Politics in Ohio have a history of taking strange turns, but this may be the pinnacle.
Although it’s hard to imagine, this year’s election campaign for control of the Ohio Supreme Court may revolve around the question of whether “boneless” chicken wings can have bones.
Yes you’ve read correctly.
Boneless chicken wings. With bones.
The race for three seats on the Ohio Supreme Court is one of the most important election contests in the entire state this year.
It’s a battle for control of the state’s highest court, which now has a 4-3 conservative Republican majority, and one with a lot at stake: decisions on reproductive rights, redistricting and a host of other sensitive and contentious issues.
But the most effective campaign issue may be one that the new judge, former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, and his Republican colleagues recently gave to the Democrats.
It could well be a gift that will bring joy long after the election on November 5th.
It is an easy-to-understand and not at all complicated topic, and most people would naturally side with the little guy.
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Deters, the court’s least experienced judge, wrote the opinion in the seven-year-old case of Michael Berkheimer of Butler County, who sued a Hamilton-area restaurant, Wings on Brookwood, and its suppliers.
Berkheimer said he suffered a serious injury – a torn esophagus – from a chicken wing he purchased from the restaurant’s “Boneless Wings” menu. Berkheimer ultimately had to undergo two surgeries because there was a 1.4-inch-wide piece of bone in the wing he ordered from the restaurant’s “Boneless Wings” menu.
The case ended up in the Ohio Supreme Court after a Butler County court and a state district court of appeals dismissed his lawsuit.
Berkheimer, however, insisted that the lower courts had missed the crucial point – the relevant question was whether he could reasonably have expected to find a bone in his “boneless” chicken wing.
In his opinion written for the Republican majority, Deters stated that Berkheimer’s assumption was wrong.
“No one would conclude that a restaurant’s use of the word ‘boneless’ on a menu is the same as ‘justifying the absence of bones,'” Deters wrote.
Berkheimer, according to Deters, “should have been careful about the harmful substances in his food.”
In other words, it’s all Berkheimer’s fault.
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This statement left Justice Michael Donnelly, who wrote the dissenting opinion for the Democratic minority, baffled. He compared it to the sophistry of the Jabberwocky in Lewis Carroll’s poem, in which words have no meaning.
“Actually, that’s what people think,” Donnelly said of Deters’ argument. “Not surprisingly, that’s what the dictionary says – ‘boneless’ means ‘without bones.'”
A word for the uninitiated: Boneless wings are not chicken wings without bones. They are pieces of chicken breast that are roughly shaped into a chicken wing, breaded and deep-fried. And served with sauce.
In Berkheimer’s case, he ordered parmesan garlic sauce.
A quick look at the menu at Wings on Brookwood shows the clear difference between bone-in wings and boneless wings. The first thing on the menu is “Wings.” Right below that is another menu item – “Boneless Wings.”
How much clearer could this be?
But Deters and his Republican colleagues on the Ohio Supreme Court claim it was Berkheimer’s fault.
And now Democrats in Ohio can’t wait to use this as a campaign issue.
“This decision is just going to seem strange to voters,” said David Pepper, former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. “I think most voters will look at this and say, ‘What’s going on here? This decision doesn’t make sense.'”
Liz Walters, the current chairwoman of the Ohio Democratic Party, said she has heard about the party’s volunteers going door to door and that the lack of buzz around the party leadership is making an impression on voters.
“Without the volunteers asking them to do it, voters are asking what this is all about,” Walters said. “It seems crazy and very strange to them.”
Pepper said he believes this fits a pattern in which the Republican majority on the court regularly sides with corporate interests.
RELATED: A lawsuit is about something: Are ‘boneless wings’ really wings?
But it goes beyond the issue of boneless chicken wings, Pepper said.
“If you find this decision odd, imagine what this court could do on issues like redistricting or reproductive rights,” Pepper said. “The Ohio Supreme Court elected in November will have to address these issues.”
“Do we really want these questions to be decided by people who think boneless chicken wings can have bones?”
