auditor of Ohio, the Secretary of State of Ohio, were all in receipt of 
campaign contributions from an individual who is now charged with 
diverting millions of dollars from the State of Ohio's Workers' 
Compensation trust fund for personal use and for political use. There 
is a grand jury that has been empaneled in Ohio now involving the 
northern and southern districts of Ohio, looking at the diversion of 
some of these dollars to the Bush campaign. It is a broad and widening 
scandal, as I have said.
  Then, today, the Secretary of State of Ohio is mentioned in articles 
that were published by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and by the Columbus 
Dispatch in our capital city, and I will just read a couple of the 
lines: The Board of Elections of our capital city, and that, of course, 
is Columbus, Ohio, the Franklin County Board docked its executive 
director a month's pay for accepting $10,000 in his office last year 
from a consultant from the voting machine company Diebold, with which 
we have had so many fights over the last 2 years, trying to get 
verified, auditable paper trails in those voting machines.
  Now, it appears that that company, through its consultant, actually 
walked into the office of the director of the Board of Elections and 
wrote a check for $10,000, which the director of the board was a little 
reluctant to accept, but said, well, why don't you write it out to the 
local political party, the Republican Party of Columbus Ohio, Franklin 
County, which was done.
  Well, now, this has been all discovered, and the investigation of 
what has transpired with the Secretary of State's office and Diebold 
and this County Board of Elections is being investigated.
  One of our State senators from Ohio, Senator Teresa Fedor, has sent a 
letter to the Office of the United States Attorney in northern Ohio 
requesting a formal investigation of Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth 
Blackwell regarding possible violations of Federal law, including, but 
not limited to, the Hobbs Act, regarding improper dealings between the 
Secretary of State's office and Diebold Election Systems, or their 
agents.
  She goes on, and I will place the full letter in the Record, to ask 
the Inspector General to look at a series of conflict of interest 
questions here and the gravity of pay-to-play allegations, to determine 
whether Mr. Blackwell, the Secretary of State, violated Federal law by 
accepting campaign contributions in exchange for official acts. 
Because, Mr. Speaker, if you look at what has been happening in Ohio, 
there has absolutely been a preference for the Diebold machines; there 
have been delays, there have been all kinds of efforts made to 
advantage one company over other companies.
  I want to place some of these news articles in the Record tonight. 
Also, there is a huge court case pending between a company called ESS, 
which is another company that has voting machines, and Diebold 
Corporation. That is in the courts. Our Secretary of State is saying, 
oh, you have to pick these machines, you have to pick the Diebold 
machines; they are the only machines that we have certified without 
giving other machines an equal chance.
  What is interesting about this is that Ohio has received $136,552,794 
over the last 2 years to purchase these machines, so there is Federal 
taxpayer dollars involved, and another $44,616,967 for training of 
election officials. None of those training dollars have been spent, but 
$136 million has gone out for hardware in a very narrow process where 
one company has been so very advantaged.
  So I just wanted to draw people's attention to what is going on in 
the State of Ohio, to the ongoing court case, to the false deadlines 
set by our Secretary of State, now by the investigation that has been 
requested by our very high-ranking senators of the U.S. Attorney in 
Ohio, and I commend listeners to the toledoblade.com Web site to the 
developing political scandal in the State of Ohio.

            [From the Blade Columbus Bureau, July 19, 2005]

               Elections Chief Punished For Taking Check


               Franklin County official accepted $10,000

                on behalf of GOP from diebold consultant

                           (By Jim Provance)

       Columbus.--The Franklin County Board of Elections yesterday 
     docked its executive director a month's pay for accepting a 
     10,000 check in his office last year from a Diebold Inc. 
     consultant seeking county business.
       Matt Damschroder accepted the check on behalf of the county 
     Republican Party.
       He came forward after a Diebold competitor, Nebraska-based 
     Election Systems & Software, sought to depose him as part of 
     a lawsuit alleging special treatment for Diebold on the part 
     of Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.
       Mr. Blackwell plans to seek the GOP nomination for governor 
     in 2006.
       His office denied any connection between campaign 
     contributions and his decisions affecting Diebold.
       Diebold's device has the only computerized touch-screen 
     machine so far to win state certificatlon for its paper-
     receipt backup system.
       Such a system was mandated last year by the Ohio General 
     Assembly.

[[Page H6313]]

       Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien had suggested that 
     Mr. Damschroder be fired. He would not confirm yesterday that 
     an investigation was under way.
       According to Mr. Damschroder, political consultant Pasquale 
     ``Pat'' Gallina, who works for consultants Celebrezze & 
     Associates, walked uninvited into his office in January, 
     2004, on the day the board was considering a contract for 
     voter-registration software. He offered to make out a check 
     to him on the spot.
       Mr. Damschroder said he instead accepted a ``voluntary'' 
     contribution to the county GOP. A former executive director 
     for the party, Mr. Damschroder accepted the check even though 
     the law prohibits using government property for political 
     business.
       ``I don't believe I committed a crime,'' he said. ``I think 
     I did something that would best be described as a lapse of 
     judgment and clearly in the gray area . . . The biggest thing 
     I wish I had done was throw the guy out on that day he came 
     in and certainly not have taken physical receipt of the 
     contribution.''
       The county has joined the ES&S lawsuit, which seeks to 
     break Diebold's monopoly on touch-screen machines available 
     to counties.
       Celebrezze & Associates is on a monthly retainer for 
     Diebold.
       ``Any contribution he made was on behalf of Celebrezze & 
     Associates and of his own volition,'' said Diebold spokesman 
     Mike Jacobsen. ``Diebold had no knowledge of any such 
     contribution.
       ``Diebold does not condone any political contributions made 
     on its behalf, implied or otherwise,'' he said. ``In 
     particular, our company's ethics policy restricts political 
     contributions since June, 2004.''
       That policy was, in part, a reaction to a letter authored 
     by Walden O'Dell. chief executive officer of Diebold, Inc., 
     of North Canton, Ohio. In the letter, Mr. O'Dell promised to 
     help deliver Ohio to President George Bush, triggering a 
     firestorm during the presidential election campaign.
       The Lucas County Board of Elections has selected Diebold to 
     supply its touch-screen machines. A review of filings with 
     the county elections bureau by the county Republican and 
     Democratic parties revealed no contributions from Mr. 
     Gallina.
       In a phone conversation that took place a year after the 
     contribution to the party, Mr. Damschroder said Mr. Gallina 
     bragged that he had been given $50,000 to Blackwell interests 
     and worked with Blackwell campaign adviser Norm Cummings to 
     position Diehold for state business.
       ``I have never asked, accepted, received, or was offered 
     any money [from Mr. Gallina], period,'' Mr. Cummings said.
       Mr. Gallina, of Reynoldsburg, could not be reached for 
     comment, but he told the Associated Press there was no 
     $50,000 contribution for Mr. Blackwell and that the 
     $10,000 to the county party was his own money.
       Mr. Gallina has given a total of $8,000 to Mr. Blackwell's 
     campaigns since 1998, according to records filed with the 
     secretary of state. Also in January, 2004, he gave $10,000 to 
     Citizens for Tax Reform, a Blackwell-backed group that 
     unsuccessfully sought to force repeal of a temporary penny-
     on-the-dollar sales-tax surcharge enacted in 2003.
       Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said Mr. Blackwell made 
     several decisions adverse to Diebold, negotiating contracts 
     at first with four manufacturers of touch-screen and optical-
     scan voting machines to give counties a menu from which to 
     choose.
       Later, after lawmakers enacted the requirement for the 
     voter-verified paper audit trail, Mr. Blackwell took all 
     touch-screen devices, including Diebold's, off the table 
     because none had been certified as meeting the new mandate.
       Mr. Blackwell later reversed position when Diebold's 
     receipt-equipped machine won federal and state approval.
       ``It wasn't the secretary of state who forwarded the VVPAT 
     requirement,'' Mr. LoParo said. ``It wasn't the secretary of 
     state who prevented vendors from meeting that requirement. 
     From the beginning, this process has been transparent and 
     fair.''
       Sen. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo) yesterday urged U.S. 
     Attorney Gregory White to investigate Mr. Blackwell's dealing 
     with Diebold.
       ``We need to get to the bottom of this,'' she said. ``I 
     don't care if it was $50,000 or $5, you're not supposed to be 
     able to buy influence in America.''
       Mr. Damschroder said the loss of 30 days' pay will cost him 
     $11,220. William Anthony, Jr., chairman of the Franklin 
     County elections board and that county's Democratic Party, 
     said the board believes there was no criminal intent on Mr. 
     Damschroder's part.
       As for Mr. Gallina, Mr. Anthony said, ``If somebody gives 
     you a check for $10,000, I guess they would want something.''
                                  ____



                                        The Ohio State Senate,

                                   Cleveland, Ohio, June 18, 2005.
     Gregory White, Esq.,
     Assistant U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney, 
         Cleveland, Ohio.
       Dear Attorney White: I am contacting you to ask that you be 
     in a formal investigation of Ohio Secretary of State J. 
     Kenneth Blackwell and his cabinet regarding possible 
     violations of the federal law, including, but not limited to, 
     The Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1951. Questions have been 
     raised by both The Columbus Dispatch and The Cleveland Plain 
     Dealer regarding possible improper dealings between the 
     Secretary of State's office and Diebold Election Systems and/
     or their agents.
       The Hobbs Act was meant to prohibit corruption by elected 
     officials. As you know, the Act prohibits ``obtaining the 
     property from another, with his consent . . . under color of 
     official right.'' 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1951(b)(2). The United 
     States Supreme Court has held that an elected official 
     violates the Hobbs Act if the ``public official has obtained 
     a payment to which he was not entitled, knowing that the 
     payment was made in return for official acts.'' Evans v. 
     United States, 112 S. Ct. 1881, 1889 (1992). The Court went 
     on to say that ``the offense is completed at the time when 
     the public official receives a payment in return for his 
     agreement to perform specific official acts; fulfillment of 
     the quid pro quo is not an element of the offense.'' Id.
       According to Franklin County Board of Elections Executive 
     Director Matthew Damschroeder, officials or agents of Diebold 
     Election Systems, including lobbyist Pasquale Gallina, 
     allegedly made a deal with Secretary of State Blackwell, and/
     or his associates, that Diebold would receive a substantial 
     or exclusive rights to supply electronic voting machines to 
     the State of Ohio in exchange for a substantial donation to 
     ``Blackwell's political interests.'' If this is, in fact, 
     what happened, it appears to be a clear violation of federal 
     law. Even if no quid pro quo existed, Mr. Gallina's alleged 
     $10,000 payment to ``Citizens for Tax Repeal,'' of which 
     Blackwell is Honorary Chair, raises significant conflict of 
     interest questions.
       Because of the gravity of these ``pay-to-play'' 
     allegations, I urge your office to fully investigate to 
     determine whether Mr. Blackwell violated federal law by 
     accepting campaign contributions in exchange for official 
     acts. This immediate investigation is necessary to fully 
     protect the taxpayers of Ohio and the sanctity of government 
     procurement in the State. If these allegations are true, no 
     business in the country can trust that they will have fair 
     dealings with Ohio. Thank you for your attention to this 
     important matter and please do not hesitate to contact me 
     with any questions or concerns you may have.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Teresa Fedor,
     State Senator, 11th District.

                          ____________________