The remarks came after Click narrowly survived a surprisingly competitive May 5 primary against Watson, a first-time candidate who came within just 600 votes of defeating the three-term incumbent. Watson won Seneca County outright and captured nearly 48% of the districtwide Republican vote despite raising substantially less money than Click, who benefited from years of established fundraising relationships and support from the Ohio House Republican caucus.

During the recorded conversation, Click was challenged over his earlier false accusation that local Democrats had donated to Watson’s primary campaign. Click acknowledged that the accusation was a mistake but maintained that Democrats would have benefited politically if Watson had defeated him.

“I actually told somebody at one time,” Click said, before describing a hypothetical general election between Watson and Jones. “If it was between Eric and Aaron, I might have voted for Aaron,” he said, laughing, “because Eric’s a nut.”

Click then added: “Don’t you repeat that.”

Click’s characterization of Watson was unusually blunt for an incumbent discussing a fellow Republican who had come close to denying him his party’s nomination.

Click, a Republican from Vickery who was first elected in 2020, ultimately secured the nomination and now faces Jones, a Tiffin city councilman, U.S. Army veteran and longtime manufacturing supervisor, in the November 3 general election.

A first-time challenger nearly unseated a three-term incumbent

Watson’s primary campaign presented one of the most serious electoral challenges Click has faced since entering the Ohio House. The Tiffin businessman campaigned to the incumbent’s right, criticizing Click’s relationships with Republican leadership, his legislative record and his positions on data centers, digital identification and property taxes.

According to the certified results from the Seneca County and Sandusky County boards of elections, Click defeated Watson by 6,884 votes to 6,284, a margin of just 600 votes, or 52.28% to 47.72%.

The incumbent actually lost Seneca County, where Watson defeated him 3,228 to 2,724. Click survived because of his stronger showing in Sandusky County, where he defeated Watson 4,160 to 3,056.

Watson’s performance was particularly notable given the financial disparity between the campaigns. Campaign-finance records previously examined by TiffinOhio.net showed Click reported $69,461.37 in contributions during 2026 through primary day, compared with $17,488.05 Watson reported across his campaign filings. Watson also relied on substantial personal funding, contributing $21,000 of his own money to finance the challenge.

The spending gap was narrower. Click’s committee reported $53,662.58 in expenditures through primary day, compared with $42,128.99 for Watson. Click’s reported expenditures included $45,000 in transfers to the Ohio House Republican Organizational Committee, which subsequently reported providing $38,611.62 in support to Click’s campaign.

The primary also exposed a lasting divide between the two Republicans. In July, Watson told TiffinOhio.net he would never endorse Click, saying a post-primary conversation had failed to resolve his concerns about the incumbent’s positions on data centers and government overreach. Watson also announced plans to move out of the district.

Click had previously dismissed Watson’s candidacy and questioned his political judgment. During the primary, he told the Fremont News-Messenger that moving further to the right than him meant going “in the ditch.” In April, he mocked Watson as “the Arizona Kid”, referencing his former residence in Arizona despite Watson having grown up in Seneca County.

Watson, meanwhile, told TiffinOhio.net in February that personal insults were unnecessary and that candidates should focus on substantive disagreements.

“I’m not into the name-calling or any of that stuff,” Watson said at the time. “I really, as a candidate, want to focus on the issues that voters are concerned about.”

Click acknowledges false accusation against Democrats

The recorded conversation also revisited an August controversy in which Click falsely accused Jones and two other local Democrats of financially supporting Watson’s Republican primary campaign.

A TiffinOhio.net fact-check published August 7 found that none of the three Democrats had contributed to Watson, according to campaign-finance filings submitted to the Ohio Secretary of State. Click subsequently deleted his original accusation and published a correction acknowledging that the claim had been made in error.

During the recorded conversation, Click explained that he had downloaded campaign-finance information for the 88th District and mistakenly interpreted contributions while reviewing the records.

“I made a simple mistake,” Click said. He later added: “It was a mistake, and it was a dumb mistake. I’m not even gonna say it wasn’t.”

Despite acknowledging the error, Click continued to suggest that Democrats had wanted Watson to win the Republican nomination because he believed Watson would have been easier to defeat in November.

“He would’ve been much easier to beat,” Click said.

It was during that discussion that Click volunteered his hypothetical preference for Jones over Watson, describing the former Republican challenger as “a nut.”

Click’s remarks contrast with his calls for respectful campaigns

Elsewhere in the same recorded exchange, Click repeatedly criticized what he characterized as personal attacks against him and insisted that he had treated his own political opponents respectfully.

“I have always been kind to every candidate,” Click said, later adding, “I try to be nice to my opponents. I try to keep it to policy.”

Those statements echoed his public comments during the Republican primary, when he urged candidates to “turn down the rhetoric” and argued that political disagreements should not become attacks on opponents’ character. His subsequent description of Watson as “a nut” was directed not at a Democratic adversary but at a fellow Republican whose primary challenge nearly prevented Click from advancing to the general election.

TiffinOhio.net contacted Watson for comment on Click’s recorded remarks but had not received a response by publication. Nick Kraus, a campaign consultant for Watson’s primary bid, was also contacted and declined to comment. This story will be updated if Watson responds.

Click faces Jones on November 3 in Ohio’s 88th House District, which encompasses Seneca and Sandusky counties. The election will determine whether Click secures a fourth and final term in the Ohio House after narrowly surviving a primary challenge from a fellow Republican he now acknowledges he might have passed over in favor of a Democrat.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Organizers across hundreds of advocacy groups will pull together thousands of events nationwide Saturday to encourage early voting in this year’s midterm elections. Voting is already underway in dozens of states, and roughly 5.1 million ballots – both in-person and mail – have been cast, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

Saturday’s “No Kings: Vote Early Day of Action” events include marches and walks to the polls where early voting is already underway and open on the weekends. Also planned are gatherings that offer live music, food and assistance for voter registration, car pool sign-ups and information on how to become a poll observer.

“The best way to prevent any funny business from this administration after Election Day is to make sure that our turnout is massive — so clear, and so overwhelming that our victory for democracy is impossible to question,” Alma Couverthie, a senior organizer with the advocacy group Common Cause, said at a Wednesday morning press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Common Cause is one of the nearly 320 organizations coordinating the events under the direction of nine national steering committee groups.

“There is no time to sit on the sidelines. We need everyone. So I urge you, make your plan to vote early. Don’t trust in the way you voted before. Check again. Make sure you know where you’re going, how you’re going, and who you’re bringing with you,” Couverthie said.

This one is different

Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the nine steering committee groups, said Saturday’s events will be distinct from previous No Kings Day rallies in June and October 2025, and March 2026.

“It is different in the sense that No Kings One, Two, and Three were designed to send a message that the American people were not simply going to sacrifice their constitutional rights, that they were willing to stand up,” Levin told States Newsroom during an Oct. 9 interview.

The message of the three marches was “well sent,” he said, as each successive one expanded in numbers. It started with 5 million attendees across 2,100 individual events nationwide on June 14, 2025, to more than 7 million at 2,700 events on Oct. 18, 2025, and then reached 8 million across 3,330 events on March 28, 2026, according to organizers.

With Trump at historic low approval ratings, and with an “electoral wipeout” likely ahead if polls are on target, Levin said No Kings messaging “is largely completed” and that action is the next step.

“The goal of No Kings on October 17 is therefore not just to protest and get attention to the fact that people aren’t afraid to stand up, but to use this tool that is available to us right now in October, and it is a different constitutional right, not just the constitutional right to organize and make your voice heard — but your constitutional right to vote,” Levin said. 

As of Wednesday, more than 2,500 events were scheduled for Saturday in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to No Kings organizers.

Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer for the ACLU, said the civil liberties organization has been training thousands of volunteers to assist voters in knowing their rights and what to do if they encounter issues at the polls.

“We know that the best way to protect our freedom is to act free. That means showing up at the polls and making sure that your neighbors can show up too. See you at the polls on Saturday,” Schifeling said at the Wednesday press conference.

Joining forces

Other concerted efforts to do what organizers call “get out the vote” are joining No Kings events Saturday to amplify and strengthen their messages, leaders say.

Bishop William Barber, Repairers of the Breach founder and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, has been organizing 1,000 marches nationwide to the polls in an effort he announced in July as “Love Forward Together.”

So far, Barber’s campaign has organized 652 marches in 428 locations across the United States, according to Repairers of the Breach.

Standing before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday alongside No Kings organizers, Barber said the overall goal despite the campaign or group “is about people being conspicuous in their courage and in their commitment.”

“There is no competition. We have one competition. We are competing against a low voter turnout that can no longer exist in this democracy if we are to have a democracy, and if we are to have a democracy that serves all the people,” Barber said. 

The Interfaith Alliance will be more than 10 days into a 15-state “The Vote is Sacred” bus tour Saturday when it stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, to join a “No Kings: Vote Early Day of Action” event.

Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush said the tour is about mobilizing faith communities to be “trained up” to recognize possible illegal interference at polling places.

“Unfortunately, this administration has threatened to disrupt. … We are going to bring the nonviolent spiritual mobilization that has been with us, and we’re going to be trained up all across the country,” Raushenbush said during an Oct. 6 interview with MS NOW’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” after the tour’s stop in Kansas City, Missouri.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment, but referred States Newsroom to a statement from a Republican National Committee spokesperson.

“From Virginia to Louisiana, Democrats have tried to manipulate congressional maps for political gain. Republicans are restoring the rule of law, protecting fair representation, and making it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” according to the statement from Ally Triolo, the RNC’s election integrity communications director.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

With three weeks until election day, there’s still a lot of voting to come. So far, data from the Ohio Secretary of State indicate early in-person voting is up — by a lot — while absentee voting has slipped compared to the last midterm election in 2022. Taken together, early voting in the current cycle is running behind that election.

Voters have been moving away from mail-in voting for several cycles, but growing suspicion of the process among Republicans can hardly have helped.

Despite voting by mail himself, President Donald Trump has spent years attacking it. In just one of many examples, last year he asserted without evidence that “ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING.”

In Ohio, state lawmakers have eliminated the grace period for late-arriving absentee ballots and proposed — but not yet enacted — onerous new requirements like including a photocopy of your ID when voting absentee.

League of Women Voters of Ohio Executive Director Jen Miller said, “Absentee voting is secure and the most accessible method for many Ohio seniors, people with disabilities, military families, college students, and those who live far from their county Early Vote Center.”

“Absentee ballots are stored in rooms that require both Republican and Democratic keys to open,” she added. “Bipartisan teams of election workers work in concert to verify a voter’s identity before a ballot is mailed out and again when it is returned; otherwise, it won’t be counted.”

In the last few weeks, President Trump has changed his tune about absentee voting — a rhetorical reversal he’s made before.

The figures

In 2022, after a week of early voting, Ohioans had cast 50,368 ballots in person and requested 871,041 absentee ballots.

This year, 194,841 Ohioans have cast a ballot in person during the first week of early voting, or nearly four times as many as the previous cycle.

Statewide, counties have so far tallied about a third of the early in-person vote they saw in the entire 2022 election.

Franklin County, the strongest early vote performer that year, lags that statewide average slightly, but several other large counties are outperforming it.

Cuyahoga, Lucas, Lorain, and Summit counties — accounting for the Cleveland, Toledo, and Akron metro areas — have all already cleared 40% of their 2022 early vote totals.

At the same time, the number of absentee ballot requests has dropped by almost a quarter million.

So far, just 631,079 Ohio voters have asked for a mail ballot.

“I think it’s pretty easily explainable,” University of Akron Political Scientist David Cohen said. “The President of the United States for the last 20 months has been claiming that voting by mail is not secure.”

Trump’s last minute bid to boost absentee voting gets overshadowed by his past statements and actions, Cohen said.

He pointed to the president’s attempt to commandeer the U.S. Postal Service to impose new voting restrictions as one example.

The U.S. Supreme Court chose not to intervene in that case after a lower court barred the administration from going forward.

Cohen also brought up state lawmakers nixing Ohio’s grace period.

“I think there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle now that don’t actually trust (voting by mail),” he said, “and would prefer to just do it in person to ensure that their votes count.”

In terms of demographics, older voters make up the biggest share of the total so far. Seniors, for instance, have accounted for more than half of the ballots cast through Monday.

Democrats and unaffiliated voters lead Republican voters to this point. Democrats have returned about 94,000 ballots, and unaffiliated voters account for a little more than 67,000. GOP voters have cast nearly 64,000.

Although a lot can happen between now and Election Day, Cohen thinks those figures offer a warning for Republicans.

“If we believe the public opinion polling that we’ve seen,” Cohen said, “about two-thirds to maybe even three-fourths of those independent voters are voting Democrat this year.”

“There’s a reason that Donald Trump keeps coming back to Ohio,” he added, “and it’s not to vacation and it’s not to play golf.”

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Will Ohioans being wiped out by spiking premiums, out-of-pocket costs, and less medical coverage be wowed by what Ohio AFL-CIO chief Tim Burga called Trump’s attempt to “buy votes” weeks before the midterms?

Or will voters view the legally questionable windfall from a convicted felon the way Burga does — as a lame PR stunt that does little to move the pre-election needle and “reeks of desperation”? 

You decide why a president, facing historic lows in approval ratings, rushed ACA and Medicare checks to millions of Americans with campaign-like letters boasting about his greatness and signed in Sharpie Marker.

You weigh why the Affordable Care Act money was only doled out to a subset of enrollees — most Obamacare enrollees will not receive any — who also (by pure coincidence) live in many states with tightly contested U.S. Senate races.

Scrutinize, too, the propaganda notes attached to Trump’s $500 Obamacare “refund” checks.

The missives sent to households in prime political battlegrounds (falsely) accused the Biden administration of “overcharging” Americans for their health care and touted Trump’s commitment to “put America first, restore affordability, protect your hard-earned money, and lower the cost of healthcare.”

Put a pin in those easily debunked claims. 

Trump also offered electioneering cash (attempted bribes?) to 20 million traditional Medicare Part B enrollees to offset monthly premiums of about $200 for a program that covers outpatient care, doctor visits, preventable care, etc.

Like the narrow scope of insured who received ACA checks, Trump’s one-time payments of $90 for eligible seniors  excludes roughly 35 million Medicare Advantage enrollees, (who make up over half of Medicare beneficiaries) plus other people with disabilities and low-income Medicare recipients.

This midterm sweetener will cost the government $2 billion and come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, created by Congress to improve program management and conduct oversight of contracts and contractors.

The funding has been diverted before to expand healthcare coverage through the ACA, but it has never been used to directly pay recipients.

Is any of this legal? Trump writing Medicare and ACA checks without Congress? He has thrown another frontal assault on Congress’ constitutional power of the purse, but no court has blocked either payment yet.

Putting the rule of law aside, (as Trump does on the daily) the political impact of his money giveaway in the waning days of the 2026 midterm campaign is negligible in Ohio.

Don’t get me wrong. The estimated 70,000 Ohioans who got $500 ACA checks, out of the roughly 336,000 Ohio residents who still get their health insurance from the ACA marketplace, cashed them.

So did the 748,000 seniors in Ohio — less than a third of the total 2.5 million Medicare recipients in the state — who received Trump’s legally dubious $90 checks.

But the Trump pay-outs to seduce voters clobbered economically by Medicare Part B monthly premiums (that went up nearly 10% in 2026 and will climb again in 2027), or ACA premiums (set to jump 14.7% next year by the 11 remaining insurance companies on Ohio’s federal marketplace) probably won’t cause Ohioans priced out of medical care to swoon.

They know the truth. They crunch the numbers over strained budgets. Trump, and every Republican in Congress, gutted their health care funding to finance a trillion-dollar tax break for billionaires and corporations.

Last year GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill also blocked healthcare subsidies that lowered health insurance costs for over 20 million Americans.

Monthly ACA premiums more than doubled for many enrollees. Some 160,000 Ohioans, (a third of those enrolled in the state) who simply could not make those monthly premium payments, lost their healthcare coverage.

Ohio led the nation in the highest percentage of ACA enrollment decline with a staggering 32.4% drop-off between February 2025 and February 2026.

Now the state faces more than $33 billion in lost Medicaid funding over the next decade_,_ thanks again to Trump and his compliant congressional Republicans, including Ohio U.S. Sens. Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, who voted for the ridiculously named One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

More than 3 million Ohioans, nearly 1 in 4 residents, depend on Medicaid, including 40% of all children in the state.

Trump’s signature healthcare package, which slashed federal Medicaid funding by $911 billion over a ten-year period, could soon end government-sponsored health insurance for hundreds of thousands Medicaid users in Ohio just trying to get by. 

When new OBBB Medicaid work rules kick in January 1, researchers estimate millions of working Americans could lose their coverage.

The federal changes — which create heavy administrative and procedural burdens that often strip eligible low-income adults of health insurance — are expected to purge up to 356,000 Ohioans from Medicaid.

As coverage falls access to health care across Ohio disappears.

Eleven rural and safety-net hospitals in Ohio face risk of closure because of Trump’s 2025 spending law cuts to Medicaid.

Hospitals across the country have already begun cutting services and jobs in response to the devastating measure heralded by the president and his Republican puppets on the stump as their chief legislative accomplishment.

But go ahead, mail out checks to mitigate the damages wrought by the sender. Just don’t expect voters to be dazzled by a drop in the bucket that does nothing to put out the fire.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Standing in front of a judge in Austin’s Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, attorney Matthew Shrum secured a ruling that spared his client from serious punishment on a shoplifting charge.

In the hallway immediately afterward, the defendant thanked Shrum with an appreciative hug.

“She walked out of there a free lady,” Shrum observed later. “It was Christmas in October.”

The 49-year-old Austin lawyer has spent most of his 20-year legal career as a defense attorney, and since 2023, he has been affiliated with the nonprofit Capital Area Private Defender Service, one of two entities in Travis County charged with representing indigent clients who can’t afford an attorney. The Travis County Public Defender’s Office performs a similar mission.

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that under the Fourteenth Amendment, states must provide lawyers to criminal defendants who cannot afford one. But throughout Texas and many other states, the rosters of public defenders have been shrinking at an alarming rate, often leaving defendants in jail for days, weeks or months without access to an attorney.

Many public defenders are leaving, while those that remain are forced to juggle enormous caseloads. At one point, Shrum told Stateline, he had more than 500 cases. The overload facing him and other public defenders in Travis County, he said, results from “more indigent people than there were lawyers to take court-appointed cases.”

In a report to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, which was created to monitor and partly fund county indigent defense programs, researchers from the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A&M found that the state lost 1,345 attorneys tasked with representing indigent clients between 2014 and 2024 — nearly a fourth of all such attorneys. The decline occurred even as the total number of attorneys in Texas grew by more than 25,000.

A 2023 study by the Sixth Amendment Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, ranked Texas 46th nationally in per capita spending on indigent defense at $9.19. “Some states are struggling more than others,” said Aditi Goel, the center’s executive director.

Goel said there are no national statistics on the shortage of public defenders.

“It’s a complete black box,” she told Stateline. “We do not know as a country right now. There is absolutely no way to know whether every single person is getting their right to an attorney, and if not, how long they’re waiting for their right to an attorney.”

Problems across states

But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that jurisdictions across the nation are struggling to provide attorneys to the estimated 80%-90% of criminal defendants who cannot afford one.

Earlier this year, for example, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that more than 1,400 criminal cases had to be dismissed because there weren’t enough lawyers to represent the defendants. A 2022 report by the American Bar Association found that Oregon would need an additional 1,296 attorneys — more than three times the number it had at the time — to meet its constitutional obligations.

In Pennsylvania, a 2024 study by the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania found that in a typical year, the state’s 850 public defenders are assigned cases that would require 1,200 lawyers to provide adequate representation. Sixty of Pennsylvania’s 66 counties don’t have enough attorneys, the study found.

Last year, a report by the Deason Criminal Justic Reform Center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas estimated that Kansas needed to add 277 public defenders to its roster of 123 lawyers to provide effective counsel to every indigent defendant. And a 2022 study found that New Mexico, which had 295 public defenders, needed an additional 602 full-time attorneys to provide effective counsel.

In Texas, the shrinking number of attorneys has been caused in large part by retirements and burnout among older defense attorneys and an accompanying shortage of younger lawyers or law school graduates willing to replace them. Instead, many younger lawyers are drawn to more financially rewarding jobs with private firms.

The growing complexity of evidence such as videos and body camera footage and increases in prosecution budgets also are contributing factors.

The indigent defense commission says one in three attorneys handling indigent defense in Texas is overburdened, carrying caseloads that exceed the commission’s caseload guidelines.

“It’s a big demographic problem of lawyers aging out, nobody to replace them,” said Keith Lauerman, another Austin public defender who is close to ending his 33-year legal career to become a Red Cross volunteer.  Lauerman, 70, says he’s enjoyed his years representing defendants but felt it was time to “pivot for a third act” after working as an attorney and school teacher.

Cited for contempt

A number of states and communities have been credited with taking steps to shore up support for public defenders while are others are embroiled in turmoil over the issue.

In California, San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju was cited for contempt by Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman after he announced that he would periodically stop taking “a very small percentage” of new cases because of “a dramatic increase” in active cases coming into his office.

“The pressure has been tremendous,” Raju told Stateline, citing a 78% increase in active misdemeanor cases and a 56% increase in active felony cases from 2019 to 2026.  Raju, the state’s only elected public defender, was also hit with $26,000 in sanctions by Dorfman but the fines haven’t gone into effect while the case is on appeal.

The Los Angeles County Public Defender, the largest public defense agency in the country, also made news following a study that defenders are carrying workloads more than double the volume that allows them to effectively represent their clients.

A new commission co-organized by former District Attorney of San Francisco Chesa Boudin has been empaneled to push California toward new standards and legal regulations for public defense.

“There was a crisis playing out in plain view and people weren’t paying attention,” said Boudin, who is the founding executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Texas is one of about 15 states in which counties bear the responsibility for representing indigent defendants, although the Texas Indigent Defense Commission provides limited state funds through grants partly reimbursing counties for their costs.

“Travis County, like a lot of counties, we have an attorney shortage,” said Geoff Burkhart, county executive for Community Legal Services, which oversees Travis County’s two indigent defense organizations. “We don’t have enough lawyers for public defense.”

Working miracles

Supporters of the Capital Area Public Defenders Service and the Travis County Public Defender’s Office turned out at a September budget hearing before Travis County Commissioners to urge a funding boost for the organizations. Kaylee Brilhart, who is in her third year as an attorney at the public defender’s office, warned that the “public defense system in Travis County is at capacity.” She said there are people in jail who have been “without attorneys for months.”

“I have clients who express gratitude just because I answer their calls from the jail or I respond to their texts or phone calls,” she said. “We work miracles in our office every day.”

The larger Capital Area Private Defender Service, known as CAPDS, was created in 2015 to manage and oversee appointments of private attorneys contracted to represent indigent clients.  The Travis County Public Defender’s Office, composed of staff attorneys and support personnel, was created in 2020 to further expand indigent services.

As of the 2024 fiscal year, the two organizations spent a total of $29 million on indigent defense services, handling 17,000 cases, with CAPDS shouldering the biggest caseload.

The leaders of both organizations say they are committed to the highest quality representation but acknowledge that the lingering shortage of attorneys is a constant challenge.  “You’re doing it because you believe in justice and want to help people,” said Adeola Ogunkeyede, the county’s chief public defender, while acknowledging that “there are not enough attorneys to represent people.”

Bradley Hargis, executive director of CAPDS, said the shortage has worsened over time.  “It started quietly,” he said. “There was an occasional shortage, an occasional day in which we were struggling to find the right attorney for each case, and then those occasional days became more regular, and then became chronic.

“It leads us, our attorneys, having caseloads greater than we would want, and really leads to overwork and burnout, and that’s what we are trying to guard against — overworking our attorneys,” he added.

Two of the state’s most populous counties — Travis, anchored by Austin, and Bexar, anchored by San Antonio —  have seen their indigent defense pools shrink by 50% over the past five years amid a 26% drop in the state’s urban counties.

In rural Texas counties, the number of public defenders has dropped by 29% in the past decade, from 1,926 to 1,371 attorneys.

After Bandera County Judge Richard Evans noticed an alarming absence of defense attorneys in his home county, he rallied leaders in neighboring jurisdictions to create the five-county Hill Country Public Defenders Office. Similar multicounty defense organizations have sprouted up elsewhere across the state.

“I really do believe we’ve improved indigent defense in the region,” said chief public defender Karli Kennell of Boerne, Texas.  The nearly six-year-old defense organization includes 20 attorneys and a staff of 30 charged with Kennell’s commitment “to go in and fight for our clients.”

“It’s important to me that my attorneys are advocates, that they’re not just a plea mill.  So now we don’t have as many people waiting in jail without an attorney,” she said.  “I do take pride in what we’ve done in this region because I think most of Texas is still struggling quite a bit.”

Pamela Metzger, executive director of the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center at Southern Methodist University, said the stakes could not be higher.

“Every day that an arrested person doesn’t have a lawyer is a day that their constitutional rights are being violated — period, full stop,” she said.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Community members, local business owners, organizations and students from a local school art class have transformed the streetside planters into seasonal displays, each with its own design.

Some feature skeletons surrounded by pumpkins and autumn decorations, while others combine Halloween props with flowers and greenery. One display features a large pumpkin bearing the Tiffin logo alongside a moss-covered skeleton, while another surrounds a skeleton and skulls with spiderwebs, spiders and cascading flowers.

Mayor Lee Wilkinson praised the contributions of residents and students who helped decorate downtown.

“These planters are a great example of the pride people take in our community,” Wilkinson said. “Each one is a little different, and that’s what makes them fun. It’s especially nice to see our young people getting involved and sharing their creativity. I appreciate everyone who took the time to add something special to our downtown.”

The displays will remain along Washington Street throughout October, according to the city.

The decorations also arrive ahead of Downtown Tiffin’s annual Third Thursday Trick-or-Treat and Great Pumpkin Drop on Thursday, Oct. 15. Trick-or-treating at participating downtown businesses begins at 5 p.m., followed by the Tiffin Fire/Rescue Division’s Great Pumpkin Drop at 6:30 p.m. in City Lot 6.

Wilkinson encouraged residents to walk through downtown, see the displays and visit local businesses while the decorations are up.

“Sometimes it’s the little things that make our community special,” he said. “Take a walk, enjoy the creativity, and see what our neighbors have put together.”

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The three-term Republican incumbent incorrectly attributed language from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, falsely described Israel as America’s only ally in the Middle East and suggested super PACs would not contribute to challenger Aaron Jones because they did not want to support him, although such organizations cannot donate directly to candidates.

The sharpest confrontation came after a student asked about transgender rights. Click defended his legislation restricting gender-affirming medical treatment for minors and accused Jones of lying when the challenger criticized his record. Jones responded by directing students to a website scrutinizing Click’s claims, prompting an interruption from the incumbent and applause from the student audience.

The hourlong debate was organized by the Sandusky Register, a sister newspaper of Tiffin’s Advertiser-Tribune, as part of its Register in Schools debate series. Sponsored by the Greater Sandusky Partnership and moderated by Register publisher Jeremy Speer, the event gave Fremont Ross students an opportunity to question the two candidates for Ohio’s 88th House District, which encompasses Seneca and Sandusky counties.

The candidates addressed abortion, campaign finance, artificial intelligence, government surveillance, school safety and the war with Iran. Throughout the debate, Click emphasized his six years in the Ohio House and repeatedly argued that students should evaluate what candidates had accomplished rather than what they promised. Jones, a Tiffin City Council member, Army veteran and manufacturing supervisor, challenged Click’s record and argued that Republican leadership had failed to address the district’s problems.

Click accuses Jones of lying over transgender rights

The confrontation began when Fremont Ross junior Gabriel Flores asked how the candidates would affect the transgender rights movement in Ohio.

Click responded that everyone should be treated respectfully regardless of their identity, while defending restrictions on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors. He argued that decisions involving permanent physical changes should be reserved for adults.

“As an adult, do what you want. Do what you feel like is you,” Click said. “But as a minor, we think you ought to take that time, finish growing up, and then make that decision as an adult.”

Click sponsored House Bill 68, which restricted gender-affirming medical care for minors and barred transgender girls and women from participating on female school sports teams. Republican lawmakers enacted the legislation in January 2024 by overriding Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto. It took effect that April.

Jones immediately challenged Click’s assertion that he treated everyone respectfully.

“My opponent doesn’t do what he just said, first of all,” Jones responded.

Jones argued that Ohio lawmakers had deliberately targeted transgender people and other members of the LGBTQ community through legislation, and that those efforts had no place in state government.

“I truly do believe, and I stand by anybody’s right to love who they love, to be who they want to be,” Jones said. “They shouldn’t be discriminated upon. They shouldn’t be shunned.”

Jones promised that if elected, “there will not be culture wars” and that everyone would have a seat at the table.

Click rejected the criticism, arguing that certain policies described as transgender rights were not rights at all. He referred students to LGB Courage, an organization associated with activist Jamie Reed, whom he described as a friend, and alleged that some parents had pressured gay children into transitioning because they did not accept their sexual orientation.

Click asserted that such cases were documented but did not identify any specific examples during the debate.

“Some of these things that are called rights are not rights,” Click said.

He then accused Jones of dishonesty directly.

“I support everyone making their own decisions, and I have never attacked anyone for their identity, contrary to what Mr. Jones says,” Click said. “That’s a great talking point, but it’s a lie, and you shouldn’t be lying to teenagers.”

Jones responded by pointing to a website established to challenge the incumbent’s public statements.

“There’s two people on this stage, and only one of them has a GaryClickFacts.com,” Jones said.

Click interrupted, saying the website was “put out by your party.” Jones told him to wait his turn, drawing applause from the audience.

Jones then defended his integrity by invoking his military service.

“When it comes to truth and integrity, I served this country honorably for four years and would do it again tomorrow if anybody that I served with ever asked me,” Jones said.

The exchange centered on a legislative record that is not in dispute. Click was the primary sponsor of House Bill 68, which imposed restrictions on transgender minors’ medical care and athletic participation. His insistence that he has never attacked anyone because of their identity does not change the restrictions his legislation placed on transgender Ohioans.

Click’s claims about super PAC money conflict with campaign-finance rules

Another confrontation emerged when Fremont Ross junior Keith Nelson asked the candidates about removing money from politics and reducing the influence of super PACs.

Click defended political action committees, arguing that they often represent the interests of ordinary workers and organizations seeking a voice in government.

“A lot of people try to make super PACs and lobbyists like they’re bad and they’re evil,” Click said.

He pointed to labor unions and construction trades organizations that collect contributions from members and use those funds to support candidates. Citing the operating engineers union, Click argued that such contributions could help elect lawmakers willing to advance legislation addressing worker safety.

Jones acknowledged that political campaigns require money but argued that large contributions from wealthy donors and outside interests threaten the independence of elected officials.

“I’ve been doing it for the last 10 months, and I haven’t taken a dime from a super PAC, not one,” Jones said.

He said nearly all his campaign contributions had come from residents of the 88th District and questioned why politicians should depend on large contributions from people with little connection to the communities they represent.

“At the end of the day, who are you working for?” Jones asked. “When someone’s writing you a big check, who are you working for at that point?”

Click responded by suggesting that Jones had no super PAC support because those organizations did not consider him worth supporting.

“He hasn’t taken a dime from super PACs, ’cause they won’t donate to him,” Click said. “That’s the bottom line.”

The explanation was misleading. Super PACs are independent-expenditure organizations that cannot contribute directly to candidates’ campaign committees. They can instead raise and spend money independently to support or oppose candidates, including through political advertising.

The Federal Election Commission explains that super PACs cannot make direct, in-kind or coordinated contributions to federal candidates. Ohio law similarly distinguishes independent expenditures from spending authorized or coordinated by campaigns.

Traditional political action committees, including the labor PACs Click described, are different. They can contribute directly to candidates under applicable campaign-finance laws.

“Gary’s right. The super PACs haven’t given me any money, because I’m not taking it,” Jones said. “I don’t need it. He might need it. I don’t need it.”

Jones then invoked billionaire Elon Musk’s involvement in Ohio politics, asking students why someone who does not live in the state would invest heavily in its elections.

“Elon Musk, does he vacation in Ohio?” Jones asked. “Why is he so interested in Ohio politics?”

The argument over campaign contributions followed an earlier exchange about prescription drug prices, during which Jones accused elected officials generally of accepting money from pharmaceutical companies that compromised their independence. Click rejected any suggestion that he had been bought by the pharmaceutical industry and cited his legislative work on insulin pricing and emergency prescription refills.

Click cites the Constitution but quotes the Declaration of Independence

Click made another factual error when a student asked the candidates directly about abortion.

“That’s easy. I’m against it,” Click said.

Explaining his opposition, the Republican incumbent invoked what he described as constitutional protections for life.

“The Constitution says this: You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Click told the students.

The phrase does not appear in the Constitution. It comes from the Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1776. Click incorrectly identified one of the country’s most recognizable founding passages while arguing about constitutional rights.

Click went on to declare that he would always oppose abortion.

“I’m always pro-life. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m always gonna be that way,” he said.

Jones responded by pointing to Ohio voters’ approval of a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive freedom in November 2023. He argued that decisions about abortion should remain between patients and their medical providers rather than politicians.

“I think government should not tell people what to do with their bodies, whether it be a male or a female,” Jones said. “I think those conversations need to be held with your medical provider.”

Click then characterized Jones’s remarks as an expression of support for abortion, pressing him to state his personal position rather than referring to the decision Ohio voters had already made.

Jones rejected Click’s interpretation.

“I never said I was for or against abortion,” Jones said. “I’m simply standing by what the law is and by what each individual’s choices should be.”

Ohio’s reproductive freedom amendment, which took effect in December 2023, protects individual reproductive decisions, including abortion. The amendment permits certain restrictions after fetal viability but requires exceptions when a treating physician determines an abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.

Click’s personal opposition to abortion remains unchanged, but Ohio voters placed reproductive freedom protections in the state Constitution despite opposition from anti-abortion lawmakers and organizations.

Click falsely calls Israel America’s only Middle Eastern ally

The candidates offered sharply different views of the war with Iran and the United States’ relationship with Israel after a student asked about the American-Israeli alliance.

“I support Israel,” Click said.

He then asserted that Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East and America’s only ally in the region.

“That is our only ally in the Middle East,” Click told the students.

The claim was false. The United States maintains significant security partnerships with several Middle Eastern countries, including Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar. Those countries, like Israel, have received major non-NATO ally designations or equivalent formal recognition from the United States.

Click argued that supporting Israel did not require agreeing with every decision made by the Israeli government. He invoked the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks to defend Israel’s right to exist and its security relationship with the United States.

Jones took a sharply different position, criticizing the Trump administration’s decision to involve American forces in military operations against Iran. He argued that the United States had been drawn into a war serving Israeli interests rather than America’s own.

“Israel saw an opportunity with a guy in office who’s easily persuaded, and he conned us into fighting their war,” Jones said. “Once again, we’re fighting their war.”

Jones said the issue was personal because his nephew serves as a helicopter pilot with the 82nd Airborne and is deployed in the region.

“We got conned into this war against Iran, from Israel. That’s what happened,” Jones said. “And we need to stop it and start thinking about America.”

Click returned to the conflict in his closing remarks, defending American military action against Iran and asserting that the country posed an imminent danger through its nuclear capabilities.

“They would have brought them to America if we did not destroy those nuclear capabilities,” Click said.

Click presented no evidence during the debate supporting his prediction that Iran would have brought nuclear weapons to the United States. The statement went substantially beyond his argument that Iran should not be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon.

The disagreement reflected a broader divide between the candidates: Click defended the military operation as necessary for American security, while Jones argued that the war had been a choice made by the Trump administration and was putting American service members at risk.

Click calls for banning Flock cameras, but his bill would allow immigration enforcement use

Although the candidates disagreed sharply on several issues, they found common ground over government surveillance.

Fremont Ross sophomore Ava asked what they would do to regulate access to information collected by Flock automated license plate recognition cameras and whether misuse by authorities should be criminalized.

Click cited House Bill 1011, legislation he introduced to temporarily restrict the use of automated license plate recognition systems and certain mass surveillance technology.

“I’m not just worried about individual officers misusing it, to be honest,” Click said. “I’m worried about the government misusing it.”

He told students that he ultimately favored a complete ban.

“I don’t trust the government with all that information, so I would like to see a total ban ultimately,” Click said. “But the pause is just the starting place.”

His proposal, however, would not permanently eliminate the technology. It establishes a one-year moratorium with exceptions, including emergency alert systems and use by federal immigration agents enforcing immigration laws.

Click’s own September 11 announcement expressly identified an exception for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The legislation remains pending and has not passed the Ohio House.

The exception matters because Click’s stated concern about government misuse of surveillance data would coexist with permission for federal immigration enforcement authorities to use the technology.

Jones supported stronger restrictions on the cameras and questioned whether their usefulness justified the privacy implications and cost.

“I don’t support government, you know, Big Brother watching everything,” Jones said. “I would agree with Gary that a complete ban is probably better.”

Jones argued that police departments could spend the money on protective equipment, safety improvements and other operational needs rather than automated surveillance.

Neither candidate offered a specific proposal to criminalize misuse of the collected data, which was part of the student’s original question.

Data centers and local jobs draw contrasting approaches

The expansion of artificial intelligence and data centers also came under scrutiny after senior Lydia Hicks asked whether the candidates supported regulating AI.

Click cited House Bill 646, which he sponsored to address data center development and establish a state study commission. The legislation passed the Ohio House in March but has not received final approval from the Senate.

He argued that AI could be a useful technology but warned that data centers were expanding faster than lawmakers could establish meaningful safeguards.

Jones similarly acknowledged the benefits of technological innovation while warning about automation, employment displacement and the broader consequences of increasingly powerful AI systems.

Both candidates said regulation would be necessary, although Jones emphasized that many of the most consequential decisions would require federal involvement.

When another student asked about improving Ohio, Jones connected the technology discussion to economic conditions in Seneca and Sandusky counties. He argued that communities were losing young people because the region lacked sufficient career opportunities, particularly for college graduates seeking employment outside a narrow range of industries.

“If you graduate from college and you live in Seneca or Sandusky County, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity,” Jones said.

He called for greater investments in manufacturing, skilled trades and professional employment rather than treating data centers as a solution to the district’s economic challenges.

“We don’t need data centers to do that. We need manufacturing facilities,” Jones said. “We need professional facilities here to keep people here.”

Click countered by emphasizing industrial development and his endorsements from manufacturing and skilled-trades organizations. He also cited funding for Vanguard-Sentinel Career and Technology Centers, arguing that his work in Columbus had already produced tangible benefits for the district.

Click also cited Keith’s Law, which established a voluntary database intended to help first responders identify individuals with special needs.

His repeated argument was that students should judge him by those legislative accomplishments rather than promises about what he would do if reelected.

Affordability, prescription drugs and the gas tax

Students also questioned both candidates about rising household costs, including groceries, housing, electricity and prescription medications.

Jones argued that working families were struggling under an affordability crisis that disproportionately affected middle-class households. He cited his experience supervising manufacturing employees who work full-time jobs yet still struggle financially.

He called for adequate funding for public education and protecting assistance programs for working families rather than balancing state budgets through cuts affecting people with limited resources.

“We can’t cut benefits for people that are working that need that extra assistance,” Jones said. “It’s a hand up, not a handout.”

Click responded by discussing what he called the benefits cliff, in which workers can lose public assistance as their earnings increase, sometimes leaving them financially worse off despite earning more money.

He described how his mother struggled with that problem while raising three children and cited bipartisan legislation he had worked on to address it.

On prescription drug costs, Jones blamed the influence of pharmaceutical industry money in politics, arguing that corporate contributions compromised elected officials and contributed to high medication prices.

Click rejected any suggestion that he personally had been purchased by the pharmaceutical industry, pointing instead to legislation addressing insulin pricing, emergency prescription refills and education about sudden unexpected death from epilepsy.

The candidates found more agreement when junior Caleb Seibert asked what Ohio should do after the state’s temporary gas tax suspension expires.

Click defended the 90-day tax reduction and said lawmakers would have to evaluate economic conditions before deciding whether additional relief was warranted. Jones supported the temporary suspension but said the state could not indefinitely forgo transportation revenue without accounting for the consequences.

The gas tax holiday, enacted through House Bill 519, began October 4 and runs through January 2, 2027. The legislation includes a $725 million transfer from state reserves to offset the temporary reduction and preserve transportation funding.

Both candidates acknowledged that Ohio lawmakers cannot directly control global oil prices. Jones also criticized the ongoing war with Iran, tying the conflict to economic uncertainty and higher energy costs.

Students challenge candidates over school safety and online predators

Several students used the debate to question the candidates about issues affecting their own safety and education.

Junior Gracie Overmeyer asked how Ohio should address school shootings, particularly as schools impose stricter cellphone restrictions.

Jones supported the use of school resource officers, controlled building access and other security measures, while acknowledging the fear students face in an environment where school violence remains a concern.

Click cited legislation he said was prompted by an incident at Old Fort schools involving a student who brought a loaded gun to school. He described changes allowing conditions to be imposed before certain students return following serious disciplinary incidents, including counseling requirements.

Both candidates supported restrictions on student cellphone use during the school day. Jones compared the problem to cellphone distractions among adults at the manufacturing plant where he works, while Click defended state efforts requiring school districts to establish policies.

Another student asked about protecting minors from online grooming. Jones cited investigations by the Tiffin Police Department targeting online predators and argued that law enforcement should continue receiving resources for that work.

Click emphasized personal safety online and supported legislation requiring age verification for certain applications and websites.

The candidates also addressed college affordability. Jones favored stronger state funding, additional grant opportunities and expanded access to education. Click highlighted Ohio’s College Credit Plus program and scholarship opportunities intended to encourage students to attend college and remain in the state.

When sophomore Kaitlyn asked why excused school absences still counted against students’ attendance totals, both candidates admitted they did not know the applicable rules.

Jones said he would need to consult school officials. Click likewise acknowledged that he did not know whether the issue was governed by state law or local policy and invited the student to contact his legislative office.

The exchange was one of the few moments in which both candidates openly acknowledged not having an answer rather than attempting to defend a position.

Click defends Republican record as Jones calls for change

The candidates closed the debate by returning to their competing arguments about experience, accountability and the direction of state government.

Jones criticized nearly two decades of Republican control in Columbus, arguing that the party responsible for governing Ohio could not credibly distance itself from the problems facing the state.

“In the state of Ohio, one party’s been in charge for 19 years, and that same party says they need to fix the problems,” Jones said. “But they’ve been in charge for 19 years, so we have to look at who caused the problems.”

Click defended the Republican governing record, pointing to the state’s rainy day fund as evidence of fiscal improvement. He then attacked Jones for criticizing state government without detailing accomplishments from his three years on Tiffin City Council during the debate.

“Aaron has done nothing but complain and tell you what he will do or what should happen,” Click said. “He’s been on the city council for three years, and he’s not told you one thing that he has done that helps the city of Tiffin.”

Click returned once more to the message he had introduced at the beginning of the event, telling students to use their critical thinking skills when evaluating the candidates.

That appeal came after a debate in which Click had accused his opponent of lying, misstated the source of a famous founding document, falsely described America’s alliances in the Middle East and presented a misleading explanation of super PAC contributions. Those statements were made before students participating in an event specifically intended to encourage informed civic engagement.

Jones framed the election as a choice between continuing Republican leadership and changing the direction of state government, while Click asked voters to reward his legislative record with another term.

Voters in Seneca and Sandusky counties will decide between the two candidates in the November 3 general election.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

U.S. Sen. Jon Husted voted for an Ohio law that explicitly exempted public utilities from new restrictions on taking private property for commercial development, preserving their ability to use eminent domain to acquire land for power lines. Nearly 20 years later, American Electric Power is planning transmission corridors across southern Ohio to serve a massive artificial intelligence data center, and property owners face the possibility of having land rights taken for the project.

Husted was speaker of the Ohio House when lawmakers developed the 2007 eminent domain overhaul. He appointed House members to a task force studying the issue and joined the Senate president in selecting public members, including a man who would later become a FirstEnergy lobbyist. On June 27, 2007, Husted voted for Senate Bill 7, which passed the House 71-27 and took effect that October.

The legislation restricted the use of eminent domain to transfer property for economic development, but its definition of public use specifically exempted transfers to public utilities, municipal power agencies and common carriers. It also presumed that utility facilities and projects undertaken by public utilities qualify as public uses. That distinction matters today: A transmission line built to deliver power to a privately operated data center can still be a utility project for eminent domain purposes.

The law went further. Under Section 163.09, a public utility that presents evidence that an appropriation is necessary receives a rebuttable legal presumption in its favor. If a state or federal regulator approves the appropriation of the particular property interest, the statute provides an irrebuttable presumption of necessity. Those provisions can change the terms of a court fight between a utility seeking a transmission easement and a landowner resisting it.

Husted’s task force included a future FirstEnergy lobbyist

The process began after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo decision intensified scrutiny of governments taking private land for economic development. Ohio lawmakers enacted Senate Bill 167, creating a task force to examine the state’s eminent domain rules. The January 24, 2006, Ohio House Journal records Husted appointing Reps. William Seitz, Bob Gibbs and Joseph Koziura and jointly appointing public members with the Senate president.

One of those public members was Ty Pine, then listed as a representative of small businesses. The task force delivered its recommendations in August 2006, and Senate Bill 7 incorporated recommendations from its work the following year. Its final text retained the utility exception even as lawmakers imposed new protections against other economic-development takings. Utilities already held condemnation powers before 2007; Husted’s vote protected their treatment under the new restrictions and supported additional presumptions favoring them in condemnation proceedings.

Pine subsequently became FirstEnergy’s Ohio director of state affairs and helped the utility build legislative support for House Bill 6, the 2019 nuclear bailout law at the center of Ohio’s FirstEnergy corruption scandal. He received a $25,000 bonus after the legislation passed, according to reporting by The Blade. Pine invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a 2024 regulatory deposition and later testified under a court order in 2025. He has not been charged with a crime in the scandal. Pine was appointed to the task force as a small-business representative years before joining FirstEnergy.

AEP invoked the 2007 law against Ohio landowners

The practical importance of those protections was on display in a dispute involving AEP’s Ohio Power subsidiary. When property owners in Washington County resisted the company’s proposed easements for an electric transmission upgrade, Ohio Power filed eminent domain actions and claimed the benefit of the presumptions in the law Husted supported.

The dispute reached the Ohio Supreme Court in Ohio Power Co. v. Burns. According to the court’s December 2022 opinion, a company right-of-way representative testified that Ohio Power generally sought more property rights in proposed easements than were necessary for a project, then narrowed the demands if the landowner contested them in litigation. In the Washington County case, the company withdrew a request for distribution-line rights after the property owners challenged its necessity.

Ohio Power argued that government approvals entitled it to a conclusive presumption that the disputed easements were necessary. The justices rejected that argument because regulators had approved the transmission project without examining the particular property rights Ohio Power sought to take. The company did receive a rebuttable presumption of necessity based on evidence it presented, but the Supreme Court required a separate determination of the need for each challenged easement term.

FirstEnergy Service Company filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to reverse the lower court decision in Ohio Power’s favor. The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation supported the landowners. The case did not concern a data center, but it established that an AEP subsidiary had already sought to use the 2007 statutory protections in a real fight over Ohioans’ private property.

Now AEP wants miles of new transmission lines for a data center

AEP’s current expansion would bring the same underlying question — when a utility can compel a property owner to surrender land rights — to a much larger power project. In March 2026, AEP Ohio announced plans for $4.2 billion in transmission infrastructure to serve a planned 10-gigawatt data center campus at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon. The project is part of a broader development involving new power generation and one of the world’s largest proposed artificial intelligence computing facilities.

The Baku-Gavin transmission project alone would build approximately 51 miles of 765-kilovolt line through Pike, Jackson and Gallia counties. Ohio regulators estimate its cost at $1.1 billion. According to AEP’s project information, its steel lattice towers would typically stand around 155 feet tall, with rights-of-way approximately 155 to 200 feet wide. Other proposed routes and power-grid improvements would extend the construction footprint across more of southern Ohio.

Residents in Ross County have also confronted possible routes being studied for connections to the Piketon development. In September, the Chillicothe Gazette reported that landowners Laura Dill Morton and Mason Purdum had received notices that their farmland could be affected by new transmission lines. They described uncertainty about potential routes and the possibility of eminent domain. Those Ross County feasibility-study areas are distinct from the pending Baku-Gavin application, and the reports do not establish that their properties have been condemned.

AEP says the data center developer has committed to paying for the $4.2 billion in transmission investments to help avoid increases in transmission rates for other Ohio customers. That financial commitment does not eliminate the question facing property owners whose land may be needed for transmission corridors: whether they will agree to easements, or whether a utility will seek to acquire those rights through eminent domain.

The Baku-Gavin application remains pending before the Ohio Power Siting Board, which has scheduled a public hearing for October 27 at 6 p.m. at Jackson Middle School Auditorium. The lines have not all been approved, and the specific land interests ultimately needed will depend on routing and regulatory decisions. But the statutory framework utilities can use to pursue those interests was protected and strengthened in legislation Husted supported as Ohio House speaker, long before the state’s data center boom began.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Vernon Edwards, an Amherst resident classified by Ohio authorities as a sexual predator, appeared repeatedly alongside his wife in Ramaswamy’s advertisement about rising property taxes. His criminal record was not difficult to find: A nearly 20-year-old Ohio appellate court ruling documents his conviction, while the state’s public sex offender registry lists his offenses, photograph and identifying information. According to The Bulwark, which exposed Edwards’ appearance Wednesday, his registry photograph even shows him apparently wearing the same patriotic shirt Ramaswamy personally complimented when they met at a county fair.

Rather than discovering the conviction before producing and distributing the commercial, Ramaswamy’s campaign acknowledged it had been unaware of Edwards’ history after The Bulwark asked about it. Campaign spokesperson Evan Machan said the man had been removed from the advertisement. The campaign also deleted an earlier social media video showing Ramaswamy interacting with Edwards, according to the publication.

Eight-year sentence for sexually abusing a child

Edwards’ criminal history is documented in a November 15, 2007, decision from Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals, which upheld his eight-year prison sentence.

According to the ruling, a Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted Edwards on four counts of gross sexual imposition involving his niece, who was younger than 13. Edwards pleaded guilty to two counts under an agreement that dismissed the remaining charges and required him to stipulate to classification as a sexual predator. A judge imposed two consecutive four-year prison terms, totaling eight years.

The proceedings also revealed allegations involving additional children in Edwards’ family. The appellate court recounted that evidence presented at sentencing indicated Edwards had molested several other nieces. Those incidents were never separately prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired.

Edwards appealed his sentence, arguing that the trial judge improperly considered conduct for which he had not been charged. The appellate court rejected that argument, finding that the additional conduct was not the sole basis for his punishment. The court noted that the sentencing judge considered the lasting harm inflicted on the victim, the impact on both families and Edwards’ risk of committing another offense.

The appellate judges upheld the sentence. Edwards’ conviction remains documented in the court’s published opinion, and the Ohio Attorney General’s offender registry continues to identify him under the state’s former sexual predator classification, which carries lifetime registration requirements.

None of those records were confidential. The criminal case, the eight-year sentence and Edwards’ sex-offender registration were publicly documented long before Ramaswamy’s campaign selected footage of him for its television advertising.

Ramaswamy complimented the same shirt visible in sex-offender registry

The encounter that eventually put Edwards in a gubernatorial campaign commercial began at the Lorain County Fair in Wellington, which ran August 23 through 30, according to the fair’s official schedule.

Footage subsequently published by Ramaswamy’s campaign showed Edwards greeting the candidate and shaking his hand. Ramaswamy complimented Edwards’ patriotic shirt. Later, Edwards’ wife, Patricia “Patty” Edwards, approached Ramaswamy and became emotional while describing her struggle with rising property taxes and her fear that the family could lose its farm.

According to The Bulwark, the patriotic shirt Ramaswamy admired appears to be the same one Edwards wore in the photograph displayed on Ohio’s sex offender registry. The registry also listed identifying information matching the Amherst address associated with the family.

The interaction became the foundation of a professionally produced campaign advertisement. Ramaswamy’s team contacted Patty Edwards about recording the commercial, which featured her speaking directly to the camera and sitting at a kitchen table while discussing the financial pressures facing her family.

Although Patty Edwards was the principal spokesperson, the campaign incorporated several shots of her husband into the television spot. The original advertisement was publicly circulated before the campaign acknowledged Edwards’ conviction and announced his removal.

The distinction between the two appearances is central to the episode. Ramaswamy’s initial handshake with Edwards was an encounter with a member of the public at a county fair. The subsequent television advertisement was a campaign production, assembled from selected footage and distributed to promote Ramaswamy’s candidacy for governor. At that stage, his campaign had the opportunity to check the identities and backgrounds of the people it chose to feature.

Campaign claims ignorance, then removes Edwards

When The Bulwark confronted Ramaswamy’s campaign with Edwards’ criminal history, spokesperson Evan Machan said the campaign did not know about the conviction and was changing the commercial.

“We had no knowledge of the circumstances now being reported,” Machan told the publication. He added: “The man has been removed from the ad.”

Machan defended the advertisement’s central message, arguing that high property taxes were forcing Ohio families to consider leaving their homes and that Ramaswamy would address the issue.

The campaign’s explanation did not account for how Edwards passed through the production process without his publicly documented criminal history being identified. His conviction was available through Ohio’s court system, his sexual predator classification was listed in a searchable state registry, and his photograph provided another means of identifying him.

After supplying its statement to The Bulwark, the campaign also removed the earlier social media video of Ramaswamy’s interaction with Edwards. The publication reported that at least one Republican state representative who had shared the footage also deleted the post. The removals followed the news organization’s inquiry, although the reporting did not establish whether those accounts independently decided to delete the footage.

Wife disputes allegations despite guilty pleas and upheld sentence

Patty Edwards, whose concerns about property taxes were the focus of the commercial, defended her participation in an interview with The Bulwark. She said Ramaswamy’s campaign had approached her about telling her story, not her husband, and emphasized that she was not accused of any wrongdoing.

She also disputed the accusations underlying her husband’s criminal case, alleging that prosecutors had withheld evidence favorable to his defense. She argued that he had served his punishment and had since been an exemplary citizen.

Her account does not change the disposition of the criminal proceedings. Vernon Edwards pleaded guilty to two felony sexual offenses involving a child younger than 13, received an eight-year prison sentence and unsuccessfully challenged that sentence before an Ohio appellate court. The separate allegations concerning other nieces were considered during sentencing but did not result in additional convictions.

Nothing in the reporting indicates that Patty Edwards committed a crime or was involved in her husband’s offenses. The campaign’s vetting failure concerns its decision to place Vernon Edwards in the advertisement without identifying a criminal history that had been publicly documented for nearly two decades.

Ramaswamy’s campaign has said it removed Edwards from the commercial, but its response did not disclose how widely the original advertisement aired or what background checks, if any, had been performed before its release.

The footage was not merely an unplanned encounter captured on the campaign trail. Ramaswamy’s team selected it for a television advertisement intended to influence Ohio voters, distributed that advertisement and only announced Edwards’ removal after journalists brought his conviction to its attention. By then, the public records establishing his crimes had been available for almost 20 years.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The October 9 report by journalist Harri Leigh documented a country-of-origin label on a campaign shirt distributed to volunteers over the summer. The shirt was manufactured by Gildan, a Canadian apparel company with factories around the world, including in Bangladesh. The findings put Merrin’s own campaign spending practices at odds with a central theme of his pitch to working-class voters in Northwest Ohio.

Merrin, a former Ohio state representative seeking a rematch against Kaptur in the November 3 election, has repeatedly blamed the longtime congresswoman for the decline of American manufacturing. His campaign has distributed mailers promising good jobs, larger paychecks and products made in Ohio, according to Spectrum.

But when Spectrum confronted Merrin about the foreign-made shirts and asked what standards candidates who promote American manufacturing should apply to their own campaigns, he did not directly answer. Instead, he accused Kaptur of favoring foreign businesses.

“Marcy Kaptur is pro-China and pro-Mexico,” Merrin said, according to Spectrum.

The accusation is particularly notable given Kaptur’s documented record of opposing major trade agreements with both countries.

Kaptur opposed landmark trade agreements with China and Mexico

Merrin’s suggestion that Kaptur favors China and Mexico omits two consequential votes from her congressional record. On November 17, 1993, Kaptur voted against the legislation implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated many trade barriers among the United States, Mexico and Canada. The legislation passed the House 234-200.

On May 24, 2000, Kaptur also voted against legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations with China. That measure passed 237-197, with support from 164 Republicans and 73 Democrats.

Both votes came during major national debates over whether expanded international trade would benefit American consumers and businesses at the expense of domestic manufacturing employment. Kaptur opposed the agreements despite support for them from prominent figures in her own party.

Those votes do not settle every question about Kaptur’s decades-long trade record, but they provide significant context missing from Merrin’s accusation. The congresswoman opposed two of the most consequential trade measures involving the very countries he invoked when questioned about his campaign’s foreign-made merchandise.

Kaptur has also publicly supported domestic purchasing requirements for federal defense contracts. Her congressional office identifies Buy America provisions as a means of helping Northern Ohio manufacturers, including tool-and-die companies, foundries and machine shops, compete for federal business.

Campaign shirts linked to manufacturer with labor controversies

The merchandise identified by Spectrum was made by Gildan, a major international apparel manufacturer that has faced scrutiny from labor-rights organizations over conditions in its manufacturing and supplier operations.

A 2024 investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium identified Gildan among the principal buyers from APS El Salvador, a garment factory that closed in 2022 without paying workers approximately $1.9 million in wages, severance and other benefits. The organization reported recovering $1.35 million from buyers to compensate affected workers, while continuing efforts to secure the remaining funds.

Spectrum also reported allegations concerning working conditions at facilities in Honduras and Haiti, as well as protests in Bangladesh following the October 2025 death of a pregnant Gildan employee who workers alleged had been denied medical leave and assistance. Those allegations concern the company’s broader operations; Spectrum did not establish that the particular factory producing Merrin’s shirts was involved in those incidents.

Separately, on October 8, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Gildan and a wholesale distributor had amended a contract provision restricting discounts available to competing distributors. The agency closed its price-discrimination investigation following the change. Gildan said it had not admitted wrongdoing or paid a monetary penalty.

The Spectrum investigation does not establish who selected the shirts for Merrin’s campaign, how many were distributed or where campaign graphics were printed onto them. The country-of-origin label does establish that at least some of the shirts distributed to volunteers were manufactured outside the United States.

Kaptur campaign says its shirts are American-made

The two campaigns have taken different approaches to their merchandise, according to the same Spectrum investigation.

Kaptur’s campaign told the outlet that its T-shirts were manufactured by Royal Apparel, a U.S. company with production facilities in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Spectrum obtained one of the campaign’s shirts and confirmed that its label identified it as made in the United States using imported yarns.

Kaptur emphasized the importance of domestic production in her interview with Spectrum, saying the country needs to make products rather than merely purchase them.

The distinction is especially relevant in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, where manufacturing employment and the consequences of overseas production have been recurring political issues. Merrin has made the loss of industrial jobs a central criticism of Kaptur’s tenure, while Kaptur has spent much of her congressional career advocating for domestic manufacturing and trade protections.

The candidates are facing each other for the second consecutive election. According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s official results, Kaptur defeated Merrin by just 2,382 votes in 2024, receiving 181,098 votes to Merrin’s 178,716. Libertarian Tom Pruss received another 15,381 votes. The 2026 rematch will take place under congressional district boundaries adopted in 2025.

As the November 3 election approaches, Merrin has offered no direct explanation in the Spectrum interview for why a campaign built partly around bringing manufacturing back to the United States distributed apparel manufactured in Bangladesh. The original investigation did, however, establish a concrete difference in how the two campaigns sourced at least some of their merchandise.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ohio state Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, recently introduced Ohio Senate Bill 477 and Ohio state Rep. Eric Synenberg, D-Beachwood, is planning on introducing his own bill in the coming weeks. 

“We are not trying to prevent Ohioans from using e-bikes and e-scooters,” Synenberg said. 

“Our goal is to make sure that riders understand the rules and risks before they ride, and give motorists, pedestrians, local government, law enforcement, and businesses clear and consistent expectations.”

The bill would also ban riders younger than 18 from using high-powered e-bikes. Currently, Ohio law says a rider has to be at least 16 to rent a “low-speed micromobility device.” 

“These devices are not toys,” Synenberg said. 

“Unfortunately, not all of our kids are mature enough to have that kind of responsibility. We believe the state has an obligation to make sure all riders understand the risks before they get on these devices.”

Ohio organizes e-bikes by three classes. Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes can go about 20 miles per hour with a mild pedal assist. 

Class 3 e-bikes can go up to 28 miles per hour with light pedaling. Riders must be at least 16 to operate a Class 3 e-bike and wear a helmet in Ohio. 

“Current law has no (age) limit for the Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes,” Synenberg said. “A six-year-old could be riding one.” 

Children 11-14 made up nearly 40% of all pediatric injuries related to e-bikes and scooters nationwide, according to data from the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. 

By mid-July, Akron Children’s Hospital surpassed the total number of e-bike and e-scooter injuries it treated in 2025, DeMora said. 

“These injuries include brain injuries, fractures, road rash, lung contusions, and injuries to major internal organs,” he said. 

“We’ve seen serious injuries and fatalities when e-bikes and e-scooters are struck by vehicles, including fatal crashes and hit and runs not only in metropolitan areas but in rural areas like Brown and Athens County.” 

A 58-year-old man riding an e-bike recently died from injuries he sustained after being hit by a van in Columbus.

The bills would set a 10 mile-per-hour limit on shared-use paths and five miles-per-hour limit on sidewalks. 

Personal e-bikes and e-scooters would also need to be registered with the state, which includes a $25 registration fee. Failure to register would result in a minor misdemeanor and the possibility of the vehicle being impounded for 30 days, Synenberg said. 

Several cities in Franklin County have their own regulations for e-bikes and e-scooters, but DeMora said that doesn’t go far enough. 

“It becomes increasingly difficult when every community has different rules, and riders may not know what requirements apply when they cross a line from one community to another,” he said.

The use of e-bikes and e-scooters will go down during winter months, but Synenberg said he wants to have these regulations in place by the spring. 

The Ohio lawmakers are currently on break and will come back after the November election. Any bill that does not pass before the two-year General Assembly ends in December would have to be reintroduced. 

“In lame duck, all things are possible,” DeMora said.  

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on X or on Bluesky.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health analyzed hospital closures and openings that occurred between 2010 and last year. They found that closures increased by 4% year over year, while new hospital openings decreased 3% year over year.

The study comes as health systems across the nation brace for the effects of the broad tax and spending measure passed by congressional Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act is projected to cut federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $886.8 billion over the next decade, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office.

The law includes $50 billion in rural health grants to be distributed to states over five years, but the funds are for a wide variety of initiatives, with limitations on how much hospitals can benefit.

Public attention has mostly focused on struggling rural hospitals, but the Harvard researchers found that urban hospitals also have been vulnerable: The closure rate was 9.1% for urban hospitals and 8.3% for rural hospitals. Across both rural and urban areas, hospitals that were for-profit, small or safety-net, or served the most vulnerable counties — such as those with higher poverty rates or less access to transportation — were most likely to close.

Overall, 432 hospitals closed between 2010 and 2025 while 216 opened, leading to a net loss of over 24,000 beds. Rural areas were less likely to see a new hospital, as the new facilities were mostly urban, for-profit and small. Rural communities are more likely to have fewer doctors per capita and a lower overall number of patients.

Of the hospitals that closed, about 73% shut down completely, while the remaining retained outpatient care, including rural emergency hospital care.

The Midwest and the South saw the most closures overall, and there were more closures in states that didn’t expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, according to the study.

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“My fiscally conservative values will protect your tax dollars and ensure we maintain a balanced budget for the county,” Frankart says in a campaign commercial airing on WBVI 96.7 FM, a Fostoria-based radio station.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture payment records compiled by the Environmental Working Group, Ridge View Farms, the Clyde-area grain operation Frankart identifies as his own, received $4,489,683 in federal commodity, disaster and conservation payments from 1995 through 2025. Of that amount, $3,768,460 was attributed to farms in Seneca County, $681,963 to Sandusky County and $39,260 to Huron County.

EWG’s Seneca County recipient rankings place Ridge View Farms first in total subsidies attributed to the county over that period. The next recipient on the list, Kingland Farms of Tiffin, received $2,241,109 in county-attributed payments.

Frankart’s 2026 campaign website says he and his family own and operate Ridge View Farms. His official county biography says he took over the farm after his father’s death in 1995 and has been its sole owner since 2011. The EWG year-by-year figures show that $2,286,098 of the farm’s federal payments came from 2011 through 2025, during the period the county describes as his sole ownership.

The payments are recorded as receipts to the farming operation, not as Frankart’s personal income. The records do not, by themselves, indicate that any program rules were broken. They do document the scale of federal financial support received by a business whose owner has made fiscal conservatism a recurring part of his public identity.

Frankart, a Republican elected commissioner in 2022, is seeking a second four-year term in the Nov. 3 election against independent candidate David Ziegler, an Eden Township trustee.

Trade-war bailout, pandemic aid and decades of crop payments

Most of Ridge View Farms’ recorded federal assistance came through commodity programs. EWG lists $3,591,379 in commodity payments, compared with $481,768 in disaster payments and $416,536 in conservation payments during the 31-year period. Commodity programs include agricultural price and revenue supports, along with special assistance enacted or administered in response to disruptions in farm markets.

One of the more substantial identifiable programs was the Trump administration’s Market Facilitation Program. Ridge View Farms received $452,099 through that program, according to EWG’s Seneca County payment records, more than any other recipient listed in the county. The USDA describes the program as direct assistance for farmers affected by foreign retaliatory tariffs and trade disruptions during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Ridge View Farms also received $221,437 through the second round of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, according to EWG’s program records. The USDA established CFAP 2 to provide financial assistance to agricultural producers facing market disruptions and related costs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both the trade-aid and pandemic-aid figures are components of the overall subsidy total, not additional payments on top of $4.49 million.

The payments have continued in recent years. Ridge View Farms received $398,242 in 2020 and $246,863 in 2023, followed by $39,810 in 2024 and $22,805 in 2025. The three years since Frankart took office as commissioner in January 2023 account for $309,478 in payments recorded by EWG. The database tracks money paid under federal programs; it does not establish the farm’s expenses, profitability or the financial losses underlying individual assistance payments.

A fiscal-conservative message stretching back years

Frankart’s statement on WBVI is not an isolated campaign claim. In an August 2019 campaign letter, he wrote that “sound budgets and strategic plans are important for any business or public entity,” citing his experience running Ridge View Farms and serving as an Adams Township trustee. An accompanying résumé described his township record as “fiscally responsible and conservative.”

After taking office, Frankart continued to use similar language. During deliberations over the 2024 county budget, he said, “This was a more conservative approach to the budget,” according to a December 2023 county release. His official biography identifies Trump and Ronald Reagan as the presidents who best represent his values.

Frankart’s pledge to balance the county budget concerns local government finances, while Ridge View Farms’ payments come from federal agricultural programs. His public statements about fiscal responsibility do not establish that he opposes farm subsidies. But the payments present a direct question about which forms of federal spending he supports and whether he believes the programs that benefited his farm should be preserved, reduced or changed.

TiffinOhio.net provided Frankart with the subsidy figures and sought his response to questions about their accuracy, his ownership of Ridge View Farms, his support for the federal programs and how the payments fit with his stated fiscal principles. He did not respond by the publication deadline.

Frankart, a Republican elected commissioner in 2022, is seeking a second four-year term in the Nov. 3 election against independent candidate David Ziegler, an Eden Township trustee. His current campaign continues to promise protection of county tax dollars; his position on the specific federal farm programs that have paid millions to Ridge View Farms remains unanswered.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

He is challenging Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to the seat by Gov. Mike DeWine when J.D. Vance resigned to become vice president.

On Oct. 2, Brown responded to emailed questions from the Ohio Independent about the stakes of this year’s election.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

With the war in Iran fueling high gasoline prices, inflation continues to make the cost of living higher for Ohioans. What would you do in the Senate to make things more affordable?

The first thing we need to do is end this reckless war in Iran.

In the Senate, I’ll fight to ensure data centers pay the full cost of their electricity so that Ohioans aren’t footing the bill. Local communities should decide whether or not a data center comes into their community, not out of state corporations and billionaires. 

We must make it illegal for drug companies to charge Americans more for the same drug than what they charge in other countries. I’ll push to ban health insurance companies from denying people care their doctors say they need. 

KFF estimated in 2025 that the combination of Medicaid cuts in the federal budget package and the expiration of ACA marketplace subsidies would leave about 340,000 more Ohioans without health insurance by 2034. What is your plan to make sure more people can get affordable health insurance and can actually get care when they need it?

My plan is to rescind the $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid that has put hospitals at risk across Ohio. 

In Ironton, I met with Ohioans to discuss how rural communities are struggling to find affordable health care, especially as hospitals brace for potential closures. In Jackson, I heard from veterans who rely on the local VA for health care and are fed up with Jon Husted for standing by as workforce cuts at the VA and soaring health care costs have made life harder for Ohio veterans. In Scioto County, I met with Ohioans whose local hospital is threatened by a bill that Jon Husted was the deciding vote on. 

To me, politics and governing have never been about left or right. It’s about whose side you’re on. I’m on your side. I’m on the side of families across Ohio who deserve affordable health care. That’s why I’m in this race. I’m running to stand up for Ohio’s working families. Not Wall Street. Not the drug companies. Not wealthy corporations. 

Over your time as a senator, what steps did you back to lower costs for consumers (prescription drugs, health insurance, housing, or other areas)?

I know what some Ohioans may be thinking: there’s no way we can get any of this done. The system is too broken for any progress. I understand that cynicism. We’ve come to expect all this from Washington, for good reason. But I know we can change things for the better because we’ve done it before. Together, we capped the price of insulin at $35 for Ohioans on Medicare. We expanded health care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. We saved the pensions of thousands of Ohioans who were ripped off by Wall Street. Together, we fought for the Social Security Fairness Act that made sure every Ohio public service worker and their spouses would receive the full amount of their earned Social Security benefit. 

You have proposed a ban on stock trading by members of Congress and lobbying by ex-lawmakers. Why are these steps important and how does political corruption affect Ohio families?

Last year, members of Congress made more than $635 million in stock trades. Far too many members of Congress over the years have become lobbyists. No one who serves in Congress should be able to trade stocks. They also shouldn’t be able to turn around when they leave office and become a lobbyist. If you can’t agree to that, you shouldn’t be in public office. Ohioans deserve a senator who puts workers over billionaires and their own self-interests. 

The Husted campaign declined a request for an interview.

Husted’s campaign site says he “works for everyday Ohioans” and “made Ohio the least costly state in the Midwest to start and maintain a business.” In the Senate, he repeatedly voted against resolutions directing President Donald Trump to remove the U.S. military from the Iran war, opposed a resolution to terminate Trump’s tariffs on imported goods from Canada, voted against a three-year extension of expiring Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidies, and voted for the 2025 budget package that slashed tax rates for wealthy individuals and cut about $1 trillion from the Medicaid program over a decade.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

In a 37-page decision issued Thursday and announced Friday, the justices unanimously denied a request to remove Stidham from the ballot but divided sharply over the legal reasoning. Three justices relied on the challenger’s delay in filing suit, three would have dismissed the case because they believed he lacked standing, and Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy concluded that the challenger had not established a legal right to the requested relief.

The result leaves Stidham’s candidacy intact ahead of the Nov. 3 election while failing to produce a controlling ruling on whether the Republican committee was subject to Ohio’s Open Meetings Act when it selected him. The dispute arose after Republican officials used a process established by state election law to fill a vacancy on the ballot, then conducted the selection meeting without allowing the public inside.

Attorneys Gina R. Grandillo and Christopher E. Liebold, who represented Erie County voter Carl Koebel in the challenge, criticized the decision Friday, arguing that the court should have resolved the legality of the nomination process rather than denying relief without establishing whether the public had a right to observe it.

“We are disappointed in the Court’s decision because we believe this case presented an important opportunity to protect transparency in Ohio’s elections,” Grandillo said in a statement. “When political officials exercise authority granted to them by Ohio law, the public deserves to know that the process is lawful and accountable.”

Republican officials barred the public from nomination meeting

The dispute began after state Rep. D.J. Swearingen, who had won the Republican primary for the 89th House District, withdrew his candidacy on Aug. 4. His departure triggered a replacement process under Ohio election law, which authorizes a district committee composed of party officials from the counties within the district to select a new nominee.

On Aug. 10, Republican officials from Erie, Ottawa and Huron counties met to choose Swearingen’s replacement. The meeting was closed to the public. According to the Supreme Court’s findings, a member of the Erie County Board of Elections attempted to attend but was denied entry.

The committee selected Stidham, then chairman of the Erie County Republican Party and himself a member of the committee responsible for choosing the nominee.

Four days later, the Erie County Board of Elections divided 2-2 over whether to certify his candidacy. The two members who voted against certification objected to the closed meeting and to Stidham’s participation in voting on his own selection, according to the court’s opinion.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose broke the tie on Aug. 20, siding with the certification of Stidham and placing him on the general-election ballot.

Koebel filed his lawsuit on Sept. 14, challenging the certification and arguing that the committee was required to comply with Ohio’s Open Meetings Act. The law generally requires public bodies to conduct official business in meetings open to the public. The central dispute was whether that requirement extends to a political party committee exercising statutory authority to select a replacement candidate.

Three justices rejected the case over a 25-day delay

Rather than decide that question, the court’s principal opinion denied Koebel’s requested writ of mandamus under the doctrine of laches, which permits courts to reject claims when unreasonable delays prejudice the opposing parties.

Justices Patrick Fischer, Jennifer Brunner and Megan Shanahan joined that reasoning, finding that Koebel waited too long after LaRose’s Aug. 20 certification decision to bring his challenge.

The opinion cited the preparations election officials had already undertaken. The Erie County Board of Elections mailed 33 absentee ballots to military and overseas voters on Sept. 18, tested voting machines on Sept. 21 and submitted an order for 36,450 printed ballots on Sept. 23. The justices concluded that the 25-day delay prejudiced election officials and that an earlier lawsuit might have allowed the court to act before critical ballot deadlines.

“Because we deny the writ based on laches, we do not address the merits of Koebel’s claim,” the opinion stated.

Kennedy expressly disagreed with that reasoning. In a separate opinion, the chief justice concluded that election officials and Stidham had failed to demonstrate the material prejudice required to bar Koebel’s lawsuit. She noted that granting relief would not necessarily have required election officials to reprint ballots; the court could instead have ordered that votes for Stidham not be counted.

“The disagreement among the justices matters,” Liebold said in Friday’s statement. “The principal opinion treated the timing of the lawsuit as dispositive. Chief Justice Kennedy concluded that the necessary material prejudice had not been shown. That is a meaningful disagreement about whether the Court should have reached the substance of this dispute.”

Justices also divided over voters’ right to challenge elections

Kennedy nevertheless agreed that Koebel was not entitled to have Stidham removed from the ballot. She concluded that he had not established a clear legal right to the relief he sought or a corresponding legal duty requiring LaRose and the Board of Elections to provide it.

Her analysis distinguished the committee’s nomination of a candidate from a political party committee’s appointment of someone directly to a vacant public office. Kennedy reasoned that the election statute governing replacement nominees did not expressly require an open meeting and that LaRose’s duty when breaking the Board of Elections tie did not include investigating the committee’s proceedings.

That reasoning differed from the principal opinion, which declined to consider the merits of Koebel’s Open Meetings Act argument. Kennedy’s separate opinion did not establish a controlling interpretation of the Act’s applicability to district nomination committees.

Justices Patrick DeWine, Joseph Deters and Daniel Hawkins took a third approach. They agreed that Stidham should remain on the ballot but would have dismissed Koebel’s case because, in their view, he had not demonstrated the particularized injury necessary to bring the lawsuit.

Four justices rejected that position. Fischer, Brunner, Shanahan and Kennedy recognized Koebel’s standing as a qualified elector seeking to compel election officials to perform their legal duties.

Brunner devoted a separate opinion to defending that principle, warning that adopting DeWine’s interpretation could undermine nearly 150 years of precedent allowing voters to seek judicial enforcement of election laws. She criticized his approach as potentially restricting election-related activity protected by the First Amendment.

For Koebel’s attorneys, the disagreement over standing represented another significant aspect of the decision. Grandillo said her client deserved recognition for challenging the nomination process rather than accepting the certification without question.

“Carl Koebel remained faithful to his belief that election officials must be accountable to the people they serve,” she said. “He had the courage to challenge a process that raised serious transparency concerns, even when that meant taking on established political officials.”

Transparency dispute remains unresolved

Grandillo and Liebold maintained that the lawsuit concerned the public’s right to observe a legally prescribed process, not a demand that outsiders control the Republican Party’s selection of its candidate.

“This was not about allowing outsiders to choose a political party’s candidate,” Liebold said. “It was about whether the public could observe a selection process created and governed by Ohio law.”

The distinction is central to the case. Ohio election law explicitly establishes the mechanism for replacing a withdrawn nominee, including which party officials participate and how they certify the replacement. Whether that statutory role transforms the committee into a public body subject to open-meeting requirements was the question Koebel asked the justices to resolve.

The court’s ruling establishes that Stidham will remain on the November ballot. It does not establish that closing the nomination meeting to the public complied with the Open Meetings Act.

“We brought this case because we believe transparency is not optional when public authority is being exercised,” Liebold said. “That principle should apply consistently, regardless of the political party involved.”

House District 89 includes Erie and Ottawa counties and portions of Huron County. Voters there will decide the seat on Nov. 3 with Stidham’s name on the ballot, while the legal question surrounding the meeting that selected him remains unresolved by the Supreme Court’s controlling judgment.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

That was one Sandusky County resident’s reaction on social media to renewed reporting about child sex abuse allegations involving state Rep. Gary Click, the Republican lawmaker who spent 19 years as pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple before quietly stepping away from the pulpit last year.

Another commenter, who said they knew Click personally, described longstanding discomfort with his interactions with children.

“First of all, I know this man as well and I’ve always thought something wasn’t right with him the way he was around the younger children always creep me out,” the person wrote.

The comments are among several reactions circulating on social media following TiffinOhio.net’s reporting this week on the former pastor’s police investigation. They reflect anger, distrust and concern among some residents of the county Click represents in the Ohio House, particularly those familiar with his years in church leadership.

The allegations originated in September 2025, when Oregon child welfare officials forwarded a third-party report accusing Click and another man of physically and sexually abusing a child who had attended Fremont Baptist Temple. Fremont police interviewed the person identified as the alleged victim, who denied being abused by either man. Click also denied the allegations. Police closed the case, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation declined further involvement.

The investigation was first reported in November 2025 by D.J. Byrnes of The Rooster. TiffinOhio.net’s examination of police records this week, alongside its reporting on Click’s previously undisclosed departure from church leadership, has returned the allegations to public attention.

Click has forcefully rejected the accusations. In an interview published Friday by StayTunedSandusky.com, he described them as politically motivated.

“Clearly, the allegations against me are not only false but malicious,” Click said.

Parents revisit their experiences with Click’s church

The reactions carry particular weight in Fremont, where Click was not simply a politician whose name appeared on ballots and campaign signs. He led Fremont Baptist Temple from 2006 until March 2025, serving generations of local families while building a second career in state politics. His official Ohio House biography lists decades of work involving youth ministry, Christian education and children’s programs.

For the commenter who expressed relief about removing their sons from the church nursery, the allegations prompted a retrospective judgment about their family’s experience. Another person’s account went further, describing personal unease about Click’s behavior around younger children.

Neither comment independently establishes misconduct, and the Fremont police report does not identify an allegation involving the church nursery. But the reactions illustrate how the news is being received by some people with personal connections to the community Click served for nearly two decades.

Others expressed anger or an absence of surprise. “Not surprising. He is a complete scumbag,” one commenter wrote. Another used sarcasm to convey a similar sentiment: “I’m more shocked than when my printer breaks down before a major deadline.”

The comments do not establish what the entire Fremont community thinks of Click. They do, however, document a response sharply different from the image of the longtime pastor and family-values advocate that Click has cultivated throughout his political career.

Click’s pastoral departure has also become part of that discussion. He says he stepped down as lead pastor at the end of March 2025, six months before police received the abuse referral. But TiffinOhio.net found no public announcement from Click, his legislative office, his campaign or the church disclosing the transition at the time. Fremont Baptist Temple continued identifying him as pastor for nearly another year.

When the newsroom reported the departure in February 2026, Click insisted it had been public. “Actually, it was very public. You just missed it,” he wrote on X. He did not identify an announcement when asked to provide one.

Click has said leaving day-to-day church leadership gave him greater freedom to travel and expand his national ministry. The police records do not establish that the departure was connected to the allegations later forwarded by Oregon authorities.

A resident recalls Click’s answer about sexual predators

The allegations have also prompted at least one local commenter to revisit Click’s performance at a Sandusky County Republican candidates’ forum earlier this year, including a question that now carries renewed significance.

“This explains his total deflection to the question of dealing with pedophiles during Republican candidates’ night prior to the primary election,” the commenter wrote. “Someone needs to pull that question and answer from video footage.”

The exchange is already part of the public record.

On March 19, 2026, Click appeared alongside Republican primary challenger Eric Watson at a forum hosted by the Sandusky County Republican Women. During the event, Click was asked how he would help fight sexual predators in Ohio’s 88th House District, which includes Sandusky and Seneca counties.

He did not directly answer the question.

Instead, Click pivoted to House Bill 693, legislation addressing parents who refuse to affirm a child’s gender identity, and discussed the treatment of transgender children in state child welfare policy.

“We’re calling Johnny Johnny and Susie Susie,” Click told the audience.

That response was documented by TiffinOhio.net on March 19, more than six months before the latest reporting on his police investigation.

The timing adds another dimension to the exchange. By the time Click appeared at that forum, Fremont police had already investigated the allegations against him and closed the case. The allegations had also been made public by The Rooster four months earlier.

Click did not mention the investigation during his answer about sexual predators. Instead, he directed his response toward legislation concerning transgender children, a subject that has been central to his political career.

The resident’s suggestion that the response reflected Click’s own circumstances is an interpretation, not something established by the recording or the police report. But the underlying exchange happened, and the lawmaker’s choice to answer a question about sexual predators by discussing transgender children is documented.

A history of defending political allies against scrutiny

The community reaction also arrives against a longer record of Click’s responses to allegations involving fellow Republican politicians.

Click previously called state Rep. Rodney Creech, a Republican from southwestern Ohio, his “good friend” and repeatedly praised him in public social media posts. Their legislative relationship continued after allegations surfaced that Creech had engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct with his minor daughter.

During the investigation, Creech acknowledged getting into bed with his daughter while wearing only his underwear but denied sexual misconduct. A special prosecutor described aspects of his behavior as “concerning and suspicious” but declined to file criminal charges.

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman removed Creech from his committee assignments in May 2025 and asked him to resign. Creech refused. Huffman eventually restored his committee assignments in February 2026.

Click, who had publicly celebrated Creech as a friend, did not publicly join the calls for his resignation. Instead, the two continued cosponsoring legislation, including proposals Republicans promoted as protecting children from inappropriate adult conduct and requiring surveillance cameras in licensed child care centers.

Click also dismissed reporting about President Donald Trump’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a confrontation with Ohio journalist D.J. Byrnes in 2025.

“What are you gonna do when it comes out that that’s all fraud? And he’s not a part of that?” Click demanded when questioned about The Wall Street Journal’s reporting concerning a birthday card allegedly sent by Trump to Epstein.

Moments later, Click acknowledged he had not read about the birthday card.

“I haven’t even read about that birthday card,” he said. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

The recorded exchange showed Click suggesting that reporting involving a powerful political ally was fraudulent without having examined the specific report being discussed.

Those earlier episodes have taken on new relevance as residents revisit Click’s record. He has repeatedly presented child protection as a defining legislative priority, particularly when advancing restrictions on transgender health care and public performances. Yet his public conduct toward accused or scrutinized political allies has produced a very different record of confrontation and accountability.

Click calls the allegations malicious

After Fremont police received the Oregon referral on Sept. 29, 2025, Det. Sgt. Matthew Ranazzi located and interviewed the person identified as the alleged victim. The person denied having been beaten, starved or sexually assaulted by Click or their father and said they had never reported such abuse to anyone in Oregon.

Detectives visited Click’s home on Oct. 1. He was in Columbus, but later spoke with Ranazzi by telephone. Click told police he did not remember the person identified in the referral, although they “might have been a member of his church.” He also denied ever physically or sexually abusing anyone.

When Byrnes later confronted him on camera, Click described himself as having a clean conscience and repeatedly used the phrase “no there there” to reject the allegations. He called himself “squeaky clean” and “ivory clean.”

Click also challenged the characterization of his relationship with the family, insisting that merely attending Fremont Baptist Temple did not mean someone was a member of the congregation.

“Attended is not a member,” Click said. “There’s a lot of people that come and go. I do not know them.”

The allegations were not substantiated by the Fremont investigation. The person identified as the alleged victim denied them, the police closed the case and BCI declined additional investigation.

But that finding has not prevented some local residents from questioning Click’s conduct, reconsidering their experiences with his church and revisiting statements he made during his political career.

A controversy following Click toward Election Day

The allegations have surfaced again less than a month before Click faces Democrat Aaron Jones in the Nov. 3 general election. Click is seeking his fourth and final term in the Ohio House after narrowly surviving a Republican primary challenge earlier this year.

He also remains connected to prominent Republican campaigns. In December 2025, one month after the investigation became public, U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s campaign identified Click as its Sandusky County chairman. The campaign again promoted his endorsement in March 2026.

For the residents commenting on the allegations, however, the controversy is not confined to Columbus politics or campaign endorsements. It reaches back into a Fremont church, its children’s programs and the personal impressions left by a pastor who served the congregation for nearly two decades.

One parent expressed relief at having taken their sons out of the church nursery. Another person said Click’s behavior around younger children had long made them uncomfortable. A third recalled a Republican candidates’ forum where Click was asked directly about sexual predators and spoke instead about transgender children.

The police investigation is closed, and Click denies the allegations. But the reaction among those residents shows that the allegations have consequences beyond the official disposition of the case: people who knew Click, worshipped in his community or listened to his political promises are reconsidering what they saw, heard and believed.

That scrutiny now follows Click into the final weeks of his reelection campaign, with the former pastor’s record of preaching child protection facing renewed attention in the community where he built his public career.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Democratic candidate for governor described several ideas including loans to help new businesses get off the ground, and suggested her plans to bring down household costs could help boost foot-traffic.

“It is very tight out here,” she said. “There’s no more breathing room. Everyone’s doing everything right, but it’s very tight right now.”

“I think the biggest thing I can do is give a voice to small business,” she went on. “So I intend to do that. It is the future of Ohio, and I’m excited about the future.”

Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about his small business plans in elected.

After a quick tour, Acton picked up a baker’s dozen, and sat down to talk with Fox’s owner, Jeremy Fox, and Scott Bast who runs Scotty’s Café a few doors down. They described how restaurant owners are at the mercy of a wide array of rising costs.

“It just feels like as of late, it’s been more and more, and the pressure is building and building, and it’s energy, it’s gas, it’s utilities, it’s everything,” Fox said.

Bast explained his most recent electric bill more than doubled.

“It was $1,500. It’s $3,400 now,” he said. “Which for one month — my rent is that much. It’s just insane what’s going on.”

A large share of Bast’s business is catering for weddings, and that puts him in a bind when he’s quoting prices for couples a year ahead of time.

“I can’t call them two weeks before the wedding and say, ‘Well, the economy’s changed. I’ve got to raise your prices,’” Bast said.

Fox said juggling costs boils down to managing sacrifices. You can’t cut much from labor or food costs, he said, so you’re left carving up benefits that would improve your employees’ quality of life.

Fox said they reimburse a portion of health insurance costs for full-time employees and he’s proud they can offer paid time off.

But for him?

“I’m on my wife’s plan,” Fox said. “Really, when you look at restaurant profitability, owner insurance? That’s a luxury.”

Acton’s agenda

Bast suggested Acton come up with some kind of small business council within her office to “talk about issues for small businesses, not big corporations.” Acton quickly committed to that.

“We’re going to be convening small businesses coming in the door as part of a look at all of our business sector alongside JobsOhio,” Acton said. “But we want to spend a little more attention to entrepreneurs, small businesses, and legacy city small businesses, like you’re mentioning.”

She’s also hoping to replicate workforce training initiatives she’s seen in Indiana and Colorado.

“We do a lot right on workforce,” Acton said, “but there’s a lot more we could be doing, that’s what I’ve heard from businesses.”

To help entrepreneurs get businesses started, Acton is considering loan programs.

“I think about you starting out with your food truck,” she said to Fox, “and the kind of capital you needed at the beginning, and we’re particularly also focusing on minority-led businesses as well.”

Acton has proposed what she’s calling a Working Families Tax Cut, geared toward lower income families with kids.

The proposal includes an earned income tax credit and a child tax credit of $1,000 for kids six and under, and $500 for those seven to 18. She told Fox and Bast that could help their employees and customers alike.

“What we’re finding is we need some immediate relief for cash flow for people who are just working,” Acton said, “and healthcare costs are the number one cost we’re hearing about.”

She expressed concern about lack of healthcare coverage and said she’d try leveraging the state’s purchasing power to negotiate lower premiums.

“We’re doing a lot around trying to get health insurance premiums down,” she said. “We’re going to try to negotiate using the state’s power for small businesses because I’m worried about you guys not having an alternative.”

Ramaswamy’s endorsement

The Ohio Capital Journal asked Republican candidate for governor Ramaswamy’s campaign about his plans for small business but got no response.

Ramaswamy has gotten the endorsement of Ohio’s chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents 21,000 small and independent businesses.

“Our members were looking for a candidate who understands the challenges facing small businesses and has a vision to unlock Ohio’s full potential,” NFIB Ohio State Director Jared Weiser said in August. “They found that in Vivek Ramaswamy.”

In a press release announcing the endorsement, Ramaswamy called small businesses “the backbone of towns and cities across Ohio.” Despite years of unified Republican leadership in Ohio, he insisted they’re “getting squeezed by government overgrowth.”

“They were unfairly penalized by the disastrous COVID lockdowns that my opponent pushed on them,” Ramaswamy said. “I’ll stand with hardworking Ohioans and entrepreneurs who work, hire, build, and take risks — not the bureaucrats standing in their way. We’ll get government off the backs of small businesses so they can grow here and help Ohio families get ahead.”

Asked about Ramaswamy earning NFIB’s endorsement, Acton campaign spokeswoman Virginia Schaus said Ramaswamy’s plans for drastic tax cuts will wind up raising costs elsewhere.

“While Vivek Ramaswamy’s tax scam would raise costs for Ohio families and hurt small businesses,” she said, “as governor, Dr. Acton will be laser-focused on lowering costs.”

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The 44-year-old trained social worker said she and her husband, who recently retired after 25 years in the U.S. Navy, are raising two children, ages 7 and 9, and forgoing a family vacation to save money.

“I’m an educated person, but I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in the economy. All I can say is I know my family’s finances very well and I know everything we spend money on has gone up in price.

“I understand some of it is due to the tariffs, some of it is due to the war in Iran,” Myers told States Newsroom in an Oct. 1 interview.

Myers is among a growing number of voters found to be taking their anger about affordability to the polls this midterm election and blaming President Donald Trump’s tariffs as a culprit for rising expenses. Public opinion surveys bear out Myers is far from alone in making the connection.

“The real top line is that for maybe the first time ever, tariffs are a salient issue at the ballot box,” said Scott Lincicome of the libertarian Cato Institute. “You know, normally trade is a boring issue that nobody really thinks about or cares about.”

Myers, who lives in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, voted for Elaine Luria, the Democratic candidate and former U.S. representative who is challenging the incumbent Republican, Rep. Jen Kiggans.

Kiggans, Myers said, has supported Trump’s “MAGA agenda,” including tariffs.

Kiggans’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump opponents seize on issue

Organizers are targeting districts like Myers’, where Democrats could flip seats.

“We talk to families every day who are struggling with the things that they need to take care of themselves and their families,” said Sondra Goldschein, executive director of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy.

Her organization, which also has a political action committee that endorses Democrats, recently hosted a “tariff-proof” cooking class in Chesapeake, Virginia, to drive attention to the issue. Attendees received tips like substituting chicken for beef, buying domestic produce, and choosing frozen over canned goods — all which have been affected by Trump’s ever-changing taxes on imports.

Goldschein and national organizers are targeting voters not only in Virginia, but in Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“This Republican-backed Congress and all of the members that come from states like this have really turned their backs on working families,” Goldschein told States Newsroom during an interview ahead of the cooking class.

In a state-by-state breakdown of tariffs, the conservative National Taxpayers Union Foundation and Trade Partnership Worldwide found the top 10 states most affected by Trump’s tariffs — in the tens of billions of dollars — are California, Texas, Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio and Tennessee. 

Virginia, where business owners have paid a collective $6.2 billion in tariffs ordered by Trump since January 2025, ranked 18th.

Nearly all are in the midst of fierce battles for U.S. Senate or House seats as tariffs emerge as what critics predict will be a major factor in the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

Ever-changing tariffs

New research shows Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs on imported goods have cost business owners and consumers billions of dollars. 

“The typical estimate has it being in the neighborhood of $1,000-plus per year of additional (consumer) costs, and maybe accounting for somewhere between one-half and 1 percentage point of the inflation rate. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but if someone came along and gave you a tax increase of $1,100, which is about what this is, you’d feel it,” said Kimberly Clausing, economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics.

Clausing and fellow economist Maurice Obstfeld at the nonpartisan think tank reviewed 13 academic papers from 2025 and 2026 on Trump’s tariffs and the pass-through costs to consumers and businesses.

“What makes it a little confusing and hard to measure is that there’s been a lot of uncertainty about the trade policy, and so it’s come in spurts and reversals and restarts,” Clausing said, adding that some businesses may absorb the new taxes on imports at first but then eventually raise prices later.

“It’s not like you raise the tariff on day one and (on) day two all the prices have fully adjusted. It’s a little slower than that, but you do see absolutely evidence that with time the tariffs are being passed through to consumers, and very little evidence that foreigners are bearing a significant burden,” she said. 

Trump’s tariff policy has changed more than 50 times since he began his second term in January 2025, according to the Tax Foundation, a think tank that advocates for a slimmed-down tax code and “policies that lead to greater economic growth.”

As of Sept. 10, the foundation estimated that Trump’s tariffs will cost each household an average $820 in 2026.

While Trump campaigned on the promise that other countries would pay for his tariffs, and vowed the same once he took office again, the statement has always been false, economists have documented. Tariffs are taxes that American businesses and individuals pay upon retrieving their shipments of items they’ve purchased from other countries. The tariffed goods fall into hundreds of categories — anything from machine parts to food.

The president’s early round of “emergency” and “reciprocal” tariffs imposed on worldwide goods in April 2025 were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February. Since then, Trump has used three other statutes to justify charging import taxes on goods.

Impact spreads across states

The breakdown produced by the National Taxpayers Union found the biggest effects in states and industries scattered throughout America.

Sectors hit hardest by tariffs in the top 10 states include automobiles and auto parts; steel, aluminum and other metals; clothes and shoes; and food and beverages.

For example, businesses in Michigan have paid an extra $23 billion on imports, largely cars and trucks. Meanwhile, the food and beverage sector was hit hardest in Florida, where importers have paid an extra $11 billion since Trump began implementing new tariffs in 2025 through Aug. 4, 2026, according to the conservative organization’s analysis that drew from Census Bureau import data.

Bryan Riley, director of the National Taxpayers Union’s free trade initiative, described Trump’s tariffs during his second term as “a very costly policy.” 

“If you’re in a state like Georgia, big tariff costs are mainly because there’s a lot of auto manufacturing in Georgia, surprisingly to many people. And then that’s not going to be the case in New Mexico, which doesn’t have a lot of auto manufacturing, so (there are) less tariff costs and different categories hit in each state,” Riley said. 

The analysis did not account for any court-mandated refunds the Trump administration must pay back after the Supreme Court deemed the president’s initial emergency tariffs illegal. Those refunds to businesses are not necessarily passed on to consumers.

Trump and the cost of living

Polls show voters are growing increasingly frustrated with Trump’s handling of the economy, as his approval ratings plunge, and many of those surveyed are blaming the administration’s trade policy for the rising cost of living.

Overall, 69% of American adults, and 52% of Republicans, say Trump is not meeting his promise to fix the cost of living, according to an Associated Press/NORC nationwide poll of just over 2,100 voters from Sept. 24-28.

Specifically on trade and tariffs, the survey found that overall 68% of respondents disapprove of Trump’s trade negotiations with other countries, and 64% think the tariffs have gone too far.

Lincicome of the Cato Institute said it’s a “shocker” that tariffs are becoming a mainstream concern among voters.

When surveying just over 4,100 voters in mid-August, Cato and Morning Consult found 3 in 4 participants said they will consider tariffs when casting their midterm election ballot.

Additionally, the survey revealed 74% of respondents — 66% percent of Republicans and 84% of Democrats — blamed Trump’s tariffs for increased prices on items they buy at the store.

Lincicome, vice president of general economics for Cato, pointed to his home state of North Carolina, where Roy Cooper, the former Democratic governor now vying for an open U.S. Senate seat, is making opposition to tariffs a centerpiece of his affordability agenda.

“It’s pretty clear from both the polling and Democrats in not just North Carolina but Georgia and Iowa and other places (candidates) are really chomping at the bit to run on cost of living, and to say they’re going to nix all these tariffs. … Even in places like Ohio, where Sherrod Brown is trying to win,” Lincicome said.

Brown, a Democrat who served in the U.S. Senate from 2007-2025, was “one of the most consistent protectionists” of domestic manufacturing in the upper chamber, Lincicome said.

“Now all of a sudden he’s running on nixing the tariffs,” Lincicome said. “Now he’s not nearly as vocal as somebody like Cooper or (James) Talarico in Texas or Jon Ossoff in Georgia. He’s still saying he’s going to get rid of these tariffs, and that’s a pretty shocking change.”

Trump ‘skillfully used tariffs,’ White House says

The White House defended Trump’s record on the economy and said he has “skillfully” imposed tariffs.

“President Trump signed the largest working-class tax cuts in history, lowered the cost of prescription drugs, sealed the border, drove violent crime to the lowest level in nearly a century, unleashed an energy revolution, added more than a million private-sector jobs, and sent Americans’ 401(k)s climbing to record highs. 

“The President skillfully used tariffs to renegotiate almost 20 trade deals and level the playing field for American workers and businesses. The Trump administration has consistently maintained that the cost of tariffs will ultimately be borne by foreign exporters who rely on access to the American economy, the world’s biggest and best consumer market,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Very few candidates in competitive races, however, have policy proposals on their campaign websites and many, when contacted by States Newsroom, declined to share details about which changes they’d support if elected. 

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said even though Social Security’s financial woes have been discussed more during this year’s campaign cycle, most candidates have shied away from getting into the weeds. 

“What’s really disappointing is nobody is talking about a realistic suite of options that will fix it,” she said. “There are a few who will mention lifting the payroll tax cap, which is probably the most often cited policy, but that on its own won’t fix the program.” 

Workers now pay a 6.2% tax that goes directly to Social Security, though that doesn’t apply to earnings above $184,500. 

MacGuineas said one upside to this year’s campaign cycle is more voters understand that a candidate promising not to touch Social Security guarantees the automatic benefit cut in 2032, which will worsen over time. 

But, she said, she understands why candidates would want to wait until they are actually elected to Congress to go into detail about something that was once widely considered the third rail of American politics. 

“It’s been so long since politicians have been honest about what Social Security faces and what fixes will be required,” MacGuineas said. “An election cycle is not where you’d expect a 180-degree switch into a direct conversation. I think this is the first step, and hopefully, post-midterms, we are able to start having that conversation.”

Two-way communication

Shai Akabas, vice president of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said candidates need to be honest with voters about the changes they’ll likely have to make to Social Security.

At the same time, he said, politicians need to hear from Americans that they understand Congress must take some action in the years ahead.  

“Until we get that two-way street working, it’s going to be really hard to move anything into law,” he said. 

Candidates, and those who work for them, have plenty of resources to study up on Social Security’s financial problems and explore the numerous changes that could be combined to avoid a 22% reduction in benefits from taking place in 2032. 

“It’s not like policymakers are entering into a novel problem that has unexplored solutions,” Akabas said. “They’re walking on well trodden ground and it is more about finding the political will to put those solutions together to create a bipartisan reform package than it is creating solutions from scratch.” 

While Akabas said it’s important for candidates to discuss realistic solutions on the campaign trail, the job of fixing the program would be less fraught if undertaken in a bipartisan way.

“If the two parties together hold hands and say, ‘Here’s a reform that we’re going to put in place, and yes, it has difficult decisions, but it’s the right thing to do for the country,’ I think our polling shows that that could be reasonably well received,” he said. “If, on the other hand, a candidate is putting that proposal out by themselves, it is extremely easy for the other side to message, ‘This candidate just wants to raise your taxes’ or ‘This candidate just wants to cut Social Security.’”

Here’s what politicians running in close Senate races say about Social Security on their websites and shared with States Newsroom when asked for which detailed policy changes they’d support if elected to Congress. 

Alaska 

• Democrat Mary Peltola’s website says if elected she would “work to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits for the nearly 95,000 seniors in Alaska.” A spokesperson wrote she “is in this race to fix the rigged system in DC and put Alaska first – that means putting more money in Alaskans’ pockets and ending federal income tax on Social Security.”

• Republican Dan Sullivan didn’t have any policy proposals on his campaign website and staff didn’t respond to multiple requests for more information. 

Iowa

• Republican Ashley Hinson’s campaign website says she would preserve “Social Security and Medicare benefits that vulnerable Iowans depend on, while rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse that deplete these programs.” Campaign communications director Billy Fuerst wrote in an email that Hinson “will always protect Social Security for Iowa seniors, and she will work with anyone to ensure the long-term solvency of this vital program. Ashley has never and will never cut a penny from Social Security.” 

• Democrat Josh Turek’s website says he would strengthen “Social Security by ensuring billionaires pay their fair share” and raise “Social Security income and assets limits for disabled individuals.” A staffer for his campaign sent several examples of Turek talking about Social Security, including an article in the Iowa Capital Dispatch that quoted him saying it was “ridiculous” that wealthy Americans didn’t pay any taxes to Social Security on income above $184,500. 

Kansas 

• Democrat Adam Hamilton’s website states: “We need to protect social security and provide real solutions for seniors.” A campaign staffer sent an article from the Johnson County Post quoting Hamilton as saying, “Both parties have kicked the can down the road, and the only way this gets solved is if Republicans and Democrats act together. And there’s movement: Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, and Bernie Moreno, a Republican, are working on bipartisan legislation to lift the payroll tax cap. That’s where I’d start. Right now only the first $184,500 of income is subject to Social Security tax, so somebody making $50,000 pays that tax on every dollar they earn while a person making millions pays on a small fraction. Raising the cap is the best lever we have to keep the program solvent without cutting benefits. I think about my mom, who’s on Social Security now. A cut is not an option for her, and it shouldn’t be for anyone.” 

• Republican Roger Marshall didn’t have any policy positions on his campaign website and staff didn’t respond to multiple requests for more information. 

Maine

• Republican Susan Collins’ campaign website has one paragraph mentioning her work enacting a law that increased Social Security benefits for millions of Americans who had pensions after working in government or other public-sector jobs. Collins wrote in a statement that she supports “creating an independent, bipartisan commission of experts to develop recommendations —similar to the one in the early 1980s. I have supported proposals calling for such a commission for Congress to consider.” Collins added that she remains “committed to keeping Social Security strong for current and future generations. It’s a critical program and the foundation of retirement income for most Mainers, and I’ve voted repeatedly to preserve it.” 

• Democrat Troy Jackson’s website says he would “protect” Social Security and notes he published an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News saying he would eliminate the $184,500 payroll cap and raise benefits. He wrote he would “never” vote to raise the retirement age or privatize the program. Campaign spokesperson Maggie Amjad wrote in an email that, “Troy is committed to protecting Social Security from cuts and ensuring that Mainers receive the secure retirement and benefits they’ve paid into and earned.” She added that if elected, “he’ll work to scrap the cap and require millionaires to pay Social Security taxes on their income, allow Medicare to negotiate the price of every drug, eliminate profiteering and waste, and expand benefits—not raise the retirement age.” 

Michigan

• Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s website says he would “fight to close the Social Security payroll tax cap to make sure the rich pay their fair share so that Social Security stays solvent well into the future.” Campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak wrote in an email that El-Sayed would “ensure our seniors get the benefits they earned through a lifetime of labor.” 

• Republican Mike Rogers doesn’t have any policy details on this campaign website. But communications director Alyssa Brouillet wrote in an email that Rogers is committed to protecting the program since his “parents survived on social security, as do his wife, Kristi’s, parents.” Brouillet added that Rogers “is committed to protecting social security and Medicare for our seniors.” 

New Hampshire 

• Democrat Chris Pappas’ campaign website says he “will never vote to cut benefits or force seniors to work longer for less. He has fought against efforts to raise the retirement age, slash Social Security benefits, and privatize the entire system, a move that would gamble Granite Staters’ hard-earned benefits in the stock market and benefit Wall Street. Chris is committed to shoring up and improving Social Security to ensure that current retirees and future generations can trust that their benefits will be there.”

• Republican John Sununu didn’t have any policy details on his campaign website and staff didn’t respond to multiple requests for more information. 

North Carolina 

• Democrat Roy Cooper didn’t have any policy proposals on his campaign website and staff didn’t respond to multiple requests for more information. 

• Republican Michael Whatley didn’t have any policy positions on his campaign website and staff didn’t respond to multiple requests for more information.  

Ohio 

• Democrat Sherrod Brown’s website says that because of the Social Security Fairness Act, a broadly bipartisan bill that became law in 2024, more than 2 million “former teachers, bus drivers, police officers, firefighters, and other workers are now receiving their full Social Security payments that previously were withheld by the federal government.” A campaign spokesperson didn’t provide any details about what types of policy changes Brown would support in the future to avoid the automatic benefit cut, responding to States Newsroom’s request for policy details with criticisms of Husted. 

• Republican Jon Husted didn’t have any policy details on his campaign website and staff didn’t respond to multiple requests for more information.  

Texas

• Republican Ken Paxton’s website doesn’t have any policy proposals related to Social Security. A campaign staffer responded in an email that Paxton “believes we must protect Social Security for the millions of seniors who spent their lives paying into the system and are counting on the benefits they earned.” The campaign staffer also said that Paxton “will continue to stand behind lowering taxes and ensuring Social Security remains protected for generations to come.” The campaign didn’t explain how exactly Paxton would do that if he became a senator. 

• Democrat James Talarico’s website says he would support “eliminating the tax cap on those earning over $400,000 a year, and incentivize employer-sponsored pensions.” A campaign staffer wrote in an email that Talarico would eliminate the $184,500 payroll tax ceiling for Social Security. He would also “support creating a tax system in which every dollar of income over $400,000 is taxed to fund Social Security. This policy would include a tax ramp-up starting at $400,001 that grows with additional income. This would ensure the top 2% of American earners are doing their part to keep this program solvent, without increasing the tax burden on the middle class during a cost-of-living crisis.” The campaign staffer wrote that Talarico wouldn’t support increasing the retirement age at which Americans can begin collecting Social Security benefits or reduce scheduled benefits.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ohio has the fourth-most data centers of any state, and after being forced to provide $2.3 billion in subsidies via tax breaks, taxpayers are questioning whether they’re really a good thing.

The centers have  more than doubled the state’s electricity consumption, they generate noise and air pollution, the AI they generate is causing serious social harms, leaders of the big AI companies warn of possible calamities, and they’ve predicted that their machines will take millions of Americans’ jobs.

With these concerns in the background, the Columbus firm Scioto Analysis undertook a straight dollars-and-cents look at future data center development in Ohio. 

The Buckeye State ranks only behind Virginia, Texas and California in the number of data centers. And the gargantuan facilities are poised to move into rural parts of Ohio and other Midwestern states in a big way.

“About 87% of current data centers in the United States are in urban areas, while 67% of planned data centers across the country are in rural areas, driven by the land and power requirements of modern hyperscale facilities,” the Scioto Analysis report said.

“Data centers in the Midwest are expected to grow by the highest percentage: a projected 64% increase compared to current data centers. As of 2026, 38% of Americans live within five miles of at least one operational data center.”

One criticism of data center economics is that while they create initial construction jobs, once completed they only require a skeleton staff to make sure the machines keep running.

The Scioto Analysis study credits data center development with 96,000 new jobs and $62 billion in social benefits to Ohio since 2013, but it also asks what new benefits they’ll create going forward.

A big factor in that is the huge electricity drain they’ll create and the social cost of all the pollution it will generate, the study notes.

“If every planned project comes online by 2028, the number of data centers in Ohio will increase by half, their annual energy draw will more than triple, and their annual carbon emissions will more than triple,” the cost-benefit analysis says.

“In 2026, Ohio data centers use enough electricity to power 5.7 million homes, which is more than the 5.4 million homes in Ohio. By 2028, we predict they will use enough electricity to power about 3.5 times as many homes as there are in Ohio.”

Rob Moore, the principal of Scioto Analysis, said it’s important not to forget about the cost a business enterprise imposes on third parties — such as that which pollution imposes on the public.

“While data centers present a new category of high-intensity energy use in the state, they still present the same problems as transportation, manufacturing or power generation in general: emissions that are not priced will lead to local air-quality issues, lung and heart conditions and higher levels of carbon emissions,” Moore said in a text message.  

He and his team looked at five scenarios and ran 10,000 simulations of what would happen between 2027 and 2034 with different variables. 

The values the analysis arrived at are expressed in terms of “benefit-cost ratio.” Maintaining the status quo scored 1.04, meaning benefits only slightly outweighed costs.

Benefit-cost ratios for the other scenarios, in descending order of public benefit:

• Data center generates its own power, 10% gas, 90% renewable — 2.9

• Ban on new data center construction — 2.7

• Data center generates its own power, 50% gas, 50% renewable — 2.5

• Data center generates its own power, 90% natural gas, 10% renewable — 2.2

In other words, according to the analysis, forcing renewables to be used to generate power and an outright ban on new data center constructions would be the biggest improvement over what we’re doing now.

“A ban on construction produces a higher net present value and benefit-cost ratio than the status quo,” the report said. “This is because most employment benefits from existing data centers remain, while the cost of higher electricity prices to ratepayers falls. 

“A behind-the-meter requirement with 90% natural gas produces about the same net present value, but a lower benefit-cost ratio. A behind-the-meter requirement with 90% renewables produces both the highest net present value and the highest benefit-cost ratio.”

The analysis came with an important caveat, however. If data centers produce more jobs than expected, a ban or a heavy renewable requirement won’t look so good.

“Our results depend heavily on our employment assumptions,” it said. “If we are overestimating how much data centers raise employment and earnings, even a ban or a 90% renewables requirement could have a negative net present value. If we are underestimating these effects, every alternative looks much better. Across our other tests, the status quo is the alternative most likely to have costs that exceed its benefits.”

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Nov. 3 referendum, in the middle of a presidential term, is essentially a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the status quo. You either like the way things are going or you don’t.

The outcome of this off-year election will show as much about Ohio voters as it does the candidates on the ballot. What will it say about us in 2026?

In 2024, over 3-million Ohioans voted for Donald Trump giving him, as he boasted at a weekend rally in the state, “the highest vote total in the history of Ohio.”

He returned to Vandalia, for first time since his 2024 campaign stop at the Dayton airport, to galvanize support for Ohio Republicans in tight races for the U.S. Senate and governor.

His profanity-laced, hour-and-a-half speech at Butler High School was pointedly crude. So much for presidential decorum.

His sales pitch (?) for electing appointed U.S. Sen. Jon Husted and gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy “even if you hate” them was lousy.

He promoted data centers with Husted and Ramaswamy under fire for them. Trump, who’s approval rating on the economy has dropped to an all-time low, told rallygoers Ohio’s economy is “booming” just days before a nearby truck factory laid off 1,400 workers.

He derided Haitian immigrants down the road in Springfield, the same day the community buried one of its own, a 20-year-old college student who reportedly took his own life over the shame of wearing a conspicuous ICE ankle monitor.

He singled out a female reporter again for personal attacks — as the approving crowd in the high school gym erupted in loud boos.

Rally attendees chanted “Deport!” when Trump made several false statements about Springfield’s Haitians, inferred that they ruined a “beautiful, idyllic” town, and promised that it will soon be better because “they’re all being brought back to their country.” 

(Most of the immigrants living and working in the metro Springfield area arrived legally through Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian relief program for people fleeing countries unsafe from violence and disasters).

The Trump administration abruptly ended TPS for Haiti — considered too dangerous for American travel due to extreme risks of violent “crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest and limited health care” — but apparently fine for terrified Ohio Haitians sentenced to a life-threatening fate. “Deport! Deport! Deport!”

While massive chants swept the Trump rally in a Dayton suburb, hundreds of Ohioans, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife, grieved in Springfield and agonized over the inhumanity that had killed a promising young man.

“This country needs people like Pierre Damas Bel,” said DeWine after Bel’s heartbreaking funeral. “We need people who are smart, hard-working, who seek their own version of the American dream. We need these people. We needed him.” 

But even after the 20-year-old died, as the news paralyzed his family and friends with fresh, unbearable pain, the anti-immigrant hostility expressed at the Trump rally appeared online.

“One less plane ticket that we have to pay for” said one callous post on X.

Yet as ICE activity has escalated dramatically across Ohio, following federal termination of TPS nationals from countries such as Haiti, Syria, and Yemen, recent polling in the state showed a majority of voters disapprove of brutal Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics (that brought down Bel) despite strong support for border security.

Thumbs down to masked, armed thugs in unmarked vehicles indiscriminately targeting people with no criminal background (including American citizens) who have the wrong skin color but thumbs up to secure borders done right. 

A majority of Ohio voter also think their state is on the wrong track economically, regardless of Trump’s bluster. They give the state a fair/poor rating with Trump’s job approval at 35%.

Affordability tops Ohioans concerns weeks away from the election as inflation outpaces income and costs climb on everything from childcare, utilities, housing, groceries, health care, and gasoline.

A temporary gas tax pause, enacted in a day by state lawmakers as a pre-election gimmick, hardly puts anyone on easy street.

Trump’s endless war of choice in Iran continues to drive up gas and diesel prices along with products you buy that now cost more to move and his reckless tariffs have hit families and businesses hard.

He may draw cheers from his diehard fans about the “golden age” he has supposedly brought to Ohio, but many Ohioans aren’t feeling it.

Polls also show most do not buy Trump’s upbeat spiel on Ohio’s rapid data center expansion — greenlit by state and local governments with zero transparency or community input.

Ohioans are sharing space with over 200 gigantic data centers that consume vast amounts of energy and millions of gallons of water daily while generating continuous noise pollution and air emissions from backup generators.

They are subsidizing tech companies worth trillions with higher utility bills and insane tax breaks while AI giants strain grids and deplete local resources with no public guardrails or value benefit to the community in permanent jobs.

But Trump dismissed data center concerns as he praised Husted, who once touted them, for a futile attempt to pass a “toothless” Senate bill with optional ratepayer protections that states would only be required to consider without any actual safeguards around paying for data center energy use. 

Ohioans have come to a reckoning. On all of the above. We know where the candidates land from rallies to funerals. But what will this election say about us?

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

On Tuesday, Trump issued an executive order to expand access to tax-free diesel fuel nationwide, following the lead of several governors who have taken the same step.

Trump signed the order at a Nebraska rally, promising U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts and Gov. Jim Pillen, both Republicans, that “this should absolutely ensure your election, I guarantee you that,” the Associated Press reported.

In at least four states — Georgia, Indiana, Ohio and Utah — leaders have moved to temporarily suspend or reduce the state tax on gasoline.

Ohio lawmakers voted last month to approve a 90-day gas tax holiday, a move called for by both the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor.

While many Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the bill, some Democratic leaders called the measure a last-ditch effort to salvage the GOP’s electoral prospects, the Ohio Capital Journal reported.

“If this had been so important, we would have acted (earlier this year), but we didn’t,” said Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, a Democrat. “They said we have nothing more to take up until after the election, and then suddenly they got polling numbers, and the polling numbers told them they were behind.”

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp suspended the state’s gas tax with an executive order, as did Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun.

And Utah lawmakers voted earlier this year to temporarily reduce the gas tax by 15%.

Meanwhile, 10 states had reduced restrictions on the use of tax-exempt diesel fuel prior to Trump’s order that loosened those restrictions nationwide.

That fuel, known as red-dyed diesel, is normally only allowed for off-highway agricultural, industrial and railroad use, according to the North Dakota Monitor. Some governors have issued executive orders expanding the use of red-dyed diesel, which is not taxed like regular diesel,  in a bid to help farmers and truckers with transportation costs.

North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina and Indiana have all issued similar orders, according to the Associated Press.

“Texas agriculture and freight run on diesel,” Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement, according to the Texas Tribune. “Record prices put both industries at risk and raise costs for every Texas family.”

Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee also issued an order Tuesday allowing farmers and loggers to use red-dyed diesel on public roads, at the urging of state lawmakers.

In other states, leaders are facing pressure to take similar action.

Legislative leaders in North Carolina have called for a special session on fuel prices. Some lawmakers there have suggested that the state could use surplus revenue from state reserves to pay for road projects while temporarily suspending the gas tax.

The Iowa Corn Growers Association is urging lawmakers there to follow suit, while asking them to push the Trump administration to release oil from the U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve.

In Kentucky, Republican Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell has asked Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to also roll back restrictions on untaxed diesel. And Connecticut Republicans have proposed a three-month holiday on fuel taxes, while Democrats have countered that they should focus on ending Trump’s war with Iran.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The funding will support substance use treatment, peer support, case management, employment assistance and other services intended to help participants maintain sobriety, reduce repeat offenses and rebuild their lives, according to a news release from the Seneca County Common Pleas Court.

PIVOT, which stands for Participating in Victory of Transition, is a specialized recovery court serving individuals with substance use disorders. Rather than relying solely on traditional criminal sentencing, the program combines judicial supervision with treatment, accountability and services designed to address addiction and its effects on participants’ lives.

According to the Common Pleas Court’s program description, PIVOT lasts a minimum of 15 months and consists of five phases. Participants regularly appear before Common Pleas Judges Steve C. Shuff and Damon D. Alt and Tiffin-Fostoria Municipal Court Judge Rhonda L. Best, who monitor their progress through treatment and recovery.

The program includes drug testing, meetings with probation officers and case managers, mental health services, employment assistance and support in securing stable housing. Participants must meet specific requirements to advance through each phase, with the frequency of court appearances and supervision generally decreasing as they progress.

“This investment reflects the State of Ohio’s continued commitment to evidence-based recovery programs that change lives,” Shuff and Alt said in a joint statement. “The PIVOT Recovery Program gives individuals the tools and support they need to overcome addiction, become productive members of the community, and build a better future for themselves and their families.”

The new award continues a history of outside funding for the local recovery court. PIVOT previously received $157,665 from the OneOhio Recovery Foundation, which distributes funding from opioid-related settlements to support addiction prevention, treatment and recovery efforts across Ohio.

County officials have also previously secured state and federal grants to support PIVOT and probation services, reducing the amount of local funding needed to operate those programs.

The latest announcement did not specify the grant’s funding period, how many participants it is expected to serve or whether it requires a local financial match.

Shuff and Alt thanked the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for its continued support. The judges said PIVOT will continue working with local treatment providers and community organizations to help participants achieve long-term recovery while addressing repeat criminal behavior.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The allegations became public on Nov. 10, 2025, when Ohio political journalist D.J. Byrnes reported the investigation in The Rooster. Exactly one month later, on Dec. 10, Husted’s campaign published a statewide leadership graphic identifying Click as its Sandusky County campaign chair. On March 19, 2026, the campaign promoted Click’s endorsement as part of a list of Republican state lawmakers backing Husted’s Senate bid.

Both campaign announcements remained online as of Oct. 6, according to dated screenshots reviewed by TiffinOhio.net. The sequence establishes that Husted’s campaign continued publicly elevating Click after the allegations and police investigation were already matters of public record.

The underlying police investigation had ended before the first public report. The person identified in the child welfare referral as the alleged victim denied being abused, Click denied the accusations, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation declined to pursue the matter further.

Police investigated Click before Husted’s campaign announcement

The Fremont Police Department received a referral from the Oregon Department of Human Services on Sept. 29, 2025, concerning allegations that Click and the father of an 18-year-old had physically and sexually abused the person during childhood, according to police records obtained by TiffinOhio.net.

The referral, based on a report from an unidentified third party, alleged that the person had been beaten, starved and sexually abused. Click was identified as the person’s former pastor at Fremont Baptist Temple, where he had served as lead pastor for 19 years.

Fremont Det. Sgt. Matthew Ranazzi located the person identified in the referral. They denied the allegations, telling police they had never reported being abused by Click or their father and did not remember Click doing anything to them.

When detectives contacted Click on Oct. 1, he told police he did not remember the person but acknowledged that they “might have been a member of his church.” Asked about the person’s father, Click said he did not know him “off the top of his head.” Click denied ever physically or sexually abusing anyone.

The Fremont investigation was closed after the person’s denial. BCI, which reviewed the matter because Click was a sitting state representative, informed Fremont police on Oct. 8 that it would not investigate further.

Byrnes publicly reported the case on Nov. 10. When subsequently confronted on camera, Click maintained his innocence, describing himself as having a “clean conscience,” “squeaky clean” and “ivory clean.”

Yet the following month, Husted’s campaign publicly identified Click as one of the county-level leaders responsible for its statewide political operation. The March endorsement announcement placed Click among the Republican lawmakers whose support the campaign was advertising to voters.

Click’s previous comments about young girls drew scrutiny

The police investigation is not the first controversy involving Click that has intersected with Husted’s Senate campaign.

In April, TiffinOhio.net reported that Husted’s campaign had continued promoting Click after video resurfaced of the lawmaker describing what he said young girls had told him about their sexual experiences.

During April 19, 2023, sponsor testimony for House Bill 68, legislation restricting gender-affirming medical care for minors, Click told the Ohio House Public Health Policy Committee that young girls had described experiencing painful sex.

“Young girls who’ve gone through this have told me it is very, very painful to have sex because of the hormones and the hormone blockers that they have received,” Click said during testimony captured on video.

Click has not publicly identified those individuals or explained when and in what capacity he spoke with them about their sexual experiences. That testimony is separate from the allegations investigated by Fremont police, and the available records do not establish any connection between them.

Click also quietly stepped down from his leadership position at Fremont Baptist Temple at the end of March 2025, six months before the police referral. His departure was not publicly reported until February 2026, when TiffinOhio.net discovered that the church was still presenting him as its pastor despite his transition to pastor emeritus.

Another Husted campaign chair resigned after a case involving a minor surfaced

Husted’s campaign has already lost another county chairman over a separate criminal case involving a minor.

In July, Andrew Havas, whom the campaign had named as a Franklin County chair, resigned after NBC News questioned the campaign about his 2009 guilty plea in a case involving a 15-year-old.

Havas had originally faced a sexual misconduct charge that was reduced to misdemeanor assault. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

Husted campaign spokesperson Amy Natoce told NBC News that Havas had not disclosed his history to the campaign.

“Upon learning the facts, we immediately accepted his resignation as a campaign volunteer,” Natoce said.

The Havas case involved a criminal conviction, unlike the unsubstantiated allegations against Click, which were denied by the person identified as the alleged victim. But the campaign’s handling of Havas established that it was willing to remove a county chairman after his background attracted public scrutiny.

Click’s name, meanwhile, remained on the Sandusky County leadership announcement and the legislative endorsement graphic as of Oct. 6.

Campaign relationship extends into Northwest Ohio

Click represents Ohio’s 88th House District, which includes Seneca and Sandusky counties. He is seeking reelection against Democrat Aaron Jones, a Tiffin city councilman and U.S. Army veteran.

Husted, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Gov. Mike DeWine in January 2025, is running against former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the Nov. 3 special election.

For Husted, Click’s role is more than an endorsement from another Republican officeholder. The senator’s campaign designated him as a county-level political leader in a region where both candidates will appear on voters’ ballots.

The campaign’s public announcements document Click’s designation and its subsequent promotion of his endorsement. They do not establish whether Click continues to perform active campaign duties or whether Husted’s organization has changed his responsibilities privately.

What the record does establish is that the allegations against Click were already public when Husted’s campaign advertised his county leadership role in December, and remained public when the campaign promoted his endorsement three months later.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The focus by activists comes amid uncertainty among advocates and election officials over what Trump may do before, during and after Election Day. Some organizations are preparing to deploy volunteers to the polls to help assure voters in places where fear of federal intimidation may run high.

On Tuesday, several groups — including the Save America Movement, the American Federation of Teachers labor union and the National Action Network — launched Vote Safe, an initiative that will put local volunteers at polling locations in areas where they say pressure on Black, Latino and Asian voters is highest. 

The program will include Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio. The volunteers will document any intimidation and serve as a reassuring presence for voters, organizers said.

“The fear is the point and we must do something about it,” Mary Corcoran, executive director of the Save America Movement, a nonpartisan pro-democracy group, said on a call with reporters. “Left unaddressed, fear does the work of keeping people home without a single agent setting foot at a polling place.”

Volunteers will include clergy members, veterans, teachers and others trained to provide clear answers on voters’ rights, Corcoran said.

In Ohio, where Vote Safe will launch on the first day of early voting, Republican Sen. Jon Husted is facing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. Springfield, Ohio, also has a large Haitian immigrant population that has been repeatedly attacked by Trump, who is seeking to deport them.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader who founded the National Action Network, suggested on Tuesday’s press call that some Americans in Ohio fear they could also be detained or even deported by ICE because of their skin color.

“‘You don’t understand, any Black looks like a Haitian in Ohio,’” Sharpton said, recalling a previous conversation with a journalist in Ohio. “You’ve got to prove you were from Alabama, not Port-au-Prince, after you’re deported.”

ProPublica reported on Tuesday that more than 500 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents during the second Trump administration. About a dozen citizens, mostly children, have been deported.

What Trump has said

Trump, who has long made false claims about stolen elections and voter fraud, has maintained ambiguity surrounding what election-related actions he may take after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his plan to use the U.S. Postal Service to restrict mail ballots. Congress also didn’t pass the SAVE America Act, a measure he championed that would require voters to offer documentary proof of citizenship.

In a recent TIME magazine interview, Trump said he hadn’t thought of deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents to the polls. 

But he also left open the possibility of declaring a national emergency, which legal experts say would give him no power over elections. Under the Constitution, states administer elections, not the federal government.

Earlier this year, Trump told reporters he would “do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said ICE agents can serve warrants at election sites, despite a ban on armed federal personnel at polling places. At the same time, DHS has denied any plans to target polling places.

DOJ election monitors

The Department of Justice’s plans to deploy 1,000 election monitors at polling places has also fueled concern among Democrats and voting rights advocates — and some Republicans. 

While the DOJ regularly dispatches monitors each election cycle, the scope of the effort and Trump’s history of pressuring election officials has led to unease about how the monitors will behave. 

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, earlier this year expressed reservations about Justice Department monitors, calling their actions “very odd” after DOJ personnel watched voting in the state’s primary election. 

On Monday, the NAACP sued the Justice Department for records about its election monitor program, alleging the DOJ didn’t comply with Freedom of Information Act timelines.

“Americans deserve to know whether the Justice Department is abusing its law enforcement powers to the detriment of voters and the election officials tasked with running our elections,” Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel, said in a statement.

Justice Department spokesperson ​​Kiersten Pels wrote in an email to States Newsroom that monitors comply with all legal and ethical requirements. Pels added that they don’t interfere with the voting process and that their work “is consistent with longstanding Department practice of monitoring elections for compliance with federal law.”

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche dismissed concerns about the monitors in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” While confirming plans for about 1,000 monitors, he emphasized that the department sends out monitors every federal election.

“They’re not going to Republican states, they’re not going to Democrat states. They’re going to every state to make sure that our elections are carried out legally, fairly and appropriately,” Blanche said.

After Election Day

The preparations by civic groups also include post-election planning for potential disruptions to vote counting or attempts to overturn losses.

The FBI seized ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, in January. The then-director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was present at the raid at Trump’s request, underscoring its importance to the president. 

The Justice Department also spent months seeking information on election workers in Fulton County during the 2020 election before a federal judge quashed the subpoena in July.

The raid raised questions among activists and election experts about whether federal law enforcement would seek search warrants to obtain ballots after Election Day.

Ballot seizures are a point of concern, said Andrew Walchuk, senior policy director and counsel for voting and fair representation at Common Cause, a voting rights group. The raid was “an alert” to election offices that a seizure is something they need to prepare for, Walchuk said.

“It is definitely something that groups across the country are ready for, that we’re watching,” Walchuk told reporters last week.

Like other groups, Common Cause’s election preparations include training a network of volunteers who can help voters and identify potential problems. In Texas alone, more than 400 volunteers are already, said Marliza Marin, Common Cause’s Texas program manager. 

“It’s kind of unheard of to have this many volunteers already trained,” Marin said.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Senate Majority PAC, which is run by allies of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, has bought ad time, or has commitments to do so, in nine states, Lauren French, the group’s chief spokesperson told reporters Tuesday. 

Those states — Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — show Democrats are competing this cycle in typically Republican places. Elections analysts generally say those states are toss-ups or lean Democratic.

The Democratic super PAC’s slate, though, is not as expansive as some of the latest public polls and forecaster ratings show could be in play.

The group is “watching really closely” the races in GOP strongholds of Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi and Kansas, French said. 

At least one of those states, Kansas, could be in play for the first time in decades, according to elections forecaster The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, which moved it into the toss-up category Tuesday.

“Broadly, we are very pleased with the state of the race right now,” French said. “We are invested in nine battleground states and are looking very closely at some of the expansion states that are coming (into) play as we get four weeks from the election and the environment continues to be increasingly rough for Republicans.”

An expanded Senate map is available to Democrats because of President Donald Trump’s unpopularity, especially tied to the Iran war and related high gas prices, French said. Trump’s approval rating is lower than his disapproval rating “in every battleground state,” she added.

North Carolina moves

Opportunities for Republicans appear to be shrinking, with North Carolina moving further toward Democrats. 

Cook shifted the race from lean Democrat to likely Democrat on Tuesday, after the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, said last week it was freezing future spending in the state.

French said the Senate Majority PAC also canceled its television and digital spending this week in the race for the seat left open by retiring Republican Thom Tillis. The group has not made decisions on spending in the Tar Heel State beyond this week, she said.

Republicans hold cash edge

While the national political environment favors Democrats, the GOP and its fellow campaign groups maintain a massive cash advantage against Democrats.

Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., held more than $400 million at the end of August, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission. Senate Majority PAC showed around $57 million on hand in the same report.

Fundraising numbers for official party committees also significantly favor Republicans. 

The Republican National Committee and the party’s campaign groups supporting House and Senate candidates outraised their Democratic counterparts by about $100 million through Aug. 31, according to an analysis by nonpartisan elections analyst Ballopedia. 

Republicans have largely aimed to portray Democrats as too far to the left to capably manage Congress.

“Voters have a clear choice this November between Republicans who will fight for them and radical, socialist Democrats who would serve as rubber stamps for Chuck Schumer’s Washington machine,” Bernadette Breslin, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement.

Rare pickup opportunities

Still, the Senate Majority PAC’s bullish sentiment broadly matches expert opinion, as forecasters continue to see a strong case for Democrats to pick up Senate seats. Republicans now control the Senate with 53 seats.

The elections handicapper Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved two Senate races in Democrats’ direction Tuesday. 

The group labeled Alaska as leaning toward Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola in her challenge to incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan, and shifted U.S. Sen. Darline Graham’s race in South Carolina from safe Republican to likely Republican. Graham was appointed to the seat when her late brother died, won a Republican primary election and is now seeking a six-year term.

Overall, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which operates at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, rates 49 seats, including those of incumbents not on the ballot this year, as at least leaning toward the Democrat, with four seen as toss-ups. 

Democrats, who now hold 47 seats, would need to net 51 seats to win a majority because Vice President JD Vance casts tie-breaking votes.

A flip in control of the chamber would significantly slow Trump’s nominees to the federal bench and executive branch posts. 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

As President Donald Trump’s war with Iran has continued, the rising cost of diesel fuel has been felt by all consumers, even if they don’t buy diesel fuel at the pump.

That’s because 96.8% of commercial semi-trucks, nearly all U.S. freight trains, and virtually all cargo ships are powered by diesel or its distillate cousin, fuel oil. Jet fuel, too, is a “middle distillate,” and competes with diesel and fuel oil for refinery output.

So nearly all the food and consumer goods that Ohioans buy traveled most of the way to their house on the power of diesel or a related fuel.

In Ohio on Sept. 22, diesel hit its highest average price on record — $6.80 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.

Those prices appear to be getting more volatile and heading generally upward at a time when diesel prices are already playing a big role in the affordability crisis that’s plaguing millions of Americans, said Dayton-based data analyst Eric Pachman.

He built a data visualization showing that as diesel goes up, so does the fuel surcharge for everything consumers buy.

In September 2025, the surcharge was 11% to 14%, depending on whether goods are shipped by truck or rail. By this September it was 21% to 27%.

If diesel goes to $10 a gallon, the fuel surcharge will be 30% to 37%, according to Pachman’s model.

He now runs the nonprofit Data 4 the People, which seeks to use high-level analysis to inform journalism and public policy. He previously held senior roles doing data analysis, modeling and engineering in a number of fields, including energy, transportation and finance.

According to another data visualization Pachman built, diesel reserves are the lowest they’ve been for this time of year at least since 1980. 

That, Pachman explained, makes the entire system vulnerable to all kinds of potential problems.

One is that global demand for U.S.-produced diesel shot up because of supply disruptions caused by the war with Iran. 

Refineries are highly complex facilities and they periodically shut down to do scheduled maintenance in a process called “turnaround” that typically takes place in the spring or fall.

Now, with global demand so high, refineries are delaying their turnarounds to take advantage of the huge profits that are available, Pachman said.

“They’re saying, ‘We’ll take our chances,’” he said. “And guess what just happened? A refinery broke down and it was one in the Midwest. When you saw a big jump in diesel prices, it was because of that. This is going on everywhere. You’re laying one risk on top of the next risk on top of the next risk.” 

He was referring to the ExxonMobile refinery in Joliet, Ill., that went offline Sept. 13 and took weeks to restart. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, diesel prices in the Midwest jumped from $6.25 a gallon on Sept. 14 to $6.68 a week later.

Pachman said refineries are running full bore and reserves are at an all-time low at exactly the wrong time of year — heading into winter. Particularly in the Northeast, fuel oil is widely used for heating, and demand for it will go up as temperatures go down.

“If we use more heating oil we have less diesel and that’s why refineries try to stock up, and you can clearly see from this chart going into the winter,” he said, referring to his reserve visualization. “Week 38 (of 2026) is where we try to peak out on our inventories and drop down from there.”

As the stresses in the system grow, it becomes more volatile, making progressively crazier outcomes more likely, Pachman said.

“The reason I think $10 is a distinct possibility is because things don’t move linearly,” he said. “At a certain point, people just freak out about stuff. We haven’t reached that point. Things have gradually risen as supply has drained to the lowest levels on record. There’s been no freakout yet. But I’d say it’s a distinct possibility or even a reasonable probability.”

As for finding a way to post such prices on truck-stops’ signs, Fortune on Sept. 10, reported that in California, they hadn’t. The story was titled “$9.999 and maxed out: California diesel prices overwhelm pump displays as global supply crunch worsens.”

Diesel retailers Marathon Oil, Pilot Travel Centers and BP were asked if they thought diesel could go to $10 in Ohio, and whether they planned to adjust their signs if it did. None responded.

With no resolution of the war in sight, measures have been proposed to ease the pain at U.S. truck stops. Neither effectively addresses the underlying problem, Pachman said.

Ohio last week suspended the 47-cent-a-gallon diesel tax until Jan. 2. That means the state will lose about $725 million from gasoline and diesel taxes.

It’s money that builds and maintains roads, bridges and waterways. The state will replace any funds local governments might lose, but that’s still public money that won’t be available for any other purpose.

That’s happening as more than 500,000 Ohioans are expected to lose health coverage due to changes at the federal level. More than 100,000 Ohioans had already lost federal food assistance by July as a consequence of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Pachman said the fuel tax holiday also warps the proper functioning of the marketplace. 

When goods become scarce, they get more expensive, and that motivates people to use less, find alternatives, or both. When the Ohio legislature artificially made diesel 47 cents cheaper, it short-circuited part of that dynamic, Pachman said.

Partly due to its refining capacity, the U.S. is the largest diesel exporter in the world. Present circumstances make that a problem.

“The war screwed all that up,” Pachman said. “Not only do we not have enough for us, we’re also still exporting it.”

Some farm-state lawmakers are still pushing an export ban on diesel even after Trump said he wouldn’t support one. Pachman said such a ban is a lot more complicated than it might sound.

“On the surface it might sound like a good idea,” he said. “But it could make everything worse because it could create such a global shortage that in Europe it could shoot prices through the roof and create chaos and raise prices here because we’re all linked.”

There are reasons to believe that even without a ban, diesel won’t go to $10 a gallon in the Buckeye State. But one would be bitter medicine if it happens.

Escalating global debt — due partly to spiking energy costs — is creating volatility in the bond markets. And worries are growing that the entire economy is propped up by a tech bubble that’s about to burst.

If the economy tanks due to those dynamics, diesel probably won’t reach $10, Pachman said. But it isn’t something to look forward to.

“One reason I think it might not happen is you may destroy demand,” he said. “At a certain point in time, people may stop buying because it’s too expensive.”

He added, “But that’s not a reason to celebrate — if we go into another Great Recession.”

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

In June, the Ohio Capital Journal reported the Ramaswamy campaign had racked up nearly half a million dollars on a credit card without reporting details about the expenditures.

Since then, Ramaswamy’s team has revised its campaign finance reports. Expenditures previously obscured behind a single credit card reimbursement are now broken down into individual line items.

The secretary’s office has also fulfilled Ohio Capital Journal’s public records request for supporting documentation related to the campaign’s reports.

Despite that, there’s room to quibble with the no violation finding, Smith said. The revised reports, for instance, list the payees and amounts, but instead of reporting those transactions on the date they occurred, each one is listed on the date the campaign paid its credit card statement.

Smith is also frustrated the secretary’s office still hasn’t responded to his request for correspondence with Ramaswamy’s campaign.

“There’s one of two conclusions,” Smith said. “(Ohio Secretary of State Frank) LaRose is letting the billionaire candidate skate on the rules, or LaRose and his office, to the best of their ability, are trying to make Ramaswamy come into compliance, and he’s completely ignoring it.”

“You would think that the correspondence between the offices would satisfy that curiosity,” he added.

The Capital Journal sought comment from the Secretary of State’s office and Vivek Ramaswmay’s campaign for this story. Neither responded.

The background

Starting with its very first campaign finance report in 2025, Ramaswamy’s campaign reported thousands of dollars in monthly campaign expenditures as a single credit card reimbursement.

Early on, those expenditures were relatively small. In April of 2025, for instance, the campaign reported about $6,700 on its American Express card.

A year later, the campaign reported more than $96,000 on its credit card in one month.

State law requires campaigns to report what they spent, who they paid, what they purchased and when it happened. By reporting its monthly credit card statement, the campaign was able to obscure nearly all those reporting requirements.

The Ohio Capital Journal first reported the campaign’s unusual credit card use in April ahead of the primary election and filed a public records request with the Secretary of State’s office.

The Ramaswamy campaign’s pattern of credit card use continued on its post-primary campaign finance report in June.

The Capital Journal again requested public records from the Secretary of State and asked a series of questions about his office’s efforts to correct the campaign’s reporting.

In August, the secretary’s office responded to the records request with supporting documents for the campaign’s reports. The secretary never responded to the Ohio Capital Journal’s questions.

The complaint process

Following the Capital Journal’s story, Sen. Smith filed complaints with the Ohio Election Integrity Unit and requested correspondence between the secretary and the Ramaswamy campaign.

He described getting pushback to his complaint from the secretary’s office, explaining that Ramaswamy’s team was correcting its reports.

Smith didn’t retract his complaints, and on Sept. 16, the Ohio Election Integrity Unit sent him its findings of “no violation.”

Unlike the Ohio Elections Commission, which was a politically independent body charged with overseeing campaign finance law, the Ohio Election Integrity Unit operates within the secretary’s office.

The Ohio Elections Commission was eliminated by Republican state lawmakers and the new unit was put under the partisan elected office of the Secretary of State.

The letters emphasize the secretary’s role in the decision.

“After careful consideration of the evidence,” they read, “the Election Integrity Unit has recommended, and the Secretary of State adopted, the following finding(s).”

LaRose, who is running as the Republican candidate for state auditor this November, has endorsed Ramaswamy and appeared alongside him at several campaign events.

Catherine Turcer from the government watchdog group Common Cause Ohio, doesn’t see a problem with the unit’s finding.

The goal of campaign finance law, she explained, often isn’t to penalize committees who get their filings wrong — it’s to get them to fix the problem.

“It makes sense for the Secretary of State’s office to alert them as soon as possible,” Turcer said, “and to try to get the information as quickly as possible, so that voters actually have information when they can use it.”

Under the previous system, she said, audits or commission decisions could come a year or more after the fact. Turcer also has no immediate issue with the secretary’s role in the decision-making process.

“I always appreciate when it’s honest,” she said. “It makes it very clear that at the end of the day, the secretary of state is deciding — that the unit made a recommendation, the secretary of state is making a decision.”

“What is a problem,” she added, “is that it’s not clear that the person who complained can actually appeal this to the commission.”

When lawmakers nixed the Ohio Election Commission they replaced it with a new five member Ohio Election Integrity Commission. The secretary chooses the commission chair, and majority and minority leaders in the General Assembly each get one nominee.

While the secretary’s election integrity unit investigates, and the secretary decides on fines or referrals to county prosecutors, the new commission has the final say if a complainant appeals.

The letter Smith received makes no mention of an appeal. Instead, it advises that “no further action is needed from you” and includes contact information if he has questions.

“If it’s not clear that, hey, the next step is you could go to the commission with an appeal, well that’s a problem,” Turcer said.

Appeal coming?

For Smith, the gaps in Ramaswamy’s campaign finance reports are less concerning than what those gaps might suggest.

“Has my campaign lost receipts over 25 years? Oh God, yes,” Smith said. “Has everybody lost receipts? Of course. Should any candidate be prosecuted for lost receipts? No.”

“But again,” he continued, “when the problem gets egregiously worse, that says to me the problem was never corrected. And that is either a failure of the Secretary of State’s office to tell the Ramaswamy campaign, no, you can’t do this, or the Ramaswamy campaign has been told and they’re ignoring it.”

Smith says he’s still “considering every additional option” but has yet to formally appeal the secretary’s decision.

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“Don’t open the refrigerator!”

When the power goes out, people lose more than electricity. We were lucky: we were on vacation with yesterday’s barbecue in the fridge. Often, people lose power and that means they can’t make it to work, they lose their week’s groceries, lose air conditioning during a heatwave, or have essential medicine go bad overnight.

When a customer pays her electricity bill, she is not only purchasing power. She is also purchasing reliable access to power. And she is making decisions based on that: what to buy, how to spend her time, trusting that when she plugs an appliance in and she flips a switch, she will have power.

Power companies don’t always have to live up to this, though. They often have to make decisions between grid reliability, service maintenance, and other priorities. And often, it is cheaper to leave customers with the costs of intermittent power outages.

Last month, a bipartisan group of 18 Ohio House members introduced a bill to change this.

Ohio House Bill 1014 would require utilities to provide electric bill credits to customers after sufficiently long outages at their homes.

After a 16-hour outage under normal conditions, a household would receive a credit of the greater of either $50 or their monthly bill plus additional credits for additional days, plus reimbursement for lost food and medicine. Businesses would be reimbursed with a less generous formula.

The bill also stipulates that utilities will not be able to recover those payments through higher rates to customers.

Essentially, the bill puts a price on grid reliability.

This payment is larger than some estimates of household willingness to pay to avoid outages.

According to analysis done by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, residential customers have an average willingness to pay of $57 to avoid a 24-hour blackout. The average monthly electricity bill in Ohio was $135 in 2024 and is likely higher now.

But this isn’t just about compensating households in the case of a power outage. It’s also about preventing power outages in the first place.

If utility decision makers are mulling over whether to make grid improvements or invest in other changes, this could be a tool for encouraging prevention of power loss, which could lead to a more reliable grid overall.

Having a compensation rate at this level could also help improve equity of power outages.

The way the compensation scheme is designed, it makes the timeline for eligibility shorter for smaller blackouts. Restoring service to isolated or difficult-to-support customers can be expensive, while much of the cost of leaving them without power falls on those customers. Under this bill, these costs would show up in a utility’s bottom line.

Excessive fees could backfire, however. If the fee level is set too high, it could give incentives for utilities to spend more preventing outages than customers value, or divert resources from other grid investments.

Putting a price on outages, though, would give utilities a reason to account for costs that currently fall largely on customers.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The environmental advocacy nonprofit Food and Water Watch analyzed water bill data among the nation’s 500 largest community water providers. Those systems serve a collective 155 million people — nearly half the nation’s population.

Between 2015 and 2025, water bills increased by 62% on average across those water providers. That was faster than the overall inflation rate and more than two times the rate of grocery price increases over the same period. Food and Water Watch found that water bills increased 19% faster than household incomes, meaning people are spending a greater share of their earnings on water.

In Louisiana, Maryland, New Hampshire and West Virginia, water bills grew about twice as fast as household incomes, the analysis found.

Costs varied widely across the country: In Idaho, the average household spent $286 on water bills last year. In West Virginia, the average cost was $1,383. The analysis found for-profit water companies charge more than publicly owned water providers (Food and Water Watch advocates against private ownership of water systems).

The analysis projects that costs will rise further as climate-change driven drought and natural disasters threaten water supplies. It also pointed to growing infrastructure needs that are estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars across the country.

“Industrial pollution, aging infrastructure, and federal disinvestment are fueling a crisis for the nation’s water systems,” the report said.

The American Water Works Association, which includes more than 4,300 North American water utilities, estimates American drinking water systems will need as much as $2.4 trillion over the next 25 years to sustain and modernize infrastructure. If those costs are covered solely by users, bills could more than double by 2050, the association projected.

Aside from abandoning water system privatization, Food and Water Watch recommends that state and local governments support local control of water systems, hold polluters accountable for contamination and prevent the tech, fossil fuel and agriculture sectors from passing on costs to residential water users. The organization also calls on Congress to fund water improvement projects that can help communities meet federal water standards.

The report comes as more Americans struggle with the high costs of electricity, gas, groceries and housing.

Electric bills continued to soar and millions of families that heat their homes with oil are facing a much more expensive winter. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state employees administering federal energy assistance programs, estimates that heating oil costs will be about 50% higher than last winter.

Though federal forecasters predict a warmer winter, wars in Iran and Ukraine have greatly disrupted petroleum markets, leading to quick price hikes.

Households in the Northeast, which use more than 80% of the nation’s heating oil, will be most affected. But the association projects American home heating costs will rise an average of 8.7% this winter — more than twice the rate of inflation.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

That’s particularly true for gubernatorial elections, as Democrats could win a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010. Currently, Republicans boast  a 26-24 gubernatorial advantage over Democrats.

This November, voters will choose governors in 36 states. Thirteen of those races are considered competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, which ranks the competitiveness of races for governor, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House.

Some of this cycle’s most competitive races are in politically divided states such as Nevada and Wisconsin. But Republicans also are playing defense in several deeply conservative states, including Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.

Last week, the Cook Political Report moved its ratings of the Florida and Texas governor races from Likely Republican to Leans Republican. That means the GOP candidates are still favored in those states, but “given the grim political environment for the GOP, we can’t rule out the possibility of an upset in one or both contests,” wrote Senate and Governors Editor Jessica Taylor.

Democratic control of more governor’s offices could mean more bipartisan compromise — or gridlock — in state capitols. In Nevada, however, a Democratic governor could initiate a new era of policymaking: Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo has vetoed more than 160 bills approved by the Democratic-controlled legislature during his term.

In states such as Alaska, Georgia and Ohio, Democratic governors could deliver new checks on Republican lawmakers who have enjoyed years of legislative control.

The competitive races for state executives come as Democrats seek to rebuild state power after years of Republican dominance in statehouses. In addition to controlling a majority of governor’s offices, the GOP has held a majority of state legislative seats and chambers since 2010.

Democrats’ improving prospects are evidence of the broader political challenges facing Republicans across the country, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

“It’s a rebuke of the Trump model, and especially the Republican Trump model,” he said. “But it’s also something that isn’t uncommon for midterms.”

With total Republican control of Washington, Democrats are benefiting from widespread dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump over the Iran war and the high prices of healthcare, housing, groceries and energy affecting nearly every part of daily life.

Despite winning his previous campaigns by double digits, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is facing a close competition with Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa.

“Our race is now a toss-up,” the subject line of a Sept. 29 fundraising email from the Abbott campaign reads.

Jones said the Texas Republican party is still reeling from internal bloodletting after Attorney General Ken Paxton ousted incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in a heated primary contest. Paxton, whose political career has been largely defined by scandal, now trails Democrat James Talarico in most polling in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.

To Jones, winning the Texas governor’s race is still a longshot for Democrats, but he said the president is the main reason it’s even competitive this cycle.

“It’s overwhelmingly a national phenomenon,” he said. “It has more to do with Donald Trump’s low approval ratings on both his handling of his job as president and his handling of the economy and just overall low favorability.”

More split governments?

Democratic wins for governor could bring divided government to some reliably conservative states.

While shared rule used to be common in states, most now are dominated by one party that controls both legislative chambers and the governor’s office. Power is split between the parties in only 11 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 

Last week, Democratic Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand pledged to bring “divided government once again” to Des Moines. Favored to win over Republican Zach Lahn, Sand said split power would bring more balance to state policymaking after years of GOP control.

If Iowa Democrats can prevent the GOP from winning back a legislative supermajority, they would hold more power over lawmaking and gubernatorial appointments than they’ve enjoyed for years.

Democrats flipped two Iowa state Senate seats in special elections last year to break the GOP’s veto-proof supermajority there. Senate Democrats have already used their newly won power by rejecting appointments, including a high-profile nomination for the leader of the state’s Health and Human Services Department.

Democratic wins for governor in November could bring divided power to Alaska, Ohio, Georgia, Florida and Texas. But divided government could vanish in other states.

In Kansas, Republicans are poised to gain even more control as state Senate President Ty Masterson leads in gubernatorial polling over Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher. If elected, Masterson would replace Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, delivering a trifecta of Republican control to Topeka.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, said this election cycle follows a familiar pattern for the party that controls Washington.

“We see this in every midterm: The party in power sometimes takes a beating, and I think that that’s what’s going to happen in this cycle,” he said.

Scott is favored to win reelection next month, which would keep power divided in Montpelier if Democrats continue to control the legislature as expected.

The Republican Governors Association did not comment on the party’s prospects for  maintaining its national advantage. In a statement, spokesperson Kollin Crompton said GOP governors and candidates remain focused on lowering taxes, unleashing American energy and keeping communities safe.

“Contrast that with Democrat governors who hurt working families with tax increases and stunt job growth with bureaucratic regulation; the choice in November is clear.” he said. “If Democrats gain control, these states will turn into hellscapes reminiscent of California and Illinois.”

A national move for power

In many states, the power of newly elected governors largely will be shaped by the partisan composition of legislatures.

Republicans have held a grip on state power across the country since 2010, when they won hundreds of legislative seats and picked up control of 20 legislative chambers during the first midterm election of President Barack Obama’s presidency.

Democrats hope to flip 500 seats across the country this cycle. But even with 15 legislative chambers identified as competitive this year, it’s unlikely Democrats will rebuild their legislative ranks to pre-2010 levels, when the party controlled 60 of 99 legislative chambers nationwide (Nebraska has a unicameral legislature).

Republicans currently hold 4,044 state legislative seats, compared with 3,227 for Democrats, according to Katy Owens Hubler, director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“Polls have been showing more Democratic enthusiasm,” she said,” but I think it’s likely Republicans will maintain their advantage in terms of absolute numbers of seats.”

Control of legislatures will not only affect state policymaking, but will likely shape the next wave of congressional redistricting, said Will Rusche, vice president of marketing and communications at the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats at the state level.

Set off by a White House push to give Republicans more seats in the U.S. House, 10 states have completed mid-decade redistricting — a phenomenon unseen since the 1800s.

Rusche said the outcome of November’s governor and legislative races will play a major role in whether Democrats can win back federal power.

“It all runs through statehouses,” he said. “The majorities we win this year will determine what powers Democrats have, and you know the path to power in Congress and the presidency in 2028 and going forward.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Then came the police investigation.

A timeline assembled from police records and Click’s own later account shows the Republican state representative stepped down as lead pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple at the end of March 2025, ending a 19-year tenure that had been central to his public identity.

Six months later, on Sept. 29, the Fremont Police Department received a referral from the Oregon Department of Human Services containing allegations that Click and the father of an 18-year-old had physically and sexually abused the person when they were a child.

Detectives questioned Click on Oct. 1. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation reviewed the matter days later. And on Nov. 10, The Rooster made the investigation public.

But Click’s departure from Fremont Baptist Temple still had not been publicly announced through any channel TiffinOhio.net has identified. The church’s website continued identifying him as pastor.

TiffinOhio.net would not uncover that Click had left the pulpit until February 2026, nearly 11 months after he says he stepped down and three months after the police investigation had already become public.

There is no evidence in the records reviewed by TiffinOhio.net that Click’s March departure was prompted by the allegations reported six months later.

But the timeline places two previously separate pieces of Click’s public record in sequence: he quietly ended a 19-year pastorate, the church continued presenting him as pastor, and six months later police received a child-abuse referral naming him in connection with a person who had attended that church.

March 2025: Click leaves the pulpit

Click says he stopped serving as lead pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple at the end of March 2025 and became pastor emeritus.

TiffinOhio.net found no announcement from Click, his campaign, his legislative office or Fremont Baptist Temple informing the public that he had stepped down from the position he had held since 2006.

The church’s own website continued presenting him as pastor for nearly another year.

Click’s pastoral identity had been woven throughout his political career. His official biographies emphasized his decades in ministry, and he entered the Ohio House as a sitting pastor who continued leading the Fremont congregation while serving in Columbus.

That changed in March 2025.

The church website continued listing Click as pastor, and no public announcement of the leadership change has been identified.

Sept. 29: Child welfare officials send allegations to Fremont

Six months after Click says he left the pulpit, the Fremont Police Department received a fax from the Oregon Department of Human Services requesting a welfare check at a Fremont-area home.

According to police records obtained by TiffinOhio.net, an unidentified third-party reporter had told Oregon child welfare officials that an 18-year-old had been physically and sexually abused as a child by their father and Click, whom the report identified as the person’s former pastor at Fremont Baptist Temple.

The referral alleged that the person had been beaten, starved and sexually abused.

Fremont Det. Sgt. Matthew Ranazzi located the person identified as the alleged victim.

They denied the allegations.

According to the police report, the person said they had never told anyone in Oregon that Click or their father abused them and denied having been beaten, starved, sexually assaulted or otherwise abused by either man.

When specifically asked about Click, the person identified him as their former pastor but said they did not remember Click doing anything to them.

Oct. 1: Police go to Click’s home

Two days after receiving the Oregon referral, Fremont detectives went to Click’s residence.

Click was in Columbus. Detectives spoke with his wife, and Click later called Ranazzi.

Asked whether he knew the person identified in the referral, Click told police he did not remember them but acknowledged that they “might have been a member of his church.”

Asked whether he knew the person’s father, Click said he did not know him “off the top of his head.”

After Ranazzi explained the allegations, Click denied ever physically or sexually abusing anyone.

The Fremont investigation was closed after the person identified as the alleged victim denied the allegations.

Oct. 8: BCI declines further investigation

Because Click was a sitting member of the Ohio House, Fremont police also referred the matter to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

BCI informed Fremont police on Oct. 8 that it would not investigate further.

By then, Click had been out of day-to-day leadership at Fremont Baptist Temple for six months.

His departure still had not been publicly announced through any channel TiffinOhio.net has identified, and the church continued presenting him as its pastor.

Nov. 10: The police investigation becomes public

On Nov. 10, journalist D.J. Byrnes reported the investigation in The Rooster.

The report brought the allegations and police response into public view.

Click denied the accusations and later defended himself when Byrnes confronted him on camera, describing himself as having a “clean conscience,” “squeaky clean” and “ivory clean.”

He also disputed the characterization of the family’s relationship to Fremont Baptist Temple.

“Attended is not a member,” Click told Byrnes. “There’s a lot of people that come and go. I do not know them.”

That came after Click had told Fremont police that the person “might have been a member of his church.”

By November, the public knew that police had questioned Click about abuse allegations involving a person who had attended his church.

Click’s departure from that same church still had not been publicly announced through any channel TiffinOhio.net has identified.

February 2026: TiffinOhio.net uncovers Click’s departure

It was not until Feb. 16, 2026, that TiffinOhio.net reported Click had stepped down from Fremont Baptist Temple.

By then, Click says he had been out of the pulpit for nearly 11 months.

At the time of the report, Fremont Baptist Temple’s website was still identifying Click as its pastor even though his official Ohio House biography had been changed to say that he had “recently stepped down and assumed the honorary title of pastor Emeritus.”

Click objected to TiffinOhio.net’s description of his departure as quiet.

“Actually, it was very public. You just missed it,” Click wrote on X.

When TiffinOhio.net asked Click to identify the public announcement he said reporters had missed, he did not provide one.

Fremont Baptist Temple subsequently changed its website to identify Rick Ash as pastor and Click as pastor emeritus.

Click later said he had stepped down at the end of March 2025 and explained that leaving the church’s day-to-day leadership gave him greater freedom to travel and expand his ministry.

TiffinOhio.net later reported that Click had begun traveling nationally, preaching about Christianity’s role in government, taking leadership positions with the National Association of Christian Lawmakers and establishing a nonprofit ministry he called “We the Church.”

The timeline

End of March 2025: Click says he steps down after 19 years as lead pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple and becomes pastor emeritus. TiffinOhio.net has identified no contemporaneous public announcement of the change.

Sept. 29, 2025: Oregon child welfare officials forward allegations involving Click to Fremont police.

Oct. 1, 2025: Fremont detectives contact Click. He denies the allegations and tells police the person identified as the alleged victim “might have been a member of his church.”

Oct. 8, 2025: BCI tells Fremont police it will not pursue a further investigation.

Nov. 10, 2025: The Rooster reports the police investigation, bringing the allegations into public view.

Feb. 16, 2026: TiffinOhio.net reports that Click had left the Fremont Baptist Temple pulpit nearly 11 months earlier. The church’s website was still presenting him as pastor.

Days later: Click says his departure had been “very public” and tells TiffinOhio.net, “You just missed it.” Asked to identify that public announcement, Click does not provide one. Fremont Baptist Temple subsequently updates its website.

Click said his departure was “very public.” No announcement has been identified.

Click’s exit from Fremont Baptist Temple ended a 19-year tenure that had been a central part of his public biography.

Yet TiffinOhio.net has found no announcement from Click, Fremont Baptist Temple, his campaign or his legislative office informing the public when that tenure ended.

Click says he left the pulpit at the end of March 2025.

Six months later, Oregon child welfare officials sent Fremont police allegations naming him.

Seven months after his departure, the police investigation became public.

Yet Fremont Baptist Temple continued listing Click as pastor, and it would be nearly 11 months after his departure before TiffinOhio.net reported that his tenure had ended at all.

When Click later insisted the departure had been “very public” and told TiffinOhio.net, “You just missed it,” he did not identify the public announcement reporters supposedly missed.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Seneca County Violence Prevention Task Force will host “Finding Hope: An Evening with Elizabeth Smart” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, at Seiberling Gymnasium on the campus of Heidelberg University.

The event is free and open to the public.

Smart was 14 years old when she was abducted from her home in Utah. Following her rescue, she became a national advocate for survivors of abuse and violence and has spoken across the country about resilience, prevention and hope.

“Elizabeth Smart’s story is ultimately one of resilience and hope,” said Kenneth Clason, chair of the Seneca County Violence Prevention Task Force. “We hope her visit will bring people together, encourage important conversations about violence prevention and survivor support, and remind people in our community that help is available.”

The Seneca County Violence Prevention Task Force brings together local agencies, organizations and community members to promote violence prevention, education and awareness of resources available in the community.

The event is being supported by a wide range of local organizations and institutions, including the National Machinery Foundation, Tiffin Community Foundation, Seneca County Common Pleas Court, North Central Behavioral Health Board, Seneca County Department of Job & Family Services, Mercy Health – Tiffin Hospital, Seneca County Sheriff’s Office, Tiffin Police Department and Heidelberg University.

Attendees are encouraged to RSVP to help organizers plan for attendance. Books by Smart will also be available for optional purchase and signing during the event.

For more information, contact the Seneca County Violence Prevention Task Force at SCVPTF@gmail.com.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Democratic candidates also held an edge with voter confidence in their ability to address the rising cost of healthcare and everyday goods as well as abortion policy, though the parties were mostly tied when it came to addressing fraud in government programs. Republicans are trusted “to do a better job handling” immigration. 

“Of all the cost-of-living worries hitting voters now, a big health care bill is the least predictable, and that’s a big reason why health care costs are right up there with gas prices and the costs of food and housing on voters’ minds,” KFF President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman said in a statement. 

A majority of respondents, 66%, said they favor a candidate who supports a national health plan, which Democrats often refer to as Medicare-for-all. That support, however, fluctuates depending on how the question was asked. 

Seventy-six percent of those polled said they support a nationwide health plan when told it would “guarantee health insurance for all Americans.” The level of support was about the same, 75%, when people were told it would “eliminate all insurance premiums and reduce out-of-pocket costs for most Americans.” 

A slight majority, 52%, of respondents said they’d support a Medicare-for-all type plan when told it would “eliminate private health insurance companies.” Approval dropped to 38% when those polled were told it could “threaten the current Medicare program” and then to 35% when informed it would “require most Americans to pay more in taxes.” 

Support for a nationwide health plan decreased to 24% when those polled were told it could “lead to delays in people getting some medical tests and treatments.”

When broken down by political party, far more Democrats, 84%, than Republicans, 35%, supported a nationwide health plan like Medicare-for-all.  

Voters seek change

Regardless of which party secures control of the U.S. House and Senate following the November midterm elections, a significant number of those polled want to see lawmakers work to change the country’s healthcare system. 

Forty-nine percent said that “there are some good things about our healthcare system, but major changes are needed.” An additional 36% said “there is so much wrong with our healthcare system that it needs to be completely overhauled.” Another 13% said the country’s health system “works pretty well, but minor changes are needed.” And just 2% said there should be no changes. 

When asked what motivates people to vote in this year’s election, 20% of those polled said they wanted to bring about change, 19% said to stop President Donald Trump, 15% said they believe the country is in a crisis, 11% said the rising cost of living, 10% said to vote out Republicans, 9% said to protect democracy, 8% said to keep Democrats out of power, 7% said to end corruption and 6% said it was due to concerns about socialism or communism. 

Dems hold enthusiasm edge

Forty-seven percent of those polled said they were more motivated to vote in this year’s elections than they were in the past, while 41% said they were about as motivated and 12% said they were less motivated. 

Democrats had a clear motivation advantage over Republicans with 63% of Democratic supporters saying they were more motivated and 28% saying they were about as motivated as they were during earlier elections. 

Thirty-eight percent of Republicans are more motivated and 53% said they were about as motivated as past elections. 

KFF polled 1,328 U.S. adults, including 1,013 voters, in English and in Spanish between Sept. 16 and Sept. 21. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia announced a lawsuit last week over the unconstitutional underfunding of public schools. I’m not exaggerating when I say this may be the most important case we have filed in my 10 years with this organization.

The promise of a free education is fundamental to our democracy itself. It’s so vital that it was enshrined as a right in our 1863 state Constitution, and courts have interpreted that right to mean that schools must not only be adequately funded, but also fairly funded from county to county.

And yet, West Virginia sits at or near the bottom of most national rankings. Politicians have blamed schools, teachers and parents for poor educational outcomes, when the true cause is in black and white on the balance sheets.

During the 2022-23 school year, West Virginia’s average per-pupil expenditure was $14,909 — a total that includes state, local and federal money.  While $14,909 was the reported average, the actual amount per student spent by counties ranged from a low of $12,158 in Barbour County to a high of $22,500 in Doddridge.

That gap gets even wider when you look at only the funding within the state’s control. Combined state and local education funding per pupil ranged from $10,542 in Barbour County to $24,924 in Tyler. In a system that requires that education funding be allocated fairly, some counties receive double the funding of others — not only presenting constitutional concerns, but driving averages up in a way that hides how significantly underfunded many West Virginia counties are.

Across the country, states spend more on education in counties with high rates of students with disabilities and students experiencing poverty because providing quality education to those students is often more expensive. In West Virginia, we do just the opposite: we spend less in counties with the greatest need, and more in counties with higher property wealth.

Chief among the many flaws in West Virginia’s school funding system is the failure to account for special education services. West Virginia’s special education funding is worse than it was decades ago. Because these services are required by law, failure to provide sufficient funding means that school districts need to dip into funding that would otherwise be used for general education services, or to cover the costs of keeping schools operational.

Looking beyond the funding formula, and including all state grants and special education funding, West Virginia provided an average of $8,057 per student. When the state doesn’t pay enough, counties are left to foot the bill. And a county like Lincoln will never be able to generate enough local wealth to operate the school system that students deserve. Counties generate local revenue for schools primarily through the general school levy, with statewide rates established by the Legislature, and optional excess levies meant to supplement basic school spending. Because these funding sources are tied to property tax, the amount of revenue available to counties — and the amount that gets spent on students — varies not based on need, but on whether students are being educated in counties with high property wealth.

The last time the courts took up this issue the case became so influential it still bears the name of the judge who decided it: the Recht Decision set the standard for school funding in West Virginia and changed the nationwide conversation about it. Despite these clear legal requirements set by our courts, the current funding system leads to outcomes that are worse than what was declared unconstitutional almost 50 years ago.

The current staffing formula provides Lincoln County with fewer staff than the formula at the time the system was declared unconstitutional. The gap between what counties receive, and what they spend, has widened instead of narrowed. School closures are increasing rapidly, as schools struggle to stay afloat with the meager funding provided by the state.

The law believes — as do I — that every West Virginia child is capable of great things that make our communities stronger, healthier and happier. A thorough and efficient system of free schools is what permits those futures to come to fruition.

After years of neglect by the Legislature, it has become clear that children’s constitutional right to education will be left to erode if the courts don’t demand action and declare that the current system isn’t just immoral — it’s also unconstitutional.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

An multiyear assessment called the Reproductive Health Experiences and Access Study found that access to abortion care has improved in Ohio, based on interviews with policymakers, healthcare providers, advocates, and focus groups of women ages 18 to 49.

“Interviewees perceived Ohio’s reproductive rights amendment has meaningfully reduced barriers to care, but said access remains uneven, politically contested, and shaped by institutional, financial, and geographic constraints,”according to the study.

The study was conducted in a collaboration with the Urban Institute, the Reproductive Equity Action Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

Those interviewed said the removal of a 24-hour waiting period for abortion care and other requirements were positives for them, and expansion of medication abortion was described as “especially impactful for rural and Appalachian communities, where access to procedural (surgical) abortions remains limited.”

Ohio’s constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights was passed in 2023 by 57% of Ohio voters. Some included in the access study noted that the amendment “has not ended political efforts to restrict abortion access in Ohio.”

Republican state lawmakers have made several attempts to undermine the amendment with regulatory tweaks and measures to bar funding from going to facilities that provide abortion care.

“Consistently, bills keep popping up to undo what we already voted on,” one focus group participant said in the study. “To me, that’s very scary. If whoever can decide, ‘I don’t like that vote, and I don’t care that over half the state voted on it,’ they’re going to keep trying. They don’t care (whether) we have a say.”

According to the Pew Research Center, most adults in America support legal abortion, with 60% of those surveyed in January of this year saying it should be legal in all or most cases.

Even among religious individuals, support for abortion is high, except among white evangelical Protestants.

Pew’s survey found only 24% of those identifying as white evangelicals support abortion, while 68% of Black Protestants, 63% of White nonevangelical Protestants, and 57% of Catholics polled said abortion should be legal.

Movements against abortion care are still active in the country and in Ohio.

Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted participated in a congressional hearing on the alleged “dangers” of the abortion drug mifepristone, which has been approved as safe and effective by the FDA since 2000.

The president of the Ohio religious lobby group Center for Christian Virtue signed on to a statement with organizations across the country like the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, the U.S. Pastors Council and anti-abortion rights group Live Action, calling on the nominee for FDA commissioner, Dr. Heidi Overton, to “reverse Biden-era mifepristone policies while the FDA completes its ongoing review.”

In the letter, the groups express skepticism about a re-review of FDA regulations that have controlled distribution of the abortion drug since it was approved more than two decades ago, and arguing that mail-order abortion is “undermining state laws enacted to protect unborn life and women.”

The letter also provides guidance for a congressional hearing to decide whether Overton will be confirmed as FDA director.

Decades of scientific studies have shown that abortion medication is safe to use, and serious complications are rare. Anti-abortion rights groups have used one study in particular to show that “adverse effects” are occurring more frequently than other studies have shown.

Overton has already taken a stance against medication abortion, co-authoring a 2023 piece for the America First Policy Institute saying the institute’s policies should focus on “immediately halting the effort to normalize abortion-on-demand.”

Meanwhile, clinics backed by religious groups and those who don’t provide abortion as an option are receiving funding from national and state sources, according to Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch.

The group conducted a national analysis of legislation for and against “unregulated pregnancy clinics,” also called crisis pregnancy centers and pregnancy resource centers, depending on whether the reference is in support of or in opposition to the facilities.

Overall, the research estimated 2,600 clinics operating in the United States, projecting an annual national revenue of $2.6 billion in 2026. The organization also found more than 100 pieces of legislation related to the pregnancy clinics in 32 states.

Ohio was particularly noted for Ohio Senate Bill 9, a measure that created a tax credit for those donating to the clinics.

The bill was a comprehensive measure to revise tax laws, but one provision specifies that Ohioans can deduct up to $750 in “contributions the taxpayer makes to a pregnancy resource center.”

S.B. 9 was passed unanimously by the Ohio Senate, and 87-6 in the House earlier this year.

“By reducing the total an individual owes in state taxes based on the amount that person donated to a UPC, states effectively route millions in taxpayer funding to UPCs,” researchers from Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch stated.

As the 2026 general election approaches, reproductive rights are likely to come up as part of voters decisions, with a new governor and any changes in the legislature certain to have an effect on abortion and anti-abortion rights measures.

Republican governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has taken to social media to call himself “unapologetically pro-life,” while Democratic nominee Dr. Amy Acton has said she supports maintaining and broadening reproductive care including abortions and contraception, though solid plans have not been made clear.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

But the market is changing. Products containing a potentially dangerous kratom derivative known as concentrated 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, and other chemically modified kratom compounds are increasingly being sold alongside traditional kratom leaf products, prompting state lawmakers and federal regulators to reconsider how the substances should be regulated.

The evolution has put states in the middle of a difficult policy question: how to address concerns about increasingly potent kratom-related products without treating traditional kratom leaf the same way.

At least 31 states regulate kratom, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some have banned or scheduled kratom, while others have imposed age limits, labeling requirements or restrictions on 7-OH and synthetic compounds. 

During the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions, lawmakers in 36 states introduced legislation to regulate kratom, 7-OH or synthetic kratom compounds, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government. Many cities and towns nationwide have adopted sales restrictions.

Federal regulators are increasingly taking a similar approach, targeting certain high-potency and synthetic compounds while leaving traditional botanical kratom outside the latest federal scheduling actions.

The issue gained new attention recently in Mississippi, where local police found the same potent synthetic kratom-derived product while investigating the separate deaths of two University of Mississippi students last month. Authorities have not established that the product contributed to either death, and toxicology results are still pending.

Lawmakers in a growing number of states, including Mississippi, are calling on their legislatures to act swiftly against concentrated 7-OH products, commonly referred to as “gas station heroin.” 

Pennsylvania lawmakers also are considering legislation that would allow registered retailers to sell natural-leaf kratom to people 21 and older while banning synthetic and adulterated products, including those containing more than 0.5% 7-OH. The bill unanimously cleared a House committee last week and now heads to the full House. 

This year, lawmakers in Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming have considered or adopted bans and regulations on kratom and its synthetic variants.

The number of kratom-related reports to U.S. poison centers has also risen sharply recently. An analysis published on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website in March reported 14,449 kratom exposure reports from 2015 through 2025, including 3,434 in 2025 — about 1,200% more than in 2015.

But this data does not identify whether those exposures involved traditional leaf products or newer concentrated and semisynthetic formulations such as 7-OH, limiting what researchers can conclude about the risks of particular products.

Poison centers have logged 3,190 reports involving kratom or its derivatives through June, according to a news release. If that pace continues, the number of reports in 2026 would be nearly 68% higher than in 2025.

Addiction medicine experts and researchers say significant questions remain about the safety and effects of these largely unregulated products, including how they affect people of different ages, what doses may be safe or effective, and whether they have potential therapeutic uses. More research is needed to better understand the risks and potential benefits of kratom and its newer formulations.

“These products are unregulated,” said Dr. Sarah Kawasaki, an associate professor of psychiatry and internal medicine at Pennsylvania State University. “There’s no quality control needed to make sure that what is stated is on the bottle is actually in the bottle.

“What we don’t know, and its accessibility, should scare us all,” Kawasaki added, referring to the lack of research on dosing and effects across different age groups.

The changing kratom market

Kratom comes from the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa, a tree native to Southeast Asia. Traditionally, the leaves have been chewed, brewed into tea or dried and ground into powder.

The plant contains dozens of alkaloids, including mitragynine and smaller amounts of naturally occurring 7-OH. Those compounds interact with opioid receptors in the brain. Kratom, which is most commonly sold as powder, capsules and tablets, can have stimulant effects at lower doses and more sedating effects at higher doses.

“With kratom, it’s weaker and it’s hitting more than just the opioid receptor. When you go with 7-OH, it’s very targeted at the mu-opioid receptor –– the same receptor that morphine or fentanyl would hit,” said Dr. Alta DeRoo, the chief medical officer of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit treatment providers for addiction and mental health. DeRoo also is a board-certified addiction medicine physician and OB-GYN.

“It’s easier to become dependent and more euphoric with the 7-OH, and so coming off of it is more dramatic as well,” she said.

People use kratom or 7-OH for a variety of reasons, according to addiction medicine experts. Some report using it for pain, energy or focus, while others use it in an effort to manage opioid withdrawal or reduce their reliance on opioids. 

“7-OH products are really the first thing in almost two decades that have helped me sleep for more than about a half hour at a time, so they’ve helped me deal with that kind of chronic pain,” said Jeff Smith, the executive director of the Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust, an advocacy group that represents some 7-OH manufacturers. 

Government health officials and addiction medicine experts have also raised concerns about 7-OH’s potential to cause dependence, withdrawal and other adverse effects.

Some newer products in the market may contain concentrated amounts of 7-OH and chemically modified or semisynthetic kratom-derived compounds, including mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15, and MGM-16. These products are sometimes marketed or sold under the broad label of “kratom,” which some experts say creates a challenge for both consumers and regulators.

These types of products also are widely accessible. Concentrated 7-OH products that may also contain other kratom-derived compounds are sold online and at gas stations, convenience stores and smoke shops as tablets, capsules, extracts or shots, drinks, gummies and dissolvable strips. 

Latest regulatory changes

State and local governments have taken increasingly different approaches as the market has changed.

Some have banned kratom, while others have classified it or its components as controlled substances under state law.  Others have focused on sales restrictions, including minimum-age requirements, labeling rules and manufacturing standards. A growing number of states are specifically targeting concentrated 7-OH or synthetic kratom-derived compounds rather than banning traditional leaf products.

A Rockefeller Institute of Government analysis lists three states that ban or schedule non “pure leaf kratom,” 14 states that ban or schedule kratom, 13 with potency limits and 24 with sales restrictions. The categories overlap because states can impose multiple types of restrictions.

A new Tennessee law went into effect in July that prohibits the possession, sale and distribution of kratom statewide, joining the other 13 states that have chosen prohibition rather than regulation. In Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey issued an executive order in August temporarily placing all forms of kratom in Schedule I under state law for one year.

States taking a more targeted approach include Oklahoma, which has set a 1% ceiling for 7-OH as a share of the total kratom alkaloids in a product and bars the sale of products containing synthetic kratom-derived compounds or other contaminants. The state also requires manufacturers to disclose the amounts of total kratom alkaloids, mitragynine and 7-OH on product packaging.

But some Oklahoma officials say those restrictions do not go far enough. 

Republican state Rep. Tim Turner, a former sheriff and narcotics officer, announced plans in September to introduce legislation targeting concentrated or synthetically enhanced kratom compounds, including 7-OH and MGM-15, during the 2027 session.

“It is time to stop treating this like just another product on a convenience store shelf,” Turner said in a news release. “If companies knowingly manufacture, market, distribute or sell dangerous products that are killing Oklahomans, there needs to be accountability.”

Donnie Anderson, the director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, also said that gaps in state law make it difficult for investigators to pursue suppliers of synthetically enhanced kratom products.

Rhode Island took a different approach this year, becoming the first state to replace a statewide kratom ban with a regulated market for people 21 and older. The state still prohibits products containing synthetic kratom alkaloids or other synthetically derived compounds, including mitragynine and 7-OH.

Mississippi falls somewhere in between. A 2025 law prohibits kratom sales to people under 21 and prohibits products containing certain synthesized or semisynthesized kratom compounds. It also establishes registration requirements and preserves local governments’ ability to restrict kratom.

But state Rep. Lee Yancey, a Republican who has pushed for additional restrictions, has called for lawmakers to revisit the issue in 2027 following the Ole Miss deaths, including the consideration of a statewide kratom ban.

A public health approach

Federal regulators have also increasingly focused on the newer products.

In July, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced plans to temporarily place 7-OH above a 0.05% concentration threshold and three related compounds — mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and MGM-16 — in Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act. The three related compounds were placed in Schedule I effective Aug. 26 and will remain there through Aug. 26, 2028. The separate 7-OH scheduling action has not yet taken effect. The change does not apply to botanical kratom containing naturally occurring 7-OH below the threshold.

“We support what the feds are doing,” said Matthew Lowe, the executive director of the Global Kratom Coalition, an industry advocacy group representing kratom businesses and consumers. “It’s the right thing to do from a public health perspective.”

The New York Times also reported in June on efforts by kratom industry groups to build relationships with Trump administration officials and influence federal policy. The industry has sought to distinguish traditional kratom leaf from newer, more potent 7-OH products, while pushing for tougher restrictions on those synthetic products.

“This is pretty much overblown by the critics of kratom, who are saying that some in the industry are trying to buy their way in to get a policy that they’re pursuing, when in fact both sides are doing that,” said Mac Haddow, the senior fellow on public policy at the American Kratom Association, one of the nation’s leading kratom industry groups.

The authors of the CDC analysis found that 233 deaths were associated with kratom exposure reports between 2015 and 2025. In 184 cases, or 79%, more than one substance was involved. Opioids were detected in 62% of the deaths, while benzodiazepines, stimulants and alcohol also appeared in some cases. Multiple-substance exposures were more likely to result in hospitalization and serious medical outcomes than exposures involving kratom alone.

But the researchers could not determine whether people had used traditional leaf kratom or concentrated or semisynthetic products such as 7-OH. They also could not determine which substance was most responsible for a medical outcome or death when multiple substances were involved.

John Puls, a Florida psychotherapist and addiction specialist, said clinicians treating kratom or 7-OH dependence often approach detox similarly to opioid withdrawal: After assessing what a patient has been using and how much, providers may use a short taper of buprenorphine, commonly known by the brand name Suboxone. 

Kellen Russoniello, the director of public health at the Drug Policy Alliance, said the organization shares public health concerns about 7-OH and other kratom derivatives but opposes criminalization as the response.

Russoniello said safety information and a regulated market could instead give consumers more reliable information through product testing, accurate labeling and limits on active ingredients.

“In a sensibly regulated model, the consumer would have much more information by being able to read the bottle and see what’s in it, what percentage of certain substances are in there,” he said. “It’s a much better approach for protecting the consumer.”

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The investigation was first reported by D.J. Byrnes of The Rooster. Byrnes later confronted Click on camera about the allegations, Click’s connection to the family and what he had told police.

Click told Fremont police he did not remember the person identified as the alleged victim but acknowledged that they “might have been a member of his church.” Asked about the person’s father, Click said he did not know him “off the top of his head.”

When Byrnes later pressed Click about the family’s connection to his church, Click responded: “Attended is not a member. There’s a lot of people that come and go. I do not know them.”

Click denied the allegations and went further, telling Byrnes he had “a clean conscience” and describing himself as “ivory clean.”

Child welfare referral accused Click of abuse

The Fremont Police Department received a fax from the Oregon Department of Human Services on Sept. 29, 2025, requesting a welfare check at a local home, according to the incident report.

The report says an unknown third-party reporter alleged that an 18-year-old had been physically and sexually abused by their father and Click, identified in the report as the person’s former pastor at Fremont Baptist Temple, when the person was a juvenile.

According to the referral as summarized by Fremont police, the person allegedly said they had been “beaten and starved” by their father and Click and that the two men had perpetrated sexual abuse.

The referral also contained a separate allegation that when the person was six or seven years old, an unidentified father figure attempted to drown them in a bathtub. The police report does not identify Click as the person accused of that act.

The anonymous reporter told child welfare officials that the abuse ended after the father moved out of the home and the child stopped attending church.

Fremont Det. Sgt. Matthew Ranazzi went to the address and found the person identified in the referral.

They denied the allegations.

According to Ranazzi’s report, the person said they had never told anyone in Oregon that Click or their father abused them. They denied being beaten, starved, sexually assaulted or otherwise abused by either man.

When Ranazzi specifically asked about Click, the person identified him as their former pastor but said they did not remember Click doing anything to them.

TiffinOhio.net is not identifying the person because the police report identifies them as the alleged victim of sexual abuse as a child.

Police went to Click’s home

On Oct. 1, Fremont detectives went to Click’s residence to question him.

Click was in Columbus, according to the police report. Detectives spoke with his wife, who said she would contact him, and Click called Ranazzi a short time later.

Ranazzi told Click about the report from Oregon and asked whether he knew the person identified as the alleged victim.

Click said he did not remember them but said they “might have been a member of his church.”

Asked whether he knew the person’s father, Click said he did not know him “off the top of his head.”

Ranazzi then explained the abuse allegations to Click.

Click denied them and told police he had never sexually or physically abused anyone.

The investigation was closed after the person identified as the alleged victim denied being abused. Because Click was a sitting state representative, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was also asked to review the report. BCI informed Fremont police on Oct. 8 that it would not investigate the matter further.

Byrnes pressed Click on whether he knew the family

Click later faced Byrnes’ questions about the investigation and his relationship to the family.

The police report already documented Click acknowledging that the person “might have been a member of his church.”

When Byrnes raised the family’s church connection, Click pushed back on the description.

“Attended is not a member,” Click said. “I won’t say they never showed up.”

That exchange put Click’s public answer alongside what he had told police: that he did not remember the person but acknowledged a possible connection through his church, and that he did not know the father “off the top of his head.”

Click called himself ‘ivory clean’

Click repeatedly denied the allegations while Byrnes questioned him and made sweeping declarations about his own innocence.

“Having a clean conscience is a wonderful thing,” Click said.

He later described himself as “squeaky clean” and “ivory clean.”

Click repeatedly invoked the phrase “no there there” while arguing that the allegations had been discredited by the alleged victim’s denial and the decisions by Fremont police and BCI not to continue the case.

“This anonymous report out of Colorado [sic] with no credibility, the alleged victim says there’s no there there, Fremont police says there’s no there there, BCI says there’s no there there, and you said there’s no there there,” Click told Byrnes. “So there’s no there there.”

But the report did not come from Colorado.

Fremont police records identify the complainant as the Oregon Department of Human Services, headquartered in Salem, Oregon.

Byrnes also pressed Click about his proximity to children, referencing a daycare operated by Click’s wife.

“You’re a sick puppy,” Click responded.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

But with Republicans falling behind in the polls, the president is now urging his supporters to vote in the midterm elections any way they can, including by mail.

The White House has also sent emails through a government account promoting voter registration in recent days and Trump is continuing a string of campaign rallies in typically conservative states, including Nebraska on Monday night. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed that members of the military, who tend to support Republicans, have a day off to vote.

“If your state has early voting, do not wait. Go out and vote. Vote early, vote by mail, or vote in person on Election Day, November 3rd, so we can defeat the radical left ‘Dumocrats’ in a midterm victory that is too big to rig,” Trump said in a social media video over the weekend, using a derogatory term for Democrats.

The about-face by the president is familiar. Trump encouraged his voters to cast their ballots by mail in 2024 and has repeatedly voted by mail himself, despite a long record of attacking the practice.

Republicans battle against loss of majorities

The latest comments — along with the red-state rallies — underscore the political peril that analysts see facing Republicans and Trump. 

If Republicans lose control of either the House or Senate, Democrats are likely to launch investigations into the White House that could complicate the president’s final two years in office. A Democratic House would face pressure from the base to pursue impeachment against Trump or other administration officials.

Democrats enjoy an 11-point advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, according to a nonpartisan September national poll by Emerson College. The poll also found Democrats more enthusiastic, with 78% “very excited” to vote compared to 66% of Republicans. 

A poll by The New York Times and Siena College, released Saturday, found Democrats ahead or tied in Senate races in several GOP-leaning states, including Alaska, Kansas, Ohio and Texas. 

Several of those same states — including Alaska, Kansas and Ohio — allow voters to cast a ballot by mail without providing an excuse. Iowa also features a highly competitive Senate race and has no-excuse absentee voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Vice President JD Vance was visiting Alaska on Monday to campaign for the Republican Senate candidate, while Trump was scheduled to hold a rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, where the incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts faces a competitive challenge from independent Dan Osborn. 

‘We seem to have no choice’

Republicans are scrambling to find ways to turn out their base voters, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. The immediate objective for the party is maximizing voter turnout among their supporters, he said, adding that discouraging them from using legal methods to vote would be an obvious electoral disadvantage.

“The overriding concern for the White House is turnout, not consistency,” Rottinghaus said. “The political messaging has been inconsistent on this. But all of that aside, the need to get Republicans to come vote is paramount for Republicans.”

Trump at the White House on Monday said that he prefers voters to cast their ballots in person but that they can “vote by mail if they want because we seem to have no choice.” Without offering evidence, he alleged significant cheating in voting by mail.

Pressed by reporters for evidence, the president pointed to California. The blue state, where all voters receive a ballot in the mail, has drawn his ire in the past for a vote-counting process that can last weeks, in part because of ballots that arrive in the mail after Election Day. But a slow count isn’t evidence of fraud.

When asked about Trump’s shifting stance, the White House referred States Newsroom to the president’s Monday remarks.

Supreme Court blocked Trump

Trump’s decision to again tout voting by mail — while also attacking it — came after he spent months pursuing a high-stakes effort to impose restrictions on mail ballots. 

In August 2025, Trump promised to lead a movement to eliminate mail-in voting. 

Less than a year later, he signed an executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to require states, at least 90 days before a federal election, to notify the Postal Service whether they intended to allow ballots to be sent through the mail. States would have then had to submit to USPS a list of voters planning to vote by mail at least 60 days before the election.

Postmaster General David Steiner had said that the Postal Service wouldn’t deliver ballots for states that refused to comply with the rule. Democrats and other opponents said it would have given the Postal Service unprecedented and unconstitutional authority over elections, which are administered by the states under the Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the rule from taking effect in a one-paragraph order that upheld a lower court decision halting it. Election officials and voting rights advocates had warned that implementing the requirements so close to the election would have caused chaos.

Trump railed against the decision at the time, calling it a “big loss” for Republicans and alleging it would make cheating by Democrats on mail-in ballots much easier. “And now they have open field to do so,” he wrote on social media when the order was issued in mid-September.

On Monday, League of Women Voters President and CEO Celina Stewart emphasized that the Trump administration had spent months attacking voting by mail. She said in a statement that while Trump sought to impose restrictions through an executive order — which the League sued over — “the President does not have the authority to unilaterally dictate how states administer elections.”

“A shift in rhetoric does not undo those actions, nor does it erase the need for the League to take this fight to court. We will judge this administration by its actions, not by its latest statement,” Stewart said.

Trump’s attacks on voting by mail

Trump’s attacks on voting by mail stretch back to the 2020 election, when mail voting surged amid the pandemic. 

At that time, he characterized mail ballots arriving after Election Day as fraudulent, even though late-arriving ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day — indicating that voters made their choices before the close of polls. The Supreme Court this year upheld the authority of states to count mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day.

Six years later, mail-in voting remains a major way for Americans to cast their ballots. Nearly a third of U.S. voters cast a ballot by mail in 2024, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. 

This year, nearly 1 million people have already voted by mail in the general election, with more than 52 million mail ballots requested, according to data compiled by the University of Florida Election Lab.

For campaigns, every ballot a supporter casts by mail represents a “bird in the hand,” said Rottinghaus. By contrast, voters who wait until Election Day remain potential voters, with the risk that something will come up that keeps them from voting.

Campaigns build whole persuasion operations around mail voting, he said, adding that demonizing the practice takes away a weapon some campaigns rely on.

“This is a top-down effort from the most vocal and visible Republican that can create a lot of complications for Republicans down ballot who may rely on mail voting for a big part of their strategy,” Rottinghaus said.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The previous day, every entry shown on Husted’s calendar is also redacted.

FirstEnergy’s internal records tell Ohioans considerably more about what Husted was doing during the fight over the company’s bailout. Executives described him as “highly engaged” on HB 6, said he was “fighting to the end” as the legislation neared passage and wrote that he was working to extend the nuclear subsidies FirstEnergy wanted from the legislature.

When Husted was asked on Nov. 30, 2021 to describe his role in the passage of House Bill 6, he answered with one word: “None.”

The calendars add a stark new visual record to years of emails, text messages, phone logs and sworn testimony documenting Husted’s contacts with FirstEnergy executives and figures at the center of HB 6. They also leave a basic public-records question unanswered on their face: who ordered the signing-day entries blacked out, and under what legal exemption?

Those answers are not contained on the calendar pages reviewed by TiffinOhio.net.

FirstEnergy: Husted was ‘working on the 10 years’

Husted’s 2021 denial concerned the passage of HB 6 through the legislature. FirstEnergy executives were privately describing him doing precisely that kind of work.

In a July 2019 text exchange, then-FirstEnergy senior vice president Michael Dowling told CEO Chuck Jones that he had just finished a lengthy conversation with Husted while the Ohio Senate was considering how long the nuclear subsidies in HB 6 should last.

“JH is working on the 10 years,” Dowling wrote, according to FirstEnergy texts reported by the Statehouse News Bureau. FirstEnergy wanted 10 years of subsidies; the final legislation provided seven.

Other FirstEnergy communications were equally explicit. In one message, Jones wrote that “Husted, Sam, Evans and Danny McCarthy are fighting to the end and we’ve been talking to them all day,” adding: “Everything that can be done is being done.” The names referred to Husted, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo, coal company executive Matt Evans and DeWine legislative director Dan McCarthy, a former FirstEnergy lobbyist.

Another FirstEnergy executive described Husted as “highly engaged” on HB 6. An email reported by Ohio Capital Journal said DeWine had left the details of the bill to “John [sic] Husted and Danny.”

After those messages became public in August 2022, Husted again denied participating in the legislative process while acknowledging that he advocated for the bill to pass.

“I wasn’t involved in the legislative process, and I stand by that and those are the facts,” Husted told reporters.

The FirstEnergy messages place that denial next to a company executive saying Husted was working on the duration of subsidies being negotiated in the Senate.

Every listed meeting is hidden on signing day

The calendar blackouts peak as HB 6 reached DeWine’s desk.

On July 22, 2019, every entry displayed on Husted’s official calendar is covered by a redaction. That same day, Randazzo held what Cleveland.com later reported was a final meeting with DeWine and administration officials to discuss HB 6 before the governor signed it. The records reviewed by TiffinOhio.net do not establish that Husted participated in that meeting.

On July 23, when lawmakers completed action on HB 6 and DeWine signed it into law, every meeting displayed on Husted’s calendar is again blacked out.

The significance of those dates does not depend on guessing what is underneath the black bars. FirstEnergy executives had already been describing Husted as an active participant in the legislative fight. The government record that would show whom Husted was meeting with during the final two days of that fight does not disclose the names or subjects of the listed meetings.

Ohio’s Public Records Act provides that a redaction is treated as a denial of access to the redacted information unless state or federal law authorizes or requires the withholding. When a public-records request is ultimately denied in whole or in part, the law requires the public office to provide an explanation that includes the legal authority for the denial.

The Husted calendar pages themselves do not state the exemption invoked for the July 22 or July 23 redactions. They also do not identify who applied the redactions. An explanation may have been supplied separately to the original requester; the records reviewed for this story do not contain it.

Nine calls with FirstEnergy during the Randazzo selection

The legislative fight was not the beginning of Husted’s documented contacts with FirstEnergy.

Phone records introduced during the 2026 criminal trial of Jones and Dowling showed Husted spoke with Dowling nine times for a combined 51 minutes in late 2018 and early 2019, during the period when the incoming DeWine administration was deciding who would lead the PUCO. TiffinOhio.net previously reported on the phone records as they emerged at trial.

Husted testified in March that it was his responsibility during the gubernatorial transition to gather information about candidates for PUCO chairman. He also confirmed that he and DeWine attended a Dec. 18, 2018 dinner with Jones and Dowling at the Athletic Club of Columbus.

Husted was called by the defense in the corruption trial of the two former FirstEnergy executives and testified by video on March 11. He told jurors that FirstEnergy initially preferred Columbus attorney Jason Rafeld for the PUCO chairmanship rather than Randazzo and said the company’s preference did not dictate whom the administration would select.

Prosecutors have alleged that Jones and Dowling were involved in arranging a $4.3 million payment to Randazzo during the same broader period in which the administration was selecting the state’s top utility regulator. Jones and Dowling have denied that the payment was a bribe.

Their first state criminal trial ended March 31 with a deadlocked jury. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office and Summit County Prosecutor reindicted the two men in June on a combined 22 felony counts, including bribery and conspiracy charges. The charges are allegations and remain unresolved.

FirstEnergy’s own conduct is not merely alleged. In a 2021 federal deferred prosecution agreement, the company admitted conspiring with public officials and others to pay millions of dollars to public officials in exchange for official actions benefiting FirstEnergy and agreed to a $230 million penalty.

FirstEnergy acknowledged paying millions of dollars through an entity tied to an elected state official in return for pursuing nuclear legislation. The company separately admitted paying $4.3 million to a second public official who then took official actions advancing FirstEnergy’s legislative and regulatory interests. That second official was Randazzo.

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder was later convicted of leading the racketeering conspiracy surrounding HB 6 and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

Husted has not been charged in connection with the scandal.

The administration was warned about Randazzo

The DeWine administration also received warnings about Randazzo before placing him in charge of the agency responsible for regulating FirstEnergy.

On Jan. 28, 2019, attorney J.B. Hadden met with DeWine Chief of Staff Laurel Dawson and other administration officials and delivered extensive material raising concerns about Randazzo’s relationship with FirstEnergy. The nearly 200-page dossier alleged “opaque and undisclosed financial ties” between Randazzo and the utility.

Husted’s sworn testimony does not establish that he personally reviewed the Hadden dossier. It does establish that he knew concerns about Randazzo had reached the administration.

Asked during the Jones-Dowling trial whether he remembered criticism of Randazzo during the appointment process, Husted recalled that another utility had sent “maybe a letter or something” criticizing him as a potential appointee. Asked whether he was involved in discussions about continuing to support Randazzo, Husted said the administration was trying to determine “what was true.” He identified the utility raising the concern as AEP.

Randazzo’s own 2019 Senate confirmation statement placed Husted directly in the process that brought him back into government. Randazzo wrote that he had expected to spend more time in Florida after retiring from private practice until DeWine and Husted won the election. He said the transition team then approached him about energy and utility issues and that the conversation eventually shifted toward whether he would return to government service at the PUCO.

Randazzo also referenced recent conversations with DeWine, Husted, Dawson and other members of the administration.

Husted called Randazzo two days before HB 6 was introduced

After Randazzo became PUCO chairman, Husted remained in contact with him as the FirstEnergy-backed legislation took shape.

Husted’s official calendar lists a scheduled 9 a.m. phone call with Randazzo on April 10, 2019. House Bill 6 was introduced two days later.

That call was among the contacts identified in an earlier TiffinOhio.net review of Husted’s official calendars, which documented meetings and calls with figures tied to HB 6 during the bill’s development, passage and aftermath.

The April 10 calendar also contains a redacted block from 9 to 10 a.m., overlapping the scheduled Randazzo call. The records do not identify what information within that hour was redacted, and they do not establish that Husted participated in a separate 9:15 a.m. “Energy Discussion” listed on DeWine’s calendar.

Two Randazzo records cannot be found in state online archives

Other gaps remain in the online public record surrounding Randazzo’s appointment.

A September 2026 review of the Ohio Channel’s online archive found no recording of Randazzo’s April 2, 2019 confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee. Other committee proceedings from the same General Assembly remain available, and the archive includes the 2021 confirmation hearing of Randazzo’s successor, Jenifer French.

Randazzo also submitted a signed application for the PUCO position on Jan. 17, 2019. A copy of that application exists and was reviewed for this story. But a September search of the PUCO’s online document portal for Randazzo returned zero results.

The unanswered questions are therefore narrow and factual: whether Randazzo’s confirmation hearing or application was previously available through those online systems, whether either record was subsequently removed or de-indexed, and why neither could be retrieved when the archives were checked.

‘None.’ ‘We weren’t involved.’ ‘My role was very clear.’

Husted’s public descriptions of his involvement can now be read alongside the documentary record.

In November 2021, asked to describe his role in the passage of HB 6, Husted said: “None.”

In August 2022, after FirstEnergy texts surfaced describing him working on the duration of the subsidies, Husted said he had advocated publicly and privately for the legislation but maintained: “I wasn’t involved in the legislative process.”

In 2024, when News 5 Cleveland confronted him with additional FirstEnergy communications describing his involvement, Husted responded: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We weren’t involved.”

By January 2026, Husted described his involvement differently. “My role was very clear,” he said in an NBC4 interview. “I wanted the nuclear power plants to remain operational.” Husted argued that keeping the plants open was sound energy policy and said his actions were about preserving generation capacity for Ohio.

That explanation describes why Husted says he supported the plants. FirstEnergy’s contemporaneous records describe what its executives believed he was doing as the legislation moved through the Statehouse: working on the length of the subsidies, engaging with Senate leaders and “fighting to the end.”

FirstEnergy’s relationship with Husted predated HB 6

The utility’s political interest in Husted also preceded the DeWine administration.

Records made public in 2024 showed that FirstEnergy contributed $1 million in 2017 to Freedom Frontier, an outside political organization supporting Husted’s campaign for governor, with “Husted campaign” listed as the reason for the expenditure. Ohio Capital Journal reported that FirstEnergy lobbyist Neil Clark later referred to Husted as the company’s “Golden Boy.”

Husted’s spokesperson has said his campaign never received the $1 million contribution and was not affiliated with Freedom Frontier.

Additional records reported by TiffinOhio.net have documented FirstEnergy communications involving Husted before, during and after the HB 6 fight, including the phone records and meetings that surfaced during this year’s criminal trial.

The question raised by the signing-day calendars is more specific than Husted’s broader relationship with FirstEnergy. The public already knows what the company was saying about him as HB 6 moved through the legislature. It does not know what is underneath the redactions on his official schedule during the final two days before the bill became law.

Husted said his role in the passage of HB 6 was “none.” FirstEnergy executives said he was “working on the 10 years” and “fighting to the end.”

On July 23, 2019, the day DeWine signed the FirstEnergy-backed bailout into law, every meeting shown on Husted’s official calendar remains behind a black bar.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Windsor was not a spectator or another politician somewhere on the bill. He was one of three hosts of the Oct. 2 “Battleground Ohio” event at Genoa Church in Westerville, where Ramaswamy appeared as a featured guest.

Windsor personally interviewed Ramaswamy onstage.

“Last night at Battleground Ohio I got to sit down with Republican nominee for Governor Vivek Ramaswamy in front of about 750 people,” Windsor wrote afterward, posting a photo of himself seated beside Ramaswamy.

The appearance puts Ramaswamy back alongside Windsor just six weeks after TiffinOhio.net exposed the court records behind Windsor’s 2018 domestic violence case.

His ex-wife accused him of threats, confinement and violence

Windsor’s then-wife went to Delaware County Common Pleas Court on March 1, 2018 and petitioned for a domestic violence civil protection order.

A magistrate granted an emergency protection order that same day.

The allegations in her petition were extensive.

She accused Windsor of isolating her from friends and relatives, monitoring her movements and communications, controlling her access to email and social media and preventing her from working.

She alleged that Windsor blocked doorways and kept her trapped inside rooms during arguments, sometimes for hours. She accused him of shoving her from behind into a kitchen, throwing a dishwasher across a kitchen and punching and damaging her vehicle.

A handwritten allegation in the filing said Windsor hit her daughter in the face.

After the couple separated, Windsor’s wife alleged that he repeatedly bombarded her with calls and messages. During one three-day period, she said Windsor called her 48 times, left eight voicemails and sent 15 emails.

She accused Windsor of telling her, “You will be mine forever,” and threatening to kill any man who came between them.

The court did not separately rule on whether each accusation occurred, and Windsor was not criminally charged over the allegations reviewed by TiffinOhio.net.

But Windsor did not walk away from the case with the petition dismissed.

He agreed to a domestic violence civil protection order.

Windsor agreed to the protection order after his divorce was already over

Windsor was served with the protection-order case on March 5, 2018. An attorney entered an appearance for him that same day.

His divorce was finalized May 24.

The domestic violence case continued.

A full hearing was held June 27. Two days later, the court entered a consent agreement and domestic violence civil protection order agreed to by Windsor. It remained effective until March 1, 2020.

The timing undercuts Windsor’s later attempt to brush the allegations off as part of a contentious divorce. The marriage had already been legally over for more than a month when Windsor, represented by counsel, agreed to the protection order.

When TiffinOhio.net confronted Windsor with the records in August, he claimed many of the allegations had been “proven untrue in court or later retracted.”

The court record shows no such thing.

TiffinOhio.net found no ruling declaring the allegations false, no dismissal of his former wife’s petition and no filing retracting the accusations.

The case ends with Windsor agreeing to the domestic violence protection order.

Weeks ago, Windsor mocked Acton’s warning about ‘predators and abusers’

The Ramaswamy appearance carries another layer of irony.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton’s campaign said in September that she would not debate Ramaswamy, accusing him of spreading lies about Acton and her family and saying he “stands with predators and abusers.”

Windsor went on Cincinnati radio days later and mocked the accusation.

During a Sept. 14 appearance with Bill Cunningham on 700 WLW, Cunningham repeated Acton’s charge that Ramaswamy “stands with predators and abusers.”

“Who are the predators and the abusers?” Cunningham asked.

Windsor jumped in.

“Exactly. Exactly. She won’t answer,” Windsor said.

Windsor then lectured Acton about answering accusations directly.

“If somebody accused me of something and they were my opponent and I was going to contest them in an election, you damn well better believe I’d want them on the debate stage because I’d want to set the record straight,” Windsor said.

Less than three weeks later, Windsor was sitting onstage interviewing Ramaswamy himself.

This was not their first interview

Friday was not the first time Ramaswamy gave Windsor his platform.

On April 15, Ramaswamy appeared on “The Windsor Report” for an interview with Windsor on 98.9 FM The Answer.

By October, Windsor was hosting a political event featuring Ramaswamy and interviewing the Republican nominee before hundreds of people.

The event was organized by Salem Media of Ohio and advertised Windsor, Bruce Hooley and Larry Elder as hosts. Its featured political guests included Ramaswamy, Ohio Auditor Keith Faber, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, U.S. Rep. Mike Carey and former Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

Windsor thanked Ramaswamy and the other politicians afterward and urged his followers to vote Nov. 3.

Eight years after his former wife went to court accusing him of threats, confinement and violence, and after Windsor agreed to a domestic violence protection order, Jack Windsor is now getting a seat onstage with the Republican nominee for governor.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein accuser who said Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her to powerful men for sex, testified under oath that Maxwell sent her to Dubin for sex.

The super PAC never returned Dubin’s $100,000.

Federal Election Commission records show American Exceptionalism PAC eventually spent every dollar it raised, terminated in December 2024 with $0 remaining and reported $0 in contribution refunds.

Cleveland.com later reported that the committee dissolved without either refunding or donating Dubin’s $100,000.

Ramaswamy, meanwhile, spent his presidential campaign repeatedly demanding that the government expose Epstein’s network, promising to publish what he called the “full Epstein client list” and declaring that government should not protect powerful people connected to Epstein.

Epstein accuser testified Maxwell sent her to Dubin for sex

Giuffre specifically named Dubin in sworn testimony about men she said Maxwell directed her to have sex with.

In a 2016 deposition later released in federal court, Giuffre explained that when Maxwell instructed her to give men a “massage,” the term meant sex.

“And I’m telling you that Ghislaine told me to go to Glenn Dubin and give him a massage, which means sex,” Giuffre testified.

Asked directly whether Maxwell told her to give Dubin a massage, Giuffre answered, “Correct.”

“That’s your testimony?” an attorney asked.

“That is my testimony,” Giuffre replied.

Giuffre also testified that Dubin was the first person she was sent to after completing what she described as her massage “training.”

“I know Glenn Dubin was first,” she testified.

Dubin has denied Giuffre’s allegation. He has not been charged with a crime in connection with Epstein.

Ramaswamy promised to expose Epstein’s network

During that same presidential campaign, Ramaswamy repeatedly promised voters he would expose Epstein’s network and force the government to disclose the powerful people connected to him.

“Jeffrey Epstein didn’t act alone. Where’s the client list? Release it now. I’ll do it as President,” Ramaswamy wrote in May 2023.

Days later, he wrote that the government had the list and promised: “We’re fighting corruption & no one will be spared.”

Publishing the Epstein list became one of Ramaswamy’s formal presidential campaign promises.

The policy platform preserved by American Exceptionalism PAC lists “Publish the Jeffrey Epstein client list” under Ramaswamy’s plan to end what he called the weaponization of government.

His stated justification was explicit: “government should not use police power to shield select elites.”

At an Iowa campaign event later that year, Ramaswamy again promised to disclose the list.

“We will publish the Jeffrey Epstein client list,” he said. “No doubt about it. No doubt about it.”

Then the Epstein-linked donor’s money became public

In January 2024, Fox News reported that Dubin had given $100,000 to American Exceptionalism PAC and another $6,600 directly to Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign.

Dubin’s wife, Eva Andersson-Dubin, who had also been associated with Epstein, gave another $6,600 directly to Ramaswamy’s campaign, bringing the couple’s direct contributions to $13,200.

Ramaswamy responded by emphasizing his own demands for Epstein transparency.

“I was the first and most vocal proponent of releasing ALL Epstein related documents & we will,” Ramaswamy wrote. “The people deserve to know the TRUTH. We’re donating the money to causes to fight trafficking.”

Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign later said the direct campaign money from Dubin was donated to Hope Ministries, a battered women’s shelter in Iowa.

American Exceptionalism PAC did not do the same with Dubin’s $100,000.

The super PAC reported no contribution refunds before terminating. Cleveland.com reported that it also did not donate Dubin’s money before shutting down.

Ramaswamy went silent after launching his Ohio campaign

After years of demanding the Epstein files, Ramaswamy went silent on the issue after President Donald Trump returned to the White House and Ramaswamy launched his campaign for Ohio governor with Trump’s endorsement.

WVXU reported in September 2025 that despite Ramaswamy’s years of public demands for the files, “there’s not been a peep out of Ramaswamy on the matter” since Trump returned to office and Ramaswamy entered the governor’s race.

The station said requests to Ramaswamy’s campaign staff and strategists for an interview went unanswered.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dr. Amy Acton publicly called on Ramaswamy to join her in demanding the files be released. His campaign did not respond to a reporter seeking comment at the time.

Ramaswamy did not publicly speak about the issue again until November 2025, after Trump reversed his opposition to releasing additional Epstein material and the U.S. House overwhelmingly voted to require disclosure of Justice Department files.

McColley took $5,000 from another major Epstein associate

Ramaswamy’s running mate, Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, separately accepted $5,000 from Les Wexner, the billionaire former retail executive whose decades-long relationship with Epstein has come under intense scrutiny.

Wexner gave $5,000 to McColley’s campaign in June 2024, according to Ohio campaign-finance records and reporting from the Ohio Statehouse News Bureau.

Epstein managed Wexner’s fortune for years and held sweeping power of attorney over his financial affairs. Wexner has said Epstein stole millions of dollars from him and that he severed ties with Epstein years before Epstein’s 2019 arrest.

FBI document named Wexner as an Epstein “co-conspirator”

An FBI document written five days after Epstein’s death named Wexner as one of eight Epstein “co-conspirators.”

WOSU reported on the unredacted document after it was released as part of the Epstein files in February.

The same list included Maxwell, who was later convicted on federal charges stemming from her role in recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel.

A separate FBI communication described Wexner as a “secondary co-conspirator” while noting investigators had “limited evidence” involving him.

Wexner has not been charged with a crime in connection with Epstein. He has denied knowing about or participating in Epstein’s criminal conduct, and his representative has said a federal prosecutor told Wexner’s attorneys in 2019 that he was neither a co-conspirator nor a target.

McColley defended himself over Wexner money, then donated it

By February, Ohio politicians from both parties were giving away campaign contributions from Wexner as his relationship with Epstein came under renewed scrutiny.

When the Statehouse News Bureau asked McColley on Feb. 18 what he would do with Wexner’s $5,000, McColley did not say he would return or donate it.

Instead, he defended himself by saying he had never met Wexner.

“I’ve never met the guy,” McColley told the Statehouse News Bureau. “I don’t know the guy, I don’t even know how to get a hold of him, even if I wanted to.”

McColley said politicians could decide for themselves what to do with Wexner’s money.

“I think every member should do what is in their own conscience to do under the circumstances,” he said.

McColley subsequently donated the money. Campaign-finance records reviewed by WOSU later confirmed McColley was among Ohio politicians who followed through on promises to donate Wexner contributions.

Ramaswamy’s campaign donated Dubin’s money. The super PAC backing him did not.

Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign donated the money it received directly from Dubin after the contribution came under scrutiny.

McColley ultimately donated Wexner’s $5,000.

But Dubin’s much larger $100,000 contribution to the super PAC backing Ramaswamy was never refunded.

Federal records show American Exceptionalism PAC spent all $8.87 million it raised, reported $0 in contribution refunds and shut down with nothing left.

Cleveland.com reported the PAC also never donated Dubin’s $100,000 before it dissolved.

It kept and spent the money while Ramaswamy repeatedly promised voters that Epstein’s network should be exposed, that government should stop shielding powerful people and that, in his words, “no one will be spared.”

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Family and friends remembered Pierre Damas Bel as a hard-working, loving, and dependable young man who had hopes of building a hospital in Haiti.

Hundreds of people attended Damas Bel’s funeral at St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church in Springfield, Ohio on Saturday. The obituary, prayers, and remembrances were spoken in a mix of Haitian Creole and English.

“We come to mourn Pierre Damas Bel, but also to remember with gratitude the life that he lived, the people who he loved,” said Carl Ruby, pastor of Springfield’s Central Christian Church. 

Damas Bel died in an apparent suicide on Aug. 31. His family said that happened because he was forced to wear an ankle monitor by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to end temporary protected status for the 330,000 Haitians who’ve fled violence in their home country. 

“We come because his life matters, because this family matters,” said Ernie Brown, senior pastor of St. John Missionary Baptist Church. 

“May we remember not only how life ended, but also how life (was) lived, the relationships he formed, the moments he shared, the laughter, the memories, and the love surrounding him,” Brown said.

Many who spoke urged those in attendance to remember Damas Bel for the life he lived. 

“Pierre Damas Bel deserves to be remembered for more than the tragedy that ended his earthly journey,” Ruby said. 

Legal protected status for Haitians officially ended on July 27 and Haitians living in Springfield have been required to report to the ICE offices in Blue Ash or Westerville to accept ankle monitors. 

“Our dear friend and brother might have died by suicide, but he was killed by the system,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. 

“Pierre’s legacy leaves a mark in our lives forever, and how the criminalization of Haitian immigrants can be an unnecessary death sentence,” said Yola Lamarre, an advocate with the Haitian Community Network.

Damas Bel, 20, was born in Tiburon, Haiti and came to the United States in 2021. 

He was a first-year student at Wright State University studying neuroscience who had hopes of going to medical school. He also worked at Texas Roadhouse. 

Damas Bel graduated from Springfield High School in May. He participated in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and played on the high school soccer team. 

“Damas was not simply a student with ambitions,” Ruby said. 

“He was a young man who believed in helping people. His family remembers him as loving, obedient, dependable, compassionate.” 

Damas Bel was raised by his father and stepmother, and had two younger siblings. Damas Bel’s father Pierre Ronal Bel described the deep relationship he had with his son in a statement that was read aloud during the service. 

“He knew everything about me. … Whenever someone opens the front door, I have the sense that it is him coming home.”

Damas Bel’s stepmother Landy St. Juste shared how he helped her with job applications, interpreted for her, and checked on her regularly. 

“He was loving and kind. May his beautiful soul rest in peace.” 

His younger brother Bradley Bel said Damas Bel was always there for him. 

“You always made me feel like I was never alone. You are someone I could always count on.” 

When talking about Damas Bel’s father, Ruby mentioned Mamie Till-Mobley whose son Emmett Till who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. 

“He too died a violent death that galvanized the attention of the world and helped to fuel the Civil Rights Movement,” Ruby said. 

“Like Emmett Till, Pierre Damas died under the weight of a racialized system that did not provide him with equal liberty and equal justice. He died under a way of governing that did not recognize his inalienable rights to life, liberty, and happiness. … May Pierre Damas Bel’s death start a movement of justice for all Haitian people.” 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine attended the funeral and talked to Damas Bel’s family seated in the front row. 

“Fran and I lost a 22-year-old daughter, Becky, so we have some understanding of the great trauma and sorrow that they face,” DeWine said. “I just want to be there for the family.” 

Springfield Mayor Robert Rue was also at the funeral and sat next to DeWine during the service. 

Ohio state Rep. Latyna Humphrey, D-Columbus, spoke on behalf of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. 

“(Damas Bel) played a part in the American dream,” she said. “He was willing to work for his family. He was willing to create community. He was willing to make sure that he was educated because he too had dreams, he too had aspirations, he too wanted to save his community.”

Some in attendance at the funeral might not have known Damas Bel, Ruby said, but wanted to show support for his family and the Haitian community in Springfield. 

“This group wants you and other Haitians who have come to Springfield to know that you are a blessing, not a burden to our community,” Ruby said. 

“You have made our city better. You have not made it worse. This group wants you to know that you are not guests in Springfield. … You are a part of our community, and we do not want you to be ripped away.” 

About 15,000 Haitians live in Springfield, with a mixture of temporary protected status, citizenship and other legal status.

Five Haitians from Springfield, Ohio have been deported back to Haiti and nearly 75 Haitians living in Ohio have been detained since July 27 at one of four Ohio detention facilities that contract with ICE.

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on X or on Bluesky.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The same poll found that in the contest for governor, Democrat Amy Acton was up six points over Republican Vivek Ramaswamy.

It was the first Ohio poll conducted by Marist University this cycle. 

It surveyed 1,298 registered voters between Sept. 24 and 27 using phone calls, text messages and the internet to solicit opinions. The margin of error was 3.8 percentage points.

Brown’s lead in the poll is significantly higher than the Real Clear Politics average of 3.7 points. The group’s average has Acton up by four points.

The Republican candidates are likely being dragged down by an unpopular president. The New York Times average places Donald Trump’s approval at 37%.

“Ohio registered voters approach the midterm election cycle with a sour mood toward President Donald Trump and lean Democratic in the state’s marquee contests,” a statement accompanying the Marist poll said.

The survey found that Trump is a little more popular with Ohioans — who gave him 42% approval — than with Americans as a whole.

The biggest share of Ohio voters, 41%, said their vote in the midterm election would be a vote against Trump. Thirty-three percent said Trump wasn’t much of a factor in their vote, and just 25% said they would vote in support of the president.

The same plurality, 41%, who said they plan their midterm votes as a statement against Trump, also said they’ve become economically worse off in the past year. Another 37% said their finances are about the same and just 19% said their finances have improved.

In addition to the economy, a quick, sharp backlash against data centers appears to be costing Ohio Republicans in terms of public opinion. In an August memo, the National Republican Senatorial Committee described how the backlash imperiled Husted’s chances — and those of future data centers.

“More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck,” it said. “If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one.”

The issue might help explain why, on the generic congressional ballot, Democrats have a three-point edge in Ohio. The Real Clear Politics puts the Democrats’ national lead on the generic congressional ballot at 8.5 points.

Election Day is Nov. 3. Military and overseas absentee voting start Thursday.

The deadline to register is Oct. 5. Early in-person and mail-in voting in Ohio start on Oct. 6.

The Ohio Secretary of State’s election calendar can be found here.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The bill will cost the state an estimated $700 million according to the Legislative Service Commission. The bill itself sets aside $725 million in general revenue funds to cover these lost expenses.

While a majority of Ohio economists polled do not think a gas tax suspension will provide meaningful relief to Ohio households, this decision does reveal something: Ohio legislators are willing to pay $725 million to support households. What other ways could they do it?

Household rebate

One weakness of the current strategy is that a gas tax suspension only supports drivers. It is a mistake to say that the fuel price hike we have seen this year due to the War in Iran only impacts drivers. Fuel costs have driven up prices across the board and even households without cars are paying the price.

The current gas tax suspension disproportionately benefits two-car households and leaves Ohio’s 370,000 no-car households out, even as they face higher prices themselves. A change to a flat household rebate would mean each household would get about $150, with no-car households benefiting the same as 3+ car households.

Targeted rebate

This last point raises an important consideration: price increases are felt differently throughout the population. Low-income households are likely to feel the sting of higher prices harder than upper-income households. Targeting the rebate to the bottom quintile of households heaviest hit by increases would increase the per-household impact to $760.

Another option would be to target low-income households with children, the types of households that are likely to have the longest-lasting pain from economic shocks. Last year’s $450 million child tax credit proposal would provide up to $1,000 per household, providing more meaningful relief to more at-risk households at a much lower price than the gas tax proposal.

Targeted transportation relief

If lawmakers are particularly tied to transportation relief, there are ways to do that, too. County Job and Family Service offices already provide gas cards and bus passes to residents in need. Transit agencies like COTA have longstanding programs providing discounted transportation fares to people in need. Providing funds for county Job and Family Service offices and local transit agencies to temporarily expand transit options for low-income workers could concentrate relief in households most affected by rising transportation costs.

This time around, lawmakers opted for a simple, popular solution: temporarily suspend a gas tax to lead to a 90-day decrease in gas prices for every commuter, trucker, or nearby resident who fills up on gas in the state. Lawmakers showed they are willing to open their wallets in a moment like this. Next time Ohio residents experience a large, unexpected price shock they have the chance to be a little more creative and help people more at a lower price.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Prediction market platforms say they are like commodity markets that offer contracts to speculate on the future price of corn or oil — not sportsbooks that allow gamblers to place bets. But many states reject those justifications, arguing the platforms offer a backdoor to skirt state gambling regulations, particularly on sports.

The issue has sparked action from state regulators, new legislation, and a flurry of lawsuits from states, prediction markets, and the Trump administration, which has sought to sideline state oversight.

Kalshi, by far the largest prediction market platform, has targeted much of its political spending on governors and state attorneys general.

OpenSecrets found that Kalshi poured more than $300,000 combined into the two major political organizations dedicated to electing and supporting AGs: The Republican Attorneys General Association and the Democratic Attorneys General Association.

Likewise, Kalshi donated $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association and $150,000 to the Democratic Governors Association in the first half of the year.

“Like many U.S. regulated companies, we support candidates on both sides of the aisle,” Dani Lever, a spokesperson for Kalshi, told OpenSecrets in a statement.

The analysis found Kalshi has hired at least one lobbyist in 41 states, focusing much of that effort on California and New York. That means the company has a  lobbying presence in every state that has introduced prediction-market-specific legislation.

State lawmakers of both parties are growing increasingly frustrated with prediction markets, arguing they are avoiding state gambling regulations or gambling bans, gambling taxes and consumer protections.

This summer, Sara Slane, Head of Corporate Development at Kalshi, told lawmakers that the company was committed to building relationships with the states. But she said the prediction markets are not subject to state oversight, as they are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates derivatives such as futures contracts on stocks.

That five-member commission currently has four vacancies. But it has aggressively defended prediction markets and its right to oversee them  — going so far as to sue nine states that attempted to regulate the industry. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, has financial stakes in both Kalshi and Polymarket.

With litigation flying on the issue, many observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately decide what role states can play in regulating prediction markets.

In addition to its political spending in states, OpenSecrets found the industry remains committed to federal lobbying, with Kalshi alone spending nearly $1 million in the first half of the year. Those efforts focused on the CFTC, the White House, the Securities & Exchange Commission and both chambers of Congress.

Brad Lipton, director of the Roosevelt Institute’s corporate power and financial regulation program, told OpenSecrets the lobbying push was evidence of the “existential question” facing prediction markets.

“It’s not at all clear to me that their business model can compete if they are going to comply with state law,” Lipton said. “They’re really trying to create a situation, I think, where they have enough political power to overcome the legal deficiencies in their arguments.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

September growth was a large dip from a strong August number that was revised down from 162,000 to 133,000 in the new report. July jobs were also revised from an increase of 21,000 to a decrease of 10,000, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly report. 

“This is a textbook weak jobs report,” economist Kathryn Anne Edwards said on a live chat on Substack after the release.

The fact that earnings, up 3%, are not keeping up with 3.4% inflation, means “We can say pretty categorically that things got worse for workers this month,” Edwards said.

Average hourly earnings increased slightly to $37.81, up 3% from a year ago. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1% in August, but still a decrease from 4.4% in September 2025. 

Speaking on Fox News, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, tried to frame the joblessness increase as a result of a labor market that more potential workers have returned to since August. 

“People are seeing the strong labor market and they’re saying, ‘Oh I need to get back in the labor force because I’m going to make so much money.’ That’s one reason why the unemployment rate just ticked in a different direction,” Hassett said. 

The labor force increased by 485,000 people in September, according to the report, but that’s still a decrease of a million from September 2025. . 

Black unemployment jumped 1 point to 7% for the month, though it also is down from 7.6% in September 2025. 

Health care jobs led September job growth at 16,700. That’s still a slowdown from an average of 33,000 per month over the past year as hospitals continue to seek financial stability. Some health systems had layoffs last month in Vermont and New Hampshire. Government jobs dropped by 17,000, mostly in local governments. 

The freight economy has been reeling from the impact of high diesel prices, and job losses have been announced in that industry. Nonetheless the federal statistics show a monthly job increase of 2,600 in September for truck transportation jobs, but a drop of 4,100 in warehousing and storage jobs. 

An alternative jobs report from payroll processor ADP found a 90,000-job gain in September, with more than half of those coming gains in the Mid-Atlantic region of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.  

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“Every day we find new things to be astonished about but I think that we just want residents to not be afraid to vote because that’s ultimately what the president was after,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, said in an interview.

Johnston and other local and state officials across the country are bracing for possible federal election interference from now through Nov. 3 — even as they remain unsure of what will actually happen.

One month from Election Day, President Donald Trump’s long-running pressure campaign over elections is approaching a decisive moment. For the past year, the Trump administration has sought to bend the U.S. election system to the president’s will across multiple fronts, despite the Constitution’s guarantee that states administer elections.

Interviews and public comments by more than a dozen current and former election officials, legal experts, lawmakers and others ahead of the midterms reveal anxiety over what Trump may do. Election administrators often plan for natural disasters, bomb threats and other possible problems, but this year many are also thinking about possible disruptions driven by the federal government.

Potential scenarios range from armed federal personnel deploying at or near the polls to Trump declaring a national emergency — ideas widely condemned as illegal by election law experts. Homeland Security denies it plans to specifically target polling locations.

Others include efforts to discredit voting machines or federal law enforcement obtaining search warrants to seize ballots, a fear that’s grown since the FBI took 2020 election ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, earlier this year.

Barb Byrum, the county clerk in Ingham County, Michigan, which includes much of Lansing, said that when she became a clerk 13 years ago, she and other officials conducted table-top exercises to plan for power outages and tornadoes. Now it’s moved on to “federal misbehavior,” she said.

“It’s really unfortunate that’s where we are. But that is, in fact, where we are,” Byrum, a Democrat, said in an interview.

Memories of 2020

Fears of election interference are at least partly rooted in previous efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in key swing states, culminating in a mob of his supporters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The riot led to Trump’s second impeachment in the House on a charge of inciting an insurrection, but the Senate acquitted him.

Nearly six years later, Trump’s approval ratings are sagging and Republicans are fighting to retain control of Congress amid encouraging polling for Democrats. Loss of the House or Senate would effectively end Trump’s legislative agenda and lead to investigations that consume his final two years in office.

“A desperate Trump is a dangerous Trump,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said during an appearance at the progressive Center for American Progress in September. 

At the same time, Americans’ trust in elections is eroding. Just 49% of respondents said they expect the midterm elections to be free and fair, according to a national survey of more than 5,000 adults in early September conducted by the University of California San Diego Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections.

Still, election officials and legal experts remain largely confident any interference effort ultimately won’t succeed. The United States has a decentralized election system run by state and local officials that guards against large-scale efforts to steal elections or prevent voting, they say, predicting courts would swiftly rule against the deployment of federal agents. 

Many votes are also cast by mail, sidestepping any Election Day show of force. More than 1 million votes have already been cast, according to data compiled by the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

“It’s not going to happen,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, told reporters on Tuesday. “You’re not going to have to run a gauntlet. You’re not going to see troops or armed individuals at the polls.”

‘I don’t rule anything out or in’

Trump and his aides refuse to flatly rule out interfering in the midterms. In an interview with TIME magazine published Thursday, Trump declined to take extreme measures off the table. Asked about sending ICE to the polls, he said only that he hadn’t thought of it.

“I don’t rule anything out or in. We’ll see,” Trump said of a national emergency.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed questions about sending troops to the polls as “another gotcha hypothetical,” though the Department of Defense has said it has no plans to deploy active-duty troops or federalized National Guard members. 

Some Republicans have suggested they would welcome the presence of soldiers if state and local authorities want them. “If that’s something that they decide that they need to look at, then that’s fine with me,” Rep. Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican, told reporters in September.

Mullin, the Homeland Security secretary, last month sought a Department of Justice investigation into whether ballot tabulation machines that read barcodes or QR codes comply with federal law, raising concerns that the Trump administration could create a pretext to dismiss the validity of some ballots. 

The Georgia State Election Board’s executive director recently called on the DOJ to potentially intervene in the state over the use of QR code-based tabulation.

Earlier this year, Mullin also warned that election officials who don’t “participate in securing the elections” could face prosecution. He promised to “hold election officials accountable.”

Roadblocks to interference

But with Election Day nearing, Trump has been stymied on every major initiative to influence the election process this year:

• Congress didn’t pass the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to prove their citizenship. 

• The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the U.S. Postal Service from imposing new rules on mail ballots. 

• The Justice Department has lost more than two dozen lawsuits seeking to force states to turn over sensitive voter data. 

• A DOJ push to prosecute noncitizen voters has led to only a few dozen prosecutions, reflecting studies that consistently found that noncitizen voting happens extremely rarely. In the most recent action, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche in late September announced indictments against 10 noncitizens over allegations of unlawfully voting.

The White House did secure a recent victory when the Supreme Court allowed states to use a supercharged version of a Homeland Security computer program that can identify possible noncitizen voters. But the decision will have minimal impact on the midterms because, under federal law, it’s too close to Election Day for most states to purge large numbers of voters off their rolls.

In response to questions from States Newsroom, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis in a statement accused “extreme liberal Democrats” of preventing Americans from having full confidence in their elections by not supporting the SAVE America Act, though the legislation faced bipartisan opposition in the Senate. 

“President Trump is absolutely right: we fix this now, or we lose our country,” Bis said.

ICE at the polls?

Trump’s failure to advance his signature election-related policies has left him with few options to exert control outside of increasingly audacious and potentially illegal options. So when Mullin said that ICE can execute warrants at polling sites, the remarks provoked a swift backlash from voting rights activists and Democrats.

“The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down,” Mullin said during a news conference on Sept. 1.

On Friday, Homeland Security sent an unsigned statement to States Newsroom denying any plans to target polling locations, adding that Mullin has answered the question “dozens of times.” 

DHS said ICE agents are part of trained special response teams that can rapidly respond to major incidents if necessary to aid local law enforcement, regardless of location.

“Any ‘anxiety’ among election officials is the unfortunate result of fake news reports of ‘federal interference’ despite the Secretary’s numerous clear statements to the contrary,” the DHS statement said.

Notably, the statement does not address Mullin’s remark about serving warrants.

At least three lawsuits seek to block any possible deployment of federal agents to election sites. The oldest case, filed on Sept. 10 by Denver and several voting rights groups, points to Mullin’s comments and alleges ICE has already conducted law enforcement operations at polling places this year.

ICE agents “swarmed” a parking lot of an active polling site in San Antonio in May to detain someone, the suit says. In June, agents visited a Ventura County, California, polling place and accosted an election worker at a Syracuse, New York, polling place, it says.

Preparing for the worst

Tina Barton co-chairs the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, a nonprofit group that helps elections and officials and law enforcement think through how to protect election workers and voters from violence, threats and intimidation. She said the organization has about 138 events on its calendar this year, compared to 67 in 2024.

In communities with concerns about a possible federal presence, the organization has officials work through a scenario involving ICE activity near a polling place that affects voters coming to the area, allowing local leaders to think through questions about what their legal options would be, how they would respond and what they would tell the public.

“Their conversation and how they choose to move forward, that’s owned by them and their community and how they choose to handle that. What we encourage is relationship-building ahead of time with them, conversations ahead of time,” Barton said.

Local election officials receive an “incredible” amount of training in how to handle crises, said Kamryn Hoadley, who advises Michigan election officials for Keep Our Republic, a pro-democracy nonprofit. “They are truly as prepared as somebody could be for anything that will happen on Election Day,” Hoadley said.

In Los Angeles County — the most populous county in the country, with more than 10 million residents — election officials have studied the potential for disruptions to the election. 

But Dean Logan, the Los Angeles registrar-recorder/county clerk, emphasized in a statement that scenarios concerning federal agents at polling sites and the seizure of ballots haven’t occurred in his area and haven’t been upheld in court.

“We’ve engaged in scenario and tabletop planning with our partners so that if an unexpected situation arises, roles are clear and our response is calm, coordinated, and focused on voter access and participation, rather than politically reactive,” Logan said. 

“Voters should know the behind-the-scenes work is thorough, and the fundamentals of a secure election are sound,” he said.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The change came after State Rep. Gary Click spent nearly two weeks repeatedly promoting the Oct. 1 appearance on social media and urging supporters to attend.

Click originally advertised the 5:30 p.m. town hall for Tiffin University’s Marion Center, with the event sponsored by Click and the Seneca County Republican Central Committee.

According to Tiffin University’s event-services information, the Marion Center can accommodate up to 500 people with theater seating or 240 with banquet seating. The university also says the venue requires a minimum of 100 guests for a booking.

But Ramaswamy never took the stage there.

By Thursday, the event had been moved downtown to Reino’s Catering & Party Room, a considerably smaller room with space for roughly 50 people.

A source within the Seneca County Republican Party told TiffinOhio.net before the event that turnout was expected to be “very low.” Organizers did not publicly announce why the town hall was moved out of the much larger university venue.

The change was striking given the amount of promotion behind the event. Click had repeatedly advertised the town hall on social media in the days leading up to Ramaswamy’s visit.

When he first announced the appearance in September, Click wrote, “Please join us and help spread the word! I’m looking forward to bringing Vivek Ramaswamy to the 88th District for a Tiffin Town Hall!”

Photographs from inside Reino’s show a small group of supporters seated around restaurant tables while others, including Republican officials and event organizers, stood along the perimeter of the room.

State Sen. Bill Reineke of Tiffin spoke before Ramaswamy.

Outside, protesters gathered along the sidewalk in front of the downtown venue. One display featured a cutout of Ramaswamy alongside a previous quote attributed to him saying, “Ohio is a good state, I can’t say it’s the best state.” Other demonstrators carried signs criticizing Ramaswamy and national Republican policies.

Both Reineke and Ramaswamy acknowledged the protesters during their remarks.

Ramaswamy thanked attendees for coming despite what he called the “polite protesters” outside and later addressed the sign quoting his previous remarks about Ohio.

“We are a great state, but we still have work to do,” Ramaswamy said. “Great is not good enough.”

Most of Ramaswamy’s roughly 40-minute appearance focused on familiar campaign themes including property taxes, education, surveillance cameras, data centers and government spending.

He also sharply attacked Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton, referring to her as his “mentally absent opponent” and saying she could not “compose a full sentence in response to a question.” He told the audience they would not trust Acton in a financial position at the restaurant or another small business.

A second Ramaswamy event one hour later

Ramaswamy’s Tiffin appearance was only the first of two northwest Ohio events scheduled roughly an hour apart Thursday evening.

After leaving Tiffin, Ramaswamy traveled to Risingsun for a separate gathering organized by Coalition of Patriots II, a northwest Ohio grassroots group that identifies as constitutional conservative.

TiffinOhio.net reported Sept. 19 that the Coalition had accused Click of being “vindictive” and attempting to sabotage its Ramaswamy appearance by arranging his own town hall for the same evening, beginning one hour earlier.

The Coalition said it had arranged its event first for approximately 110 people. The group said Click was not invited and accused him of seeking his own Ramaswamy appearance after learning about its gathering.

“When Rep. Click learned he was not one of the invited, he then attempted to undermine the conservative groups meeting by trying to schedule his own meeting with the candidate the same evening,” the Coalition said in its September statement.

Click subsequently announced the Tiffin University town hall and spent the following days repeatedly promoting it.

Both events ultimately went forward Thursday, but not as originally planned.

Click’s event was moved from the Marion Center, which can hold as many as 500 people, into the roughly 50-seat Reino’s Party Room. Ramaswamy then traveled to Risingsun for the Coalition gathering.

Ramaswamy puts Risingsun in the wrong county

After the second event, Ramaswamy made a geographic mistake in a post about his visit.

He identified the Risingsun gathering as being in Seneca County.

It wasn’t.

Risingsun is a village in Wood County.

Ramaswamy had actually been in Seneca County earlier that evening for the Tiffin town hall before traveling northwest to the Coalition event.

The mistake capped an unusual night for the Republican nominee in northwest Ohio: a town hall promoted for nearly two weeks was moved from a university venue seating hundreds into a roughly 50-seat restaurant party room, protesters gathered outside, and Ramaswamy then traveled to a second gathering organized by conservatives who had publicly accused Click of trying to undermine their event.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“We can have all the energy in the world from oil and natural gas, but if we can’t move it from point A to point B, it’s worthless,” Bowling Green U.S. Rep. Bob Latta said after a panel discussion hosted by the Ohio Manufacturers Association.

At a different event hosted by Arnold Ventures and the Club for Growth, Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted said permitting reform could end “junk lawsuits” and the “political gamesmanship” of energy policy whipsawing from one administration to the next.

“We literally have the opportunity through things like permitting reform to reduce the time it takes to do things like build roads and bridges, to build transmission lines, to build power supply that people need to fund and run all of these different operations,” Husted said.

A major energy transmission project in Western Ohio offers a glimpse of just how difficult a needle lawmakers are trying to thread.

State and local officials seemingly agree that investments in energy infrastructure are worthwhile. The problem is they also agree those investments should be made elsewhere.

What’s the project?

Grid Growth Ventures, a company with backing from AEP and FirstEnergy, is planning to run power lines from two substations in Central Ohio all the way to the Indiana border. The project will carry high voltage power for hundreds of miles on steel lattice structures from 130 to 175 feet tall.

Demand for power in Ohio is growing, and transmission lines like the Grid Growth project are meant to serve that expanding capacity.

In a press release, the company compared transmission lines to interstate highways, “helping move power more efficiently to where it is needed most while creating multiple transmission pathways that strengthen reliability across the region.”

The regional grid operator, PJM Interconnect, manages the transmission network across its 13-state footprint. PJM approved the Grid Growth’s project in February as part of a broader effort to expand the network’s capacity and reliability.

“This project is not being built for hypothetical future growth.” Grid Growth spokesperson Lauren Siburkis said in an emailed statement.

“PJM identified critical reliability vulnerabilities in this region and selected this project as the solution to address those needs and help ensure power can continue flowing safely and reliably to millions of homes and businesses across Ohio.”

The company must now get approval from the Ohio Power Siting Board for a specific route. The board has several options before it. The members can accept or reject the proposal, make modifications, or apply conditions to the project’s buildout.

“A strong transmission system does more than keep the lights on,” Siburkis said. “It helps support economic growth, gives businesses confidence that the power they need will be available and helps ensure Ohio remains a competitive place to locate, expand and invest.”

Grid Growth’s path crosses Ohio’s western border a bit north of Union City in Darke County and runs east to a substation outside of Springfield. From there the path splits — one line running northeast to Marysville while the other moves Southeast to Grove City.

Within that broader plan, though, the lines branch out like a river system, with alternative proposals cutting their own unique path to the same endpoints. The company has held several open house events in the affected counties to hear from residents.

As the company figures out the exact course its transmission line should take, several state and local leaders have chimed in with the same answer: not here.

Criticism

Ohio state Rep. Johnathan Newman, R-Troy, represents a district covering Miami County and part of Darke County. In letters to state regulators, he argued on behalf of both their interests.

Miami County cities along the I-75 corridor are growing, Newman said, and running the transmission line through the area could disrupt that development. He pointed to a Meta data center beginning construction this fall and suggested more businesses could follow.

“A power line passing through this area to the north of south of Piqua is incompatible with the outstanding progress taking place,” Newman told regulators.

Instead, Newman voiced strong support for “a northern pathway, avoiding Miami County.”

That northern route would go through Shelby County.

They don’t want it either.

“This position is not based on opposition to a reliable electric grid,” the Shelby County Commission said in a press release. “We understand that the electric grid throughout the PJM region needs to continue to improve.”

Still, commissioners determined a Shelby County corridor isn’t “in the best interest of our community.”

Just to the east, the Champaign County Commission offered a similar message — safe, reliable power is an understandable goal, but why here?

“Our citizens are being asked to bear the burden of miles of our county farms and homesteads being forever changed,” the Champaign County commission said in a press release expressing opposition to the project.

Ohio state Rep. Tim Barhorst, R-Ft. Loramie, represents both Shelby and Champaign Counties, but he expressed sympathy with elected officials in neighboring counties, too.

“It’s all the same issue,” he said, “I don’t want this to become neighbor vs. neighbor, community vs. community, landowner vs. landowner.”

Barhorst readily acknowledged, “we need more electrons,” but he sees the transmission line as band-aid, bringing energy from Indiana (a net-exporter) to Ohio (a net-importer).

“I’d like to see us shift to a debate of Ohio handling its own needs instead of relying on neighboring states,” he said.

In far west Darke County there’s less question about the route shifting north or south to pass through a different county — all three proposed lines cut straight across it.

The Darke County Commission isn’t happy, and Ohio state Rep. Angela King, R-Celina, is pulling out all the stops in a letter to the Ohio Power Siting Board.

A “sound process,” King said, would “give meaningful weight to agricultural viability, private-property impacts, livestock operations, drainage systems, induced-voltage concerns, historic resources, and rural community continuity.”

King cited potential impacts on agricultural production — Darke County is the state’s biggest in terms of acreage and ag sales — but she also expressed concerns about the environment, historic or archaeological sites, and even the potential for power lines to electrify nearby conductive objects.

King pointed to state law requiring the siting board to demonstrate not just the project’s necessity but that the route in question is the best available option. She included an eight-point plan she wants the board to follow in developing and analyzing alternative routes.

The balancing act

In Washington D.C., lawmakers are preparing for a lame duck push on permitting reform. After sending a handful of proposals to die in the U.S. Senate, the House Energy and Commerce Committee packaged 19 different permitting measures into one bill called the POWER Act.

U.S. Rep. Latta and Zanesville Republican U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson both sit on that committee, and at the Ohio Manufacturing Association panel earlier this month, they touted the measure as their best path forward.

Speaking afterward, Balderson acknowledged the challenge in balancing needed development with local interests.

“We can do that. We have to do it,” he said. “We have to work very hard at it. It’s not easy.”

Balderson described working with the Ohio Department of Transportation on a pipeline project.

“We navigated it completely, didn’t impact anybody around that,” he said. “So, we have to look for those resources, work with the agencies that want to do that — that’s our first stop, and then we can go from there.”

Institute for Local Self-Reliance co-executive director John Farrell contends the regional planning process is “already kind of broken,” and leaves many residents living near big projects with a sense of “powerlessness.”

Farrell explained by the time a project lands with state regulators the question is mostly about permitting and siting, rather than which alternatives offer the best outcome. A project’s neighbors often find out relatively late in the process, he said, “and I think it rightly makes them really mad.”

“People look at it and they say this thing will be near me, it may have impacts on me, and I have very little say in how it happens,” Farrell said. “But also, I’m getting very little benefit from it. Some other big corporation is going to cash in on it, and I’m not going to see anything.”

Farrell acknowledged some opponents of development may reject any project at all, but he said the way to overcome the not-in-my-backyard response is to “actually demonstrate that an effort was really made to explore other ways to do this.”

The money

With the Grid Growth project already midway through the development process, federal legislation like the POWER Act isn’t going to affect its rollout. But its supporters are aiming to get projects like it greenlit more quickly.

That’s understandable, perhaps, in light of future demand projections. A recent audit notes the Public Utility Commission of Ohio expects Ohio’s peak demand to grow by 56% in the next 20 years.

Similar projections for PJM’s 13-state footprint have risen dramatically year by year. In both cases, data centers are regularly cited as primary driver for demand.

But Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Maureen Willis warned speed shouldn’t be the only consideration.

“Transmission reform shouldn’t just be about building projects faster,” Willis said. “It should also be about making sure PJM is identifying the right needs, choosing the right solutions and protecting consumers from paying for infrastructure they don’t need or that is being built to serve someone else.”

For all Grid Growth’s cheerleading about its project’s positive economic impacts, it’s also good business for them.

The cost of transmission projects gets reimbursed by ratepayers through their monthly utility bills.

For utility companies like AEP and FirstEnergy, who are involved in Grid Growth, transmission investments are an important and growing part of their business.

Between now and 2030, companies around the country are planning $1.4 trillion in transmission projects.

Lauren Siburkis from Grid Growth noted that because a final route hasn’t been selected, overall project costs haven’t been finalized. She acknowledged “customers throughout the PJM region share in the cost of transmission projects, while areas receiving greater reliability or congestion-relief benefits may be assigned a larger share.”

Those recovery costs get spread over the life of the infrastructure, which could be decades, and so the impact is “generally gradual and distributed broadly across the region.”

According to projected costs reported to PJM, Grid Growth’s transmission lines will come to roughly $1.075 billion. Based on existing cost-allocation rules, the Consumers’ Counsel office estimates Ohio ratepayers would pay about $660 million.

Because PJM’s decisions about which projects to fund are based on future demand projections, Counsel Willis contends its assumptions “deserve careful scrutiny.” And because data centers are driving those projections higher, she said, regulators should account for that when divvying up the costs.

“If a transmission project is needed primarily because of new large-load customers, then the planning and cost-allocation processes should recognize that,” Willis said. “Existing residential consumers should not be left paying costs that were caused by new customers.”

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.