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Joe 'Plumber' sues 3 ex-Ohio officials: Background check violated rights, he claims
(Blade, The (Toledo, OH) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Mar. 6--COLUMBUS -- The man the nation came to know as "Joe the Plumber" after he talked taxes with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama has sued three former Ohio officials for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights.
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher's federal suit, filed Thursday, personally names Helen Jones-Kelley, the former director of the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, and two of her former top aides, Fred Williams and Doug Thompson. The state of Ohio is not a defendant.
The suit accuses the trio of orchestrated retaliation against Mr. Wurzelbacher by authorizing the combing of state records for information on his background after he became the focal point of Republican criticism of Mr. Obama's tax proposals.
The suit contends the alleged invasion of his privacy led to emotional distress, harassment, personal humiliation, and embarrassment as it seeks an unspecified amount of monetary damages from the three individuals.
Ms. Jones-Kelley had admitted authorizing the searches of state child support, public assistance, and unemployment databases, but she denied they were politically motivated. She never revealed what, if anything, the searches turned up.
Mr. Wurzelbacher, then working for a small Toledo-area plumbing business, had questioned Mr. Obama's tax plans on Oct. 12 when the candidate walked down his Springfield Township street while in the Toledo area preparing for the final presidential debate.
He argued that Mr. Obama's plan to roll back Bush administration tax cuts on Americans earning more than $250,000 a year could hurt him if he someday wanted to buy the business.
"It's not that I want to punish your success," Mr. Obama replied. "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they have a chance for success, too. ... Right now, everybody's so pinched, that business is bad for everybody. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain latched onto the "spread the wealth around" comment in his debate criticism of Mr. Obama as he frequently referred to "Joe the Plumber" in the final presidential candidate debate. Mr. Wurzelbacher made a number of television appearances and, in the final days of the campaign, went on the stump to promote the McCain-Palin campaign.
Ms. Jones-Kelley, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, eventually quit her job. Both she and the governor were Obama supporters, and Ms. Jones had personally contributed money to Mr. Obama's campaign.
Mr. Williams resigned from his job as department assistant director, and the woman appointed by Mr. Strickland to temporarily replace Ms. Jones-Kelley then fired Mr. Thompson from his job as deputy director of child support.
Strickland spokesman Amanda Wurst said the administration does not typically comment on personal lawsuits.
"[Mr. Wurzelbacher] was exercising this basic right of freedom of expression when he asked questions of Senator Obama and subsequently expressed his views in public regarding Senator Obama," the lawsuit reads.
"Defendants, acting under color of state law, violated plaintiff's First Amendment rights by taking actions adverse to plaintiff as a direct and proximate result of and in retaliation for Plaintiff's exercise of his First Amendment rights," it adds. "Defendants retaliated against Plaintiff by improperly authorizing and directing searches of confidential state databases for information relating to Plaintiff."
Lawmakers have since passed and Mr. Strickland signed into law a bill that mandates the firing of anyone found to have mined what are supposed to be largely confidential state databases for improper reasons.
This was in reaction to Republican criticism that Mr. Strickland's initial response to the situation was to suspend Ms. Jones-Kelley for a month with pay.
After an investigation by the state inspector general subsequently determined that the database searches were unjustified but stopped short of calling them politically motivated, the governor suspended Ms. Jones-Kelley for a month without pay.
She resigned her $140,000-a-year job before completing the suspension.
Mr. Wurzelbacher held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday to announce the suit with Judicial Watch Inc., a nonpartisan organization that filed the suit on his behalf through Cincinnati attorney David Langdon.
"Americans can identify with Joe the Plumber," said Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president. "This was an egregious violation of First Amendment rights by government officials, and there was a finding by the inspector general of misconduct. Federal law protects you from being retaliated against for exercising First Amendment rights during an election."
Since the election, Mr. Wurzelbacher has written a book about his experiences and became a frequent guest on cable news shows.
Earlier this year, he briefly served as a foreign correspondent for a conservative Web site, covering the fighting between Israel and the Hamas in Gaza.
Contact Jim Provance at:
jprovance@theblade.com
or 614-221-0496.
To see more of The Blade, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.toledoblade.com.
Copyright (c) 2009, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio
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