Constitutional Law

Ohio gov.-elect relents, will allow press at swearing-in

By By The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio ? Ohio's incoming governor has reversed an earlier decision and plans to open his official swearing-in to reporters and some members of the public, a spokesman said yesterday.

Republican Gov.-elect John Kasich changed direction after requests from supporters as well as a flurry of news-media criticism this week, said spokesman Rob Nichols.

Nichols said the incoming governor was not concerned about security at his Columbus-area home, where he had planned to hold the ceremony, as much as he wanted the occasion to be a private one shared with his family.

During a news conference yesterday where he was announcing his pick for state prisons director, Kasich offered his own explanation for restricting media access: "I think there's a lot of people that are going to come to my event that don't want you sticking a notebook and a pencil in their face," he told reporters. He added that his guests didn't want the news media chronicling what they ate and drank or whether they could dance.

The swearing-in, expected to be conducted by Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, will now be held in the Senate chamber at the Statehouse at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 10, Nichols said. Kasich, a former congressman, Fox News commentator and Lehman Brothers managing director, began his political career in the Ohio Senate in 1978, when he was 26.

News-media access to other inaugural events also is being expanded, according to New Day Ohio, the committee handling a weekend's worth of inaugural festivities. Events begin tomorrow night at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and culminate with an inaugural gala at the Columbus Convention Center, for which some sponsors are paying $10,000.

Earlier access guidelines to some of the events had called for allowing reporters to hear Kasich's remarks and then be escorted from the premises. A release issued yesterday said now "all credentialed press can choose to remain at event venues after the formal programs conclude."

The public is welcome at several of the events, though tickets are required in some cases.

On Jan. 4, the Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association, representing Statehouse journalists, and the Associated Press both released statements in support of opening up the midnight swearing-in to journalists.

OLCA President Jim Siegel, a reporter at The Columbus Dispatch, said the organization "believes that events connected to the inauguration of our next governor should be fully open to the press, so the public can get a complete accounting of activities."

Major newspapers across the state carried articles yesterday on the issue.

Incoming governors' midnight oaths have been covered by the Associated Press continuously since 1991, when an AP reporter was the sole public witness to the swearing-in of Republican George Voinovich. Democratic Gov. Dick Celeste was the last new governor to hold a private swearing-in, when he came into office in 1983, and the act drew public criticism.

His staff hastily lined up a judge to administer Celeste's oath after learning that outgoing Gov. James Rhodes, a long-serving Republican, planned to break ground on a downtown state office tower on the day Celeste was to take over. In the scramble, they failed to alert the press ? getting Celeste's relationship with the news media off to a rocky start.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on January 05, 2011 (boomark / email).