Ohio Business Drops State Chamber Of Commerce For Unprecedented Endorsement Of GOP Candidates

by Tanya Somanader Posted on September 28, 2010 at 5:45 pm

Last Thursday, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce deserted its 117-year tradition of neutrality in statewide campaigns by endorsing former Lehman Brothers executive and Republican candidate John Kasich in Ohio’s gubernatorial race. Despite standing behind current Gov. Ted Strickland (D) on certain issues during his first term, the Chamber decided to overturn its policy because “it detected an anti-business message” in Strickland’s campaign commercials “attacking Kasich and his ties to Wall Street.”

But not all businesses see the unprecedented step as a pro-business move. A day after the endorsement, one of Ohio’s largest electric utilities American Electric Power (AEP) decided to drop its membership because the Chamber’s break with its long-held tradition “creates division” among member businesses and “pits candidates potentially against businesses”:

American Electric Power isn’t taking the action because the chamber endorsed Kasich over Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, but because it broke a 117-year tradition of not endorsing anyone in the race, spokeswoman Melissa McHenry said.

“We think it creates division within the chamber among different businesses,” McHenry said.

The company will no longer pay its chamber dues to remain a member, and Joe Hamrock, president and chief operating officer of AEP Ohio, is resigning from the chamber board, McHenry said.

She said AEP leaders told chamber officials before the endorsement that they thought it was not appropriate for the chamber to endorse in the race.

“We said that we didn’t think it was a good idea,” she said. “It would create division, it pits businesses against one another, it pits candidates potentially against businesses.”

The chamber also endorsed two other statewide Republican candidates this year, state Sen. John Husted for secretary of state and former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine for attorney general. While the chamber changed its bylaws in 1998 to allow its PAC to endorse candidates, it has only endorsed Republican supreme court candidates until now.

Other state chambers including Michigan, Illinois, and Florida have also fortified their political ties to the GOP by endorsing Republican candidates. The California chamber’s endorsement of gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (R) spurred similar rebukes from California community college system Chancellor Jack Scott and University of California President Mark G. Yudof earlier this month.

Quitting the chamber’s board of directors, Scott berated the chamber’s judgment in “catapulting the California Chamber of Commerce into the center of a fierce political contest.” “It is destructive to the chamber’s core mission and the businesses it represents when it becomes a partisan operation,” he said.