State election dispute on political speech comes to Supreme Court on interim docket

Lawyers for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, as well as county election officials, urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let them go ahead with a ballot that does not include Sam Ronan, a candidate for Ohio’s 15th congressional district, for the state’s Republican primary on May 5. Ohio Solicitor General Mathura Sridharan, representing LaRose, told the justices that Ronan faces “an all-but-insurmountable obstacle” to obtaining relief, because he is seeking “an extraordinary, first-in-time injunction reinstating his candidacy in an ongoing election.”

Ronan is an Air Force veteran who seeks to challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Carey, a Republican who represents the 15th District, which stretches out from the Columbus suburbs, in the Republican primary. President Donald Trump won the district by nine points in 2024.

Ronan ran for the chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2017. During that race, LaRose said, Ronan “continued to advocate for his strategy of running Democrats as Republicans in deeply red districts.” Last month, Ronan was removed from the ballot when a voter protested his candidacy, alleging that Ronan was “not in fact a Republican.” The Franklin County Board of Elections divided two to two on the challenge; the dispute then went to LaRose, who broke the tie in favor of the protester and removing Ronan from the ballot.

Ronan went to federal court, where he argued (among other things) that his removal from the ballot violates the First Amendment. But two federal courts declined to intervene. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit agreed with U.S. District Judge Sarah Morrison that although Ronan could change political parties, state law – which requires him to attest (among other things) that if elected he would “support and abide by the principles enunciated by the Republican Party” – requires him to do so in good faith. Ronan had not shown, the court of appeals concluded, that such a requirement violates the First Amendment.

That prompted Ronan to come to the Supreme Court on Monday. In a 23-page filing on the court’s interim docket, Ronan argued that “it is undisputed that” he was removed from the ballot “based solely on the content of his core political speech.” Unless the Supreme Court steps in, he said, he will be removed from the ballot by the time early voting begins on April 7, a date that has now passed.

Both LaRose and the county election officials asked the justices to deny Ronan’s request. As an initial matter, LaRose emphasized, the 6th Circuit was correct that Ronan is unlikely to succeed on the merits of his claim. “The First Amendment,” he wrote, “does not restrict the State from promoting order, fairness, and integrity in their elections.” Instead, he contended, states have “wide latitude to regulate party primaries and other candidate-selection mechanics” to bring order to the election process.

Moreover, the county election officials added, Ronan has other options if he is not included on the Republican primary ballot: he can always run as an independent candidate, for example. And the Supreme Court’s intervention now would “introduce uncertainty” into the election process – especially when “voters have already been informed that Ronan is not a candidate.”