Vance, a Middletown native, could serve until Jan. 20, when he and Trump will be inaugurated, but DeWine anticipates Vance may choose to leave the job sooner.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Vance’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
It is not known who the contenders are or will be but among the Republicans whose names have been floated in various published reports over the last several months are state Sen. Matt Dolan, R-Chagrin Falls, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, and former GOP state party Chair Jane Timken, all of whom ran unsuccessfully in Republican primaries for U.S. Senate, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Whomever DeWine appoints would fill Vance’s seat until a 2026 special election would be held for the remainder of the term, which ends in 2028. DeWine is a Republican.
“This is actually the second time the governor is going to be filling a vacancy for a statewide office. He did it when (Ohio Supreme Court) Justice Sharon Kennedy was elected chief justice,” Tierney said.
He expects DeWine will follow the same process he used when he appointed Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, a Republican, to fill Kennedy’s seat in 2022.
“It won’t be formal,” said Tierney, who anticipates people will let DeWine know they are interested in the job.
“Second, the governor’s probably going to come up with short list, once he hears from everybody, plus his own ideas. He’s going to do some vetting privately, do some conversations privately. He’ll announce the decision publicly, of course,” Tierney said.
“When he was doing the Supreme Court vacancy what he was looking for was somebody who was qualified, somebody’s who’s going to represent the state of Ohio well and importantly somebody who the voters would eventually ratify for another term on the court.”
Tierney said that proved to be the case with Deters, who on Tuesday defeated Justice Melody Stewart, a Democrat, for a full six-year term on the court.
Whomever replaces Vance would have to stand in four elections to keep the seat, a primary and general in 2026 to retain the seat until the term ends in 2028 and then another primary and general that year if he or she wanted to win a full six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
But as a former U.S. senator himself, DeWine also will be looking for something special in a new U.S. senator for Ohio, Tierney said.
“The only additional thing is the governor served 12 years in U.S. Senate, so he’s got some strong opinions on what he likes to see in a senator. And what you probably know from covering the governor, is when he was in the Senate he really tried to do the work of the Senate in terms of working through the committee process, focusing on legislation, working across the aisle,” Tierney said. “And so those are kind of the qualifications he looks at as far as serving the state of Ohio well.”
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