Three seats on the Ohio Supreme Court are on the Nov. 5 ballot with Republicans, who’ve controlled the court for almost 40 years, seeking to expand their majority while Democrats seek to gain it.

The court makeup is 4-3 in favor of Republicans. Two Democratic incumbents — Michael P. Donnelly and Melody Stewart — are facing reelection while each party is fielding a candidate for an unexpired two-year term.

The unexpired term is held by Republican Joe Deters, who was appointed to the seat, effective in January 2023, by Gov. Mike DeWine. Deters is challenging Stewart for her six-year position rather than the remaining two years left on his term.

After Democrats captured three Supreme Court seats — two in 2018 and one in 2020 — the Republican-controlled state Legislature required party affiliations on the general election ballot for candidates for the Supreme Court and courts of appeals starting with the 2022 election.

Democrats had an opportunity to gain control of the Supreme Court two years ago, but lost all three races.

In addition to the Stewart-Deters race, Donnelly faces Republican Megan Shanahan, a Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge, and for the open seat, Republican Daniel Hawkins, a Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge, is running against Democrat Lisa Forbes, an 8th District Court of Appeals judge from Cuyahoga County.

Early voting starts

Oct. 8.

STEWART-DETERS

Stewart, 62, was an 8th District Court of Appeals judge for 12 years before she was elected in 2018 to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Deters, 67, never served as a judge before his appointment by DeWine, a fellow Republican. Deters was Hamilton County prosecutor from 2005 to 2023 as well as from 1993 to 1998. He initially left the prosecutor’s office after being elected Ohio treasurer in the 1998 election and then resigned in 2005 to go back to the prosecutor’s office.

Stewart said her top priorities if reelected are “demystifying the judicial system for the general public,” “maintaining the integrity of the Ohio Supreme Court and the state’s court system as a whole,” and to “continue fair and impartial judicial service.”

Deters said his top priorities are “public safety, upholding the Constitution as it is written and valuing the rights of all Ohio.”

Stewart said: “Many people don’t understand the role courts play in our society. Some may have lost trust in the judicial system altogether. I believe the Supreme Court must play a role in making the legal system more transparent and accessible. I jump at most opportunities to meet with students and community groups throughout the state.”

She added: “One of the biggest challenges we face as a court is the public’s lack of faith in the judicial system. This is due to some issues beyond our control at the federal level, but also because of the growing influence of partisan interests in the Ohio Supreme Court. The requirement that Supreme Court candidates’ party affiliation appears on the ballot undermines the impartiality of our state’s highest court. I would seek to do all that I can to remove partisan party influence from our judiciary.”

Stewart also took a shot at Deters, saying she’s been a judge for 18 years and was elected while her opponent “never served as a judge or even a magistrate on any court before being appointed to the Supreme Court by the governor. My opponent has been an active partisan politician for many years. He has run for, and been elected to, other public offices over the decades. But he has never run for a judicial office. I think this clearly demonstrates his lack of interest in the job and that his appointment to the court was based solely on personal and / or political reasons, not ones having anything to do with public service, good government or competency.”

Deters said he’s running for this seat “to ensure we have an originalist philosophy on the court. More and more courtrooms across the state and country are falling into judicial activism where the judge takes it into their own hands to legislate from the bench and influence the law however they feel.”

He added: “As a justice, my chief responsibility will continue to be to respect and honor the rule of law and the Supreme Court’s role as a co-equal branch of government.”

Deters said he believes “the greatest obstacle to justice is the failure to apply equal protections under the law. I would hope that more judges maintained an originalist philosophy rather than legislating from the bench and ruling in a way that appeases current and fleeting fads. That means reading the text of the Constitution and discerning what it meant at the time it was written. In that way, it shouldn’t matter who is a Republican and who is a Democrat.”

DONNELLY-SHANAHAN

Donnelly, 58, served 14 years as a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge before he was elected six years ago to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Shanahan, 51, was elected as a Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge in 2014, serving for the past 10 years. Before that, she spent four years as a Hamilton County Municipal Court judge.

Donnelly said he is “running for reelection to build upon all the progress that has been made during the years I have been privileged to serve the people of Ohio; to ensure that my strong, independent voice continues to be heard on a court that has become increasingly politicized; and to strengthen the court’s status as an independent, co-equal branch of state government empowered by the Constitution to serve as a check on the General Assembly and executive officers.”

Donnelly said when he ran in 2018 for the Supreme Court he “wanted to utilize the inherent power and influence of the office to restore the public’s waning trust in the judicial system and to serve as an independent justice whose only allegiance would be to the U.S. and Ohio Constitutions and the people who expect and deserve nothing less than equal treatment under the law.”

Donnelly said he was heavily involved in forming a task force “to address the problem of wrongful convictions which I believe is both the worst possible form of injustice and one of the primary reasons people are losing faith in the judicial system.”

Shanahan said the Supreme Court “has a relatively narrow role,” and its “job is to decide cases based on the laws and Constitution. In an increasingly polarized state, the court must reassure citizens, businesses and others that cases are decided fairly and impartially. More importantly, the court must base its decisions on the laws passed by the people and their representatives, not on the personal or political views of a justice.”

Shanahan said: “The only job of the Ohio Supreme Court is to interpret those laws and apply them to the facts of given cases. I’m a textualist, which means I believe the words written into the laws or Constitution matter most in deciding any case. I reject the idea that a justice can insert their own opinion or change a law based on what they think the lawmakers meant.”

FORBES-HAWKINS

Forbes, 61, was elected in 2020 to a seat on the 8th District Court of Appeals.

Hawkins, 48, was elected in 2018 to the Franklin County Common Pleas Court after six years as a Franklin County Municipal Court judge.

Forbes said she is running to ensure the Supreme Court “serves as an effective firewall protecting our democracy and the rule of law. The Ohio Supreme Court should be an equal branch of the government, equal to the governor and to the Legislature, not a rubber stamp for either.”

Hawkins said, “With regard to Ohio’s legal environment, stability and predictability are crucial to allowing businesses to thrive and provide good jobs for Ohio families. Justices on the Ohio Supreme Court can help provide such stability by interpreting laws, not creating them, and ensuring that the other branches of government act within the roles assigned to them by our state and federal Constitutions.”

Forbes said, “One of the top issues facing the Ohio judicial system is the erosion of public respect for our courts and the justice system in general. If people do not trust and have confidence in the courts to dispense justice and apply the law fairly, we risk a breakdown of an orderly, democratic society. In recent years, there has been an increase in questioning the political motivations behind judicial decisions. This degrades respect for all judges and courts in general, not just the specific judges who are the subject of criticism.”

Hawkins said the Supreme Court “can set the tone by deciding cases based on the facts and the law rather than concern itself with tailoring justice in an attempt to correct perceived societal wrongs. It is the job of the court to call balls and strikes, period.”

Forbes said, “I will faithfully apply the law to protect the rights of all Ohioans. I will not engage in result-oriented decision-making. Where the law is clear, I will apply it. Where the law is ambiguous, I will use standard tools of interpretation – considering recognized definitions found in statutes, case law and dictionaries, for example. I will not redefine words to serve my own purposes or to achieve a particular outcome.”