Leave Mom out of this...
Allison Russo's habit of telling political opponents' moms that their kid is mentally ill
I met Matt a few months ago. He reached out after his social media feed had been serving up some of my POWW! Protect Ohio Women at Work videos. I knew Matt’s name because I had heard good things about him as a candidate. We did a fun interview talking about my 13 years as legal counsel to the House Democrats and how it ended with Allison unceremoniously discarding me when I wanted her to stand up for women in that workplace.
Matt and I stayed in touch and chatted from time to time.
Recently, Matt heard from one of his readers about Allison Russo’s campaign consultant Rachel Rossi going after MY MOM on Facebook and telling my mom that I was in a “mental health crisis.“
And that is what brings me to The Angry Democrat/Ohioan today as a guest blogger! And I’m angry!
Let’s get into it…
This is Rachel Rossi. Allison Russo pays her $6,000/month as her campaign consultant. A candidate running to be my state representative pays Rachel $2,700/month. A few other Statehouse folks have her on the payroll, too.
Several days ago, Rachel Rossi found a five day old comment by my mom on a public Facebook page, Summit County Progressive Democrats. They held a forum and then endorsed Dr. Bryan Hambley for Secretary of State. Mom commented about Dr. Hambley’s experience in healthcare and about Russo’s vote with Republicans for the gerrymandered state maps. Pretty tame comment.
Rachel, who I’ve known for 15 years since she was a kid fresh out of college, comes along five days later and she knows this is my mom. And she says this (I’m choosing not to further Rachel‘s agenda by showing her entire comment):
(Can you believe this 36 year old woman telling a 72 year old woman what to do with her 49 year old daughter?)
Around midnight, my mom calls me from my stepdad’s phone. You get a late night call from them like that and you worry. I immediately answered.
She says, “Who’s Rachel Lynn?” Rachel Rossi was going by Rachel Lynn on Facebook. I tell her that’s Allison‘s campaign manager and we discuss what just happened.
We hang up. She calls me back a minute later. “Sarah, isn’t this just what Allison did to Elliot Forhan?”
Me: 🤯 [WHOA]
Also me: 🥱 [yawn] I’ve been dealing with terrible things from these people for almost 3 years now. Initially, this seemed like just one more.
But I woke up the next day pretty pissed about it, so I made a video about what Rachel did. And people immediately responded with outrage. I typically get a lot of views and good engagement on my posts but… GOING AFTER A PERSON’S MOM! This struck a nerve with people.
Later, I talk to my friend on the phone and she says… well, she says a lot of choice words. But she points out not only did Allison’s campaign manager call you mentally ill like Allison did with Elliot Forhan, but they told your MOM that… just like they did with Elliot Forhan.
PEOPLE, when I tell you that my mind was blown… 🤯 A full day had passed almost and I had not seen the obvious. Allison Russo‘s campaign ran the same play on me that she ran on Elliot Forhan!
So who the hell is Elliot Forhan?
Let’s do a quick overview for people who don’t know. He was a Democratic member of the House. He and another member had words, loud words as I understand it. They had a disagreement about Elliot putting up an Israel flag in his office space, Allison‘s chief of staff asking him to take it down, and Elliot commenting on it on social media.
The other member said in public statements that she did cry but that she cries when she’s angry. Then, it seems like Allison took the opportunity, using this brief argument he had with the other member, to just drop a bomb on him. Allison found Elliot annoying and she wanted him out of her hair. But what she did was absolute political malpractice and resulted in hours and hours of unnecessary pain and wasted time over the next several years— causing me to frequently wonder, “Is anyone raising money and trying to win elections?!” But we’ll get to that...
Back on this day in November 2023, the bomb Allison dropped was a 20-page memo she wrote about Forhan calling him violent and suicidal. That was the gist of it. The rest of the pages were padding for the headline: violent and suicidal. (Because apparently he had made comments such as, “Just shoot me.”)
The timeline is super condensed. I think Forhan and the other member had the argument and the next day Alison has this memo written about him, and she releases it to the press! (Because that’s what you do when you think someone is suicidal, right!?) But before she releases it to the press, she has a member of her leadership team call Elliot’s moms and tell them that their son is in mental health crisis! And that he’s suicidal!
Elliot has two moms. He’s very close with them. He performed their marriage ceremony in fact—not that long ago! And they are bewildered and upset by this news. Over the coming days, they speak to their son, confirm that he is not in fact suicidal, and they begin what turns out to be a very long legal battle that is still going on.
Representative Juanita Brent gets involved a few days later. That is an unfortunate part of the story. She appears to think that Forhan was driving by her house. That seems to be false or a mistake on her part. They end up in court over a civil stalking protection order and after many months—and after he loses his primary reelection—a court says the case has “no merit” and Forhan is “exonerated.” (Full disclosure: I like Rep. Brent and think she has done a lot of good work and some downright heroic opposition to the hideous racism in that Statehouse. Had Allison not instigated a witch hunt against Forhan, I think this all could’ve been avoided—avoiding drama like this is the job of a leader.)
This was a full on court case culminating in a one day trial. They had depositions. Allison Russo walked out of her first deposition without answering questions. She was ordered by the court to sit for another deposition. She refused to answer questions again, and had to attend a contempt hearing where she was ordered by the court to answer the question. It was high drama, unnecessary drama.
April 10, 2024 court decision:
I wasn’t at the House anymore when any of this happened, but I knew Elliot a little bit at this time. I had worked at the House and staffed the Ballot Board. Allison had appointed Elliot to the Ballot Board actually against my recommendation. I didn’t think he was ready and thought we could have a more experienced appointee. She appointed him and he did fine. But, we all knew Rep. Forhan was a little different.
Words like “neurodivergent” and “on the spectrum” were thrown around. But people liked him and no one thought he was violent or suicidal. What Allison did to him I believe was a result of her impatience with and rage at his difference. He can be great and he can also be highly annoying and rigid and self-righteous. But there’s no excuse for falsely calling a person violent and suicidal.
So all of that was two years ago in 2023 and 2024. Forhan is now on the ballot on Tuesday, attempting to become our Democratic nominee for Attorney General. (Full disclosure: I am voting for the other Democrat, John Kulewicz, for AG. Elliot and I have become friends, but for many reasons, I think John is the better candidate.)
So journalists are writing stories about the current race and all of these old headlines about Forhan and stalking and violence and suicide are being resurrected, because they’re still out there and journalists repeat them and link to them. They don’t link to the end of the story where Elliot was “exonerated,” they link to the beginning of the story repeating the false allegations by Allison Russo.
Since the end of 2024, Elliot Forhan has been suing the House of Representatives, Allison Russo, and other elected officials and some staff members in their official and personal capacities. He is suing them for defamation and a few other claims in two courts at the same time, the Ohio Court of Claims and the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, because of immunity issues that have to be resolved. If the Court of Claims determines these people are not personally immune from suit, then the Cuyahoga County case against them as individuals will proceed. (I am a lawyer, but not in this case, and I don’t claim to be an expert on these things.)
Some depositions have taken place in the current lawsuit. Forhan deposed Allison Russo again and you can listen to the whole thing here. She has some pretty wild ideas about what is and isn’t “work” and she says “I don’t know” well over 100 times, mostly about things I’m sure she knows.
Trial is set for… ELECTION DAY! That’s right, November 3, 2026. Whoever said judges aren’t political is a comedian.
And that, my friends, is the short version of the Forhan story.
Let’s go back to the main point here.
What is up with Allison Russo and MOMS?!?
There is another parallel between Elliot’s and my experience with Allison. Right after Matt and I recorded our interview in mid-February, he and I were texting about Allison’s response to it (that needs its own entire response post), only I couldn’t get back to Matt immediately because I was in a hospital in Toledo with my mom who had just had a heart attack. (She’s doing great now! She grumbles about going to cardiac rehab because there are too many “old people,” but she goes and she’s doing great.)
Earlier that week, I had decided not to invite her to a secretary of state campaign event, because I thought maybe the stress of Allison’s conduct toward me was getting to her. Then on Friday the 13th, she had a heart attack.
The parallel: sometime in the first few months of Elliot’s conflict with Allison, one of his moms ended up in the emergency room for heart issues. I don’t have children myself, and I can only imagine what it’s like to see your kid suffer. But I know we can’t protect our loved ones, our parents, from the stress we go thru. And that sucks.
Donna and I will both tell you we’re tough as nails and we are. But she was upset that night and couldn’t sleep. And I was upset that night that this woman Rachel—who I have known for 15 years, who had been my friend—lied to my mom to hurt her and hurt me and stop us from speaking out about her political campaign client, Allison Russo. It’s low.
Here’s what Elliot told me about how he felt when Allison Russo told his moms he was mentally ill:
“It hurt me that they did that to my moms. Especially because there’s no way they believed what they were saying about me— you simply would not send a memo like that to the PRESS if you truly thought a person was suicidal. But beyond that, it’s such a perversion of our, not just our Democratic values… I remember after I was sworn in in 2023, I was sitting on the floor of the House Chamber and Mike DeWine was making his very long State of the State speech and he kept returning to this point: ‘I want to make the state of Ohio number one in mental health!’ So, it’s not just our Democratic values, it’s our values as Ohioans, as decent people! And here is Allison Russo, as a Democratic leader, abusing that value, perverting it for her personal political gain. It’s offensive.”
Bonus: When I called Elliot to ask him to give me a quote, his wife Nicole offered the following:
“I remember that his moms were frantic for a short time. They called Elliot and couldn’t reach him right away so they called me and texted me something about suicide which I just found strange! And by the time I saw that a few minutes later, they had already reached him, learned that he was fine, and texted me that he was fine. Then they came up to visit that weekend, and I remember that we watched the movie Singin’ in the Rain. And Elliot laughed during the movie. And his mom was like “I’m so glad he’s laughing.” Not because it was surprising that he was laughing—that was normal. But they had just been given this huge scare. And they were sitting here seeing how wrong it was.”
I’ve met Elliot’s moms. They are wonderful loving people and Democratic activists, and they dwell in the greatest place on earth—Athens, Ohio. As their friend, I am offended that Allison put them thru that.
I am running against Allison for Ohio Democratic Party State Central Committeewoman, Senate District 25. After what Rachel did, I challenged Allison to a debate. Allison has refused to respond, refused to face me, and refused to address this dirty tactic by her highly paid henchwoman. (And it is not the first one. It’s been a long nine months.) But I haven’t given up and I’ve reserved space for a debate in the Columbus Main Library Auditorium on Monday at 11:30 AM.
Clever use of the POWW! logo if I do say so myself…
Allison has been asked one question as far as I can tell about her treatment of me and former Rep. Forhan— at an Indivisible forum where I was sitting silently in the audience in the sanctuary of a local church. I posted that question, her response, and my after-the-fact response here. TLDR: Why didn’t she have half the smoke for real violence in the workplace as she had for a member who annoyed her?
Matt posed the question: Is this politics as usual? I have to say… on the one hand, yes. The effect on one’s family is often cited by potential candidates or people newly in office as a reason not to run. But that usually involves the things said to and about the candidate. What makes this different is Rachel Rossi sought out my mom and commented TO her ABOUT me. That’s another level in my experience. Very unprofessional. Very low. And Rachel has now deactivated her Facebook account. Did she do that out of shame, acknowledgement of a mistake? Or did she do it because the dirty work was done, had its effect, and now it was time to zap the evidence? I don’t know which.
Let’s close with a word from Mom:
You can hear more from Donna here and here.
Thanks for reading! Thanks, Matt, for the always interesting discussion.
I’ve tinkered with Substack, but my POWW! headquarters is really on Facebook and you can find me at all the usual spots (my linktree). Happy voting! Leave my mom alone!