With only six filing days left for the 2012 primary election, the Ohio House seat of veteran politician John Carey is now up for the taking. Or rather the campaigning.

And the local Democratic Party is working hard to come up with a candidate who could take the post that Republicans have held for the past nine years.

On Tuesday Carey, the Republican representative for the 87th District, announced that he is going to work at Shawnee State University. There he will be assistant to the university’s president for government relations and strategic initiative.

He begins the job on Jan. 1, 2012.

“This is more of going to do something different and new,” Carey said in an interview with The Tribune. “I have really enjoyed the support I have received from voters in Lawrence County. It has been a great experience.”

Among the issues Carey cites as accomplishments are developing industrial sites and long-term care of the elderly.

“I have done most of the things I wanted to do legislatively,” he said.

The next step is to fill Carey’s seat for the remainder of his term. That person will serve through December 2012. House Speaker William Batchelder will appoint a committee of House Republicans to consider candidates for that unexpired term.

The recommendations from that screening committee will go to Batchelder. The Speaker will then make a final recommendation to all the Republican members of the Ohio House. All the GOP House membership will vote on that name or any others they would want to consider. They will make the final decision.

Those who want to run in the 2012 election must file for the seat and the winner in that general election will begin serving 2013.

There are at least three people in the district who are interested in the post, Carey said.

“I know (Lawrence Economic Development Corp.) Bill (Dingus) is interested in it and there are others as well,” he said. “They will have to go through the screening process. It will be very interesting. I know at least three people are planning to file.”

He declined to name them.

“I will let them make themselves known,” Carey said.

Dingus said he has yet to make a decision on whether he will run.

“This has been a long-time desire to have the privilege of representing this region of southeast Ohio and I will be looking forward to making a statement before the end of the week,” Dingus said.

The district takes in all of Gallia and Jackson counties, part of Vinton County and all of Lawrence County except for Ironton, Coal Grove and Hamilton Township.

“It has been a long time since I started a job outside elected office,” Carey said. “I am very open. I want to help Shawnee State University, to help serve Appalachian students, to open access so Shawnee State’s voice is heard in Columbus.”

Right now Lawrence County Democratic Party chair Craig Allen said he is trying to locate a potential candidate.

“I am trying to communicate with people who are interested or may be interested,” he said. “This is a multi-county district and the state headquarters is also trying to locate a viable candidate.”

Because of the district’s lines a Lawrence County candidate would have to live in the South Point area up to the eastern end of the county.

“Realistically I won’t know until the sixth,” Allen said. “It is a big district and it gets harder and harder to get people to run for public office. I don’t anticipate anybody at the moment.”

Historically the district has jockeyed back and forth between both parties.

Carey won the seat in 2010 after Clyde Evans, also a Republican, was unable to run again because of term limits. Evans was in the House for eight years.

It was the second time for the Wellston native to hold the state representative seat. In 1994 he beat Democrat and former County Commissioner Mark Malone, who had been in the House for a decade. Then the seat was in the 94th District. Malone had been appointed to the seat following the retirement of Ron James, also a Democrat.

Before Carey ran for the House this last time he was in the Ohio Senate from 2003 to 2010. In 2000 the district lines were redrawn and the seat became the 87th district. Recent redistricting has now made it the 93rd district.

A candidate has to have 50 valid signatures of registered voters of their party in the district to get on the ballot.

All candidates for the 93rd district must file in Lawrence County because it has the largest registered voter total in the district. However candidates can pick up petitions in any county in the district.

As of 8:30 a.m. today no one had picked up a petition at the county board of elections for the seat from either party.