Q&A: SUBODH CHANDRA

Locally, Subodh Chandra is best known as a former Cleveland law director and candidate for state attorney general. Recently, Chandra earned some national recognition — in the lefty blogosphere, at least — for taking on Orly Taitz, a California lawyer and leading “birther” (those who claim that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore not eligible to be president).

What prompted you to go after Orly Taitz?

While lawyers have a wide range of latitude to advocate for their
clients, they do not have professional license to just make things up.
In a self-regulating profession, lawyers have a responsibility to
report when other lawyers engage in conduct that reflects on fitness to
practice law.

Here, Ms. Taitz has waived around demonstrably phony documents (the
Republic of Kenya was the “Dominion” of Kenya on the date of the fake
“Republic of Kenya” birth certificate she’s been brandishing), ignored
the state of Hawaii’s own official statement that its records reflect
the President was born in Hawaii and failed to explain how a Hawaii
newspaper reported on President Obama’s birth back at the time —
did the wily conspiracy extend to the president’s grandparents when he
was infant?

Ms. Taitz also accused a (Bush-appointee) federal judge in Georgia
of “treason” and corruption without any reasonable basis. She
reportedly advocated positions contrary to her clients’ direct
instruction. And the federal judge sanctioned her for “frivolous”
conduct. These are things for which we mere mortal lawyers normally
face consequences.

As a native-born American myself (Oklahoma’s pretty American, don’t
you think?), I think it is time to stop questioning our fellow
Americans’ citizenship credentials based on race, names or ethnicity.
It’s 2009, and Voinovich, Chandra and indeed “Taitz” are as American as
names as “Allen,” “Redfern,” “Strickland,” “Dann” or “Brown.” We are
not going to become the free-market meritocracy of a nation to which we
profess to aspire until we make it unfashionable to suggest otherwise.
By the time my third-generation-American sons are adults, I hope to
have driven a few of the laps to run the tread out on those old
tires.

Where you surprised at the attention you’ve received from
it?

The disciplinary complaint hasn’t received nearly as much attention
as Ms. Taitz’s antics, which reflects the media’s propensity to report
as “newsworthy” on page one any lunatic’s pronouncements, but to bury
on page three — if they report at all — the
corrections.

After I filed the complaint, I learned that other lawyers have been
also reporting to the bar Ms. Taitz’s misconduct, and I received at
least some positive feedback from Republicans, both of which give me
some hope that the world has not completely lost its collective
mind.

Any other right-wing professional liars on your to-do
list?

Color within the lines and I won’t feel a need to resort to karmic
facilitation.

You also helped expose what Ken Blackwell was up to when he was
Ohio secretary of state. Are you concerned about another Republican
being elected to that office?

Only recently have secretary of states’ offices and voting laws been
politicized to the point that they have been used for voter
suppression, as part of the general debasing of ethics in public life
down to the credo “anything goes.”

Republican candidate Jon Husted adopted the suppression techniques
while House speaker. This included the Ohio law that other lawyers and
I successfully challenged in federal court that permitted pollworkers
to demand that naturalized American citizens who have been voting for
years produce their certificates of naturalization at the polls before
voting. The plaintiffs included longtime citizens, former Ohio First
Lady Dagmar Celeste and immigration lawyer Margaret Wong. The judge
— a George W. Bush appointee — said, “There is no such
thing as a second-class citizen or a second-class American. Frankly,
without naturalized citizens, there would be no America. It is shameful
to imagine that this statute is an example of how the State of Ohio
says ‘thank you’ to those who helped build this country.”

Democrats’ actions on these issues have not matched their rhetoric.
While secretary of state Jennifer Brunner has mitigated the harm from
some of these voter-suppression techniques, she and attorney general
[Richard] Cordray continue to defend and embrace laws they called
unconstitutional while campaigning.

Case in point: the federal lawsuit that other lawyers and I filed
against secretary of state J. Kenneth Blackwell on behalf of the
Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless regarding the state’s
voter-ID law and process for counting provisional ballots remains
pending against Brunner as Blackwell’s successor. Why? To our
continuing shock and amazement, she refuses to settle it. She refused
to even meet with Homeless Coalition officials to discuss it. She and
then-attorney general [Marc] Dann filed statements in federal court in
Columbus in the summer of 2007 essentially telling homeless folks to go
pound salt and drop their lawsuit. Attorney general Cordray is
appealing one loss in the case to the Sixth Circuit.

So poor folks who have no ID (e.g., driver’s license, bank account
in their name, utility bill) are still charged what amounts to a poll
tax to obtain an ID, just as they were under Blackwell.

At least secretary Blackwell would negotiate with us. It is
dismaying, but progressives are not paying attention, preferring to buy
in to the myth that these politicians mean what they say.

And Democratic candidate Jennifer Garrison has had her own issues
with gay-baiting, being extremely anti-choice and making racist remarks
— not exactly the kind of person you want protecting
minority-voting rights. Yet the Ohio Democratic Party seems ready to
coronate her.

I regret to say that I don’t have much faith that any of the
politicians aspiring to the secretary of state’s office today are
profiles in either principle or courage.

Tell us about the recent action involving The Akron Beacon Journal.

We represent retirees in a federal class-action lawsuit against
the

Journal and Canadian media mogul David Holmes Black, who
assumed control over the Journal a few years ago. The suit
alleges that the Journal and Mr. Black engaged in a
“bait-and-switch.”

The retirees are members of the Communications Workers of America
(CWA) Local 14514. They had been guaranteed lifetime employment as part
of their union contract. The Journal persuaded these retirees to
take early retirement and give up their right to lifetime employment in
exchange for low-cost prescription-drug and other health-care benefits
the rest of their lives for them and their spouses. Then in 2006, the
Journal reneged by replacing the low-cost coverage with
high-cost plans, causing huge financial losses and leading, for many,
to declining health. One retiree, for example, cannot afford the new
$600/month cost for the debilitating arthritis he suffers. So he’s in
excruciating pain.

The Journal is a great paper, but if it gets away with this
betrayal, no retiree’s vested retirement benefits are safe. There is a
preliminary-injunction hearing before U.S. District Judge David Dowd in
Akron on October 26.

Are there any elected offices you might consider running for in
the next few years?

Definitely not county commissioner or auditor, despite likely
upcoming openings.

news@clevescene.com

This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2009.