Ohio political party insists Gov. John Kasich et al conspired against it

Seeking to get a 2016 presidential candidate on the Ohio ballot this fall, the Libertarian Party today filed an emergency appeal of a federal judge's ruling Friday that Ohio Republicans did not conspire to remove the party's candidates from the 2014 statewide ballot.

The battle could determine whether the name of Gary Johnson, the likely Libertarian nominee, appears alongside those of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in November -- thus possibly affecting the outcome of the battle for the White House.

The Libertarian Party wants the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to delay a ruling by Judge Michael H. Watson of U.S. District Court that Gov. John Kasich, Secretary of State Jon Hustead and others with the GOP worked together to disband Ohio's minor political parties and challenge the Libertarians' petition forms for its 2014 candidates for governor and attorney general. It was widely believed at the time that a Libertarian candidate would pull votes from Kasich, who wound up easily winning re-election two years ago.

Indeed, in an earlier ruling, Watson said the testimony and evidence "supports an inference that operatives or supporters of the Ohio Republican Party orchestrated the protest" that knocked the Libertarian candidates from the ballot. The lawyer who pushed the anti-Libertarian protest was funded with at least $300,000 from the state GOP, it was later discovered.

But Watson ruled Friday the GOP group did not constitute "state actors," an element necessary for the Libertarians to win their claim that they are victims of selective enforcement of the law.

The 2013 law that started the legal ruckus "was enacted as a partisan measure designed to benefit the Republican Party and assist Governor Kasich's re-election campaign," the Libertarians assert in today's filing with the federal appellate court.

The Libertarians turned up e-mails they say "proved not only that the Kasich campaign had intimate and active involvement" with the removal of the party's candidate for governor, the revelations "added further proof of (the state GOP's) involvement." The federal magistrate who ordered the release of the material showing the GOP picked up the tab said the defendants' conduct "was clearly designed to delay or obstruct the (Libertarians') ability to learn that the Ohio Republican Party was involved in the effort to keep Libertarian Party candidates off the ballot."

The obstructionism was an attempt to cover up the fact that the Ohio GOP's "nefarious involvement was certainly improper and quite likely illegal," today's court filing says.

Husted, noting the Libertarians have lost multiple rounds of the federal court tussle, has called for an end to the litigation because the state did nothing wrong.