Jennifer Brunner

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Jennifer Lee Brunner (born February 5, 1957) is the current Democratic Secretary of State of Ohio. She announced in February 2009 that she was officially entering the race for the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by retiring Republican Senator George Voinovich[1]. Brunner is challenging Ohio Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher for the Democratic nomination[2].

Education

  • Graduated from Whetstone High School in Clintonville, Ohio
  • Bachelor's degree, Miami University (1978) in sociology-gerontology, cum laude
  • Juris Doctorate degree, Capital University Law School (1982) with honors

Professional experience

Shortly after graduation, Brunner worked in the office of Ohio Secretary of State under Sherrod Brown as a deputy director and legislative counsel to the Ohio General Assembly from 1983 to 1987. Within this role, she was responsible for working with state legislators on finance-reporting laws for campaign committees and laws for election procedures.

She started her own private practice, specializing in election law and campaign finance from 1988 to 2000. During these twelve years, she represented a number of governmental authorities and litigated on behalf of a variety of ballot propositions. In 1988, she represented the Ohio Pesticide Applicators for Responsible Regulation, when the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency [OEPA] held hearings about testing Ohio water supplies for pesticides that were not against federal regulations. On the behalf of the defense, Brunner argued “they [the OEPA] support water testing, but oppose enforcement until more is known about the health hazards.”[3] She represented bar owners in both Hamilton and Franklin counties in taking on legislation that infringed on the rights of bars to serve alcohol in glass containers. The case in Franklin County, which challenged petition signatures, was dismissed, but the defendants in the Hamilton County case were granted a stay that allowed their case to be heard before the certified results were received by the state’s liquor control commission.

Besides those specific cases, of which there are numerous other examples, Brunner has represented such governmental officials and political organizations as Ohio House of Representatives member C.J. Prentiss in 1994[4], House Rep. Charleta Tavares[5], the AFL-CIO in their battle against proposed rule changes related to new Ohio campaign finance laws[6], Franklin County Democratic Party Chairman Dennis White in 1996, the Save the Doves Committee[7], pro-gambling interests in an off-track betting ballot issue in Stark County[8], and two judges, Deborah P. O’Neill and Elizabeth Burick, who were charged with misconduct during the 1998 elections.

Political career

In 2000, Brunner was elected to an unexpired term on the Franklin County Common Pleas Court and was re-elected to the position two years later. Two controversies occurred during Brunner’s tenure on the Court of Common Pleas. The first came after Brunner approved a $22 million settlement between Georgia-Pacific LLC and the six thousand residents of the county who suffered health problems or property damage resulting from the Sept. 10, 1997, explosion of an 8,500-gallon resin kettle at the company's Watkins Road plant. One thousand five hundred residents remained uncompensated a little over a year after the agreement was approved.[9] The other stemmed from Brunner’s order to jail a lawyer named John W. Vogel, Jr., who was hired to represent a nineteen-year-old client charged with robbery and kidnapping, for contempt of court. Brunner said she removed Vogel from the case because the defendant’s family could no longer afford to pay him and “he was not on the list of court-appointed attorneys paid by the state to represent poor clients.”[10]

She resigned from the Court in September 2005 in order to run for Secretary of State of Ohio. The race between Brunner and her Republican opponent, Greg Hartmann, involved a lot of frivolous mudslinging. An anonymous packet of documents was sent out to all of the Ohio state media outlets alleging ‘misconduct’ on the part of Hartmann, citing that while attending Washington and Lee University he received tickets for speeding and for carrying an open container of alcohol in addition to a noise violation in 1987 for blaring music on his record player. Later, Brunner’s attorney and husband, Rick Brunner, alleged that Hartmann's campaign commissioned a poll that asked how voters felt if should it be revealed that while Brunner was working in the Secretary of State's office in the 1980s, LSD was being sold out of the office. Hartmann disputed the claim and Jennifer Brunner denied the story.[11] In the end, it didn’t affect the race, as Brunner was able to beat Hartmann by fifteen percent. She officially took office in January 2007.

During both the 2000 and 2004 presidential election cycles, the state of Ohio was marred in Election Day problems. In an effort to bolster public confidence, Brunner ordered a $1.8 million study to be conducted by SysTest Labs of Denver, in conjunction with professors and graduate students from Cleveland State; Pennsylvania State; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and the University of Pennsylvania, to focus on short-term corrections and safeguards during the March 2008 primaries.[12] Brunner reported that study discovered major flaws in all five voting systems used throughout the state. As a result, she called for replacing all of the state’s voting machines, including the controversial touch-screen ones used in more than fifty of Ohio’s eighty-eight counties, with optical scan machines that would read and electronically record paper ballots filled out manually by voters.[13]

In January, Brunner proposed a plan that would allow counties to recruit poll workers by mail, who would then undertake two paid training days, and work a paid eight-hour shift at the polls on election day.[14] Brunner explained the plan in an interview:
"In terms of Ohio and what happened in the 2004 presidential election, there has been a crisis in confidence in our election system in Ohio, both nationally and in our state. One of the quickest ways to repair that is to make sure that we have adequate numbers of poll workers. ... We suggested this as one tool that the boards of elections would have available to them for recruiting poll workers. We would be looking to do this similar to how we recruit jurors, only jurors are recruited for two weeks of service whereas we'd only be asking for three days. It would also allow us to offer split shifts to poll workers. In Ohio the polling places are open for thirteen hours, so essentially a poll worker works at least fourteen hours; with the average age of our poll workers at 72, that's a tough day for anyone, no matter what their age is. ... It's an option, and we can even include a trigger, so that a county has to be deficient by a certain percentage of poll workers to even be able to use this."[15]
In the initial proposal it was not yet decided what wages would be paid, and whether refusing recruitment would result in penalties. The proposal will be decided by the Ohio General Assembly.[14]

Electoral history

  • 2006 Race for Secretary of State - Democratic Primary
    • Jennifer Brunner ran unopposed
2006 Race for Secretary of State - General Election
Candidates Percentage
Jennifer L. Brunner (D) 55%
Greg Hartmann (R) 40.45%
John A. Eastman (Non-Partisan) 2.48%
Timothy J. Kettler (Non-Partisan) 2.04%
Write Ins 0.03%
Total votes 100%

Family life

Jennifer Brunner currently resides in Columbus, Ohio with her husband of twenty-eight years, Rick. They have three adult children together.

Awards

  • Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (1998)[16]

Contact Information

Ohio Secretary of State
180 East Broad Street
Columbus, OH 43215

(877) 767-6446 (SOS-OHIO) or local (614) 466-2655


External links

References

  1. ↑ Cleveland.com "Jennifer Brunner announces candidacy for U.S. Senate" 17 Feb. 2009
  2. ↑ Ohio Politics "Senate 2010: Brunner & Fisher Eye DC" 17 Feb. 2009
  3. ↑ Columbus Dispatch "Expanded tests for pesticides in drinking water supported" 15 Jan. 1988
  4. ↑ Plain Dealer "Prentiss to stay on ballot, board rules" 6 April, 1994
  5. ↑ Columbus Dispatch "Tavares’ petition upheld by Taft – Democratic rival contested candidacy" 19 March, 1998
  6. ↑ Columbus Dispatch "Union groups rip Taft’s plan to implement campaign reform law" 23 Sept. 1995
  7. ↑ Akron Beacon Journal "Mourning dove issue may land on Nov. ballot petition drive faces one more legal hurdle" 21 July, 1998
  8. ↑ Plain Dealer, The "Track looks to harness ballot issue" 19 Sept. 1998
  9. ↑ Columbus Dispatch "South Side residents still await payment" 24 Sept. 2002
  10. ↑ Columbus Dispatch "Attorney jailed for refusing to stop representing client" 7 April, 2005
  11. ↑ Business First of Columbus "Secretary of State race turns acidic with anonymous dirty tricksters" 29 Sept. 2006
  12. ↑ New York Times "Ohio to Test Vote Systems Before March" 27 Sept. 2007
  13. ↑ New York Times "Ohio Elections Official Calls Machines Flawed" 15 Dec. 2007
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Ohio considers poll worker draft Associated Press and WSTM, Jan. 28, 2007
  15. ↑ Ohio Considers a Draft System for Poll Workers (Audio Interview) by Melissa Block, All Things Considered, National Public Radio, Jan. 30, 2007
  16. ↑ NECN.com ""Jennifer Brunner receives Profile in Courage Award (acceptance speech video)" 12 May, 1998

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