Rutan to remain on Republican ballot for Columbus City Council

The Bartholomew County Election Board found this morning that it had no grounds to remove City Council candidate Chris Rutan from the May Republican primary ballot.

He was facing accusations of financial wrongdoing in his role as a rental property manager, but there have been no felony convictions against the candidate.

For their part, election board members were constrained to consider only a very narrow set of reasons a candidate could be removed from a ballot including their age, residency, party affiliation and whether they were a convicted felon. Board president Jim Holland said that the board could not hear or make judgments on any issues outside their purview.

Board attorney Pete King made the point that no one would want the three-person panel to be making decisions on whether a candidate was moral enough to deserve to be on the ballot, because that is a slippery slope.

The board voted 3-0 to allow Rutan to remain on the ballot. He will face incumbent City Councilman Dascal Bunch in the May Republican primary for the District 1 seat representing parts of downtown and eastern Columbus.