Keep Sutton, Manning as appeals judges

In our hyper-partisan times split-ticket voting has been on the decline, but that's exactly what voters should do when it comes to picking two judges for the 9th District Court of Appeals. We were impressed with all four candidates running for the two seats, but voters would be best served by returning Democrat Betty Sutton and Republican Nathan Manning to the bench. (All the candidates said in endorsement interviews that they recognized the importance of keeping politics out of the judiciary, something that has been complicated by the addition a few years ago of party labels on ballots for judicial candidates running for the Ohio Supreme Court and appeals courts. Sutton is the only Democrat left on the five-member appeals court.) Sutton, 63, is seeking her second term on the court after a lengthy career in public service. She is likely best known to Lorain County voters for having represented part of the county in Congress from 2007 to 2013. She later served as administrator of the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. Prior to her turn in Congress, she served on Barberton City Council, the Summit County Council and as a state representative. She also has extensive experience as a lawyer in private practice. Since Sutton took the bench, we have found her to be a fair and impartial judge who has put the law and facts first and foremost in her decisions. "I believe in the fierce independence of the judiciary," she told us during her endorsement interview. Sutton is being challenged by Republican Cynthia Curtin, 65, a magistrate with the Summit County Domestic Relations Court. She briefly served as judge with the Stow Municipal Court, a role to which she was appointed in May 2025. She lost her bid to keep the seat a few months later. Before taking on those roles, she had a lengthy career in private practice, including owning her own law firm. In a separate endorsement interview, Curtin told us that judges needed to be "fair and impartial." It's the right way to approach the job, and it was echoed in one way or another by all four candidates during their interviews. Curtin, like Manning's challenger, Summit County Clerk of Court Tavia Galonski, struck us as knowledgeable about the law and committed to fairness. Galonski, 60, told us in her endorsement interview that she had worked as a flight attendant while in law school and continued to do so in the early years of her law career when she worked for a legal aid organization. She then became a staff attorney and magistrate in the Summit County courts, gaining experience in domestic relations and juvenile law. She served in the Ohio House from 2017 through January 2024, when she was appointed clerk of courts. It's broad experience that has prepared her well to serve as an appeals court judge, but then so has Manning's experience and he's already doing the job. Manning, 44, has had a lengthy legal career as well, having served as a prosecutor and working in private practice, including running his own law firm with his sister, Allison Manning, before she was elected Avon Lake Municipal Court judge in 2023. Nathan Manning was appointed to the bench this summer by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine as a replacement for former Appeals Court Judge Donna Carr, who retired. In order to take the appointment, Manning had to step down from his seat in the Ohio Senate and drop out of the race for the Ohio House seat being vacated by his term-limited mother, Gayle Manning, R-Avon. She, in turn, is running for her son's old Senate seat against state Rep. Joe Miller, D-Amherst. During his time in Columbus — he also served two terms in the House — Nathan Manning developed a reputation as a moderate pragmatist, including while serving as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As he told us in his endorsement interview, it's a perch that gave him deep insights into how laws were crafted, which we believe would serve him well on the bench, as would his ability to see both sides of the issue. Unlike Sutton, who is running for a second six-year term on the court, Manning is running to serve out the remaining two years of Carr's term. Were he to win the race, he would be up for reelection in 2028. Manning also told us that he was the first judge from Lorain County in decades to serve on the 9th District, which includes Lorain, Medina, Summit and Wayne counties. (The other candidates are from Summit County.) While that wasn't the deciding factor in our endorsement, it would be good for the county to have a local resident serving on the court. We believe that all four candidates would make fine judges if elected, but we also believe Manning and Sutton are the better choices in their respective races. This editorial has been updated.