"We are extremely pleased with today's court ruling, which affirms that the City of Euclid must abandon its illegal method of electing its city council," said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, in a written statement. Kim said the decision represented "an important victory for all the residents of Euclid" and singled out its African-American citizens who she said have been "denied their right to full and equal participation in the democratic process in city government."

Speaking for the Department of Justice, Kim the agency looked forward to working with the city to develop a method of election that provides African-American voters the opportunity the Voting Rights Act guarantees.

For a full refresher course on this case, here's the link. In the last year, the Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted four major cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

ARE REPUBLICANS CIRCLING THEIR WAGONS TO PROTECT BRINKMAN?

Ohio Rep. Tom Brinkman, a fiscal and social conservative Republican lawmaker from Southwestern Ohio who prides himself on serving six full years of perfect attendance, not once missing a floor vote, seems to be on the brink of serious trouble for altering signatures on a petition, a crime one judge said he should be brought to justice for.

As reported by The Cincinnati Enquirer (CE) Monday in a case involving two women convicted of falsifying election petitions to repeal Cincinnati's gay rights ordinance in order to meet quotas to earn bonus money, the judge in the case, Robert Ruehlman, a Republilcan, said they were "minor players in a much larger `mean-spirited campaign'" and that the real culprit was Rep. Brinkman, who admitted to one assistant county prosecutor that he changed signatures.

CE: (Ruehlman) "To cheat on petitions in an election is to really rob people of freedom. It's the foundation of democracy....I still think real culprit is Rep. Brinkman...I know politics...Somehow (Brinkman) falls between the cracks and is not prosecuted... the guy in power is the one who should have been indicted."

Brinkman has denied he made changes, and the assistant county prosecutor who first told Ruehlman that Brinkman admitted making changes to the petitions is now backing off that statement.

Given his boss is Republican Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, who served as Ohio Treasurer but who left that office under a cloud of investigation, it's not surprising that he is now backtracking on his original statement in light of his boss' line that Brinkman's "conduct was in a `gray area' and was a not clear-cut violation." Deters contends this maybe why the grand jury that heard the case did not indict Brinkman.  

SHORT BACKGROUND ON JOE DETERS

Deters escaped from Columbus to his safe-haven county of Hamilton after the conclusion of a 14-month investigation into his campaign finances that severely dented his reputation, clipped his wings for a higher statewide office and lead to criminal conviction of two associates related to giving preferential treatment to certain brokers who contributed to Deters' campaign. No criminal charges were brought against Deters.

CAST OF REPUBLICANS STILL WEAVING WEBS

Equal Rights Not Special Rights, the group trying to repeal the city's gay rights ordinance, is chaired by anti-porn activist Phil Burress, who also heads up the ultra-Christian conservative group Citizens for Community Values (CCV), which specializes in social wedge issues like banning gay marriage, railing against porn on hotel TVs and trying to put adult entertainment businesses out of business.

Brinkman helped collect signatures and used workers from Labor Ready, a temporary job agency, to help collect the signatures. The two women found guilty of falsifying election petitions were part of this labor pool. Signature gatherers earned bonuses based on the number of signatures they collected.

Citizens to Restore Fairness, a local group working for the rights of gays and trans-gendered people, challenged the petitions, alleging many of the signatures were phony.

In several instances, the names and addresses of the signer were crossed out and replaced with the addresses of registered voters in order to make the signatures valid. Brinkman admitted to an assistant county prosecutor that he had made about 1,000 adjustments.

Even though Burress withdrew the petitions, the complaint was forwarded to prosecutor's office, which determined campaigns are allowed to strike out information on a petition, but only if it's done `under the direction and by the authority of the signer. Defending his actions, Brinkman told prosecutors a CCV lawyer had wrongly advised him that the addresses could be altered.

GROUP ASKS WHERE'S JLEC WHEN ETHICS VIOLATIONS OCCUR?

In a post from ProgressOhio, that lacerates Brinkman for what they allege is a clearly illegal act, the progressive political blog asks why hasn't Republican House Speaker Jon Husted of Kettering done anything about it, and, more importantly, why hasn't Ohio's Joint Legislative Ethics Committee (JLEC), the state ordained group authorized to enforce ethics laws, made any attempt to investigate Brinkman?

So why then has Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted not referred the matter of Tom Brinkman to the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee -- or taken the action a prominent GOP Hamilton County Judge thought was necessary?

And even if he hasn't, what does it take for Legislative Inspector Clouseau Tony Bledsoe to take action on his own? Does someone need to slap the Enquirer at his forehead to bring this to his attention? Or is news of wrongdoing not news unless it's signed on a required colored paper form?

When a Judge of the same political party questions the need to censure a state representative for his actions - and the Speaker and Joint Legislative Ethics Committee (JLEC) are silent for over a month, - our system of policing legislative ethics is toothless, spineless and worthless.