ASHLAND — The hot-button issue at the Ashland County Fair just got hotter.
The Ashland County Democratic Committee, through a Lakewood attorney, filed a civil suit Thursday in U.S. District Court, alleging the group’s federal civil rights were violated in September.
The lawsuit, filed by former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, identifies Ashland County Sheriff Kurt Schneider, the Ashland County Agricultural Society and Martin Wesner, the fair board’s president, as defendants. It also lists two other unnamed fair board members and two unnamed sheriff deputies as defendants in the case.
The suit stems from a Sept. 18 incident where the fair board booted Ashland County Democratic representatives from the fair because of their sale and distribution of “offensive buttons” directed at President Donald Trump.
At the time, Heather Sample, the chair of the Ashland County Democratic Party, decried the incident as an example of censorship, something she said has never happened in Ashland County.
Wesner defended the action, saying he and other board members learned of the buttons earlier in the day and asked them to remove them and other offensive material.
When that didn’t happen, he said, the board decided to have the booth removed from the fair, using sheriff deputies to escort them off the property.
Schneider said his agency investigated the incident and notified the U.S. Secret Service to look into “any crimes that may be associated with (President Trump’s) safety.”
The incident led to the resignation of a longtime Democratic committee member, Andrew Kinney. He said he’d been contemplating a resignation for a long time, but that the incident served as the last straw.
It also prompted a national free-speech organization to formally call for the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office to drop its investigation into the matter.
The civil suit filed on Thursday seeks a judgement declaring “defendants’ actions unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” It also seeks compensation, attorney fees and other relief “as the court deems just and proper.”
Materials were in poor taste, but protected, says lawyer
The Dann Law firm, representing the county’s Democratic Party, argued the materials used by the Democratic party were in “poor taste.”
But they are nevertheless protected, he wrote in the complaint.
“… these inherently political messages are protected from censorship by government officials or those acting under color of law. In fact, these buttons were consistent with the type of political commentary routinely present or expressed at county fairs nationwide and plainly constitute core political speech under the First Amendment,” he said.
Law cited Wood v. Eubanks, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati case that overturned Michael Wood’s arrest on disorderly conduct charges. Wood wore a “F— the Police” shirt and cursed at deputies before being arrested at a county fair in 2016.
“The actions violated well-established First Amendment protections and threaten to chill political participation at future county fairs across Ohio,” according to the complaint.
Was there a double standard?
The complaint also highlights a double standard that show “selective, viewpoint-based enforcement.”
Law said other merchants at the Ashland County Fair displayed items that were not family friendly, which he said aligns with the fair board’s reasoning for removing the Ashland County Democratic Committee.
The case shows photographs taken by Ashland County Democratic Committee members that depict drug and alcohol use. Some shirts offered for sale show messages supporting marijuana smoking and messages that suggest support for Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist who was murdered Sept. 10.
Other vendors “had merchandise depicting or glorifying violence which went unaddressed by defendants …”
(Photos below were taken by Ashland County Democratic Committee members during the 2025 fair in Ashland County. They are included in the civil case complaint filed Thursday.)
“It is obvious that defendants’ conduct was not motivated by neutral and evenly enforced rules, but calculated instead to chill, deter and ultimately censor specific political speech at the Ashland County Fair based on viewpoint only,” Law stated in the complaint.
Ashland County officials haven’t seen complaint
Neither Wesner nor Schneider hadn’t reviewed the complaint as of Thursdsay and declined to comment.
The sheriff deferred questions to Chris Tunnell, the Ashland County prosecutor.
“To my knowledge, we haven’t been served,” Tunnell said. “We’ll have to read it.”
The prosecutor’s office represents the sheriff in his official capacity, Tunnell said. But the prosecutor’s office does not represent the fair board.
“These can get referred to county insurance,” Tunnell said of civil cases. “But that remains to be seen. We’ll have to read it and figure out the situation.”
