Justice Michael Donnelly & Megan Shanahan

COMPARE THE CANDIDATES

Disclaimer: As judicial candidates often refrain from publicly stating their positions on specific issues, we've examined their financial backers—especially those with strong views on potential court matters—to provide insight into their possible leanings.

Justice Michael Donnelly

Democratic

Megan Shanahan

Republican

 

Health Care

  • Justice Michael Donnelly is dedicated to nuanced and compassionate justice. He previously served as a member of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, where he led the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Court. This court oversees criminal cases involving defendants with severe mental illness or developmental disabilities [1]. 

  • As a member of the Ohio Supreme Court, Donnelly repelled repeated Republican attempts to keep Ohio’s reproductive freedom amendment off the ballot. He also voted to dismiss an appeal attempt to lift the pause on Ohio’s six-week abortion ban, and he voted to accept an appeal from an abortion clinic facing closure due to legal restrictions [2]. 

  • Research could not find a clear stance on healthcare for Judge Megan Shanahan.

  • Judge Megan Shanahan has bragged about past endorsements from anti-abortion rights groups like Greater Cincinnati Right to Life and Centers for Christian Virtue. Both groups supported recent heartbeat legislation in Ohio. Shanahan also received campaign funding from a Republican politician who cosponsored the 2013 Sanctity of Life Act, which states that human life begins at fertilization. 

Working Families

  • Justice Michael Donnelly’s supporters advocate for and fight for prevailing wage laws. These laws promote a skilled workforce and improve workers’ wages and benefits [3]. These same backers strongly oppose anti-worker laws that strip workers of union protections [4]. 

  • Justice Michael Donnelly and the Supreme Court ruled that FirstEnergy Corporation had improperly calculated its profits and forced the company to refund over $300 million to its customers [5]. 

  • Shanahan’s supporters have also called an amendment to raise Ohio’s minimum wage “ill-advised and economically detrimental [1].” The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, which endorsed Shanahan, opposes prevailing wage laws, which the group says “interferes with free enterprise principles [2].” Additionally, the Chamber is a notorious anti-worker organization. It opposes legislation protecting workers’ rights to unionize and collectively bargain and has supported “right-to-work” laws that make it harder for working people to form unions and collectively bargain [3]. 

  • Research could not find a clear stance on economic security for Judge Megan Shanahan.

Child Care

  • Research could not find a clear stance on childcare for Justice Michael Donnelly.

  • Research could not find a clear stance on childcare for Judge Megan Shanahan.

Social Security

  • Research could not find a clear stance on Social Security for Justice Michael Donnelly.

  • Research could not find a clear stance on Social Security for Judge Megan Shanahan.

Criminal Justice Reform

  • Justice Michael Donnelly served on the Ohio Supreme Court Death Penalty Review Task Force and the Task Force on Conviction Integrity and Post-Conviction Review to eliminate Ohio’s justice inequities and seek racial equity in sentencing [6]. Recommendations from the conviction task forces include allowing for new trials based on evidence that wasn’t offered at trial, requiring prosecutors who know of clear and convincing evidence of innocence to seek to remedy the conviction, and creating an Innocence Inquiry Commission that has broad investigatory powers to compel evidence and testimony [7]. 

    Donnelly has spoken out against what he calls “dark pleas,” which “coerce prisoners who want to demonstrate their innocence into pleading guilty in exchange for their freedom [8].” Additionally, Donnelly is leading an effort to collect criminal sentencing data uniformly across all Ohio courts, which he says is an “absolutely necessity to deal with the problem of disparate treatment and implicit bias that permeates our sentencing laws [9].” 

  • Judge Megan Shanahan has criticized her opponent, Justice Michael Donnelly’s efforts to create a statewide sentencing database to remove bias from criminal sentencing [4]. Shanahan received thousands in campaign funding from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce which has a history of opposing medical and recreational marijuana legalization efforts in Ohio [5].  

Education

  • Research could not find a clear stance on education for Justice Michael Donnelly.

  • The politicians supporting Shanahan have spearheaded a “backpack bill” that would create a universal voucher program, allowing every student in Ohio to access school vouchers [6]-- which underfunds public schools. Ohio’s Legislative Service Commission said the bill could cost the state $1.13 billion in the first year alone [7]. 

    Shanahan’s funders in Congress also opposed President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan [8].

Election Reform

  • Justice Michael Donnelly joined the Ohio Supreme Court majority in striking down illegitimate legislative maps drawn by the Ohio Redistricting Commission. The majority held that the maps did not comply with constitutional requirements as created by historical voter preferences. In 2022 alone, Donnelly and the court invalidated four attempts at drawing state legislative maps. Donnelly also joined the majority in a Congressional redistricting case, ruling that Republica-drawn maps were unconstitutional. The majority held that the map favored Republicans in 80% of the districts [10]. 

  • Judge Megan Shanahan’s funders have consistently worked to erode voting rights [9]. 

    One of Shanahan’s largest donors, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, hosted an event in which Republican Senate President Huffman, who oversees a supermajority in the Ohio Senate, criticized and bashed redistricting reform that would give the power to the people to draw voting districts [10]. 

Footnotes