Elect Annette Blackwell as state auditor

Maple Heights Mayor Annette Blackwell might not have experience in state government, but she knows a lot about government finance. When she took over as mayor in 2016, the city was in dire financial shape and was being scrutinized by the Ohio Auditor's Office, which Blackwell, a Democrat, now seeks to lead as state auditor. (Term-limited state Auditor Keith Faber, a Republican, is running for Ohio attorney general. We've found Faber to be largely effective as auditor, a job that should be done in a nonpartisan way, although it is filled in partisan elections.) In an endorsement interview, Blackwell, 64, told us she had worked hard to help Maple Heights stabilize its finances. That normally takes about five years, she said, but Maple Heights did it in four years. At the same time, she worked to make other improvements in the city, focusing, for example, on its economic development efforts. A proven record of getting under the hood of a local government and its finances is exactly the sort of experience voters should want in Ohio's next state auditor. Blackwell also has an extensive business background, having previously worked in the banking, health care and consulting sectors. As a consultant she specialized in analyzing property taxes. Running against Blackwell is term-limited Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican who previously served as a state senator and in the U.S. Army as a Green Beret. We don't dispute that LaRose, 47, has experience running a large statewide office. Indeed, we endorsed him for reelection as secretary of state four years ago, despite misgivings about his role in the Republican-dominated Ohio Redistricting Commission's gerrymandering efforts on behalf of GOP candidates. (The auditor also serves on the Redistricting Commission, but the next redistricting won't happen until after the next census in 2030, so the commission is less of an issue in this election than it will be in four years.) Despite our reservations, we concluded at the time that LaRose had been largely effective in managing Ohio's elections, the core responsibility of the secretary of state. Unfortunately, LaRose's ambitions for higher office — he lost the Republican primary in 2024 for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Bernie Moreno, R-Avon — caused him to veer hard to the right. Worse, he used his role on the Ohio Ballot Board, which decides on the descriptions that voters see concerning statewide ballot issues, to try to advance Republican aims. In the most glaring and "successful" example, LaRose and the other GOP members of the Ballot Board twisted the description of a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would have helped curtail partisan gerrymandering. When we brought up the issue during an endorsement interview with LaRose, he pointed out that the language had largely been upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republicans. The result was that the proposed anti-gerrymandering amendment failed at the ballot box in 2024, just as LaRose and other Republicans had hoped. He also pointed out that he had sided with Democrats and Republicans when breaking ties at local boards of elections, which have two members of each party. During our conversation with him, we heard glimmers of that less-partisan LaRose, who told us that as auditor he would go after misbehaving public officials regardless of political party. He also said he wanted to do more to weed out waste, fraud and abuse in local and state government, including through standardizing data and using AI to find patterns. (The auditor is responsible for reviewing the books of roughly 6,000 government entities.) He also said he wanted to do more performance audits to help improve government. "It comes down to the right focus, the right experience," he told us when we asked him why we should endorse him. Blackwell, too, told us that she would operate the office in a nonpartisan manner and work to root out those who break the law. Compared to LaRose, who said he wanted the auditor to be able to mandate performance audits, we found Blackwell to have a much better sense of how to work cooperatively with the various governmental entities she would oversee. That's no doubt thanks to her work in Maple Heights. "The Auditor's Office should be a proactive partner," she told us. Such a collaborative approach could help local governments, such as schools, which often find themselves scrambling when the state legislature reduces their funding. Blackwell also came across as far more interested than LaRose in keeping a closer eye on JobsOhio, the state's quasi-private economic development agency, which is funded through state liquor profits. Blackwell did great work stabilizing Maple Heights' financial position, and we believe she would bring the same dedication and effective leadership to being state auditor.