Click the play button above to hear a full report from Ohio Public Radio’s Bill Cohen.

A top auto company executive is strongly restating that Jeep has no plans to move Toledo auto jobs overseas, despite a claim to the contrary by Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and despite new ads by Romney’s campaign that hint at it. Click the play button above for a full report from Ohio Public Radio’s Bill Cohen.

Keith Whann is a Columbus attorney who specializes in auto industry law. He says state law has a provision known as the motor vehicle dealers franchise act which gives certain rights to local dealers.

“Normally what would happen is if a franchiser – GM, Chrysler, whatever – wanted to terminate an existing relationship with a franchisee, there’s a framework under the franchise act that they would have to go through,” Whann says. “The thing that makes this so difficult and unique is that the trimming of the franchise dealer ranks is taking place in a bankruptcy proceeding.”

But what if a dealer chooses to challenge the manufacturer’s decision? Whann says one of the interesting aspects of the situation will be which law prevails – federal bankruptcy law or the state’s franchise protection law

“I sense what is happening is Chrysler is petitioning the bankruptcy court and telling the court. ‘We need to be able to not only trim the company but to trim the dealer ranks to be able to survive financially and that’s part of our plan.’ So it appears as though they may be seeking the approval of the court to say, You have the authority to terminate these franchise relationships.’”

Is there any recourse for a local dealership?

“Well I think there is recourse. Let’s look at it this way. Even assuming that you have the bankruptcy law that is going to prevail, and say the bankruptcy law gives you the opportunity to trim the dealer ranks, I think a dealer could still attempt to overlay Ohio’s franchise dealer statute and say that the way or the method they’ve done it is somehow in an unfair or uneven way.”

“For example, this dealership is getting terminated and this one is not. What’s the rationale that you used to pick that? So I think that there may be the opportunity to utilize some of the protections under Ohio law but you may have to do it overlaying it on the bankruptcy proceedings as a whole,” Whann says.

Keith Whann is the founder of the law firm Whann and Associates.

In a letter to a treasury official, Democrat Representative Mary Jo Kilroy says closed door, back room decisions to shut down dealerships are not based on credible evidence.

“I have asked the auto industry task force to give us a good reason why this would be a good thing for American auto, for the American economy or for central Ohio and in the meantime to put a moratorium on these dealership closings,” Kilroy says.

The franchise terminations have angered some dealers. George Byers of Byers Chevrolet is adamant that General Motors cannot terminate franchises because, he says, the corporation is not in bankruptcy.

Another GM dealership head, Chris Haydocy, says he’s breathing a sigh of relief because his franchise won’t be pulled. But he says

“The whole thing reeks. Never in the history of the United States has a task force and a manufacturer and a bankruptcy judge decide to arbitrarily shut down thousands of small businesses,” Haydocy says. “It’s a malicious attack on our basic freedoms.

It’s not yet known how many Ohio dealers will lose their affiliations with General Motors.

Chrysler LLC has told a bankruptcy court it plans to eliminate 789 of its dealers – or about 25 percent of them – across the country as part of its restructuring process.

The automaker has about 3,200 dealers but says that’s too many. It wants to have stronger, more profitable dealers with better facilities.

Chrysler spokeswoman Kathy Graham says the company will notify specific dealers before commenting publicly.

The dealers likely will have a right to appeal to get off the list. The move could have a devastating impact on cities across the U.S., costing jobs and tax revenue.

Worthington Industries began operating in 1955 when founder John McConnell discovered a niche in the automotive market’s demand for steel. Since that time the Big 3 automakers have all been customers.

“It’s good business, it has been good business, they are some of our top customers in the steel processing group but the automotive business has been good business to Worthington over the years.”

“Cathy Lyttle is a Worthington Industries spokeswoman. She says it would be hard on the company to lose a large purchaser of steel like an automaker.

“We like the car business but at the same time we know that if we lose one of them it would certainly be something that we would have to work through as a business to deal with that; to lose a customer of that caliber,” Lyttle says.

Rumors that one or more of the Big 3 are teetering on the brink of collapse has people worried. People like the president of the local United Auto Workers.

“That’s always on our minds.”

Local 969 president Dave Davis used to work at the Delphi plant in Columbus, a plant that made parts for General Motors and once employed 5,000 people. But the number of employees dwindled to a few hundred before the plant was shut down last year. Asked about the impact on Columbus if other automotive suppliers were to close, Davis says all you have to do is look at the west side of town.

“Well there’s always the trickle down effect which if you look at the west side of Columbus from where Delphi used to sit several businesses have collapsed and a lot of the small mom-and-pop stores have closed down and other large ones as well,” Davis says.

The state of Ohio is heavily devoted to manufacturing says Ryan Augsburger with the Ohio Manufacturers Association.

“Whether you look at it by employment or productivity Ohio ranks third nationwide in manufacturing,” Augsburger says. “Over 20 percent of the state’s gross state product comes from manufacturing and that’s double of any other private industry sector.”

GM, Ford and Chrysler all employ thousands of people in Ohio but Honda is the largest car maker in the state employing 14,000. It builds some 680,000 cars a year at its Marysville and nearby East Liberty plants. Dozens of small to medium sized suppliers produce parts for Honda and other car makers. That means that it’s in Honda’s interest that those parts suppliers – the ones that also supply domestic producers — remain healthy. A Honda spokesman turned down a request for an interview on the subject but Ron Lietzke released a carefully worded statement:

“The auto industry,” Lietzke says, “is comprised of separate companies that are cross integrated through their supply chains. Honda encourages initiatives that are essential to maintain the short and long term viability of the auto industry including the hundreds of suppliers in the U.S.”

That means that keeping the Big Three in business is good for Honda as well. Chris Haydocy is president of a GM car dealership on West Board Street. He looks at it this way:

“Name any supplier, the number one buyer or rubber, the number one buyer of steel, metal, aluminum, chemicals, the number one buyer of microchips is the car manufacturer,” Haydocy says.

Meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called off a planned vote this week on the $25 billion auto industry bailout. Reid says he wants to figure out some way to help Detroit’s struggling Big Three but that efforts to do so have stalled.