I read about this in the comments on Blog for America just a little while ago. Sounds *awfully* petty and vindictive. You know, there are a lot of things we would *like* to do when we're angry with people, but hopefully we are able to listen to that inner voice that says, "Even if it would feel good, it's still wrong." Think of how angry many of us were about the partisan way Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell handled the 2004 election--and we sought appropriate legal channels in an effort to address those wrongs. Now, the attorneys who agreed to represent "we, the people" are being targeted for revenge (or punishment or whatever) for daring to stand up for us.

This piece can be found in the Free Press:

In a stunning legal attack, Ohio's Republican Attorney General has moved for sanctions against the four attorneys who sued George W. Bush et. al. in an attempt to investigate the Buckeye State's bitterly contested November 2 election.

Robert Fitrakis, Susan Truitt, Cliff Arnebeck and Peter Peckarsky were named by Attorney General James Petro in a filing with the Ohio Supreme Court. Petro charges the November Moss v Bush and Moss v. Moyer filings by the Election Protection legal team were "frivolous." Petro is demanding court sanctions and fines.

"Instead of evidence, contesters offered only theory, conjecture, hypothesis and invective," the Attorney General's January 18th memo about the suit said. "A contest proceeding is not a toy for idle hands. It is not to be used to make a political point, or to be used as a discovery tool, or be used to inconvenience or harass public officials, or to be used as a publicity gimmick."

But Cliff Arnebeck says it has been Petro and Ohio's partisan Republican Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, who have stonewalled the election challenge legal proceedings. Both have refused to submit any evidence to the court to refute the allegations in the election challenge case - claiming George W. Bush did not win a majority in Ohio - and Petro's office has also refused to allow any Ohio public election official to be deposed.

"Their cage has been rattled and they popped their cork," Arnebeck said. "The chairman of the Ohio Republican Party is going berserk because he can't stand the fact we are not going away. We are still pursuing the legal investigation and the legal interrogations. They are just besides themselves because they cannot withstand cross examination."

Petro's filing is widely viewed as revenge for the heavy toll on the credibility of the Ohio GOP and Petro's cohort, Secretary of State Blackwell, caused by grassroots activists. Spurred by the lawsuit, by extensive coverage at http://freepress.org and other web sites, and by a nationwide grassroots campaign that was escalated by Rev. Jesse Jackson and a series of public hearings around Ohio and in Congress, some three dozen Senators and Representatives mounted the first-ever challenge to a state's Electoral College delegation.

Click here for the rest
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/110