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  1. Marcy Taylor says:

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    Obscure Ohio State Law Could Shake Up GOP Convention
    WATCH Tensions Rise Between Donald Trump and the Republican Party
    If Republican presidential hopefuls are planning eleventh-hour wooing of delegates on the convention floor in Cleveland this July, they’d better be careful — they might be breaking the law in the state of Ohio.

    EVERY CANDIDATE AND VOTER MUST KNOW:
    When the mayor of a small Cincinnati suburb threatened to have a mayor-appointed magistrate sentence a resident to the maximum jail time unless she and her housemates voted for his 1991 re-election bid, he was convicted under an obscure state law on bribery in election.
    After a northeastern Ohio city judge candidate put a $1-off car wash coupon on the back of his campaign fliers, his opponent took a bribery complaint under the same rule all the way to the state’s highest court in 1982.

    This July, when delegates and candidates descend on Cleveland for the Republican convention, that little-known, rarely-used 142-year-old law passed on the cusp of another national convention in Ohio may come front and center during last-minute deal-making that could decide the Republican nominee.

    “It’s one of those laws that’s been threatened but not used a heck of a lot over the years — but something that very well could be in play,” said Tom Hodson, a visiting judge for the Ohio Supreme Court and a professor at Ohio University. “I think it would be prudent for people to understand that this law exists and how it’s been interpreted so far in Ohio and act accordingly.”

    The Republican National Committee RULEBOOK is SILENT ON RESTRICTIONS on horse-trading between campaigns and the roughly 130 delegates who are free to vote however they choose on the first ballot of the GOP convention. The RNC instead points to Federal Election Commission guidelines on campaign expenditures as the main relevant authority. Experts say it’s likely candidates are legally allowed to pay for delegate expenses during the convention.

    But Ohio’s revised code section 3599.01 offers a unexpectedly pointed and specific rebuke, saying people who “give, lend, offer, or procure … money, office, position, place or employment, influence, or any other valuable consideration” to delegates at a party convention are guilty of bribery, a fourth-degree felony. It also bans “intimidation” and “coercion” of delegates to party conventions.

    3599.01 Bribery.
    (A) No person shall before, during, or after any primary, convention, or election:
    (1) Give, lend, offer, or procure or promise to give, lend, offer, or procure any money, office, position, place or employment, influence, or any other valuable consideration to or for a delegate, elector, or other person;
    (2) Attempt by intimidation, coercion, or other unlawful means to induce such delegate or elector to register or refrain from registering or to vote or refrain from voting at a primary, convention, or election for a particular person, question, or issue;
    (3) Advance, pay, or cause to be paid or procure or offer to procure money or other valuable thing to or for the use of another, with the intent that it or part thereof shall be used to induce such person to vote or to refrain from voting.
    (B) Whoever violates this section is guilty of bribery, a felony of the fourth degree; and if he is a candidate he shall forfeit the nomination he received, or if elected to any office he shall forfeit the office to which he was elected at the election with reference to which such offense was committed.
    Effective Date: 01-01-1983

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