BY LAURA GOLDBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati's campaign-spending limits law lost another round in the courtroom. Next week, it may be scuttled altogether in council chambers.
The full federal Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit on Thursday denied a request for a rehearing on a previous decision that the measure was unconstitutional.
Not one of the 15 judges even wanted to vote on the request.
The city can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Councilman Charles Winburn -- who previously lined up a majority to kill the case -- said he plans to ask council Wednesday to end any appeal effort.
If he succeeds, it will disappoint reform advocates nationwide who want Cincinnati's law to test a 22-year-old Supreme Court decision that said limiting spending violated the First Amendment.
Last month, Mr. Winburn and council members Jeanette Cissell, Phil Heimlich, Minette Cooper and Dwight Tillery were ready to withdraw funding for further appeals of the federal lawsuit challenging Cincinnati's 1995 campaign spending limits law.
But John Bonifaz, a lawyer for the Boston-based National Voting Rights Institute, which has represented the city, said his institute would work for free.
Mr. Winburn said Friday the city would still be responsible for attorneys' fees if the city lost.
"It's over now. Time to pack our bags. Go home," he said.
Mr. Winburn said he not only wants to stop appeals but repeal the law itself.
Cincinnati's campaign-spending law, passed on a 5-4 vote in 1995, set a limit of about $140,000 for council candidates, far less than many candidates have spent on council campaigns in recent years.
The law was challenged in U.S. District Court by former Republican council candidate John Kruse. He cited the 1976 Supreme Court case. Mr. Kruse won in district court, and a three-judge panel of the appeals court agreed.
The law was not implemented during the appeals.
By the end of May, the city had spent about $48,000 of the $80,000 budgeted for attorneys' fees and about $16,000 of the $30,000 budgeted for other expenses.
Mr. Kruse's lawyers have already been awarded about $52,000 in fees against the city for the initial trial court proceedings, said David R. Langdon, who is representing Mr. Kruse. If the case were to be heard by the Supreme Court and the city were to lose, the total could hit more than $150,000, he said.
Mr. Langdon called the appeals court decision "another indication of how frivolous the city's spending limits ordinance is."
Mrs. Cissell said Friday she would support Mr. Winburn's latest effort to stop appeals. Mr. Heimlich said he'd wait to decide. Mr. Tillery and Mrs. Cooper could not be reached.
Councilman Todd Portune, who wrote the legislation, said he'd appeal on his own if the city backed out.
"When we embarked upon this three years ago, we did so ultimately knowing we may have to go to the Supreme Court," Mr. Portune said. "The real waste of money would occur if now that we're on the threshold of getting to the Supreme Court, people pulled the plug."
