And even if the law had been valid, the inspector general didn't have the authority to poke around Dann's campaign and transition funds, the former attorney general maintains.

Furthermore, the damning report that Inspector General Thomas P. Charles did produce after a six-month investigation is a flimsy foundation for a complaint alleging that Dann violated election laws, Dann says in a new filing with the Ohio Elections Commission.

Dann's 250-page filing -- complete with mountains of evidence and even a lawsuit against his neighbor and former aide Anthony Gutierrez -- suggests that the former attorney general plans to mount a full-throated defense against allegations that he misused campaign money for personal purposes.

The case is scheduled to go before the Elections Commission on Thursday.

Although Dann might miss the hearing because of the flu, his attorney, Donald J. McTigue, said he hopes to put an end to the case accusing Dann of misusing money from his campaign and transition accounts to pay for meals and snacks for him, cell phones and travel for his family, and rent for the apartment that Dann shared with Gutierrez and another aide.

Dann resigned last May after sexual-harassment claims against Gutierrez mushroomed into a scandal that implicated Dann's own off-hours behavior and his management of the attorney general's office.

The Democrat's resignation came on the day that Charles' investigators swarmed the attorney general's office, having been empowered to investigate the office by an extraordinary act of the legislature.

Dann now argues that the legislature didn't have the power to unleash the inspector general on him and that, even if it had, the inspector general had permission to investigate only the office, not Dann's campaign. He also says the law empowering the inspector general is invalid because it was tacked onto an unrelated bill, violating Ohio's single-subject rule.

"Basically, the Ohio General Assembly passed special legislation empowering the inspector general to investigate one person," McTigue said yesterday. "You can't do that. Laws have to be of a general nature."

Charles and the office of Attorney General Richard Cordray declined to comment. State Sen. Jon A. Husted, a Kettering Republican who was House speaker when the law was passed, said Dann's arguments are ludicrous.

"He conducts himself in a disgraceful way, abuses the office and refuses to step down, and now it's the legislature's fault?" Husted asked. "We have the authority to pass laws to hold elected officials accountable."

The state Elections Commission is expected to decide Thursday whether to throw out the case against Dann or to validate allegations that Dann abused his campaign or transition accounts, which would send the case to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien for possible charges.

O'Brien already is considering charges against Gutierrez.

Dann is suing Gutierrez, a Youngstown-area neighbor and his former general-services director, over allegations that he padded the bill for security windows at Dann's house and diverted the extra $5,000 to vendors whom Gutierrez owed money. The windows were billed to Dann's campaign account.

The alleged fraud came to light in the inspector general's report in late December.

"That's the one valuable piece of information we did get from the inspector general's report," McTigue said.

jnash@dispatch.com