Bill O'Neill for Ohio Supreme Court

O'Neill got the Akron Beacon Journal's endorsement today! He also received national attention in the New York Times yesterday, in an article examining Ohio Supreme court justices voting records to see how often they vote in favor of cases involving their major campaign contributers. O'Neill's opponent votes 91% of the time on behalf of his financial backers. Justice for sale is the way it plays in Ohio. From the NYT article:

An examination of the Ohio Supreme Court by The New York Times found that its justices routinely sat on cases after receiving campaign contributions from the parties involved or from groups that filed supporting briefs. On average, they voted in favor of contributors 70 percent of the time. Justice O’Donnell voted for his contributors 91 percent of the time, the highest rate of any justice on the court.

Judge O'Neil is taking no money from anybody for this campaign. He and his children are printing home made fliers -- they hope to distribute a million before election day. O'Neill is funding his own campaign with a budget of 4 thousand dollars! I would like to see that set as the standard for all political and judicial campaigns!

O'Neill is a multi-faceted person and has gone through tough emotional times and come out swinging and holding on to his ideals. Yellow Dog Sammy write about him here. 98% of what O'Neill is about excites me no end. But the remaining 2% is pretty "ugh." He supports teaching of both "Intelligent" Design and Evolution in the public schools. And he is anti-abortion. However, the abortion thing is evidently a personal ideology as he is pretty clear on establishing his willingness to follow the law of the land on women's reproductive choices. In YDS's blog, O'Neill kind of backs off the ID thing by saying he wants both issues to be taught so that students will be "thinkers." Problem is, ID is not about thought -- it's about faith, which has no place in a science class. I would like O'Neill to investigate the topic more thoroughly and get back to me on the ID issue. He can check out this link to Pharyngula and read about "Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal."

In the meantime, I'm encouraging everybody I know and don't know in the state of Ohio to vote for Bill O'Neill for Ohio Supreme court. The vast majority of his views -- I'm with him all the way. He's pro gay marriage and anti death penalty. Most important -- he wants the state of Ohio to follow the court's ruling on the unconstitutionality of the way public schools are funded. So I'm putting a link to his campaign here and on my blog roll. Check him out yourself. I have some of his fliers if anybody wants one. You can print them out for yourself here. Tell everybody you know. Wouldn't it be the most amazingly wonderful thing if a candidate could win a state wide election without taking money from the people he is supposed to serve?