Shirley Smith withdraws from Cuyahoga County executive race and endorses Democratic front-runner Chris Ronayne, the party favorite....Cuyahoga County includes Cleveland.... A former Ohio senator, Smith is the third high profile Black to withdraw from the race in the past month behind Maple Heights Mayor Annette Blackwell and Warrensville Heights Mayor Brad Sellers....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio – Shirley Smith, a former state senator from Ohio who lost a crowded Democratic primary last year for the 11th congressional district seat now held by Democratic Congresswoman Shontel Brown, has suspended her campaign for Cuyahoga County executive and is throwing her support behind former University Circle Inc president Chris Ronayne, whom 92 percent of the executive committee of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party voted to endorse last week over Smith and candidate Tariq Shabazz.
The deadline for filing petitions with the county board of elections to possibly get on the ballot is Feb 2. Current two-term county executive Armond Budish, also a former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, is not running for reelection for another four-year term after a turbulent last three years in office plagued with more than 10 inmate deaths in the troubled county jail and an ongoing FBI investigation of his administration.
“I know Chris will do a good job and work towards rebuilding this county inside out, and I will do everything I can to support him in his endeavors,” Smith said in a statement. She told editor Kathy Wray Coleman of clevelandurbannews.com and kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com in a previous one-on-one interview that she initially decided to run because "the county needs a qualified woman as county executive."
Though Smith garnered less than four percent of the vote by executive committee members during last week's endorsement process that she skipped, and Shabazz even less, she was Ronayne's biggest opponent leading up to the primary election, and his biggest problem. That has obviously changed. She has said on more than one occasion that she simply did not have the resources to lodge an effective primary election campaign against the popular Ronanye, who is White and has never held public office.
The likely winner of the May 3 Democratic primary, Ronanye will likely face Lee Weingart, a Republican and former county commissioner, for the Nov 8 general election
A resident of suburban South Euclid who lived in the city of Cleveland for most of her political career, including when she was a state lawmaker, Smith is the third high profile Black to withdraw from the county executive race in the past month behind Maple Heights Mayor Annette Blackwell and Warrensville Heights Mayor Brad Sellers. Blackwell, like Smith, said that she too lacked the resources to likely win over Roynane, and Sellers abruptly quit the race amid criticism escalated by a scathing Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper article that detailed his alleged mishandling of tax abatement funds for homeowners as mayor of Warrensville Heights, a Black Cleveland suburb.
Smith's exit from the race gives Ronayne all but a free ride into the powerful county executive office and will save him money he can put towards the general election as Shabazz, an unsuccessful candidate last year for Congress like Smith, and others, is a relatively obscure Democratic primary candidate.
Smith served as a member of the Ohio Senate from 2007 to 2014. Previously, she was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. She backed Budish' opponent when Budish first won as county executive via the 2014 general election, after he beat her and a few other candidates that year in the Democratic primary, Smith coming in third place, and after running a competitive race. She was later appointed by then governor John Kasich, a former presidential candidate who is now a CNN commentator, to the state parole board for five years, the two of them teaming up previously and when she was an Ohio senator to get unprecedented criminal justice reform legislation passed relative to expunging criminal records.
A Democratic stronghold, Cuyahoga County, with Cleveland its largest city, has a population of roughly 1.2 million people and is the second largest of Ohio's 88 counties, behind Franklin County, which includes the capital city of Columbus . It is governed by a county executive, Budish, and an 11-member county council, a county governance structure that took effect in 2011 after voters scrapped the three county commissioners and the elected offices of the county sheriff, auditor, treasurer, and clerk of courts.
Those offices, and all but the judges and county prosecutor, which is now Mike O'Malley, are appointed positions under the purview of the county executive, though county council has some leeway as to the selection of the county sheriff pursuant to a subsequent charter amendment that voters also approved.
Black leaders, led by the NAACP, then county commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, and former 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, who was a congresswoman at the time and is now secretary of housing and urban development with the President Joe Biden administration, opposed the change in county governance, arguing that it would dilute Black leadership, though county voters approved it by a two-to-one margin.
The county's second county executive behind former county executive Ed FitzGerald, Budish is Jewish, and four of the county councilpersons are Black, including county council president Pernel Jones, a Black Democrat. The other three Blacks on county council, who, like Jones, are also Democrats, are Meredith Turner of Shaker Heights, Yvonne Conwell of Cleveland, and Cheryl Stephens. a former Cleveland Heights mayor and candidate for lieutenant governor this year on the ticket of Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Dayton mayor Nan Whaley.
clevelandurbannews.com and kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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