Dems Pull Berding's Endorsement

It wasn't even close.

Cincinnati Democratic Committee met in a union hall here Saturday morning and stripped Cincinnati council member Jeff Berding of his party endorsement for siding with the council Republicans on budget and police layoff issues - the first time a Cincinnati political party has done that in 20 years.

After an hour of speeches for and against Berding - and words from the council member himself, defending his record - the committee voted 47 to 17 to take away his party endorsement, with six members abstaining.

What it means is that Berding's name will not appear on Democratic Party campaign literature or on the sample ballots the party passes out at the polls on election day.

There were some angry speeches by Berding's detractors - one saying he was guilty of "treason" - and others defending Berding's maverick stances, including Hamilton County Democratic Party chairman Tim Burke, who warned his fellow Democrats that the move might backfire on them.

"Let's be careful about what we do,'' Burke said. "Jeff may be a problem, but he's our problem."

The warnings from Berding's supporters did not seem to change any minds.

The committee didn't stop at removing Berding from the Democratic council ticket - after that vote, they added council member Roxanne Qualls, who was appointed to her seat by the Charter Committee but who served as a Democratic council member and mayor in the 1990s.

Berding - whose AFL-CIO endorsement was pulled earlier this week - showed up at the beginning of the meeting and made a brief but impassioned defense of his actions.

"I take a backseat to no one in my commitment to Democratic values,'' Berding said. "You cannot tell me that standing up for public safety and protecting our families is not a Democratic value."

The decision Saturday, Berding said, would be made by a "small group" within the party and was not about party loyalty, but "about my efforts to keep cops on the streets and standing up for principle."

Berding, after saying his piece, left the meeting to go coach his son's soccer game.

Berding said his campaign for re-election will go forward and that he still considers himself a Democrat in good standing.

The push to run Berding off the ticket was driven by Mallory and Vice Mayor David Crowley, who underwent bypass surgery Friday and was not at Saturday's meeting.

One member of the committee, Kathy Helmbock of Hyde Park, likened Berding's cooperation with council Republicans to "treason."

"In the military, they call it giving aid and comfort to the enemy,'' Helmbock said.

Mallory stood in the back of the room but did not speak during the hour-long debate but, after the vote, he was clearly pleased with the result.

"I want to have a team on city council that I can depend on to move the city forward,'' Mallory said.

It was the first time in 20 years a local political party has yanked an endorsement from a council candidate. The last time, it was the Republicans, who threw then-council member Guy Guckenberger off the slate because he supported prevailing wages for downtown construction projects and because of his liberal stances on social issues.

Guckenberger ran as an independent Republican that year and ended up with his strongest finish in the council field race. He later patched things up with the GOP and became a county commissioner and, later, a judge.

The purge Saturday morning might have claimed another victim - first-time Democratic candidate Tony Fischer - but he was spared.

There had been rumblings that the committee, made up of Democratic precinct executives from around the city, would also pull the endorsement of Fischer, an Iraq war veteran who had raised the ire of Mayor Mark Mallory because he didn't support Mallory's plan to close a budget gap by pressing unions for concessions.

At the end of the meeting, Mallory insisted Fischer be allowed to speak, even though chairman Dan Ticotsky had ruled that Fischer was out or order.

Fischer issued a mea culpa and pledged his support for the mayor and the other Democrats on council.

"I apologize if I left the impression that I did not support the party,'' Fischer said.