BOARDMAN, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — An Ohio law enacted in 1995 regarding candidate names has led to a number of challenges to statehouse nominations this election cycle, nearly three decades after it went into effect, with the latest challenge facing Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
Although rarely enforced, state law under the Ohio Revised Code requires disclosure of all previous names a candidate has used in both his or her declaration of candidacy and nomination materials over the past five years.
In January, three candidates – all transgender women running as Democrats – faced challenges for not using their deadnames or pre-transition names on their filings. Two of the candidates, Arienne Childrey in the 84th District of the Ohio House of Representatives and Bobbie Arnold in the 40th District, were certified by their district election committees. However, Vanessa Joy of the 50th District was disqualified from the ballot.
Now the Mahoning County Democratic Party is questioning the candidacy of 28-year-old Rep. Tex Fischer (R-Boardman), asking whether it violates that mandate.
“I’m just trying to figure out if the law is actually uniform or if it’s like everything else we’ve seen in Columbus,” party chairman Chris Anderson said in an interview Tuesday, “where there’s just … one set of rules that Republicans have to follow and one set of rules for everyone else.”
Fischer goes by Tex, but his real name is Austin James “Texford” Fischer. He added Texford in 2020.
“There was an older gentleman in church who just started calling me Tex, and I thought, you know, I like that better than my real name, so I’ll just keep going,” Fischer said in an interview on Wednesday.
A friend suggested Texford in 2020. “One of them basically just said, ‘You should say Tex is short for something, have some fun with it,'” he said.
Fischer was appointed in late June to fill current Sen. Al Cutrona’s (R-Canfield) seat in the House, ending a series of reshuffles. Republican former U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson had resigned from Congress to lead Youngstown State University, former Sen. Michael Rulli won Johnson’s seat, and Cutrona was appointed to Rulli’s seat. Now Fischer is running to retain that seat in the House’s 59th District against Democrat Laura Schaeffer.
But Anderson asked members in a letter to the Mahoning County Election Commission last Monday to disqualify him from the fall election on the grounds that he had not properly listed his previous name, without Texford, on his party’s nomination list. You can read the appeal here.
After a 90-minute hearing last Thursday, the panel tied 2-2 along party lines and gave LaRose the runoff.
Anderson does not believe LaRose can be persuaded. “He’s a Republican trying to win back the favor of his own party. My God, the guy only came third in the US Senate election, and that was in his own district,” he said.
Fischer called it “childish.”
“You can call me whatever you want,” Fischer said. “But at the end of the day, I want you to beat me for the ideals I believe in, for the work I do in the House, not for petty political nonsense like this.”
As for the cases of Childrey, Arnold and Joy, he said he did not know all the details but saw a different situation. Fischer only changed part of his name, he said. Anderson and Fischer both said the legal situation could be resolved.
“I don’t think these people were necessarily trying to deceive voters,” Fischer said.
A spokesman for LaRose confirmed Wednesday that the office had received the necessary information from Mahoning County, but could not say when LaRose would announce a decision.
