CLEVELAND -- Democrats are traveling around the state calling for a t bipartisan committee to conduct a thorough investigation of the rare coin deal that went bad and the $200 million in investments lost using money from the Bureau of Workers Compensation.

Democrats are blasting the governor and republican leadership for not keeping tracking of a quarter of a billion dollars the state has lost in shaky investment deals, reported NewsChannel5's Tony Gaskins.

Minority leader Chris Redfern accused Taft, the attorney general and the state auditor of attempting to cover everything up and stonewalling any kind of realistic investigation.

"Clearly, Gov. Taft has let others run the BWC without any oversight at all. In addition the attorney general of this state knew in September, perhaps September 2004, that a quarter billion dollars had gone missing in the BWC and he did nothing for six months," said Redfern.

Redfern says his party will not participate in any legislative investigative panel that is not equally staffed by Republicans and Democrats.

They believe taxpayers have not seen the last of growing financial scandal and are calling on Taft to resign.

Attorney General Jim Petro denies he was told about the $215 million investment loss last September.

Petro's spokesman said the office learned about the loss two days ago and plans to "aggressively pursue" the investment firm to recover all the money lost.