Supreme Court blocks Ohio Democratic candidate after attempted GOP infiltration

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in Ohio’s Republican primary election, telling a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee that he can’t run as a Republican after Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose kicked him off the ballot in the state.

Samuel Ronan launched his campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, according to Courthouse News Service.

LaRose removed Ronan from the ballot after an Ohio voter pointed out that Ronan is a Democrat who is trying to deceive Republican voters in the Buckeye State.

Ronan then asked the U.S. Supreme Court for emergency action, writing in his application that LaRose removing him from the ballot “based solely on the content of his political speech” is not a good enough reason.

“They concluded that his past statements on various political issues were inconsistent with Republican principles and that he therefore must have lied when he swore under oath that he is a Republican and intends to abide by Republican principles,” he wrote.

Ronan then wrote that he, however, “did not lie,” telling the Supreme Justices “that is not a ‘strategic candidacy’ or some kind of trick.”

“It is not unlawful. It is not wrong. It is what countless politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and hundreds of others, have done before,” Ronan wrote.

Mark Brown, an attorney at Capital University Law School representing Ronan, told the news source in an email that the legal team is “disappointed” in the decision, adding that Carey was “allowed to surreptitiously sabotage Ronan’s ballot access by secretly enlisting the Ohio Republican Party to protest Ronan.”

“One of the board members, Meredith Freedhoff, is the second-highest ranking officer in the Ohio Republican Party, yet she refused to recuse herself, incredibly claiming she did not know the Ohio Republican Party and Carey campaign were involved,” Brown said. “Thus she sat on a case where her own organization, Ohio’s GOP, which she controls as second-in-command, was the real party in interest challenging Ronan. So much for fairness and due process.”

On the other hand, LaRose told the news source that Ronan has been trying to sabotage Republicans in deep-red districts for a decade now, saying that he removed Ronan because he lied to Ohioans about his membership in the Republican Party and his political beliefs that must, therefore, align with the beliefs of the party.

“Falsifying the election-candidacy declaration is a felony of the fifth degree,” he told the ourlet. “As required by Ohio law, Ronan declared that he was ‘a member of the Republican Party’ and if elected, he would ‘support and abide by the principles enunciated by the Republican Party.’ But even after signing this form, Ronan continued to push his vision that Democrats like himself should primary Republicans in deep-red districts to ‘get a foot in the door.’”

To defend his claim, LaRose cited Ronan’s alleged Facebook post that read, “Leftists need to infiltrate Republican spaces and primary them,” according to the news source.

“Allowing state elections officers to choose between candidates based on their ‘credibility,’ ‘honesty,’ and consistency with party principles causes candidates cognizable, and intolerable, constitutional injuries,” Ronan wrote. “Emergency relief from this court is warranted.”

Ohio is not the only state where a political candidate ran as a member of his opposing party. Democrats in North Carolina and Utah also allegedly ran as Republicans, according to CBC and Utah Political Watch.

However, Democrats are not the only ones who are deceiving the voters. According to NPR, Occupy Democrats, and Bridge Michigan, Republicans also allegedly ran as Democrats in Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Michigan.