One Republican, one Democrat and one Libertarian are campaigning against each other in a race to become Ohio’s next auditor of state.
Former Congressman Zack Space, state Rep. Keith Faber, and Robert Coogan, a finance professional, were nominated by their parties to replace Republican Dave Yost, the auditor who has met term limit. The Nov. 6 general election will dictate the next auditor of state.
The candidates are running for auditor at a time of change. The new redistricting commission, which was set up this year, includes the governor, state auditor, secretary of state, two more political appointees, and at least two members of the minority party.
Zack Space
Space, a Democrat, previously served as the representative for Ohio’s 18th congressional district from 2007 to 2011. Before being elected to congress, Space practiced law for nearly 20 years.
Space said he believes the auditor position has broad and extensive powers but the main responsibilities include ensuring all state and federal dollars are being spent and accounted for in an appropriate fashion and the auditor has a responsibility to ensure tax dollars are not being used to pay off voters.
“As Ohio’s next auditor I intend to shed a light on this corruptive behavior and of course those politicians. I don’t care what party they’re in, who are taking big campaign contributions and turning around and paying off donors with state money,” Space said.
Space said he also wants to focus on ending partisan gerrymandering through his role on the redistricting commision when it has to redraw congressional districts after the 2020 census.
“The concept of politicians picking their voters is basically an affront to basic democratic principles,” Space said. “It has created hyper partisanism republican and democratic districts.”
Space said he does not wish to attack his opponents personally but he does believe that Faber’s actions around issues Ohioans care about most show that he doesn’t care about them.
“Here we have a senator and now state rep. who has actively engaged in complicity regarding, with respect to ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow), the largest political scandal in the history of the state of Ohio, and this guy wants to be our auditor,” Space said.
Keith Faber
Representative Faber (R-Celina) is a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, representing the 84th district. Faber previously served eight years in the Ohio Senate, and was elected president of the Ohio Senate from 2013-2016.
Faber said the main job of the Ohio auditor of state is to be the chief compliance officer for the state and make sure local and state follow appropriate rules, regulations and procedures. He said another part of the job includes catching people lying, stealing and cheating with the criminal investigation unit within the auditor’s office.
“An auditor, while a partisan election, is not a partisan officer, you wear the jersey of the umpire,” Faber said.
Faber said as auditor he wants to make state government run faster, better and cheaper. He wants to utilize a tool called performance audits to get that done.
Performance audits are examinations of programs and procedures of a governmental or non-profit entity to assess whether it is achieving economic efficiency and effectiveness in employment of available resources.
Faber said while Yost has done a good job as auditor, he could have done many more performance audits. He said Yost did only two a year but he wants to do every state agency every four to six years. Faber said Yost has saved Ohioans about $250 million but his goal is to save $1 billion.
While Space said Faber and other state republicans were the cause of the ECOT incident, Faber said it was a Republican governor, attorney general and auditor who investigated and are fixing the issue.
“While there have been charter school failures, there is still an awful lot of public schools that are not meeting their potential as well,” Faber said. “I still believe giving moms and dads authority to make decisions about their kids‘ educations is a wonderful alternative.”
While all three candidates believe political affiliation should not play a role in the auditor’s decisions, Faber believes a republican is a better choice for the job.
“(Space) wants to try to weaponize the auditor’s office for political gain,” Faber said.
Robert Coogan
Coogan, a former professor and banker, is the Libertarian candidate running for the Ohio auditor of state. He is also a former accountant from Liberty Township, Ohio.
“I’m the only candidate with auditing and accounting experience,” Coogan said. “The auditor position deserves an independent view.”
He said that on issues like ECOT, Ohio needs an independent voice to moderate between the two parties. He said Republicans can’t be unbiased because of their fiscal involvement and Democrats can’t either because they have politicized the situation.
“The appearance of a conflict of interest will always be there with the two major parties because there will always be in the influence of money,” Coogan said.
Coogan said he wants to get the name of the Bipartisan Redistricting Commission changed to say “nonpartisan” because the name does not take into account other parties besides Republicans and Democrats.
“I will be the voice of reason and fairness and equitable voter redistricting in that commision,” Coogan said.
