On Saturday members of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party gathered in Independence to determine who to endorse in local, state and national races.
Those endorsements carry weight in the historically blue county where more than 65% of voters have supported Democrats for president in every election since at least 2008.
But on Saturday, the party's executive committee handed down a surprise: They declined to endorse a candidate for county prosecutor — a big deal in a county where the majority of offices are traditionally held by Democrats.
Incumbent Michael O’Malley is seeking his third term as prosecutor and is facing a primary challenge from law professor Matthew Ahn.
O'Malley received the majority of votes but fell less than 2% short of the required 60% needed to receive the endorsement, according to the party. Ahn captured about 38% of the vote.
Members of the Cuyahoga County Democratic party's executive committee who voted Saturday described divergent views that mirror the larger division between the liberal and establishment wings of the party on criminal justice as concerns about crime have risen locally and nationally.
The two candidates for county prosecutor hold very different visions for the office.
Ahn is focusing on policies in O’Malley’s office, like sending juveniles to adult court, that Ahn says don’t make the county safer. Instead, he has argued prosecutors should consider what is best for young people accused of crimes to make sure they can lead productive lives.
O’Malley has defended his handling of what he calls the hardest job in the county and has attacked Ahn for lobbing criticisms without understanding the office — stressing that prosecutors seek justice on behalf of victims.
The debate over how the prosecutor's office should respond to crime comes after many in Northeast Ohio suffered through a violent summer.
In Cleveland, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were called in during the summer to help fight a wave of violent crime city leaders called "unprecedented." Violence in Cleveland burst into the public eye after nine people were injured in a mass shooting on West 6th Street Downtown in July. While that shooting, which made national news, was the most high-profile act of violence in the city this year, many residents have reported feelings of living under the threat of growing brutality.
The share of Americans who say the crime problem in the U.S. is extremely/very serious reached a new high of 63% in November, a Gallup survey showed.
National fault line over criminal justice on left writ small
The Democratic Party vote Saturday appears to have broken down between party members who support Ahn’s vision to address trauma and those, like O’Malley supporter Pamela Ballard, who preferred O’Malley’s experience seeking justice for victims.
“He knows his job,” Ballard said. “If people don't like something he's doing, he's open to sitting down and talking with the person — whatever it takes for the community to bridge together.”
But not everyone was satisfied with O’Malley’s record. Executive Committee member JaNae Hambrick from Cleveland’s Ward 6 on the East Side said her support for Ahn was based on his platform, specifically reducing the number of juveniles sent to adult prison.
“Matthew’s message is coming from a place of leadership, getting new leaders in there, actually leading change in policy,” Hambrick said.
Cases about race and policing still cast a shadow over elections
The last time the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party failed to endorse a candidate in the prosecutor’s race was 2016.
Back then, O’Malley was the challenger seeking to unseat incumbent Prosecutor Tim McGinty, whom he criticized for the handling of the Tamir Rice case.
Tamir Rice, 12, was fatally shot in 2014 by a Cleveland police officer in a case that became a touchstone for protests of police violence against Black people.
Activists from Black Lives Matter Cleveland attended the 2016 Democratic party meeting where O’Malley blocked McGinty from winning the votes needed to secure the party’s endorsement.
This year, it was Samaria Rice, Tamir's mother, who attended the meeting to campaign against O'Malley.
Rice, who was not at the 2016 meeting, attended this year’s meeting to distribute a letter and a copy of a complaint she said she filed with the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association against O’Malley.
In the letter, Rice asked executive committee members not to vote for O’Malley.
“O’Malley promised he would look into Tamir’s case once he became Prosecutor,” Rice wrote. “But he has refused to meet with me [with] my attorneys present, which is totally unethical.”
The attached complaint accused O’Malley of violating a professional conduct rule prohibiting attorneys from meeting with a “represented person” without their attorney present.
Rice said she was there because she felt betrayed by O’Malley and wanted everyone in the executive committee to know it before voting.
“You're going to use my son and the backing of some other activists to help you get into office, and then you turned your back on us?” Rice said.
O’Malley said he never promised to reopen the Tamir Rice case and has always told Rice and the public the only way that would happen is if new evidence was found.
He also disputed the allegations in the bar association complaint, saying he was not a party in an ongoing court case with Samaria Rice so the rule prohibiting a meeting without her attorney did not apply.
“She asked me to meet,” said O’Malley, referencing a 2021 request for a meeting from Rice. “And I told her if you want to meet with me, you and I are going to meet.”
O’Malley said that meeting never happened, but he had met with Rice previously and described the complaint as “absurd.”
High-profile cases about race and criminal justice continue to roil the party
O’Malley points to what he described as intimidating behavior by Rice and other activists at Saturday’s Democratic Party meeting as one reason he did not receive the party’s endorsement.
O’Malley said opponents were outside the meeting, approaching Black supporters of O'Malley and intimidating them.
Ballard, an executive committee member from Ward 2 on Cleveland’s East Side, posted a video on her Facebook page that briefly shows two activists whose family members had been killed by Cleveland police — Brenda Bickerstaff and Rice — interacting with O’Malley supporters.
Bickerstaff’s brother, Craig Bickerstaff, was killed by Cleveland police in 2002.
Rice “was saying things like, ‘Serving your master, your white master,’ a lot of racist things I don’t care to repeat,” Ballard said.
Rice continued voicing her opinion inside during O’Malley’s speech to committee members, according to Ballard.
“It was, like, really quiet when he was speaking,” she said. “[Rice] was, like, ‘slave master,’ and just saying... different things while he's talking. And I thought that was so rude.”
Ballard said that she was not aware of anyone changing their votes or abstaining because of the activists.
Rice acknowledges making some comments to O’Malley’s supporters.
“I did say some things in regards to the pastors being out there ‘loving their master’ and ‘advocating for baby killers’ and things of that nature. I sure did,” Rice said. “We do not want him as our prosecutor any longer. He has not done anything for the county of Cuyahoga but continue to send Black boys to jail.”
O’Malley accused Ahn’s campaign of “coordinating” with Bickerstaff and Rice.
“It was a sad reflection of our party,” O’Malley said. “I can only assume he, and his campaign, was part of this horrible look and these horrible actions that were going on outside.”
Ahn’s campaign manager denies any coordination.
“I find it repugnant that our elected prosecutor characterizes the vocal advocacy of Black community members as intimidation,” Ahn spokesperson Ellen Kubit said in a statement.
Rice said she was not acting on behalf of the Ahn campaign or at their request.
“This is what I did because this is what I wanted to do,” she said.
Did it have an effect?
O’Malley missed the endorsement by less than two percentage points and said he wonders what impact the comments by Rice and others may have had.
“I lost the endorsement by a percent and a half,” O’Malley said, before tying that shortfall to the activists. “I can’t help but wonder how many people changed their vote.”
Hambrick, the member who voted for Ahn, said the letter from Rice, the behavior of activists outside and what she described as “catcalls” from the back of the room during the meeting might have had a small effect on the vote, but she didn’t talk to anyone who changed their vote because of pressure from activists.
Her sense before the day of the meeting was that there wasn’t going to be an endorsement, she said.
“I think there's a wing of the party who are OK with things, not that they like O'Malley, they like the way things are,” Hambrick said. “But then you have a group of people who do not. I didn't think it was big enough to get [Ahn] to that 60%, but I did think it was big enough to prevent O'Malley from getting the endorsement.”
