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.

More than 470 people have been deported from the United States to Haiti between Aug. 20- Sept. 17 — including some with pending asylum claims, according to Haiti’s National Office for Migration. 

This is happening after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled at the end of June that the Trump Administration could end temporary protected status for the 330,000 Haitians who’ve fled violence in their home country. Legal protected status officially ended for Haitians on July 27.

“The Trump administration is engaged in an all-out assault on our immigrant communities across the United States,” U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-MD, said during a U.S. Senate spotlight hearing this week.

“ICE has already forced hundreds of Haitian TPS holders back into danger in Haiti.” 

The U.S. Department of State currently has a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory for Haiti “due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited healthcare,” according to the agency.

A top security official and chief of staff to the nation’s defense minister was kidnapped in June. 

“The fear of going back to Haiti is so palpable and so strong,” Carl Ruby, pastor of Springfield’s Central Christian Church, said during the Senate hearing. 

Deportation flights to Haiti have increased from once a month to once a week. Flights are landing in Haiti’s second-largest city Cap-Haïtien because criminal groups have made the airport in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince unsafe, according to a recent report from Human Rights Watch. 

Upon arrival, migration officials give deportees a meal, a drink, and 10,000 Haitian gourdes (around $77). The Departmental Judicial Police Service takes the deportees to a central police station for more registration, and then they are left on their own, according to Human Rights Watch. 

Human Rights Watch interviewed officials from nine Haitian government institutions for their report. 

“All said Haitian authorities lack the capacity to provide shelter, continuing food assistance, safe onward transportation, sustained health or psychosocial care, or an established channel with US authorities to help deportees recover missing belongings,” HRC said in the report. 

At least 1,408 people were killed and 656 were injured in Haiti from April 1-June 30, according to the Human Rights Service of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. 

“Now we’re saying to these people, hundreds of them, go back into this situation, this dangerous situation. It doesn’t have to be this way,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, said during the hearing. 

“Protect the people who are the most vulnerable, refugees who leave countries and situations not of their own creation, but are just trying to keep their children alive and keep themselves alive.” 

Durbin shared how he once visited Haiti with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine when they served in the U.S. Senate together. 

“Mike did more than visit,” Durbin said. “He and Fran went there regularly and adopted churches and groups to try to help them along.”

Mike and his wife Fran DeWine help support the Becky DeWine School in Haiti, named after their late daughter, but the school had to close due to gang activity in 2024. 

The U.S. House voted in April to extend TPS for Haitians through 2029. The bill is now in the U.S. Senate, but the White House said Trump would veto the bill.

Van Hollen introduced a Senate bill that would provide TPS recipients a pathway to citizenship in the United States.

U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-CA, talked about Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Wright State University student, who died in an apparent suicide on Aug. 31, which his family said happened after he was forced to wear an ankle monitor by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

“Pierre’s story is a tragedy and an insult to our history as a nation of immigrants, and that’s what this administration is causing to so many across the country,” he said. 

“It’s a powerful reminder of the human consequences of irresponsible and short-sighted decisions being made by this administration.”

Pierre’s funeral is Saturday afternoon in Springfield, hours before Trump will be speaking about 25 miles away in Vandalia at a rally ahead of the midterm elections. 

“(Pierre’s) friends and family have told me that the relentless fear, shame, and pressure created by ankle monitoring weighed heavily on him,” Ruby said.

“His death shook our Haitian community to its core.”

About 15,000 Haitians live in Springfield, with a mixture of temporary protected status, citizenship, and other legal statuses. Springfield became a flashpoint in the 2024 Election when Donald Trump and JD Vance spread racist lies about Haitian immigrants there. 

“Springfield’s Haitian community are not a burden. They are a blessing,” Ruby said.

“(Ending TPS) has made Springfield more vulnerable economically, socially, and spiritually. Springfield cannot afford to lose them, and morally, we should not be willing to.”

About 50 Haitians used to regularly worship at Ruby’s church, but that number dropped to two when ICE arrived in Springfield over the summer.   

“Families who had prayed with us, sung with us, and served alongside us are now afraid to leave their homes,” Ruby said. 

Springfield’s faith community is delivering food to Haitians, helping pay rent for families who are no longer able to work, and driving students to and from school because their parents are afraid to leave their house, Ruby said. 

“I wish (Trump) could see firsthand how terrified people are of being sent back to Haiti, and to see what it’s like to see whole families hiding behind locked doors,” he said. 

Nearly 75 Haitians living in Ohio have been detained since July 27 at one of four Ohio detention facilities that contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a report from the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. 

Haitians living in Springfield have been receiving letters requiring them to report to the ICE offices in Blue Ash or Westerville to accept ankle monitors after TPS ended. ICE has also recently started using the smartphone app SmartLINK to track Haitians in Springfield. 

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.

That’s because the Census Bureau under President Donald Trump has indefinitely delayed or stopped releasing important data. 

The American Community Survey collects detailed information on economics, housing and demographics. Until this year, the Census Bureau published it annually since its full inception in 2005. It’s delayed publication this year, saying it’s ending an obscure procedure meant to protect confidentiality.

And the Trump Agriculture Department in 2025 announced it was ending a key measure of food insecurity.

Last year, congressional Republicans passed — and President Trump signed — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. While it gave $1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans over 10 years, it cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and $187 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the same period. 

Because of the cuts, 5 million Americans lost their food assistance by June 2026. That includes 100,000 Ohioans.

And after Congressional Republicans extended tax cuts weighted toward the rich, they allowed pandemic-era subsidies to help purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act to expire. 

By February 2026, 2.6 million Americans, or about 10% of those enrolled, dropped their coverage. Ohio saw the biggest losses of any state — 32.4%, or 161,000 people.

Given those deep cuts to the safety net, it would make sense for the government to track what happens to the most vulnerable Americans — and to track it right down to the state and community level. But that’s not what it’s doing, said Amy K. Matsui, vice president for child care and income security at the National Women’s Law Center. 

“We don’t (have state and local information) with regard to poverty data and that’s because the Trump administration is holding on to a specific dataset,” she said in an interview Monday. “That’s where we get our quality state-level and demographic data about poverty and income, but the Trump administration has put it on indefinite hold.”

Other census data show severe disparities between minority women and white men. 

For example, more than 20% of Black and Hispanic women lived in poverty in 2025 compared to 8.7% of white men. And nearly a third — 29.3% — of families headed by single women lived in poverty, according to the Women’s Law Center.

The American Community Survey provided state and community-level estimates about things like employment, poverty, housing and insurance by demographic group.

It’s “an ongoing survey that provides vital information on a yearly basis about our nation and its people,”the Census Bureau website says. “Information from the survey generates data that help inform how trillions of dollars in federal funds are distributed each year.” 

The bureau typically publishes the survey for the previous year in September. But publication is being delayed indefinitely this year.

Asked why, the bureau gave a technical explanation.

“The release date for the 2025 ACS 1-year estimates is being determined,” the bureau’s public information office said in an email. “The Census Bureau is assessing the impact of the new departmental administrative order (DAO), Department of Commerce Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products, and seeking DAO-compliant solutions to allow the release of the ACS 1-year tables later this year.”

The order prohibits the use of a technique called “noise infusion” to avoid disclosure of protected information.

The rule the Census Bureau referenced didn’t give a reason for the change other than to say it had to balance privacy with accuracy and, “Any use of noise infusion is inconsistent with the Department’s policies.”

In an Aug. 17 post, the Census Bureau said the change was due to “concerns that adding noise made the statistics less accurate and less trustworthy.”

But the academic journal Science in July reported concerns among scientists that it was an attempt by Trump to politicize the census and science itself. The administration banned “essentially all modern techniques for preserving privacy in large datasets,” the journal quoted a University of Texas computer scientist as saying.

“The change marks the first time political appointees have dictated the (Census Bureau’s) statistical methods, census watchers say,” the story said. “It will affect the 2030 census, which is used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives by state every decade and determine the distribution of trillions of dollars annually in federal funds.”

While that story focused on the change’s impact on the 2030 Census, Matsui of the Women’s Law Center said she believed it serves another purpose — to obscure the human consequences of slashing the safety net.

“We really think this is a mechanism to hide from view certain disfavored demographic groups, whether that’s women, people of color, LGBTQ… They’re really trying to hide from view what people are experiencing,” she said.

For its part, the Census Project, a group of former Census Bureau directors, business associations and others, on Sept. 4 wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees the bureau. Speaking on behalf of 800 organizations, the group said the government was abandoning a security technique “federal statistical agencies have used for years” and delaying vital information.

“Our members depend on reliable, high-quality census data to analyze changing U.S. economic and demographic trends,” the letter said. American Community Survey “data are especially critical to their planning, investment decisions, market strategies, and public services, for example, on behalf of businesses, state and local governments, consumers, veterans, and children.” 

Matsui said the Trump administration is also blocking other measures of its policies’ fallout.

Last year, less than three months after cutting $187 billion from federal nutrition assistance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it was ending its annual Household Food Security Reports. The highly partisan press release seemed an attempt to justify the deep cuts.

“For 30 years, this study—initially created by the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments — failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder,” it said. “Trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged, regardless of an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019 — 2023.”

The statement didn’t mention the global pandemic and consequent job loss that took place between 2019 and 2023. Matsui said the Trump administration ignored other facts as it squelched the report.

“Right at the time when there were really deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, food prices are skyrocketing, and food banks can’t keep up with demand, (the Trump administration is) trying to prevent this very consistent, reliable and trusted report on families’ food insecurity,” she said. “They’re just stopping it,”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The average public school teacher salary in Ohio is $70,586 — ranking 23rd in the nation, according to the National Education Association. The national average public school salary was $74,495 in 2024-25, according to NEA. 

The average starting teacher salary in Ohio was $42,222 — ranking 46th in the nation. The average starting teacher salary nationwide was $48,112.  

“Ohio, based on the numbers, seems to be lagging behind in both the average teacher starting salary and just the overall teacher salary in Ohio,” said Ohio Education Association President Jeff Wensing. 

“Education needs to be a sustainable career where you can support your family and raise a family. You need to attract really talented individuals to go into the education profession. Once you attract them, you need to keep them.”

Ohio Republican candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy has said he wants to “pay our best teachers more by rewarding excellence and attracting top talent into the profession,” according to his campaign website.

Ramaswamy’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. 

“I think the starting salary for teachers, especially in our public schools, needs to be higher than the $38-$40,000 a year that it is today,” Ramaswamy said in a Facebook video on Sept. 19.

Wensing pointed out that Ohio’s base salary for a new teacher with a bachelor’s degree is $35,000. 

“I would think, as a gubernatorial candidate, you would know what the minimum teacher salary is in your state,” Wensing said. 

OEA endorsed Ohio Democratic candidate for governor Dr. Amy Acton, who is advocating for raising teacher pay across the board.

“Dr. Acton, who is married to a 44-year public school teacher, credits public schools with saving her life as a kid,” said Virginia Schaus, spokeswoman for the Acton campaign. 

“Dr. Acton will fight to fully fund public schools to give local school districts the resources they need to raise teacher pay and attract and retain our teachers.” 

An Ohio bill would raise Ohio’s base salary for all teachers to $50,000. 

Ohio Democratic state Reps. Joe Miller and Michele Grim introduced Ohio House Bill 191 last year and it has received one committee hearing. 

Any bill that does not pass before Ohio’s two-year General Assembly ends in December would have to be reintroduced. 

In 2025, 1 in 8 teaching positions were either vacant or filled by an under-qualified educator. 

“Educators are leaving the profession to find some careers that can help their families out better and make their ends meet a little bit better,” Wensing said. 

Ohio is one of 32 states that offers no additional pay to attract or keep teachers in hard-to-staff schools or subjects, according to a new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization. 

The report defines hard-to-staff subjects as subjects with persistent vacancies year-after-year. 

“Those include shortage subjects like teachers who teach students with disabilities or special education teachers, teachers who teach English as a second language and math and science teachers at the high school level,” NCTQ President Heather Peske said. 

Hard-to-staff schools are schools that have had persistent shortage. 

“Oftentimes, those schools are associated with serving students who come from higher poverty backgrounds, and sometimes schools that are in more rural areas of the state, where they just have fewer people to draw from to be able to hire and fill those vacancies,” Peske said. 

The National Council on Teacher Quality recommends states pay more for hard-to-staff schools and subjects by guaranteeing teachers in the highest-need placements at least a 7.5% salary supplement. 

“We see that when states are offering differentiated pay — either based on shortages and vacancies in subjects, or based on differentiation by performance — we see that the first impact is higher retention of teachers,” Peske said. 

NCTQ also suggests giving high-performing teachers the chance to earn more based on evaluation criteria. 

Ohio spent an estimated $7 billion on teacher salaries for the 2024-25 school year, according to NCTQ. 

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.

Ramaswamy will face Democratic former Ohio Department of Health director Dr. Amy Acton in the Nov. 3 election.

In 2022, Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks launched Strive Enterprises, which called itself “a financial services firm with a mission to maximize value for clients through unapologetic capitalism.” Ramaswamy served as chairman of the company until February 2023, when he announced he would seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

In November 2024, Strive announced it would relocate its corporate headquarters and most of its Columbus-based staff to Dallas by the end of March 2025 as part of a merger agreement with another company. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in the company’s press release announcing the move, “I welcome Strive to our great state and look forward to working with them to create more jobs, spur innovation, and bring new investments to Dallas and the entire state of Texas.”

In the same press release, co-founder Ramaswamy is quoted as saying, “I wish the team great success in the next stage of Strive’s incredible journey.”

Four months later, Ramaswamy announced his candidacy for Ohio governor. In a July 2025 interview on the Better Bad Ideas podcast, host and Teamsters president Sean O’Brien asked him about the decision to move his company out of Ohio.

Ramaswamy responded that he was not involved with the decision and that it was a motivation for his gubernatorial campaign: “There’s a new CEO who actually I recruited from California, moved to Ohio, including his family, and he’s the CEO of the company. Two years later, it then comes up, right, or a full almost two years later, that he’s doing a deal with a company in Texas. And the question between the two CEOs is, where did they set it up?

“I’m not on the board,” he continued. “I’m just a shareholder of the company at this point. He makes a decision independently, and I’m not mad at him for it. I think it’s — he got to make an objective decision for the business. Turns out the business environment in Texas is way more favorable than the business environment in Florida — than in Ohio — for that type of company.”

Ramaswamy said he wants to get rid of what he called unnecessary climate and hiring regulations, “DEI, all of that stuff,” to attract companies back to Ohio.

Although Ramaswamy said he was “just a shareholder,” an August 2025 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission noted that he owned most of the company: “As a result of the Transactions, Vivek Ramaswamy, together with an affiliated trust managed by a third-party trustee and investment advisor, are the sole beneficial owners of Strive’s Class A Voting Common Stock prior to completion of the Merger, and are expected to become the largest holders of voting power of New Strive.”

A Ramaswamy campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

This time, it is Democratic state Rep. Darnell Brewer, of Cleveland.

During Tuesday night’s NAACP candidate forum in Fremont, Click told voters that Brewer supports him over Democratic challenger Aaron Jones.

Brewer, however, says that is false.

“My support for the bipartisan work Rep. Click and I have done together should not be interpreted as an endorsement of one candidate over another,” Brewer told TiffinOhio.net Wednesday.

Brewer went further, saying he stands behind the endorsement Jones already received from the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus.

“I also respect Aaron Jones and as a member of OLBC I stand by the endorsement decision made by the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus,” Brewer said.

Brewer says working with Click is not an endorsement

Brewer said he and Click have developed a bipartisan working relationship during their time in the Ohio House.

The two serve together on the House Community Revitalization Committee, where Brewer is the ranking Democratic member, and jointly sponsored House Bill 393, legislation requiring certain correctional facilities to help people obtain state identification before release.

Brewer said he respects Click as a colleague and is willing to work with him when the two find common ground.

“I have always believed that good public policy does not have to begin or end with a ‘D’ or an ‘R,’ and when Gary and I find common ground on issues that can improve the lives of Ohioans, I am proud to work alongside him,” Brewer said.

But Brewer made clear that working with Click in Columbus does not amount to endorsing him for another term.

“Working across the aisle does not mean that we agree on every issue,” Brewer said. “Rep. Click and I have disagreed on several issues and legislation and I have not hesitated and will continue to hold him — or any other elected official — accountable when I believe their positions or actions do not serve the best interests of our communities, especially communities of color.”

Brewer said he has made only one individual endorsement in an Ohio House race this year: in House District 22, the Cleveland-area district he represents.

“The voters of House District 88 will ultimately decide who they want representing their community,” Brewer said.

Click has made this claim before

The dispute closely mirrors one Click had this summer with Tiffin City Councilman Kevin Roessner.

On July 3, Click’s campaign posted a photograph of Click and Roessner wearing matching campaign-supplied shirts.

“I am honored to have the support of Tiffin City Councilman Kevin Roessner,” Click’s campaign wrote.

Roessner told TiffinOhio.net that he had not endorsed Click and had no plans to endorse anyone in the House District 88 race.

Roessner said the shirt had been given to him for an America 250 event and that his participation was not intended as campaigning.

Click later doubled down.

“No one forced him to wear my T-shirt and hat or to pass out my merch,” Click wrote in August. “In fact he was eager to do it. That is support.”

Roessner then responded directly on Click’s campaign page.

“Engaging with candidates and attending local events reflects standard civic participation, not an endorsement,” Roessner wrote. “I exercise independent judgment, decline to enter campaign disputes, and will not be endorsing any candidate in this race. Please adjust your messaging accordingly.”

Now, less than two months later, Click has again told voters that another elected official supports him while that official says he is not endorsing Click.

Brewer’s response also undercuts any suggestion that his relationship with Click means he has broken with Jones. Brewer said he respects Jones and stands by the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus’ decision to endorse the Democratic nominee.

Jones, a Tiffin city councilman and U.S. Army veteran, is challenging Click for Ohio House District 88, which includes Seneca and Sandusky counties.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The move comes as the rising cost of gas and diesel threaten Republicans’ chances at the polls this November. The bill now heads to Gov. Mike DeWine, who has said he intends to sign it.

Democratic candidate for governor Amy Acton proposed the tax break first, and Republican state leaders quickly co-opted the idea. What followed was a hastily arranged effort to call lawmakers back to Columbus to fast track legislation.

Ramaswamy joined Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman and his running mate Republican Senate President Rob McColley to announce the plan just a week ago. Senators got their chance to discuss the legislation Tuesday, and in the House, lawmakers held their first hearing the day of the vote.

Most lawmakers made it in for session — 31 of 33 senators and 96 of 99 representatives were on hand for Wednesday’s votes. That head count was particularly important in the Ohio House, where the partisan split is tight enough that Republicans needed to bring a handful of Democrats on board to pass the bill as an emergency measure. The GOP dominates the Senate thoroughly enough to clear the two-thirds requirement without any Democratic votes.

Last minute Senate changes

Wednesday morning a Senate committee abandoned the gas tax holiday proposal it discussed the previous day. Instead, members took up a House proposal explicitly criminalizing the use of unauthorized key fobs — a response to a rash of car thefts in Ohio, most notably by the “Kia Boys” in Columbus. Senators tweaked that bill, removing a requirement that youth offenders go to juvenile hall.

And then added back in the gas tax holiday.

In a nod to the earlier bill’s critics, Ohio state Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, explained Ohio House Bill 519’s new tax holiday wouldn’t require gas stations to provide an itemized receipt showing the state and federal tax rates, and includes changes to give retailers more flexibility in submitting tax filings.

H.B. 519 had already passed the House, and its sponsor, Ohio state Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, was also cosponsoring the House’s gas tax proposal, Ohio House Bill 1019. By switching gears to H.B. 519, lawmakers in the House would only need to concur with the Senate’s changes.

Ahead of the Senate vote, Minority Leader Nickie Antonio sent McColley a letter asking him to recuse himself given his position on the Ramaswamy ticket. McColley turned her down.

On the Senate floor, Ohio state Sen. Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, described the measure as a way to show constituents that lawmakers are listening.

“No one state legislature alone can eliminate vehicle theft entirely and much less end a war,” she said. “But this body has an opportunity to respond to both crises by putting $725 million back into the hands of our taxpayers through this legislation.”

Immediately after Republican lawmakers finished introducing the measure, Ohio state Sen. Bill Reineke, R-Tiffin, made a motion to end debate — effectively cutting off Democrats’ opportunity to offer amendments. That motion passed, and the Senate quickly voted to approve the bill.

After the vote, McColley defended the procedural move. Republicans were “committed to delivering $725 million of cost relief” he said, while Democrats were more concerned with “theatrics.”

“Our caucus thought it was important to get in, get the job done on behalf of Ohioans across the state who desperately need this relief,” he said.

Antonio said her caucus was “disappointed” with the GOP’s tactics, and accused McColley of using the Senate “as a campaign ad.”

“There was a bill introduced in the House in May. If this had been so important, we would have acted then, but we didn’t,” she said. “Three weeks ago, all of our Senate sessions were canceled. 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.”

House concurrence

On the House floor, White said constituents keep asking what she can do to lower the cost of gas and groceries. Cutting state taxes on gas and diesel, she said, would flow through the economy lowering prices at the pump and many other retailers, too.

“The bottom line is three things: immediate relief, fully funding our roads at the local and state level, and making sure transparency is there so it’s consumers that are pocketing the money,” White said.

Even before the House session began, Democratic leaders explained they’d set aside their misgivings and support the measure. All told, 15 House Democrats voted in favor of the proposal.

Still, the caucus didn’t go quietly.

Ohio state Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, D-Westlake, dismissed the savings Republicans touted.

“We’re talking about $3 a week,” she said. “And if the options are nothing or $3 a week, if that’s all this body can do, then yes, I will vote for it. But I don’t think anybody should be proud of that.”

She also criticized the majority for posing the issue as a concurrence with changes made in the Senate, which again, closed off Democrats’ opportunity to offer amendments to the bill.

Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn called it “embarrassing” for Republican lawmakers, only now, to declare an emergency.

“Was it not an emergency in April when gas prices spiked over $4?” Isaacsohn asked, “I don’t remember an emergency clause then. Was it not an emergency this summer when utility bills went to $800 for the first time for Ohio? Was that not an emergency that demanded that we come back and take action?”

“No, it’s an emergency on Sept. 30th — that’s the date today — less than five weeks before Nov. 3rd,” he added. “Now it’s an emergency.”

After the vote, House Speaker Matt Huffman acknowledged Isaacsohn had a point but explained he was optimistic things might improve on their own a few months ago.

“At some point you have to make a decision,” Huffman said. “If we said, well, we’re not going to do it because it will look too political, that’s a terrible reason not to do it.”

Victory laps

In a press release after the vote, Acton’s campaign took credit for forcing the issue.

“As the first candidate in this race to propose a gas tax holiday, Dr. Acton is glad the Statehouse has voted with bipartisan support to establish a gas tax holiday and provide Ohioans much needed relief at the pump,” said spokesperson Virginia Schaus.

Schaus went on to criticize Ramaswamy for not embracing her other proposal for a “conditional moratorium” on data centers.

“Ohioans know they can’t trust Ramaswamy to take their concerns seriously or make life more affordable,” she added.

But for Ramaswamy, the episode must’ve felt like a tidy little victory. One week later, he was standing on the same stage with the same legislative leaders, congratulating them on getting a bipartisan tax cut across the finish line.

“You can consider this a preview of the way my administration, beginning in January, will work — a constructive partnership with leaders in both chambers, working together to solve problems for Ohioans.”

Pressed on Democrats’ complaints about being left out of the process, Ramaswamy said “we’re starting with a clean slate in January,” and promised to work with anyone regardless of party.

While Democrats downplayed the scope of tax relief, Ramaswamy insisted a few bucks might make a big difference for some households.

“That may be the difference between being able to afford a Christmas gift for your kids or not,” he said. “It may be the difference between being able to take a weekend trip in the holiday season versus not. That’s a big deal.”

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.

The Ohio Republican made the comments during a June 2025 appearance on The Narrative, a podcast produced by the conservative Center for Christian Virtue, months before he introduced legislation aimed at restructuring federal assistance programs.

While discussing poverty, Husted recalled a report he said he read in 1993 that placed people living in poverty into three categories: people involved in what he called “out-of-wedlock birth,” people who did not graduate from high school and people with a drug or alcohol addiction.

“And these stats, they just keep coming, but our outcomes continue to get worse and worse and worse,” Husted said.

Husted then turned to the federal benefits system, saying eliminating the so-called benefits cliff was an issue he was working on.

“The government literally says, stay single, don’t go to work, and you can continue to get government benefits,” Husted said. “It’s wrong. It just makes no sense, because we are driving the father out of the household via government policy.”

Husted continued: “We’re not encouraging family formation, and we’re giving perverse incentives, the wrong incentives for how you may — you’re successful in life, and it needs to stop.”

The remarks came during a June 13, 2025 episode recorded at the Center for Christian Virtue’s Columbus gala, where Husted appeared alongside fellow Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno.

Remarks became part of broader push to overhaul benefits

Husted formally introduced the Upward Mobility Act in January 2026, making changes to the federal benefits system one of his signature policy initiatives in the Senate.

The legislation would create a five-year pilot program allowing five states to combine funding from multiple federal anti-poverty programs into a single funding stream. Husted says the proposal is intended to eliminate “benefits cliffs,” which occur when a relatively small increase in a recipient’s income causes a larger loss of government assistance.

Husted has argued that the current system can discourage recipients from accepting raises, promotions or additional hours because doing so can leave them financially worse off.

In an op-ed released alongside the bill, Husted acknowledged that people who turn down additional work to avoid losing benefits can be making a rational financial decision.

“Don’t blame them — blame the United States,” Husted wrote. “Our policies create these incentives.”

But while promoting changes to the benefits system, Husted has also repeatedly made sweeping remarks about work, poverty and the people who receive public assistance.

‘Our work ethic is broken’

During a January radio interview discussing his legislation, Husted declared that the country’s “work ethic is broken.”

“Our work ethic is broken,” Husted said. “We don’t have the work ethic in this country that we once had.”

He went on to argue that the federal government can provide people with more money for staying home than for going to work.

Then, during another interview in March, Husted said people living in poverty are “not very experienced at navigating the real world.”

“People living in poverty are just not very, they’re not very experienced at navigating the real world, right?” Husted said.

Husted cited a conversation with a woman who he said told him she did not understand “how money works at a grocery store” because she had grown up and spent her adult life using SNAP benefits.

“And so you literally have to teach people how to budget, how to do all these things,” Husted said.

Husted has made similar arguments for years

Husted’s comments connecting poverty, government assistance and single-parent households predate both his welfare reform legislation and his time in the U.S. Senate.

In 2016, Husted said nearly 40% of Ohio children had been born to a single mother living in poverty and argued that helping young women delay the birth of their first child until after completing their education would improve their ability to support themselves and their children.

“The number one indicator on whether or not you have success in school or economic success in life is whether or not you grew up in poverty,” Husted said at the time.

Nearly a decade later, Husted returned to the connection between government assistance, marriage and poverty during the 2025 Center for Christian Virtue event — this time explicitly arguing that government policy was encouraging people to remain unmarried and “driving the father out of the household.”

The comments fit a consistent argument Husted has made while pushing his welfare reform proposal: that the structure of federal assistance programs can discourage marriage, additional work and higher earnings. They also add to a series of remarks in which the Ohio senator has described the nation’s work ethic as “broken” and questioned the ability of people living in poverty to navigate everyday financial decisions.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

There are several reasons for low unemployment happening along with slow job growth, and none are encouraging.

Ohio added an average of 3,100 jobs per month from January to August. But that number dropped to just 2,200 in August.

Meanwhile, the state unemployment rate actually fell slightly — from 3.4% in July to 3.3% in August.

Slowing job growth comes against a backdrop of bigger-than-expected gains nationally. U.S. employers added 162,000 jobs in August, more than double initial predictions, Policy Matters said.

The latest employment data might signal increasing caution among Ohio employers, said Policy Matters researcher Molly Bryden.

“Modest job gains in August could signal a hiring slowdown, after revisions to July’s estimates revealed overstated job growth,”she said in a written statement. “Revisions to both statewide and national indicators over the past several months make a departure from our recent observations – while downward revisions to Ohio’s jobs numbers show weaker growth than initially reported, substantial upward revisions to national estimates show accelerating growth nationwide, reversing job losses shown by preliminary estimates for July.” 

She added, however, that stronger-than-expected hiring nationally “signals a recovery from an earlier slowdown, rather than a continued upward trend.”

An important reason why job growth and unemployment rates are falling simultaneously is that the Ohio workforce shrank by another 10,000 people between July and August. 

Unemployment only measures the rate of people who have or are actively seeking work. It doesn’t count people who have aged out or have given up.

“Ohio has seen the nation’s largest decrease in statewide unemployment (-1.5 percentage points) since January of 2025,” Bryden said. “However, lower unemployment isn’t always a positive sign – over the same period, Ohio’s labor force level has shrunk by 1.9%: the 10th-largest decrease in the country.”

She added, “As of August 2026, there are 95,000 fewer Ohioans in the labor force than there were this time last year, despite a 39,000 increase in the working age population. While there are 100,000 fewer unemployed Ohioans in the labor force actively looking for work, employment is up by only 5,000 since August of 2025.”

That is part of a national trend. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, in seasonably adjusted numbers, the U.S. labor force shrank by 1.3 million between July 2025 and July 2026.

And one cause of that is President Donald Trump’s mass deportations.

A report published early this month by Dayton-based data analyst Eric Pachman showed that 2.1 million foreign-born, working-age men left the country since the start of Trump’s second term in January 2025. Eighty-eight percent of them were working when they left, according to the analysis.

The loss was by far the biggest in the data Pachman analyzed. 

He also found declining workforce participation by native-born men. Fewer foreign-born male workers and fewer native-born counterparts seeking work could add up to necessary jobs going undone, Pachman said.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

History will note their slavish obedience to Donald Trump, their willingness to cede core constitutional powers to the dear leader — power to declare war, power of the purse, power to levy tariffs, power to conduct government oversight as a critical check on abuses of power.

Trump is lawlessly usurping Congress’s power now by cutting nearly $1 billion in funding it approved for programs the White House unilaterally decided were not worth “wasteful and harmful government spending.”

But under GOP leadership, the 119th Congress allowed itself to be diminished and bypassed by a megalomaniac chasing unlimited power. 

From the beginning, Trump set the agenda on Capitol Hill and Republican lawmakers fell in line.

The partisan rubber-stamps enacted the largest-ever cuts to basic needs programs in the U.S. to fund Trump’s $1 trillion in tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, declined to oversee the illegal war Trump began without congressional authorization or public debate, ignored the brazen defiance of congressional statutes by the Trump regime, (from gutting federal agencies to renaming institutions) and refused to even superficially check the most corrupt president in American history.

Party loyalty and protecting the party boss was/is the preferred default move among team players in the House and Senate. Principle and prudence in federal legislating and constitutional duties take a back seat to political allegiance.

The same rule of thumb applies to the Republican supermajorities in the Ohio House and Ohio Senate. Party trumps all.

But under one party rule, power has always been zealously guarded and wielded in the legislature. Which makes it all the more astonishing that GOP leadership in the Statehouse jumped to give so much power to an unelected Republican candidate running for governor.

Vivek Ramaswamy is a venture capitalist who made a fortune in biotech and notably moved a company he co-founded from Columbus to Dallas two years ago.

The 41-year-old billionaire, who has never served in any public office, spent tens of millions of his own money on a brief presidential campaign before jumping on the Trump train in 2024.

His reward was a five-minute stint as co-leader of an advisory cost-cutting initiative (the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE) that ended up costing the federal government billions of dollars in paid leave and related expenses to haphazardly shrink the workforce).

When Republican Gov. Mike DeWine passed Ramaswamy over for a U.S. Senate appointment, the Ohioan settled for DeWine’s job in 2026 while he waits for another shot at the presidency. 

The Republican nominee eying the governor’s mansion has struggled to gain traction against Dr. Amy Acton, former head of the Ohio Department of Health under DeWine and the Democratic candidate campaigning for the same office.

The latest polls show Acton with a slight edge over Ramaswamy.

Twice the GOP-run General Assembly has rallied to kick-start his flagging momentum with hurried legislation the candidate pitched as a winning gambit with voters — directing policymaking as though he were governor already.

Ramaswamy called on the legislature to make Ohio’s voter ID law, that polls favorably, a constitutional requirement to juice turnout and Republicans jammed through a resolution in three weeks that put a needless voter ID amendment on the November ballot.

Last week, Acton called for an emergency state gas tax holiday to lessen the sticker shock at the pumps from Trump’s war of choice with Iran.

In response to her proposal to temporarily suspend Ohio’s state motor fuel tax (38.5 cents per gallon of gasoline and 47 cents per gallon for diesel), Ramaswamy announced a similar 90-day gas tax suspension proposal about six hours later.

Ohio Republicans spun into action at the behest of their boss (?) and scheduled an unprecedented special legislative session today (Wednesday) to vote on his plan — a week before early, in-person voting begins in Ohio. 

What extraordinary power state legislative leaders, like their federal counterparts in Washington, have ceded to one man who, unlike Trump, has not been elected to anything.

Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, Ramaswamy’s running mate, and Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman have stooped to carrying water for the former hedge fund manager/biotech baron in their respective chambers.

It’s wild. A Republican candidate, in a toss-up race for governor, is calling the shots in the legislature on what extra amendment should go into the Ohio Constitution and what should be suspended in gas taxes that fund road and bridge work and will cost the state around $700 million in lost revenue.

It’s unclear how that significant shortfall in road funding will be replaced and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is adamant that using money from the Ohio Department of Transportation to make up for a gas tax is a “very, very bad idea.”

But it’s easy politics, right? Who doesn’t like discounted gas prices?

This is a last-ditch effort by Ramaswamy — in league with compliant team players in the legislature — to change the trajectory of a political campaign many assumed would be a slam dunk. Trump pulled a similar maneuver to change midterm trends when he dangled a $5k giveaway to every citizen if voters returned Republican majorities to Congress. 

Whether either stunt works to sway the electorate as voting starts is anyone’s guess. But voters are smart. In 2026, they are razor focused. On course correction. Will gimmicks work?

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Sept. 29 forum, hosted by Fremont NAACP Unit 3217B at Birchard Public Library, brought together eight candidates seeking county, judicial and state offices with five weeks remaining before the Nov. 3 general election.

Participating, from left to right, were Republican Sandusky County Commissioner Justin Smith; Democratic commissioner candidate Jill Simpson; Democratic commissioner candidate Kurtis Kuhl; independent Sandusky County Common Pleas Court candidate Kimberly Ontko; Republican commissioner candidate Rich Farmer; Republican state Rep. Gary Click; Democratic Sixth District Court of Appeals Judge Myron Duhart; and Democratic state representative candidate Aaron Jones.

The four commissioner candidates are competing in two separate races. Smith, who was appointed to the commission in April after Charlie Schwochow resigned, faces Simpson for the remainder of the unexpired term ending Jan. 2, 2029. Farmer faces Kuhl for the regular four-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2027, replacing Commissioner Russ Zimmerman.

County’s $4.3 million shortfall takes center stage

The county’s finances became one of the night’s central issues, little more than a week after TiffinOhio.net reported that Sandusky County had frozen nonessential spending and hiring while confronting a projected $4.3 million budget shortfall.

Smith emphasized that he joined the commission in April and was not in office when the 2026 budget was originally adopted.

“I did not cause the problem, but I am working to fix the problem,” Smith said.

Smith said county budget hearings had not been conducted since 2019 before commissioners resumed them this year. He said officials are now meeting with individual departments and reviewing their spending.

County records previously reviewed by TiffinOhio.net provide additional context to that defense. Smith was serving on the commission when county officials identified the projected $4.3 million gap and when the county’s spending and hiring freeze took effect Sept. 1. He also joined Commissioners Scott Miller and Russ Zimmerman in a Sept. 4 public statement announcing what the board called a spending “pause,” without disclosing either the projected $4.3 million shortfall or the hiring freeze.

Smith said Tuesday that officials are asking department heads to identify spending that can be trimmed while trying to preserve services.

Simpson said stabilizing county finances would be her top priority and called for closer examination of budgeting, forecasting, communication among county offices and oversight of taxpayer dollars.

She specifically questioned whether heavy overtime spending in some departments could be reduced by hiring part-time or additional employees.

Simpson also tied the financial problems to public confidence in county government.

“Their jobs are not to serve themselves or their individual offices,” Simpson said of county officials. “Their jobs are to serve the people of Sandusky County.”

Farmer said he requested several years of actual spending and budget information from Sandusky County and compared it with figures from Seneca and Huron counties.

He told the audience he warned commissioners in February that the county’s budget would not work and pointed to line items where, he said, budgeted amounts significantly exceeded recent actual spending.

Farmer also singled out overtime at Sandusky County EMS and questioned how the county accounted for costs associated with the new EMS facility.

“Obviously, as the county commissioner, your number one job is that budget,” Farmer said.

Kuhl said county finances should be substantially easier for the public to inspect.

“I think the budget needs to be something you don’t need to do a records request for,” Kuhl said.

He called for Sandusky County to publish accessible budget information online showing residents where money is going, what major projects cost and where spending is exceeding projections.

Candidates line up against Flock cameras, but differ on what to do

The candidates found substantial agreement when the discussion turned to Flock Safety cameras and other automated license plate reader systems, but their proposed responses differed.

Smith said the cameras currently being used in Sandusky County are funded through the drug task force rather than the county General Fund.

He said he would vote against using General Fund money for them.

“If it was under the General Fund right now, I would say no,” Smith said, adding that he was still examining the broader privacy and law-enforcement questions and was “leaning against” the cameras.

Simpson raised concerns about the collection and storage of information, who can access it, probable cause and the potential for misuse.

“I am in favor of putting a pause on that,” Simpson said. “I would not be disappointed if they went away at all.”

She said that if the technology remains in use, regulations would be needed to protect the public.

Kuhl took a firmer position, saying he does not support Flock cameras under the current system because of warrantless access, inadequate regulation and the potential for abuse.

He said he would vote against county funding for the cameras and supported an immediate moratorium or removing them until stronger protections are established.

Farmer was even more direct.

“You ever heard the term, ‘No is a complete sentence?’” Farmer asked. “No. I don’t support Flock cameras.”

Ontko declined to take a substantive position, noting that a dispute involving the technology could eventually come before her as a judge.

“I think it’s important that everybody’s rights are protected,” Ontko said, adding that courts have a responsibility to protect those rights.

Duhart similarly avoided addressing a specific controversy that could reach the appeals court, but framed the larger debate as a Fourth Amendment issue involving civil liberties, due process and the judiciary’s role as a check on the other branches of government.

“It is important that you all know and understand who your judges are,” Duhart said.

Click tells Jones to “do something” in a city with no government ALPR network

Click pointed to House Bill 1011, his recently introduced “1984 No More Act,” and used the issue to challenge Jones.

“I actually think Aaron agrees with me, but only one of us has taken action,” Click said.

Click told Jones, who represents Tiffin’s 1st Ward on City Council, that he should introduce a city ordinance banning or pausing automated license plate readers.

“If you agree, I would encourage you to just go ahead and take — don’t just talk about it,” Click said. “Just do something about it.”

Click did not mention that Tiffin currently has no city-operated Flock or other automated license plate reader network for Jones or City Council to shut down.

Tiffin had budgeted money for license plate readers, but the planned police deployment never occurred. In July, City Council voted 7-0 to place a $17,382.76 refund into the General Capital Improvement Fund for two license plate reader cameras that were not used. Jones joined the rest of council in that vote.

Privately operated readers are a separate matter. DeFlock, a volunteer-run and crowdsourced mapping project, lists privately operated Flock equipment in Tiffin, including cameras attributed to Lowe’s. The project cautions that its map can be incomplete or outdated. Those cameras are not operated by Tiffin city government or the Tiffin Police Department.

Jones responded at the forum by explaining that Tiffin had considered the technology but ultimately did not deploy it.

“We had them in our budget. We removed them from the budget,” Jones said.

Jones said Police Chief David Pauly determined the money could be better spent on officer safety, body cameras, bulletproof vests and other police equipment.

Jones also said he would go further than a temporary pause.

“I wouldn’t do a moratorium,” Jones said. “I’d just say, ‘Just don’t. Just don’t. Just get rid of them.’”

Click’s HB 1011 has not passed either chamber of the General Assembly. As of Tuesday, the official legislative record showed only one action: its Sept. 14 introduction. It had not yet advanced into a House committee.

The bill is also explicitly temporary. Its restrictions would disappear one year after taking effect.

The introduced proposal contains several exceptions to its restrictions, including uses connected to AMBER, SILVER, endangered-missing-child, endangered-missing-adult and BLUE alerts. It also contains an exception allowing use in connection with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s enforcement of federal immigration law.

Click acknowledged at the forum that he deliberately included exceptions in an effort to remove potential objections to the temporary moratorium.

“The reason for the exceptions is not because I think they should continue,” Click said, “but it’s like, okay, let me remove the objections for the pause.”

Jones calls for halt to new data centers

When asked about the most pressing issues facing the office he is seeking, Jones identified data centers and property taxes.

Jones said he would pursue a moratorium on new data center construction while Ohio more closely examines the industry’s effects on electricity demand, natural resources and taxpayers.

“We need to investigate this a lot more than what we’re doing,” Jones said.

He said large data centers should not continue receiving favorable tax treatment while Ohio homeowners face rising property taxes and electric bills.

Jones also connected property taxes to public school funding, arguing that inadequate state funding leaves local districts more dependent on local levies.

“We have to fund our public education,” Jones said.

Click cites Christianity bill when asked about teacher academic freedom

After a break, moderators turned to written questions submitted by audience members.

One asked what could be done to ensure teachers have academic freedom in public high schools without fear of state or district restrictions.

Click responded by pointing to House Bill 486, legislation he introduced with Republican Rep. Michael Dovilla.

Click said teachers have faced restrictions when attempting to discuss the Christian influence on American history and cited figures including John Leland and Roger Williams.

HB 486, however, is not a general academic-freedom measure covering teachers broadly or subjects generally.

Officially titled the “Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act,” the bill would permit teachers in public schools and state institutions of higher education to provide instruction on what the legislation describes as the influence of Judeo-Christian values on history and culture.

The Ohio House passed the measure 62-27 in November 2025. It has since been referred to the Senate Education Committee but has not passed the Senate.

Ickes scandal hangs over judicial discussion

The fallout surrounding former Sandusky County Common Pleas Judge Jon Ickes remained another major subject.

In an Aug. 19 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court suspended Ickes from practicing law for two years and immediately removed him from the bench without pay after finding multiple violations of Ohio’s judicial conduct rules.

The court found misconduct including Ickes’ failure to recuse himself from criminal cases involving his stepson, a law-enforcement witness; vulgar and inappropriate workplace conduct; and use of a racial slur within earshot of a Black defendant.

Yet Ickes remains on the Nov. 3 ballot against Ontko.

In a Sept. 14 ruling, the Ohio Supreme Court said existing election law did not allow the court or the Sandusky County Board of Elections to remove Ickes after the applicable statutory deadlines had passed, even though his suspension prevents him from taking the office while it remains in effect.

Ontko said restoring public confidence is one of the most pressing challenges facing the Common Pleas Court.

She called for professionalism, integrity, impartiality, timely decisions and respect for people entering the courthouse.

Asked directly about Ickes remaining on the ballot, Ontko questioned how Ohio law permits voters to face a candidate who cannot presently assume the office.

“How do we end up in a situation where we have somebody on the ballot that cannot take the seat?” Ontko said.

She said voters could otherwise be left choosing without knowing who might ultimately fill the office if an ineligible candidate receives the most votes.

Click later said he called Ickes after the misconduct became public and told him he should resign.

“What he did was absolutely atrocious, it was horrible, it was very offensive,” Click said.

Click then invoked his pastoral background, saying, “As a pastor, I always believe in grace,” and adding that he does not believe anyone is irredeemable. He said he agreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to remove Ickes from the bench while believing Ickes was attempting to address his conduct personally.

Duhart said the broader episode illustrated how heavily courts depend on public confidence.

“The other two branches of government, they have the power of the purse and the power of the sword,” Duhart said. “Third branch of government, all we have is trust.”

“And when we lose the trust of folks, we don’t have much of anything left.”

Housing, wages and a shrinking county

The candidates were also asked how Sandusky County should confront long-term population decline.

Kuhl had already raised the issue earlier in the forum, saying studies indicate the county needs roughly 1,000 additional homes and arguing that housing shortages, wages and employment opportunities all affect whether younger residents stay.

He later suggested county leaders should directly survey young people about why they plan to leave and what could persuade them to return after college, military service or job training.

Simpson said population loss is connected to numerous factors including housing, schools, parks, jobs, wages and the overall quality of life available to families.

Farmer focused on income, arguing that Sandusky County’s wages trail those in surrounding counties and make both housing development and long-term retention more difficult.

“We gotta find a way to get the wage to a higher level to where the people that live in the county can afford to stay in the county,” Farmer said.

Smith also emphasized higher-paying employment, saying the county has built schools, parks and community amenities but needs stronger job opportunities.

Jones argued that state policy also plays a role, pointing to education, taxes and economic conditions that push younger residents toward opportunities elsewhere.

“We just keep doing the same thing, expecting different results,” Jones said. “At some point, we have to look at it and say, ‘What are we doing?’”

Duhart said rural population loss is also affecting the legal system, where counties are struggling to maintain enough qualified attorneys to represent defendants. He pointed to the Ohio Rural Lawyers Program as one effort aimed at attracting attorneys to underserved communities.

Five weeks to Election Day

The candidates used their closing remarks to make their final pitches with 35 days remaining before the election.

Smith emphasized his public-service experience and said voters should judge him by his efforts since joining the commission to address the county’s financial problems.

Simpson pointed to more than three decades of community work, including leadership positions with the Chamber of Commerce of Sandusky County and United Way of Sandusky County.

Kuhl emphasized his military service, private-sector work and argument that county government should be more accessible and transparent.

Farmer highlighted his private-sector financial and management background and said he would bring those practices into county government.

Ontko said judicial decisions should be grounded in law, impartiality and respect and argued that her work as an attorney and magistrate has prepared her to take the bench.

Duhart pointed to his military service and judicial experience, including service on the Common Pleas Court and Sixth District Court of Appeals.

Click asked voters to return him to Columbus for what would be his final House term under Ohio’s term-limit rules.

Jones closed by urging voters to evaluate candidates as individuals rather than simply voting by party.

“When you vote, you have to remember that you’re voting for your future,” Jones said. “But not only your future, your children’s future, your grandchildren’s future.”

Ohio’s general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

If the reaction among state Senators is any indication, they could be met with skepticism.

The plan

The 90-day tax break comes on the eve of November’s election. Midterms are historically challenging for the party in power, and with price of gas and diesel surging, state leaders are getting antsy.

Democratic candidate for governor Amy Acton first floated the idea of suspending the gas tax. Her Republican opponent Vivek Ramaswamy quickly took up the call and announced he had a plan to pay for it and the backing of statehouse leaders, one of whom is his running mate.

That running mate, Republican Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, praised Ramaswamy and called it “unprecedented” for a nominee to pitch in even before an election.

Bringing lawmakers back to the capitol to pass emergency legislation weeks before an election is unusual.

The distinction McColley touted between the GOP proposal and what he called Acton’s “empty rhetoric,” however, crumbled between the plan’s announcement and the measure’s drafting.

Gas taxes fund work on the state’s roads and bridges. Initially, Ramaswamy’s proposal would’ve relied on the Ohio Department of Transportation’s surplus cash balance. But all the department’s cash is spoken for, and Gov. Mike DeWine shot down the idea of raiding ODOT’s coffers.

So instead, lawmakers are essentially looking to the state’s checking account — dipping into the general revenue fund for the $725 million needed to cover lost revenue.

The bill and the critiques

Ohio state Sens. Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, and Jane Timken, R-Jackson Twp., are sponsoring Ohio Senate Bill 475.

“Ohioans have made their voices loud and clear,” Timken said. “They want relief at the pump, and they want their hard-earned dollars to work for them. We owe it to the people of Ohio to provide relief during this time of financial hardship.”

The current tax rate is 38.5 cents for gas and 47 cents for diesel.

“For a 20 gallon fill up, this equals a savings of nearly $7.70,” Reynolds said.

Democrats on the committee questioned how impactful those savings would be. According to AAA, Ohio’s average gas price on Sept. 29 is $4.27.

Even filling up that 20 gallon tank weekly, a driver would see their gas bill of $1,026 gas over 12 weeks drop to $933.62. That’s not nothing, but the state is putting up significant money to get there, they noted.

Ohio state Sen. Willis Blackshear, D-Dayton also questioned the timing.

“Gas spiked late February, early March,” Blackshear said. “Why are we just now starting? Why are we acting on this now?”

Reynolds pointed to diesel prices, which have risen sharply in recent weeks.

“The time is now,” she said. “Ohioans are suffering — we’re listening.”

“There are a number of things that we can’t control from the national environment,” she added, “But what we can do in Ohio, we should do, and that’s why we’re doing it.”

Ohio state Sen. Bill DeMora rejected he effort as a transparent bid to help Ramaswamy.

“It’s all a gimmick for your governor candidate who’s underwater,” he said. “That’s the only reason you’re doing this.”

Speaking after the hearing, DeMora said he wouldn’t vote for the bill even if lawmakers added an amendment “to make me the king of England,” and that Acton calling for a tax holiday first makes no difference to him.

“I’m not a sycophant,” DeMora said. “My governor candidate was wrong on this issue, and I told her she’s wrong.”

Senators expect to vote the measure out of committee Wednesday and have it on the floor in the afternoon. In the Ohio House, lawmakers are slated to introduce a companion measure Wednesday, with a floor session scheduled later in the day.

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.

Husted, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to the Senate when J.D. Vance left to become vice president, faces former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the Nov. 3 election. 

As Ohio’s lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2025, Husted oversaw deregulation efforts and supported tax incentives that helped spur data center construction in Ohio, which, according to the Pew Research Center, is among the states with the most data center construction in the country.

Husted said on introducing the bill that it would protect small businesses and families from having to pay more for electricity that would be used by data centers. “If America wants to lead the world in AI and strengthen our national security, we have to build the energy infrastructure to support it,” he said in a press release. “But we must do that without passing the costs on to working families and small businesses. The Ratepayer Protection Act would keep America globally competitive while protecting Ohioans and Americans from higher electricity bills.”

According to Husted’s press release, “The Ratepayer Protection Act would require states to consider establishing standards for states and Public Utility Commissions when connecting large electricity users—such as data centers—to the grid.” States already have the authority to adopt laws regulating the development of data centers, and Husted’s bill would not require them to do so.

Husted’s bill has been endorsed by some of the largest tech companies. A Microsoft executive told Politico in June that the bill is “an important step to help ensure American families are protected from rising electricity costs as demand for energy continues to grow.” Google told the outlet that it was “a positive step toward ensuring that all data center operators follow Google’s lead and safeguard Americans from costs associated with development.” An Amazon data center official told Politico it supports the idea of the bill.

However, Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit that opposes AI data centers, has criticized Husted’s bill as a scam that would not actually protect ratepayers. “The truth is, this bill will help protect utility company profits and has no guarantees of any savings for the public,” it said in a Sept. 25 post.

According to Federal Election Commission records, Husted’s 2026 Senate campaign has received $10,000 from Google’s corporate PAC, $6,500 from Amazon’s, and $3,500 from Microsoft’s. None of the companies immediately responded to requests for comment for this story.

Kent Smith, the top Democrat on the Ohio state Senate Energy Committee, told the Ohio Independent, “It doesn’t strike me that this would meaningfully protect the public from the true costs that the data centers bring to communities and bring to ratepayers.” Asked what would be a more useful federal approach to the issue, he pointed to a stronger bill that would mandate that data centers foot the bill for higher energy costs, transmission infrastructure, and water usage and that they protect water quality. 

“Federal legislation oftentimes is the floor, the minimum standards. But the Ratepayer Protection plan doesn’t even establish that,” he said. “It’s a showhorse, not a workhorse.”

Asked to comment for this story, a Husted spokesperson replied in an email, “We are not going to lend credibility to the premise of your inquiries.”

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

But one day before Strive announced that move, the company’s own regulatory filing identified Ramaswamy as something much more specific: “the majority shareholder of Strive Enterprises, Inc.”

Five months later, after Strive had moved its headquarters to Texas, the company was still identifying Ramaswamy the same way.

And subsequent SEC records show Ramaswamy and an affiliated family trust controlled all of Strive’s Class A voting stock before the company’s 2025 merger.

That leaves out a major part of the story Ramaswamy has told Ohio voters about his relationship with the company when it left the state.

Ramaswamy said he was ‘just a shareholder’

During a July 2025 appearance on the Better Bad Ideas podcast with Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, Ramaswamy was confronted about Strive leaving Ohio for Texas.

Ramaswamy emphasized that he had stepped down from the company’s board when he launched his 2023 presidential campaign and said CEO Matt Cole made the relocation decision independently.

“I’m not on the board. I’m not. I’m just a shareholder of the company at this point.”

Ramaswamy said Cole “makes a decision independently” and added that he was “not mad at him for it,” arguing that Texas offered a more favorable business environment.

He then used Strive’s departure as part of his case for running for governor.

“For me, it’s one of the eye opening experiences of why I’m running for governor.”

Ramaswamy’s campaign repeated that argument in June 2026. Communications director Connie Luck told WHIZ that Ramaswamy had stepped down from the board before Strive left Ohio and said the company’s departure was “one of the events that motivated him to run for Governor.”

But stepping off Strive’s board did not make Ramaswamy an ordinary shareholder.

One day before Strive announced the move, Ramaswamy was its majority shareholder

A Strive Asset Management regulatory filing dated Oct. 31, 2024 — one day before the company publicly announced its relocation to Dallas — described the ownership structure this way:

“Strive is principally owned by Vivek Ramaswamy, the majority shareholder of Strive Enterprises, Inc.”

On Nov. 1, Strive announced that it was moving its corporate headquarters from Ohio to Dallas.

The announcement said Strive was launching a wealth management business in Texas and relocating its headquarters there as part of the expansion.

Ramaswamy was quoted directly in the announcement.

He did not object to the company leaving Ohio. He praised Strive’s development and said:

“I wish the team great success in the next stage of Strive’s incredible journey.”

Months later, while explaining the move politically, Ramaswamy would describe himself merely as “just a shareholder.”

Strive’s own filing shows he was its majority shareholder.

After Strive moved to Texas, Ramaswamy was still the majority shareholder

The description was not a one-time disclosure.

A March 31, 2025 Strive Asset Management filing, issued about five months after the relocation announcement, again identified Ramaswamy as the majority shareholder of Strive Enterprises.

By then, the filing listed Strive Asset Management at its Dallas address.

The headquarters had changed.

Ramaswamy’s status as majority shareholder had not.

SEC records show Ramaswamy and his family trust controlled all of Strive’s Class A voting stock

Later SEC filings provide even more detail about Ramaswamy’s ownership.

A 2025 SEC registration filing concerning Strive’s merger with Asset Entities disclosed that before completion of the merger, Ramaswamy and an affiliated trust controlled all of Strive’s Class A Voting Common Stock.

The filing identified 2 million Class A voting shares outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2024.

Ramaswamy personally held 1.6 million of those shares — 80% — while the Ramaswamy 2021 Irrevocable Trust held the remaining 400,000 shares.

Together, Ramaswamy and the affiliated trust accounted for 100% of the company’s Class A voting shares.

That ownership structure is considerably more significant than the phrase “just a shareholder” suggests.

Ramaswamy personally recruited the CEO he later pointed to

Ramaswamy has also placed responsibility for Strive’s move on CEO Matt Cole.

But Ramaswamy himself has acknowledged that he personally recruited Cole.

During the same July 2025 interview, Ramaswamy said:

“There’s a new CEO who actually I recruited from California, moved to Ohio, including his family, and he’s the CEO of the company.”

Ramaswamy said Cole later made the decision to move the company independently.

But even after stepping down from the board, Ramaswamy remained Strive’s majority shareholder, according to the company’s own filings.

Ramaswamy was still publicly involved with Strive shortly before the move

Ramaswamy also continued appearing publicly with Strive after stepping down from its board.

On Sept. 20, 2024 — roughly six weeks before the Dallas announcement — Strive promoted a video featuring Ramaswamy alongside Cole to unveil a Strive-sponsored race car.

The appearance does not show who made the headquarters decision. But it adds to a record that looks very different from the detached role suggested by “just a shareholder.”

Ramaswamy praised the move before citing it as motivation to run for governor

There is another tension in Ramaswamy’s account.

He has repeatedly presented Strive’s move from Ohio as an example of why the state needs different leadership and as one of the experiences that pushed him toward a gubernatorial campaign.

Yet when Strive announced the move in November 2024, Ramaswamy publicly wished the company “great success.”

And when discussing it in July 2025, he explicitly said he was “not mad” at Cole for moving the company.

He instead defended the business rationale, saying Texas offered a more favorable environment for that type of company.

None of that prevents Ramaswamy from later deciding that Strive’s departure illustrated problems he wanted to address as governor.

But his repeated description of himself as “just a shareholder” omits the defining fact about his ownership at the time: he was the majority shareholder of the company he founded when Strive announced it was leaving Ohio.

That is not an inference from a political opponent.

It is how Strive described Vivek Ramaswamy in its own regulatory filings.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

In the suit, state pension systems and other investors accuse FirstEnergy of failing to tell them of “an illicit campaign to corrupt high-profile state legislators in order to secure legislation favoring the company.”

Larry Householder, the former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for his role in the scheme, which prosecutors called one of the biggest bribery scandals in state history.

After a hung jury, FirstEnergy’s former top executives face a second state criminal trial over their involvement.

Rubin served as an advisor to the executives and then formally signed on as a lobbyist. He and JobsOhio didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Financially struggling FirstEnergy in 2018 and 2019 paid more than $60 million through 501(c)(4) dark money groups to pass and protect a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout. 

Gov. Mike DeWine signed the law and briefly defended it as good policy even after the FBI started making arrests in 2020.

His administration had numerous connections to FirstEnergy and the legislation, including a legislative affairs director who, as a FirstEnergy lobbyist, started one of the dark-money groups through which the utility funneled $25 million.

DeWine’s then-lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, was a staunch supporter of the bailout.

In 2017, FirstEnergy made a $1 million dark money contribution to an independent political group supporting Husted, although a spokeswoman said it wasn’t affiliated with Husted.

DeWine’s nominee to chair the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, Sam Randazzo, received a $4.3 million bribe from FirstEnergy just before his appointment. While working as head of the state utility regulator, Randazzo helped write the bailout legislation.

After Randazzo was charged criminally, he became one of two participants in the scandal to die by suicide.

Rubin, who is scheduled to be deposed in the civil litigation, is a longtime advisor to DeWine. In September 2023, DeWine made Rubin chairman of JobsOhio, the state’s controversial economic development agency. 

JobsOhio is legally exempt from most open meetings and records laws even though it was created by the legislature, the governor appoints its board, and it leases the state’s lucrative liquor franchise for much less than it’s worth.

JobsOhio has used more than $2 billion in proceeds from the arrangement to make grants and loans to private businesses — including FirstEnergy — in the name of economic development.

Rubin’s appointment to chair the JobsOhio board is also controversial among good government watchdogs because he is a lobbyist with dozens of clients, including many that are seeking money from JobsOhio. 

One of his clients, Intel, has received more than $150 million in commitments from JobsOhio and more than $2 billion from DeWine’s executive branch, which Intel is paying Rubin to lobby.

Before he joined the JobsOhio board, Rubin advised FirstEnergy’s top executives.

On Dec. 18, 2018, just after they were elected, DeWine and Husted attended a dinner meeting with FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President Michael Dowling at the Columbus Athletic Club.

Rubin, who would within weeks become a FirstEnergy lobbyist, was there. The men discussed Randazzo’s suitability to be the state’s top regulator of the monopoly industry FirstEnergy was a part of, court proceedings showed.

Rubin advised the executives not to tell DeWine that they were going straight from the dinner to meet with Randazzo, the Associated Press reported in February. 

It was at that meeting at Randazzo’s German Village condo that the $4.3 million bribe was negotiated, prosecutors said.

An audit performed by the utility commission after the conspiracy had been exposed found that FirstEnergy paid Rubin’s lobbying firm, the CJR Group,  $300,000 between 2018 and 2019.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“We need to make sure people do know that this is one of the most important offices that their votes do matter on this year,” said Seth Walsh, a former Cincinnati community organizer and current Cincinnati City Council member who is the Democratic nominee running for Ohio Treasurer of State.

The state treasurer’s office has the authority to invest state money, and oversee the debts for the state, while also watching over programs for things like small business loans, investment opportunities for Ohioans, and homebuyer savings resources.

The office also works with county recorders in the state, and keeps records on topics like state government salaries, state revenue, and state spending, among other numbers, through the Ohio Checkbook.

Walsh is running against Republican former state lawmaker Jay Edwards in the race.

Walsh was uncontested in the Democratic primary in May, while Edwards won in a tight race against fellow legislator Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson.

That primary race was treated as a test of endorsements, with Edwards touting support from Vice President JD Vance and Ohio GOP U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, while Roegner was endorsed by Ohio GOP candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy.

In previous comments to reporters about running again for elected office, Edwards said he wants to help maintain the “Trump Republican Party.”

The Nelsonville resident served as a state representative for the 94th District from 2017 to 2024, chairing the Ohio House Finance Committee during his last two years in office.

If elected again, he said he plans to focus on “keeping taxpayer money in Ohio” as treasurer.

“I don’t see any reason why the state treasurer spends so much money with Wall Street banks, and the Wall Street investors in the state,” Edwards said. “We want to support community banks, credit unions, right here in the state of Ohio.”

On the topic of the unclaimed funds account held under the Ohio Department of Commerce, which other lawmakers pledged to use to pay for sports stadiums and other venues, Edwards said Ohioans he talks to know “it’s very negative, what was done in the budget, and I can tell you, if I was finance chair, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“The one good thing that has came from that is a lot of people are now claiming their unclaimed funds, it kind of shined a light on that,” Edwards told the Capital Journal.

An effort to use the funds as lawmakers planned has been blocked by a state court, but the lawsuit remains ongoing.

Walsh is staunchly against using the fund for projects like sports stadiums. In a pre-primary interview with the Capital Journal, he said the treasurer’s office “has a fiduciary responsibility to be on that lawsuit saying absolutely not.”

The Democratic nominee has made his way across the state talking to those who work in community development, conversations that have bolstered a plan he’s had to use local resources to reinvest in the state.

“I’ve always believed we can use the state treasurer’s office to rebuild Ohio, but now I see the tools and I see the experts who know how you can use these tools really well, that can help educate us on how we can build out from there,” Walsh told the Capital Journal.

Walsh said he has talked to Ohioans of all backgrounds and political leanings in the last year, and a common theme has arisen.

“In general, what I hear around Ohio … people just feel very left behind by everybody,” Walsh said. “They feel like the work has been set up in a way in which they don’t win and there’s no path to victory, and they’re tired of just feeling like no matter what they try to do, it doesn’t get better.”

Edwards has heard the same in his discussions at county fairs and other campaign events.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that people are struggling, and electricity prices, and property taxes, and gas prices and things are a struggle for people, and so we’re trying to talk about solutions to try to fix some of those issues,” he said.

One plan at the top of the list for Edwards is to revitalize the Ohio Checkbook. Because he’s heard voters talk about wanting to know exactly where their tax dollars are being spent, he thinks the record-keeping arm of the treasurer’s office could be a simple way to bring that information to the forefront.

“We’d really like to try to figure out how we can invest in the Ohio Checkbook, to make it simple, so whether you’re a farmer in Northwest Ohio or a mechanic in Southeast Ohio, you can log in there, you can see how the state’s spending your money,” Edwards said.

Through all the discussions, even with those who were forthright about their plans not to vote for him, Walsh said the idea was to understand where voters are, and how the treasurer’s office can help.

“I see my job (as treasurer, if elected), and I think the job of any elected official is you have to be fearless in just having conversations with people,” he said. “You don’t have to agree, and you don’t have to vote for me to make me want to make your life better.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The signs, text messages and mailers promise cash, quick sales and a seamless means of unloading unwanted homes. 

But advocates say the business of buying homes for cash can confuse vulnerable homeowners and rob them of home equity. And now, many states are cracking down. 

Wholesalers often solicit directly, calling or door knocking looking for sales. But they’re best known by the signs lining curbs and utility poles.

Real estate wholesaling operates distinctly from the traditional real estate market of listings, showings and agents. Wholesalers look to get unlisted homes under contract at a discount and then sell or assign that contract to another speculator before finalizing the property transfer — acting as a middleman and pocketing a profit along the way. The end buyer may flip the house for a profit or hold it as a rental property, but critics say the process can deprive owners of realizing the full value of their homes.

A growing number of state lawmakers worry that buyers don’t fully understand the wholesaling process or even who will end up owning their home at the end of the sale. Lawmakers and regulators, backed by organized real estate trade groups and consumer advocacy organizations, are pushing for more limits on the practice. At least 15 states have recently approved new regulations of wholesalers.

Those include Missouri, where Republican state Rep. Chris Brown sponsored the House version of a  law enacted earlier this year requiring wholesalers to give sellers a written disclosure at least 14 days before closing, the final step in the property transaction. The disclosure informs homeowners that the wholesaler may offer below market value and reassign the contract to another buyer. It also encourages sellers to contact an attorney before finalizing a deal. 

Brown, who holds an inactive real estate license and is married to an active agent, said the law doesn’t ban wholesaling altogether. 

“We’re just trying to make sure that there’s transparency there, and that the seller of the property is in fact educated and fully informed as to what the wholesaler plans to do with the property,” Brown told Stateline. “That’s all it is.”

He said wholesalers often target people facing financial problems or who own homes with major issues. 

“And they’re just looking to unload it, and they don’t really at times understand the value of the property,” he said. “So unfortunately, some of these wholesalers become a little bit predatory in nature and then people just lose a lot of equity in their house.”

Critics argue that wholesalers target minority, low-income and older homeowners who may not appreciate the full value of their home. Terrell Walls, president of the Greater Kansas City Association of Real Estate Brokers, a group representing Black real estate professionals, in a statement called predatory wholesaling the “modern-day cousin” of redlining and other practices that historically denied Black families homeownership and wealth.

No state has outright banned wholesaling. But new regulations in Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas require disclosure from wholesalers to sellers. Other states, including Illinois, South Carolina and Rhode Island, have required many wholesalers to hold real estate licenses — bringing them under the watch of state regulators.

“Legislators are responding maybe a little too aggressively, but not by much,” said Jeff Watson, general counsel for the National Real Estate Investors Association, which represents 43,000 house flippers and landlords. 

‘Stop trying to hide’

Watson said many wholesalers are effectively acting as real estate agents without the same licensing and consumer protection rules. Many wholesalers solicit homeowners directly and then market the home to other investors or buyers once they’ve secured a contract. 

“There is a small percentage of wholesalers, in my opinion, that do the business correctly,” Watson said. “They are honest, ethical capitalists. They can buy houses that real estate agents refuse to look at let alone list … Unfortunately, they’re not the majority.”

He said wholesalers can play an important role by helping to find buyers for some of the most distressed homes. 

For instance, out-of-state heirs or relatives may want to unload a home quickly after a relative dies or ages out of a house. When those homes are unkempt, have animal infestations or major maintenance needs, owners can secure a quick sale without going through the traditional real estate market. 

“Ethical wholesalers can do tremendous things for them,” he said. 

Wholesalers have publicly acknowledged that their industry is changing. 

Following the enactment of an Oklahoma law last year requiring new disclosures, real estate investor Jerry Norton said wholesalers would have to start doing a better job explaining wholesaling and the value it can provide to owners of distressed homes.

Norton, who could not be reached for comment, says he has made millions flipping and wholesaling homes. He offers paid real estate investment education and runs the popular YouTube channel Flipping Mastery TV. On his show last year, he recounted how he was working to tell sellers how wholesaling works and how they make money off the transactions.  

“This is the new way to wholesale. Stop trying to hide what you’re doing,” he said. “Address the elephant in the room. Remember, at the end of the day, the seller wants to work with someone they trust. Honesty is the pinnacle of trust. Be honest and you’ll actually do more business, not less business.”

Consumer confusion

The AARP has pushed model legislation across several states addressing real estate wholesaling. It would require wholesaler licensing, appraisals, cancellation rights and limits on aggressive marketing tactics.

Jenn Jones, AARP’s vice president for retirement security and livable communities, said the organization’s aim is twofold: it wants to ensure older adults can safely age at home and it wants to protect the wealth of homeowners.

“For a lot of older adults, their retirement security, their financial security is in that house,” she said. “That was supposed to be the American dream: You become a homeowner and that asset builds equity, and that is the thing that gives you some comfort in your later years. It’s also the thing that you have that you can pass on to your kids.”

Jones said sellers should know that wholesalers may not be the end buyer of their property, should have the time for an independent home valuation and should be allowed to cancel a contract if they change their minds.  

She pointed to the Oklahoma neighborhood where her mother lives. Jones’ mother told her about neighbors quickly selling their homes for $20,000 or less in cash — despite actual property values that are much higher. Her mother, who is in her late seventies, often receives calls and unsolicited visits from people looking to buy her house.

“We could probably all point to a story that we’ve heard or an experience that we’ve had,” Jones said. “This is about making sure that people understand fully the decision that they’re making, and they don’t end up in a situation where they are potentially jeopardizing either their own financial security or that of their kids because they were pressured to sell.”

Experts and lawmakers said recent measures targeting wholesalers have proved largely bipartisan and faced little pushback from the industry.

Rhode Island state Sen. Robert Britto, a Democrat, said a new law he sponsored this year faced “literally no opposition.” It requires wholesalers to possess a state-issued real estate license, which he hopes will put legitimate businesses under state supervision and push bad actors out of the industry.

“I’d think there would be more opposition, but I guess those actors didn’t want to really and truly expose themselves,” he said. “It was a catch-22 for them … Do I complain about it, but if I complain about it, am I showing my true colors?”

That measure was pushed by the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, which represents nearly 6,000 members across the state.

“Real estate professionals are licensed for a really good reason and sometimes the consumers would assume they were talking to a real estate professional,” said Rebekah Wagoner, associate counsel for the trade group. 

Wagoner said wholesaling isn’t inherently unlawful or predatory and can play a role in selling distressed properties. 

“Our issue is the transparency,” she said. “It’s that a lot of the consumers didn’t understand the transaction.”

Without state licensing, she said wholesalers face no accountability if consumers feel wronged.

“We want them to have a regulatory framework that means that if something happens, the consumer is protected,” she said. 

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.

The disclosure comes at a time when data centers have become a political lightning rod: Polling by Gallup in May showed 7 in 10 Americans oppose data center construction in their area. Nearly half of those polled, 48%, said they were strongly opposed. 

In Ohio, 75% of respondents oppose the construction of data centers in their communities, according to a September poll from Bowling Green State University. According to the poll, 70% of Ohioans say data centers are bad for the environment, and 69% say they are bad for home energy costs.

Nvidia is set to provide up to $105 billion in financing for a new large-scale artificial intelligence data center campus in Pike County, CNBC reported on Aug. 17. Reuters reported that the investment was one of the largest financial commitments ever made by the chipmaker in an infrastructure project.

Nvidia announced the same day that it will be the exclusive AI compute infrastructure provider for the project, SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike Technology Campus. 

On Aug. 13, Merrin filed a financial disclosure report that covers income from 2025 through mid-July 2026. 

Merrin reported capital gains income between $1,001 and $2,500 from “Nvida” stock options, apparently a typo. Merrin also reported capital gains between $201 and $1,000 on Nvidia Corporation common stock. 

Merrin’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Merrin ran unsuccessfully for Kaptur’s seat in 2024. Kaptur has held it since 1983. 

An Innovation Ohio report in March 2026 said data centers in Ohio will cost the average family $70 more per month by 2028 as a result of increased demand on the state’s electric grid. With higher demand, utilities need to build new substations, transmission lines and sometimes new power plants, which can lead to higher rates for customers, the report states.  

An earlier financial disclosure report covering 2024 and the first half of 2025 shows Merrin owned between $1,001 and $15,000 of stock shares in Hive Digital Technologies, a company that builds and operates data centers. He did not report owning any of that stock on his most recent filing. 

Between 2017 and 2024, Ohio provided about $2.5 billion in tax incentives to attract data center development, mostly through sales tax exemptions, property tax abatements and job creation tax credits, according to a 2025 report from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation. 

As a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, Merrin voted in 2017 for the state’s 2018-19 budget, which included tax breaks for data centers, the Ohio Capital Journal reported in August. 

The outlet also reported that in 2021, Merrin received $1,000 from the American Electric Power Ohio Committee for Responsible Government, a PAC associated with American Electric Power, a Columbus-based corporation that is one of the largest generators of electricity in the country. Policy Matters Ohio, a nonprofit policy research organization, found that American Electric Power Service Corporation had received $6.3 million in data center tax breaks from the state as of September 2024.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“Social Security is on the ballot,” O’Malley said during a Sept. 25 roundtable in Toledo with the Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans, Ohio AFL-CIO and AFSCME Local 8.

O’Malley is not speaking about the program from the sidelines. The former Maryland governor served as commissioner of the Social Security Administration from December 2023 through November 2024, overseeing the federal agency responsible for retirement, disability and survivors benefits.

An Ohio governor cannot rewrite Social Security. Congress sets the federal program’s basic structure, benefits and financing. But Ramaswamy’s comments about Social Security are now part of the Ohio governor’s race as O’Malley and retiree and labor groups point to them alongside Ramaswamy’s positions on Medicaid, a program administered by states within federal requirements.

Ramaswamy called Social Security privatization a ‘reasonable conversation’

Ramaswamy has left little ambiguity about his willingness to reconsider how Social Security operates for future beneficiaries.

Asked whether “privatization or partial privatization” of Social Security would be on the table, Ramaswamy replied: “I think, in principle, in the long run that’s a reasonable conversation to have.”

The comments resurfaced in August as Ramaswamy campaigned for governor.

That was not an isolated comment.

During his 2023 presidential campaign, Ramaswamy argued that past Social Security surpluses should have been invested in a diversified portfolio instead of under the existing system.

“If we had just allowed that money to be invested in the same way that your financial advisor would — in a diversified portfolio — we would be swimming in surplus today,” Ramaswamy said.

He repeated the argument in a 2024 interview with AARP, saying the country should have allowed individuals or the government to invest Social Security money “in the stock market and in bonds and otherwise.”

That approach would represent a major change from the current system. Social Security trust fund reserves are invested in U.S. Treasury securities, not private stocks, and monthly Social Security benefits do not rise and fall with stock market performance.

AARP has long opposed Social Security privatization, arguing that retirement benefits should remain separate from private investments and protected from market losses.

‘I don’t like the existence of those policies’

Ramaswamy has also used much broader language when discussing Social Security, Medicaid and welfare spending.

In a video publicized this month, Ramaswamy discussed congressionally authorized payments for Social Security, Medicaid and welfare programs before saying, “I don’t like the existence of those policies.”

He continued by saying he would vote to “significantly constrain” much of the welfare state and impose work requirements.

Ramaswamy has separately said Medicare and Medicaid were mistakes. Asked in a 2024 interview whether the programs should have been created, he said, “I believe they were, with the benefit of retrospect, particularly Medicaid.”

Unlike Social Security, Medicaid has a direct connection to the office Ramaswamy is seeking. Medicaid is jointly funded by the state and federal governments but administered by states under federal requirements. States make consequential decisions involving benefits, provider payments and other parts of their Medicaid programs within those federal rules.

That gives Ohio’s governor and state government substantial influence over a health program covering millions of Ohioans.

Ramaswamy has drawn a line at current seniors

Ramaswamy has said he would protect Social Security and Medicare benefits already promised to current seniors while pushing structural changes to the programs going forward.

“No cuts for seniors on Social Security or Medicare,” Ramaswamy said during his presidential campaign. “We have to stand by the commitments we’ve already made.”

He followed that promise by arguing for changes to Social Security and saying its money should have been invested in a diversified portfolio.

That distinction — protecting current beneficiaries while entertaining major changes to the system for the future — is central to Ramaswamy’s record on Social Security and the record O’Malley brought to Toledo.

More than 2.6 million Ohioans receive Social Security

The debate involves a program relied upon by more than one-fifth of Ohio’s population.

According to Social Security Administration data, 2,611,577 Ohioans were receiving Social Security benefits in December 2025, including 1,900,292 retired workers and 299,284 disabled workers.

The numbers are substantial across northwest Ohio as well.

SSA county data show 94,710 Social Security beneficiaries in Lucas County, where Friday’s roundtable was held. Another 15,640 beneficiaries live in Sandusky County and 13,985 live in Seneca County.

Statewide, 21.9% of Ohio residents were receiving Social Security benefits at the end of 2025.

O’Malley told the Toledo roundtable that Ramaswamy’s record should be part of the decision Ohioans make in November.

His message to retirees was direct.

“Social Security is on the ballot.”

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Walsh, a Cincinnati City Council member, spoke during a Sept. 22 meet-and-greet with Seneca County residents as part of his campaign’s statewide outreach ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

Much of Walsh’s pitch centered on how Ohio invests and safeguards public money, including the role the treasurer’s office can play in directing state investments toward financial institutions and economic development within Ohio.

“Ohio’s public dollars should serve Ohioans first,” Walsh said. “Today, hundreds of millions of dollars of Ohioans’ money are invested in other countries instead of being reinvested in Ohio-based financial institutions and our community banks.”

Walsh has made that argument a central piece of his campaign for treasurer, proposing that the state make no new investments in foreign countries and instead put more money into Ohio community banks to increase their lending capacity.

The Ohio Treasurer of State serves as the state’s chief investment officer for its investment and debt portfolios, oversees daily cash flows and deposits, and serves as custodian for certain public funds and investment assets. The office also has statutory authority to invest certain state funds.

“We are electing someone in November that oversees enough money that, when properly invested, can actually make a positive impact on our state and can actually live our morals,” Walsh told attendees.

Walsh discusses pensions, public employees

Walsh also used the Tiffin stop to talk about retirement security for public employees, including teachers, firefighters and law enforcement officers.

“Ultimately, we are asking these people to give us the best years of their lives to serve our community,” Walsh said. “We need to make sure that when they decide to retire, they’re protected.”

The treasurer does have a role involving Ohio’s public retirement systems, although the office does not independently make the pension systems’ investment decisions. Under Ohio law, the treasurer serves as custodian for certain pension-system investment assets and carries out transactions authorized by the governing pension boards.

Walsh also discussed agriculture, small businesses and economic development, arguing that decisions made by the treasurer’s office can be used to strengthen communities throughout the state.

From Cincinnati development work to statewide race

Walsh currently serves on Cincinnati City Council. Before joining council, he led the College Hill Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation, a Cincinnati community-development organization, and previously served as executive director of the Sedamsville Community Development Corporation.

He told Tiffin residents that his experience working on neighborhood and economic-development projects helped shape his approach to public investment and fiscal management.

Seneca County Democratic Party Chairwoman Gina Grandillo said the local party has made an effort during the 2026 election cycle to bring candidates for statewide and federal office to the area so voters can meet them directly.

“We are especially appreciative of statewide candidates who take the time to stop in Seneca County,” Grandillo said.

“Ohioans are struggling, and for the better part of three decades, one party has held tremendous power over the direction of our state,” she continued. “It’s time for Ohioans to have a real conversation about where we go from here. Candidates like Seth Walsh offer a different vision for the future, and we’re grateful he came to Seneca County to share that vision directly with voters.”

Walsh is the Democratic nominee for Ohio Treasurer of State. He faces Republican nominee Jay Edwards in the Nov. 3 general election.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Family Economic Well-Being Index, published on Sept. 24, shows that 31% of Ohio residents are burdened or severely burdened by food costs, 25% struggle to afford housing, 40% are burdened or severely burdened by healthcare costs, and 23% are struggling with childcare costs. Nationwide, 70% of Americans are finding it difficult to pay for at least one basic need, the new report saya. 

“For a long time, we have tended to think of affordability as a problem for people with the lowest incomes, but increasingly we are hearing stories from people at all income levels who are feeling squeezed by the cost of everyday essentials,” said Lelaine Bigelow, the executive director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, which works to provide economic research to policymakers. 

“At GCPI, we wanted to put data behind those stories and see just how widespread these pressures have become,” Bigelow told the American Independent. “And what we found is that the affordability problem is much bigger than our policy debates often acknowledge. Seven in 10 people face at least one affordability burden, and these pressures don’t just stop at the poverty line; they reach well into the middle class.”

To compile the index, researchers analyzed data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and from the Department of Agriculture and other agencies to piece together a statistical picture of the financial struggles of people in the United States. That picture is, Bigelow and her fellow researcher Danilo Trisi said, one of mounting expenses, especially for families with young children. Sixty-nine percent of middle-income families with children under the age of 6 struggle to afford childcare, and 68% of upper-middle income families do the same. Even for those in the top income quintile — those making more than $156,719 annually — have trouble paying for childcare, with half of that population struggling to afford it. 

Bigelow said she hopes the data helps lawmakers understand the numbers behind the stories of hardship they are hearing. A rising number of Americans report facing financial hardship as the cost of healthcare increases since congressional Republicans failed to extend federal tax credits that helped people purchase insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. The budget law that President Donald Trump signed into law in 2025 contained cuts to funding for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, also putting pressure on affordability as grocery prices rise amid tariffs on imported goods and energy prices increase due to the war in Iran.

“I think what you are seeing right now in policy debates is a backlash against supporting families,” Bigelow said. “We’re seeing the administration cut childcare. We’re seeing premium tax credits not get funded. We’re seeing SNAP benefits cut. And I think when policymakers think that, oh, people are making enough money and they should be able to do this – you know, people just need to work harder — this data is to show people are working very hard. Even at upper quintiles of income, people are having burdens.

“There needs to be a more systemic look at policy solutions rather than blaming individuals for systemic issues,” she said.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

National Security Leaders for America, which describes itself as a nonpartisan coalition of former senior national security officials from across the political spectrum, announced its endorsement of Acton at an event in Dayton.

The organization’s membership includes retired admirals and generals, former ambassadors, intelligence officials, senior enlisted leaders and former senior civilian government officials. NSL4A says its ranks include more than 300 retired admirals and generals and more than 190 former ambassadors.

In announcing the endorsement, the organization praised Acton’s career in public service and her positions on public safety and veterans — then turned its attention to Ramaswamy.

“Vivek Ramaswamy doesn’t respect America’s core values, citizens, or the role of voters in choosing their own leadership,” the group said in the endorsement announcement.

NSL4A pointed specifically to Ramaswamy’s call to shut down the FBI, the federal drug case involving a former member of his security detail and his plans to dramatically reduce property taxes that help finance local government services.

Ramaswamy called for shutting down the FBI

Ramaswamy’s proposal to eliminate the FBI as it currently exists dates back to his 2024 presidential campaign.

During an April 2023 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Ramaswamy rejected host Chuck Todd’s characterization that he wanted to merely “defund” the bureau.

“I didn’t say defund the FBI,” Ramaswamy said. “I said shut down the FBI and replace it with something new.”

Ramaswamy said he wanted a new federal law enforcement institution built “from scratch,” arguing that the existing FBI’s culture had become too entrenched. He later included the FBI among several federal agencies he proposed eliminating, while transferring some personnel and responsibilities elsewhere.

That record became one of the central issues cited by the national security group as it endorsed Acton.

Former Ramaswamy bodyguard pleaded guilty in fentanyl case

The organization also pointed to the drug-trafficking case involving Justin Salsburey, who worked for the private security company that provided protection to Ramaswamy and his family.

The case has moved significantly beyond the arrest cited in the endorsement announcement.

Salsburey pleaded guilty in federal court in Columbus in August to participating in a narcotics conspiracy involving bulk quantities of fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Federal prosecutors said the investigation began after authorities received information that Salsburey and his wife were receiving packages containing drugs at their Bellefontaine home. His wife also pleaded guilty to federal drug charges.

Ramaswamy fired the security company after Salsburey’s arrest earlier this year.

Group says Ramaswamy tax agenda threatens public safety funding

NSL4A also attacked Ramaswamy’s property tax agenda, arguing that his proposals would threaten money used to fund police, fire departments and other local public services.

Ramaswamy has made large property tax reductions one of the centerpieces of his campaign. His campaign says he would roll property taxes back to pre-pandemic levels while forcing local governments to operate with what it calls greater fiscal discipline.

Ramaswamy’s campaign has simultaneously insisted that the reductions can be carried out without sacrificing police, fire protection or public schools. A campaign advertisement released in March promised lower property taxes while maintaining “dependable police and fire” and strong schools.

NSL4A rejected that pitch, saying Ramaswamy’s tax policies would “gut public safety funding” and make Ohioans less safe.

The dispute goes directly to how Ohio finances local government. Property taxes are a major revenue source for schools and local services, including police, fire and emergency services, meaning large reductions require either replacement revenue, spending cuts or some combination of the two.

Retired military leaders praise Acton

Brigadier General Charlie Martinez, U.S. Air Force retired, said Acton had demonstrated a commitment to public safety and Ohio veterans.

“Dr. Acton is committed to investing in public safety, supporting Ohio’s veterans, and leading Ohio with integrity,” Martinez said. “As a common sense, life-long public servant, Dr. Acton is the strong leader Ohioans deserve to lower costs, tackle corruption and build a state where all of us get a fair shot.”

Rear Admiral Deborah Loewer, a Springfield resident, pointed to Acton’s experience working across government and the private sector.

“Her decades-long relationship in the public and private sector, her ability to reach across the aisle to work with anyone and everyone to make Ohio a better place, to help lower prices, to help with healthcare, just a person who is extremely active with every member,” Loewer said.

Ambassador Jess Baily said Acton has demonstrated the qualities the organization looks for in candidates it supports.

“She understands that elected office means putting aside partisan and personal interests in the name of the public good,” Baily said.

Acton said public safety would be her top priority as governor.

“I always stand up for those who keep our communities safe, advocate for the rule of law, and ensure that our service members and their families receive the respect and support they deserve,” Acton said.

Acton building support from public safety organizations

The national security endorsement adds to Acton’s support from organizations representing Ohio police officers and firefighters.

The Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which represents more than 8,000 public employees working in law enforcement, endorsed Acton in August, citing her support for collective bargaining and investment in public safety infrastructure. Her campaign has also been endorsed by the Ohio Association of Professional Fire Fighters.

National Security Leaders for America says it was founded in 2021 and includes Republicans, Democrats and independents who previously served in senior military, diplomatic, intelligence and civilian national security positions.

The organization says its mission is centered on defending democratic institutions, constitutional government, the rule of law and a professional national security establishment.

Its endorsement places a coalition of hundreds of retired military officers, former diplomats and senior national security officials behind Acton while putting Ramaswamy’s own public safety record — including his explicit proposal to dismantle the FBI as it currently exists — squarely into Ohio’s race for governor.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

That was the message from Nick Owens, a former Brown County Republican Party chairman and former member of the State Board of Education, as Republicans publicly questioned Vivek Ramaswamy’s reliance on private aircraft while campaigning for Ohio governor.

“People want to see you in their neighborhoods and in their living rooms,” Owens told NBC News. “There’s no reason to be flying around in a jet in Ohio.”

The criticism follows campaign-finance records showing Ramaswamy’s campaign has spent at least nearly $690,000 leasing aircraft since he entered the governor’s race.

And the flights were not limited to cross-country travel.

Federal flight records reviewed by the Ohio Capital Journal documented multiple short flights between Ohio cities, including trips from Columbus to Port Clinton, Cleveland and Youngstown. The in-state flights lasted about 30 minutes.

Nearly $700,000 spent leasing aircraft

Campaign-finance reports show Ramaswamy’s campaign spent nearly $560,000 leasing aircraft from V Leasing LLC through the end of June, according to the Capital Journal.

V Leasing lists as its address a house owned by Ramaswamy.

The campaign spent another nearly $130,000 with TVPX Aircraft Solutions, a Utah-based aircraft-leasing company, bringing the documented total to nearly $690,000.

Ramaswamy has also loaned his campaign more than $25 million.

The arrangement drew scrutiny from Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who raised the possibility that donor money could ultimately flow back to Ramaswamy if the campaign eventually repays his loans after using campaign funds to lease aircraft through V Leasing.

“If he is basically fronting money to rent a plane from himself, and then if he does not forgive the loans but reimburses himself, he’ll essentially be using donor funds to pay himself,” Libowitz told the Capital Journal.

No campaign-finance violation involving the aircraft expenditures has been established, and whether Ramaswamy ultimately repays the loans remains unknown.

Private jet used for short trips across Ohio

The campaign’s use of private aircraft has included trips that could otherwise be driven in a matter of hours.

On April 7, federal flight records showed Ramaswamy traveling by private aircraft from Ohio State University Airport in Columbus to Port Clinton before a campaign appearance in Lakeside.

The next day, he flew from Columbus to Cleveland for another campaign event.

On April 15, Ramaswamy flew from Columbus to Youngstown for a meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police at the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office.

After winning the Republican primary, he again flew from Columbus to the Cleveland area for a May 21 campaign event in Brecksville.

David Cohen, director of the University of Akron’s Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, questioned the need for private aviation on those trips when the Capital Journal examined the spending in August.

“He’s flying between Columbus and Akron for crying out loud, and Columbus and Cleveland,” Cohen said. “That’s a two hour drive. Get in the car.”

The Port Clinton flight gives the spending issue a direct northwest Ohio connection: Ramaswamy used a private aircraft to travel from Columbus to Ottawa County for a campaign stop rather than making the roughly two-hour drive.

Republican criticism breaks into the open

The aircraft spending had already drawn scrutiny from campaign-finance observers and political analysts. A Sept. 25 NBC News report showed the criticism spreading to Republicans as Ramaswamy campaigns against Democratic nominee Amy Acton.

Owens, the former Brown County GOP chairman, directly connected Ramaswamy’s use of private aircraft with the candidate’s efforts to reach voters.

“People want to see you in their neighborhoods and in their living rooms,” he said.

Republican Marietta City Council President Susan Vessels has gone further politically, endorsing Acton. Vessels told NBC that Ramaswamy’s wealth and his previous support for data centers were among her concerns.

“I just think that Ohioans maybe want a change at this point,” Vessels said.

Jet spending collides with Ramaswamy’s affordability message

The criticism comes as Ramaswamy has increasingly centered his campaign messaging on the cost of living.

On Sept. 23, Ramaswamy joined Ohio Senate President Rob McColley and House Speaker Matt Huffman to call for temporarily suspending Ohio’s 38.5-cent-per-gallon gas tax for 90 days.

But Ramaswamy’s explanation for how the state could cover the hundreds of millions of dollars in lost transportation revenue ran into trouble almost immediately.

Ramaswamy pointed to Ohio Department of Transportation cash reserves, saying Ohio’s fiscal position meant the state could afford the suspension.

“Ohio, under Republican leadership, has thankfully been on a good fiscal trajectory that we can do this,” Ramaswamy said.

After the announcement, however, Ohio’s Office of Budget and Management said the nearly $1.6 billion sitting in the relevant ODOT fund was not spare money.

“It supports $5 billion open purchase orders for operations, maintenance, and capital improvements,” OBM spokesperson Pete LuPiba told the Ohio Capital Journal. “There is no money in the account that is not planned for future projects.”

House Republican leaders estimated the proposed 90-day suspension could cost roughly $640 million to $700 million. They have said other state funds could instead be considered to replace the lost revenue.

The campaign aircraft expenditures and the state gas tax involve entirely separate funds. But the political contrast is now unavoidable: Ramaswamy is campaigning on the financial pressure facing Ohioans who fill their cars with gasoline while his own campaign has spent nearly $700,000 leasing aircraft, including for short flights across the state.

Owens, a fellow Republican, reduced that contrast to four words.

“Park the damn jet.”

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The state’s most recent infant mortality data showed 6.6 deaths per 1,000 live births, which is lower than the state has seen in a decade of reporting the data, according to early childhood advocates. The national overall infant mortality rate is 5.36 per 1,000 live births, according to the CDC.

“Ohio has made progress on infant mortality, but it didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen by accident,” said Caitlin Feasby, managing director of policy at child advocacy group Groundwork Ohio, during a recent panel discussion with other advocates.

Data from Groundwork Ohio and evidence found in research done by local experts showed continued disparities for babies and mothers of color. While the infant mortality rate for white infants in Ohio is 5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births, the rate for Black infants is 12.6 per 1,000 births, more than 2.5 times the rate of white infants. Hispanic babies see a rate of 6.7 per 1,000 live births.

Those working on the ground to keep track of resources for pregnant people and infants in their first years of life have said the state still lacks a level of patient-centered care, and education on what is available to Ohioans who need it.

“While we’ve made progress as a state … the fact that the same themes are coming up from women of color as they have well before just the past 10 years is something that’s really resonating with our hospitals and our key stakeholders,” said Christine Sander, senior director of community wellness at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and director of the Ohio Better Birth Outcomes Collaborative.

Throughout listening sessions with various groups, another similar problem came up among pregnant individuals in Ohio: a lack of respect.

“Women want to feel heard and respected, and included in decisions about their own care,” said Maleka James, infant mortality initiatives manager at Dayton Children’s Hospital. “Access alone is not enough.”

James said community members felt “dismissed” by providers and saw racism present in healthcare, adding to the stress that was already affecting their maternal health.

Richard Stacklin, a senior director for the early childhood advocacy group First Year Cleveland, said Black Ohioans having children in Cuyahoga County already face an infant mortality rate more than three times higher than white infants in the county, but before the children are even born, parents report negative interactions with medical professionals during the birthing process.

“Women were not heard, they were disrespected, religious beliefs were not taken into account in some cases,” Stacklin said.

While the birthing process brought mostly negative comments, Stacklin did say postpartum care received positive notes.

Advocates from across the state say lawmakers in Ohio need to do even more to help with infant mortality rates, especially those in marginalized communities and areas.

The most recent state operating budget reduced funding for “infant vitality,” a budget line-item, from $20 million as was proposed by the Ohio House, to $18 million per year for two years, after conference committee negotiations between the two chambers. The number is up slightly from $16.8 million, according to 2025 numbers for the fund.

The budget provided $5 million for maternal health programs “by community and local faith-based service providers,” down from the $7.5 million the governor proposed in his version of the budget.

A $1 million provision to provide non-medical services at residential infant care centers was removed from the budget before it was finalized.

A Maternal and Child Health Block Grant to the tune of $5 million remained in the final budget.

Federal funding cuts also impacted infant and maternal mortality, particularly those who provide care for Medicaid-eligible Ohioans in rural areas. Financial losses at these rural hospitals have already impacted facilities in the form of maternity ward closures, or risk of closure for entire facilities, leaving pregnant individuals with less opportunities to receive care.

Research released this year found that hospitals in Ohio and at least 36 other states face billions in reduced payments for services due to the Medicaid funding changes approved by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. When the changes were first proposed, it was estimated that Ohio’s Medicaid program would lose $33 million over the next 10 years.

In talking about potential help from the state, Stacklin mentioned Ohio Senate Bill 396, which would establish up to 18 weeks of family and medical leave insurance benefits. The bill would also provide resources and education on the family and medical leave as part of the measure.

“If we say we care about our moms and babies, we should establish policies that take care of our most vulnerable during their most vulnerable times,” Stacklin said.

Though the measure has bipartisan co-sponsors, it has not seen action within the legislature since it was referred to the Senate Financial Institutions, Insurance, and Technology Committee in March.

Since the bill has yet to have any hearings, it has an uphill battle to passage. The current General Assembly ends in December, and any legislation that has not been passed before then will need to be re-introduced in the new year, with the start of a new General Assembly term.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

This is the second year in a row Ohio has earned an “F” on the report card from SIECUS, a national organization that advocates for comprehensive, medically accurate, and inclusive sex education. 

“It’s deeply concerning that such an important part of our responsibility to prepare students for life is being so poorly managed,” said Abortion Forward Executive Director Kellie Copeland. 

“The goal should be to help students be prepared to make decisions about their bodies and their lives, and that’s just not what the Ohio curriculum does at all.”

The grades were determined using two categories — Sex Ed Requirement and Sex Ed Content Requirement. Ohio earned a “D” on the sex ed requirement and an “F” on the sex ed content requirement. 

Nine other states also received an “F” on SIECUS’s report card: Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. 

“What young people are allowed to learn about their bodies is increasingly being determined by politics—not by what they need to be healthy and safe,” Callie Simon, SIECUS Executive Director, said in a statement. 

“This goes beyond the classroom because what young people are allowed to learn today will shape their health, safety, and wellbeing for years to come.”

California, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington each received an “A” on the SIECUS report card. 

A 2021 report from the Journal of Adolescent Health reviewed three decades of research and determined there is strong support for comprehensive sex education.  

“When you have a curriculum that is scientifically accurate, and teaches young people about the emotional, the physical, the social aspects of sexuality in an age-appropriate way, they understand their bodies better. They develop healthy relationships,” Copeland said. 

Ohio’s curriculum stresses abstinence as a general policy and requires some instruction about sexually transmitted infections, according to the Ohio Revised Code. 

Schools are required to “emphasize adoption as an option to unintended pregnancies” and “teach the potential physical, psychological, emotional, and social side effects” of sex outside of marriage, according to Ohio’s law. 

Ohio lawmakers decide curriculum requirements, so the State Board of Education can not require health education standards. Because Ohio lacks comprehensive sex education, it’s ultimately up to each school district on how they decide to teach it. 

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce is required to conduct an annual audit to ensure school districts are in compliance with the state’s law. 

Every school district completed the 2024-25 audit and all but two school districts were found to be overall compliant. 

Jefferson Township Local School District (Montgomery County) and Ridgewood Local School District (Coshocton County) were non-compliant. 

Both districts were also non-compliant during the 2024-23 audit as well. 

“Many family structures exist today, and all can provide children with a loving and supportive environment,” Ridgewood explained in ODEW’s audit. 

“We have school staff and students who come from single-parent households, same-sex couples, and traditional married-couple families alike. This highlights the importance of recognizing and respecting all family types. Furthermore, sex education should never be used to shame students for their family background.”

Jefferson Township’s district explained there was an “unexpected resignation of our Jr./Sr. High School principal on Feb. 21” who was making arrangements for the sexually transmitted infection education. 

“Our interim building principal was unable to restart/reconnect for the training,” Jefferson Township said in ODEW’s audit. 

“We also lost our Phys. Ed. teacher this year. We have hired a new staff member certified in Health and Phys. Ed. She will be responsible for scheduling the sexually transmitted infection education during the 2025-2026 school year.” 

The Ohio Center for Sex Education is the education arm of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio that teaches comprehensive sex education in schools and community organizations using the Get Real comprehensive sex education curriculum for middle and high schools. 

“That curricula focuses a lot on social and emotional learning, so we’re excited that not only do we get to talk about the stereotypical STIs, birth control, pregnancy prevention, but we also talk to folks about how to be members of their community and have proper communication skills and healthy relationships and just think about consent as a whole and and gender as a way that’s affirming,” said Jes Fuller, director of the Ohio Center for Sex Education.

Comprehensive sexual education is developmentally appropriate, she said.

“We want to give information to young people before it becomes incredibly useful because they can have that information for the future,” Fuller said.

Ohio has a higher teen birth rate than the national average. 

The national birth rate for females 15-19 years old was 12.6 per 1,000 females and Ohio’s teen birth rate was 14.0 per 1,000 females in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ohio lawmakers passed a bill over the summer that will soon require schools to teach students to graduate high school, get a job, and get married — in that order — before having a baby. This is known as the success sequence and the law takes effect Oct. 6.

Ohio House Bill 485, also known as the “Enact Baby Olivia Act” would require schools to show either the ‘Baby Olivia’ video or a similar video to students every year starting in fifth grade all the way up through twelfth grade beginning with the 2026-27 school year.

Ohio state Rep. Melanie Miller, R–Ashland, introduced the bill, which the Ohio House passed last year and has had two hearings in the Ohio Senate Education Committee. 

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. 

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.

They were more split on the economic benefits of making data centers generate their own electricity.

There has been a swift, sharp backlash against data centers this year as projects have been rammed through without community input, electricity bills have shot up, and workers fear mass displacement by the technology. And there are worries about how artificial intelligence will reshape the jobs that remain.

As huge and growing numbers of Americans find it harder to simply pay their bills, the backlash has also been directed against a political system in which monied interests seem to have all the power.

In Ohio, anger against data centers built in June when the public learned that former Gov. John Kasich had granted some of the richest tech companies in the world billions in taxpayer incentives that would last 40 years.

Scioto Analysis surveyed 37 Ohio economists about data centers, including asking whether taxpayer incentives are an effective way to attract them. Twenty three said they were — although several expressed doubts about whether that’s a good thing.

“I think that (tax abatements) are effective for attracting the data centers,” Curtis Reynolds of Kent State University wrote in the comment section of the survey. “That does not mean that I think they are a good idea. Tax abatements become a race to the bottom and as communities fight for businesses. In the case of data centers, there will be little employment gains for the local community so the economic benefits of these tax abatements seem dodgy at best.”

Other economists questioned whether such incentives play much of a role in Big Tech’s decision making.

“Data centers locate where the power is, not where the abatement is,” wrote Roman Sheremeta of Case Western Reserve University. “The evidence on tax incentives shows most go to firms that would have come anyway — and hyperscalers are building everywhere they can. Ohio’s $2.3 billion mostly bought what it would have gotten for free.”

One economist said the unpopularity of data centers should make corporate handouts unnecessary.

“Because many communities across the country oppose data centers, Ohio may attract them without additional incentives,” wrote David Lindequist of Miami University. “Tax abatements seem to only provide marginal incentives at best.”

The economists split when asked whether making data centers produce their own electricity would lower Ohioans’ electricity bills. Sixteen said it would, 10 said it wouldn’t and 11 were uncertain.

Casey Boyd-Swan of Kent State University said such “behind-the-meter” generation might reduce electricity bills, but it could come with other costs.

“The idea behind this makes sense,” she wrote. “The biggest economic risk from data centers is cost-shifting, so requiring on-site generation keeps those costs with the data center. In practice, energy costs may not increase as much for Ohio residents, but most on-site generation will be natural gas turbines, which concentrate both air pollution and around-the-clock noise in the communities where data centers are located.”

For his part, Lucas Englehardt of Kent State University argued that on-site power generation might actually increase Ohioans’ power-bills. He said it would make electricity more expensive by adding to the scarcity of the fossil and renewable fuels needed to produce it — and through less-efficient generation.

“This just pushes the demand back a step,” he wrote. “Instead of competing for energy itself — driving energy prices up, they’ll be competing for the resources used to produce the energy — driving up the cost of those resources.”

He added, “In as far as data centers are below-average in energy-production efficiency, this will divert energy-production resources away from high-productivity uses to low-productivity uses, actually driving energy prices up for the end consumer compared to if we just allowed data centers to buy electricity from the grid, and allowed more efficient energy producers to expand production.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

I am unaffiliated with any party or candidate. I’ve been through tough times, like the Great Recession and the pandemic, but the reality facing Ohio farmers right now is unsustainable and unlike anything I’ve experienced.

Right now, working people across our state are working harder than ever but feel like we are slipping further behind. Yet if you listen to politicians like Ohio U.S. Sen. Jon Husted and our local Congressman, Max Miller, you’d think the economy is booming. They live in a completely different reality than the rest of us.

Just look around. Thanks to the Iran war our leaders keep voting to prolong, gas prices in Ohio have climbed to about $4.50 a gallon, and diesel recently set a record high of $6.81.

It is nearly a daily conversation now about what fuel is doing, and whether or not we should top the tanks off or let it ride. Husted has voted 14 times to support the war in Iran.

Miller has voted for it 7 times, including for a budget framework that would give President Trump $73 billion for the war.

Every single time they cast those votes, they rubber-stamp a war of choice that’s driving up our bills and making it harder for businesses to operate. That they refuse to change course tells me they either have no clue what we are going through or they simply do not care. 

I saw it firsthand this spring. My brother and I were on our way to meet with the local co-op about fertilizer prices when the war with Iran broke out. By the time we got there, everything was in total disarray.

Prices for essentials like urea went bonkers, getting dangerously close to $850 a ton on the farm. It’s nearly impossible to plan for the future when our leaders’ actions completely upend the market. You’re just hoping you can survive until things settle down.

On top of foreign policy, our elected officials offer no pushback against the administration’s constant meddling in our markets.

In the livestock industry, we’ve seen the president’s beef imports take a direct toll on our livelihoods. Since September, live cattle are down roughly 20 cents, or $300 a head.

Since June, fat cattle have dropped 40 to 50 cents, wiping out nearly 20% of their total value.

While cattle farming remains profitable for now, these drastic reductions in live cattle prices haven’t led to lower prices for consumers at the grocery store. All it does is make our country more dependent on foreign beef in the long run.

But it’s not just farming and the fallout of the Iran war.

When you look at the impact of the tariffs, influx of data centers, and healthcare cuts, everything from utility bills to groceries to basic household goods is going up.

I make significantly more than I did when I started, but I feel no more secure because the cost of living has skyrocketed.

Things have gotten so tough that I know multiple people who are having to finance paying for groceries. That’s hardly indicative of a booming economy.

Husted and Miller are worth millions. Their quality of life is not truly affected by the votes they cast in Washington. But for farmers like myself who have seen input costs skyrocket and cattle values drop, we feel the stress and understand the constant series of tradeoff decisions Ohioans find themselves making.

Do we spend more on fertilizer to plant corn, or switch to soybeans to save on inputs? Do we buy less meat at the store to save on groceries?

We need leaders who understand the impact their decisions have on the lives of the people they represent — not rubber-stamp politicians who are too scared to stand up for us while Ohio families pay the price.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Whether it’s the gas pump or the AC bill, Ohioans can’t catch a break. And that’s not bad luck. It’s a choice Republican elected officials keep making.

Let’s call it what it is: a government-induced energy crisis. Trump promised to cut energy costs in half in his first year.

Instead, household electricity costs in Ohio have gone up more than 25% since he took office. And thanks to his war in Iran — with Ohio U.S. Sen. Jon Husted cheering from the sidelines — we’re paying a dollar more per gallon of gas than we were a year ago.

That’s not incidental for Husted, by the way. He’s voted 14 times for Trump’s war and policies that raised costs for Ohio families on gas, electricity, tariff-affected goods, and ACA coverage.

A Center for American Progress analysis found that in just the first half of 2026, Trump’s and Congress’s policies raised costs for Ohio families by $2,175 per household. The Iran war alone has cost Ohio residents an extra $1.77 billion in gasoline — $365 more per household.

Here’s the part that should really make you mad: none of it seems to bother them.

Trump told reporters “I love the inflation”, and that he’ll “never apologize for $4 gas.”

Husted, for his part, has said the Iran war is going “much better” than expected, and that people living in poverty are “not very experienced at navigating the real world.” Try telling that to a family deciding between groceries and the electric bill.

Husted even used the Iran war as an excuse to skip testifying in person in one of Ohio’s biggest corruption scandals — the FirstEnergy scandal that’s already costing Ohio households $663 more a year on their electric bills. He found time for a fundraiser, though.

Meanwhile, Trump and congressional Republicans have been cutting domestic energy production, not expanding it. Last year, Husted voted for the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which repealed made-in-America energy tax credits that even some Republicans asked Speaker Johnson to protect.

Statewide, that vote put an estimated $10.48 billion in investment and 14,304 good-paying clean energy jobs on the chopping block — many of them recruited by Gov. DeWine himself. That law is now expected to raise Ohio families’ annual energy bills by another $190 a year by 2035 and cost the state 34,000 jobs.

This really isn’t complicated. It’s supply and demand. If you want energy costs to come down, you don’t make it harder to produce more clean energy, which Republicans at the state and federal level have done. That’s especially true right now, with data centers driving up demand across the state, which Husted has been a long-time champion of.

Ohioans are the ones paying for all of this, every month, at every gas station and on every electric bill. Trump built this crisis, and Jon Husted has been right there helping him do it. Ohio deserves leaders who’ll own that and actually fix it — not ones who dismiss our struggles while launching ill-advised wars that make them worse.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The analysis in the peer-reviewed Health Affairs estimates that the 17 states with the highest provider reimbursement rates will have to cut their spending by between 10% and 25% of their overall Medicaid budgets. Medicaid is the joint state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes.

“It means that more of these hospitals, (and) a few nursing homes that are wrapped up in our academic medical centers, are going to start limiting the numbers of Medicaid patients that they see,” said Debra Lipson, the independent health policy researcher who authored the report. “It’s going to make it more difficult for people who are on Medicaid to get essential care.”

Medicaid generally pays doctors and hospitals  less money than private insurers and Medicare do for the same services. As a result, many providers refuse to care for Medicaid patients.

To address this problem, the federal government in 2016 began allowing the 40 states that contract with Medicaid managed care organizations to require those organizations to pay doctors and hospitals more for certain types of care.

But in the years since, federal and state spending on these so-called state-directed payments has exploded, growing from about $27 billion in 2020 (4% of total Medicaid spending) to an estimated $97.8 billion in 2024 (12% of total spending). The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that 2025 spending topped $143 billion (14% of total Medicaid spending).

The broad tax and spending measure that President Donald Trump signed in July 2025 places new limits on state-directed payments. Beginning in 2028, the law requires state Medicaid programs to reduce reimbursement rates by 10 percentage points each year until they reach either 100% or 110% of what Medicare pays. States that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would be capped at the lower rate.

Supporters of the change say state-directed payments have produced an unreasonable windfall for doctors and hospitals.

But Lipson writes that the new limits are likely to increase the gap between Medicaid payments and the cost of caring for Medicaid patients. As a result, providers are likely to limit the number of Medicaid patients they see. Another possibility, she suggests, is that providers will try to offset the losses by negotiating higher prices with commercial insurers, raising costs for non-Medicaid patients.

The 15 states that spent more than 20% of their fiscal 2024 Medicaid budgets on state-directed payments that were at or near the average commercial rate will have to make the most significant cuts, according to the Health Affairs analysis. Those states are Nebraska, Louisiana, South Carolina, Iowa, Nevada, Arizona, Kentucky, New Mexico, Illinois, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan and Mississippi.

This story was updated to clarify the description of the 15 states that will have to make the most significant cuts. Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@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.

Jurors found Hossler guilty Sept. 17 of rape, a first-degree felony; sexual battery, a third-degree felony; and attempted rape, a second-degree felony, according to Seneca County Common Pleas Court records.

The court accepted the verdicts, revoked Hossler’s bond and ordered him remanded into custody while the case proceeds toward sentencing.

Hossler, who was 28 when he was arrested in September 2025, was originally indicted on four felony counts following two separate investigations by the Seneca County Sheriff’s Office.

At the time, Sheriff Fredrick Stevens said the investigations stemmed from allegations that Hossler sexually assaulted two women. A Seneca County grand jury returned an indictment charging him with one count of rape, one count of sexual battery and two counts of attempted rape.

“The Seneca County Sheriff’s Office remains committed to protecting the safety of the community and ensuring that victims of crime are heard and supported,” Stevens said when announcing the arrest.

Fourth charge remains pending

The fourth count — another charge of attempted rape — was not decided by the jury that convicted Hossler this month.

In March, the court granted Hossler’s request to sever Count Four from the other three charges, ordering that it be tried separately. The Sept. 17 verdict therefore resolved only Counts One through Three.

A separate jury trial on Count Four had been scheduled for Sept. 21 and 22, but the court later granted a defense request to continue that trial.

The court docket now lists a plea hearing and sentencing for Oct. 20 at 2 p.m.

The docket does not yet show that Hossler has entered a plea on the remaining attempted rape charge, and the final disposition of Count Four remains pending.

Case began with 2025 indictment

Hossler was indicted in September 2025 following the Seneca County Sheriff’s Office investigations.

He initially pleaded not guilty to the charges. A magistrate set bond at $500,000 with conditions. Court records show the bond was later posted in October 2025.

The case proceeded through months of pretrial litigation before reaching a jury. Earlier this year, the court granted Hossler’s request to separate the fourth count from the remaining charges.

Following the Sept. 17 guilty verdicts, however, the court revoked Hossler’s bond and ordered a presentence investigation before sentencing.

Hossler has not yet been sentenced on the three convictions.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ricky L. Paxton was arrested following the incident on North Township Road 70 and booked into the Seneca County Jail on a charge of strangulation involving a substantial risk of serious physical harm.

The charge is a third-degree felony under Ohio law.

Deputies were dispatched shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday after receiving a report that a woman had been assaulted by her stepbrother. Minutes later, dispatchers were told the woman said she had been strangled and had suffered injuries.

According to the sheriff’s dispatch log, the woman said the confrontation began when she attempted to stop the man from allegedly stealing from their father. Deputies arrived shortly after 7 p.m. and detained Paxton.

Investigators photographed the woman’s injuries and collected hair as evidence. A statement was also taken from another person at the scene.

The woman was later taken to Fremont for medical treatment, according to the sheriff’s office.

The dispatch log initially recorded that Paxton was being charged with domestic violence and strangulation. The Seneca County Jail’s inmate roster Sunday listed only the strangulation charge.

Under Ohio’s strangulation law, the level of offense listed for Paxton applies when a person is accused of knowingly creating a substantial risk of serious physical harm to another person through strangulation or suffocation. The offense is classified as a third-degree felony.

No court date or bond amount was listed on the jail roster as of Sunday afternoon.

This story may be updated as additional court records become available.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

That is true, but it leaves out the central fact documented by Click’s own campaign records: although he had no legislative vote to cast, Click publicly supported HB 6 anyway. His campaign paid to promote the law on Facebook during the 2019 effort to repeal it, using the hashtag “#YestoHB6,” and his campaign website continued describing HB 6 as “a necessary investment” through at least May 2026.

Click’s current campaign website no longer contains that endorsement. The page now tells voters that Click “voted to repeal House Bill 6,” even though the Ohio General Assembly describes the 2021 legislation he co-sponsored as repealing only “portions” of HB 6. Additional portions of the law remained in effect for years afterward.

Click’s campaign paid to defend HB 6

In a Facebook post this weekend, Click falsely accused Democratic challenger Aaron Jones of getting his facts wrong, writing that people “could hardly stop themselves from laughing” when Jones suggested that Click had voted for HB 6 or was tied to former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder.

“I wasn’t even elected yet,” Click wrote. TiffinOhio.net could not find any record of Jones ever suggesting Click had voted for HB 6.

Click was not a member of the Ohio House when lawmakers passed HB 6 in July 2019. But two months after the law was signed — and while opponents were actively trying to put its repeal before Ohio voters — Click’s campaign paid to promote it.

A Meta Ad Library record shows that The Committee to Elect Gary Click sponsored a Facebook advertisement that ran from Sept. 20 through Sept. 22, 2019. The campaign shared a U.S. Department of Energy post about the closure of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit 1 and praised Ohio leaders for supporting HB 6.

“I’m glad that Ohio’s leaders thought this through, keeping our best interest at heart! #YestoHB6”

Click tagged Householder, Gov. Mike DeWine and then-Senate President Larry Obhof in the sponsored post.

This was not a campaign commenting on HB 6 years after the fact. DeWine had signed the law on July 23, 2019. On Aug. 29, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office certified a referendum petition seeking to repeal it.

Click’s campaign ad went live about three weeks later, while opponents were gathering signatures to force a statewide vote. In other words, Click’s campaign spent money telling Ohioans “#YestoHB6” at the same time other Ohioans were trying to stop the law from taking effect.

The referendum ultimately failed to collect enough valid signatures, and HB 6 took effect Oct. 22, 2019.

The repeal fight became part of the corruption case

The significance of that 2019 referendum became much clearer the following year. Federal authorities arrested Householder on July 21, 2020, and accused him and others of operating a roughly $60 million racketeering conspiracy built around passing HB 6 and keeping it in law.

Federal prosecutors later proved at trial that Householder’s enterprise received nearly $61 million in bribes and traded political action for help passing HB 6. The U.S. Department of Justice said the defendants also worked to ensure the law survived by defeating the ballot effort seeking to overturn it.

Householder was convicted of racketeering in March 2023 and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison that June.

Nothing in the available record ties Click to the bribery conspiracy itself. The issue raised by his own campaign materials is different: he publicly backed the legislation around which the corruption scheme was built, including during the very referendum campaign federal prosecutors later said Householder’s enterprise worked to defeat.

Click turned on Householder after the arrest — not before

Click now points to a July 22, 2020 Facebook post as evidence of his independence from Householder. In that post, published one day after federal authorities arrested Householder, Click said he was “gravely disappointed and grieved by the corruption” and called for Householder to be removed as speaker.

“I am calling for bipartisan efforts in the House to swiftly remove and replace the Speaker,” Click wrote.

But Click’s response to Householder’s arrest does not change what Click’s campaign had done ten months earlier. Before the federal case became public, his campaign had spent money promoting HB 6 and praising Ohio’s leaders for passing it.

And Click’s support for the law itself did not disappear when Householder was arrested.

In 2026, Click’s website still called HB 6 a “necessary investment”

An archived copy of Click’s campaign website from May 5, 2026 shows that nearly six years after Householder’s arrest — and almost three years after his federal conviction and 20-year prison sentence — Click’s campaign was still defending HB 6.

Under the Energy section, Click’s website told voters:

“House Bill 6 was a necessary investment, providing stability by preserving nuclear energy in Ohio.”

By then, the corruption surrounding HB 6 was no longer an allegation hanging over the law. Householder had been convicted. Former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges had been convicted alongside him. Federal prosecutors had established at trial that millions of dollars in bribes were used to pass and preserve HB 6.

Yet Click’s campaign website still called the law “a necessary investment.”

The timing also undercuts any suggestion that Click simply supported HB 6 in 2019 before anyone knew about the corruption and abandoned that position once the facts became known. His campaign’s favorable description of HB 6 remained online through Householder’s arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing.

The old defense is gone

Click’s current campaign website tells a different story. The sentence calling HB 6 “a necessary investment” is gone. The Energy section now says: “Rep Click has fought to ensure that citizens have a voice. He voted to repeal House Bill 6.”

That description leaves out an important distinction in the legislative record. Click co-sponsored House Bill 128 in 2021, but the Ohio General Assembly itself titled that legislation “Revise electric utility service law; repeal portions of HB 6.” It repealed several major provisions of the law, including the nuclear subsidy provisions, but it did not wipe HB 6 off the books.

Other HB 6 provisions survived for years. Click later co-sponsored House Bill 15, signed in 2025, which the General Assembly describes as repealing additional “parts of H.B. 6.”

So Click did later support repealing major pieces of HB 6. But his current website omits what his previous website said even after those votes: that HB 6 itself “was a necessary investment.”

The record is not ambiguous

Click’s latest defense turns on a narrow point: he did not cast the original legislative vote for HB 6 because he had not yet been elected. But no legislative vote is necessary to determine whether he supported the law.

His own campaign supplied that evidence.

In September 2019, Click’s campaign spent money promoting HB 6 and telling Ohioans “#YestoHB6” while a referendum campaign was underway to repeal it. In May 2026, after the bribery scheme had produced federal convictions and a 20-year prison sentence for Householder, Click’s campaign website was still calling HB 6 “a necessary investment.”

Only later did that language disappear from his website, replaced by a reference to Click’s votes to repeal portions of the law.

Click did not vote for HB 6 in 2019. He did something that his latest Facebook post does not mention: he publicly supported it, spent campaign money promoting it during the repeal fight and continued defending it on his campaign website for years afterward.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta opposed a first-of-its-kind Ohio settlement designed to protect residential customers from being stuck with infrastructure costs created by massive new data centers, according to the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the state agency charged with representing residential utility customers.

The companies did not merely object around the edges.

According to the Consumers’ Counsel, they backed a competing proposal that would have lowered financial obligations for data centers and shifted more of their costs onto other customers — including Ohio families.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio ultimately rejected that approach and approved the settlement supported by AEP Ohio, the Consumers’ Counsel, PUCO staff and others. The resulting tariff requires new, large data centers to pay for at least 85% of their contracted electricity capacity for as long as 12 years, even if they ultimately use less power than they reserved.

The Consumers’ Counsel said the companies’ competing proposal included shorter contractual commitments, lower demand charges and reduced exit fees for data centers — with more financial risk falling on everyone else.

Now Husted is promoting a federal “Ratepayer Protection Act” based on a voluntary pledge signed by Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other technology companies.

And unlike the Ohio tariff those companies fought, Husted’s federal legislation would not require states to actually impose the proposed protections.

Big Tech fought the tougher version in Ohio

The Ohio fight offers a concrete test of how some of the biggest data center operators behave when regulators move beyond voluntary promises and actually put financial requirements into utility rates.

AEP Ohio asked state regulators in 2024 to create a special tariff for enormous new data center loads after warning that speculative projects and unprecedented electricity demand could leave existing customers exposed to billions of dollars in infrastructure costs.

A settlement eventually supported by AEP Ohio, the Consumers’ Counsel, PUCO staff, Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy and others established long-term financial commitments for new large data centers.

The Consumers’ Counsel said Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta challenged that tariff and supported their own settlement that would have shifted costs they caused onto residential customers’ utility bills.

PUCO approved the consumer-backed settlement anyway.

Under that tariff, new large data centers must generally pay for at least 85% of the electricity capacity they reserve for up to 12 years. The structure is meant to reduce the risk that a utility builds expensive infrastructure for a massive project that is later delayed, downsized or abandoned — leaving ordinary customers to pay for investments made to serve a project that never fully materialized.

The Consumers’ Counsel described the policy as a “cost-causer pays” approach: the customer creating extraordinary new costs should bear those costs rather than spreading them across millions of households.

That is precisely the principle Husted now says he wants to establish nationwide.

But his legislation stops short of actually establishing it nationwide.

Husted’s bill codifies principles from the companies’ own pledge

Husted’s office says the Ratepayer Protection Act would prevent families and small businesses from paying for energy infrastructure needed to support enormous new data centers.

“The company that is creating enormous new demands for electricity should pay the costs required to serve them,” Husted said while pushing the legislation on the Senate floor.

But the framework Husted is advancing was built around commitments already embraced by the technology companies themselves.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee says the legislation “codifies the principles underpinning” President Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge.

That voluntary pledge was signed by Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI.

Those companies pledged to cover the energy and infrastructure costs associated with their new data centers rather than shifting those expenses onto existing customers.

So the contrast is unusually stark.

In Ohio, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta opposed a binding settlement designed to make large data centers shoulder more of their own infrastructure costs.

In Washington, Husted is touting legislation that codifies principles from a voluntary pledge signed by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and other technology companies — while leaving state regulators free to decide not to adopt the proposed standard at all.

The ‘protection’ is optional

Husted has repeatedly described the Ratepayer Protection Act in much stronger terms than the legislation’s actual federal mandate.

His office says the bill would “ensure” that data centers pay for the energy and grid upgrades they need so families and businesses are not forced to absorb those costs.

But Husted’s own description of the legislation acknowledges what it actually requires: states must consider establishing the standards.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee says the same thing. The bill would amend the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act to require state regulatory authorities to “consider creating a large-load standard.”

Consider.

Not adopt.

Not enforce nationwide.

Not require every data center to pay those costs.

A state regulator could conduct the federally required proceeding, consider Husted’s proposed standard and decide not to adopt it.

That means Husted is calling legislation the “Ratepayer Protection Act” even though Congress itself would not require the ratepayer protection to take effect.

If a state voluntarily adopts the standard, large electricity users of at least 100 megawatts could be required to cover the full incremental cost of generation, transmission, distribution and other infrastructure necessary to serve them and provide financial assurances protecting other customers from stranded costs.

But Husted’s bill leaves the final decision with state regulators.

Ohio has already demonstrated what a stronger approach looks like.

And Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta fought it.

Husted spent years helping bring data centers to Ohio

The federal legislation also comes from a senator who spent years publicly promoting the expansion of the data center industry in Ohio.

A Sept. 23 PolitiFact review found that Husted actively promoted data center investment and defended tax incentives for the industry while serving as lieutenant governor.

In 2019, Husted publicly defended a 15-year sales tax exemption estimated at $43.5 million for Google’s New Albany data center, arguing that the investment could have gone somewhere else if Ohio collected the tax.

In 2023, Husted joined Gov. Mike DeWine and JobsOhio in announcing Amazon Web Services’ planned $7.8 billion Ohio expansion and said the investment moved Ohio closer to becoming “the tech center of the Midwest.”

Later that year, DeWine and Husted announced an Aligned Data Centers project in Erie County that received a 75% sales tax exemption for 15 years while projecting 18 full-time jobs.

And in 2025, Husted praised another $10 billion Amazon investment, saying artificial intelligence and data centers were “crucial to America’s economic superiority.”

Data centers received about $2.5 billion in Ohio state and local tax incentives between 2017 and 2024, according to figures cited by PolitiFact. The Ohio Tax Credit Authority formally approved state exemptions, while Husted repeatedly promoted the projects and defended the incentive strategy as lieutenant governor.

Ohio electric prices have climbed as the data center fight intensified

The fight is unfolding as Ohio households are already paying significantly more for electricity.

According to U.S. Energy Information Administration data released Sept. 24, the average residential electricity price in Ohio rose from 17.38 cents per kilowatt-hour in July 2025 to 19.45 cents in July 2026 — an increase of nearly 12% in one year.

Data centers are not the sole cause of that increase. Electricity prices are affected by generation costs, fuel prices, transmission expenses, capacity markets and other factors.

But the extraordinary new demand created by data centers has become a central concern for regulators and consumer advocates because serving facilities requiring hundreds of megawatts can require new power generation, substations, transmission lines and other infrastructure.

The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel has repeatedly warned that without special protections, those investments can create substantial financial exposure for customers who had nothing to do with creating the demand.

That is why Ohio adopted its data center tariff.

And it is why the companies’ opposition to that tariff matters when Husted now points to their voluntary pledge as the foundation for his federal legislation.

Republicans privately called data centers Husted’s ‘anchor’

The issue is no longer merely regulatory. It has become a major political vulnerability for Husted heading into November.

An Aug. 18 National Republican Senatorial Committee memo obtained by Axios and The Washington Post warned technology companies that attacks on Husted’s data center record were working.

“More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck,” the NRSC wrote.

The Republican campaign committee said Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown was focusing on Husted’s data center record “because it works” and warned that if Husted loses with data centers blamed for his defeat, politicians elsewhere could become reluctant to support additional projects.

The Ratepayer Protection Act predates that memo. Husted introduced the Senate legislation in July.

But after Republicans privately identified data centers as his biggest political problem, Husted made the legislation a prominent part of his public response. On Sept. 17, he went to the Senate floor seeking unanimous consent to pass it and called the bill “the most meaningful bipartisan step Congress could take” to protect Americans from higher electricity costs.

Husted’s stated principle is difficult to dispute: enormous electricity users should pay the extraordinary costs they create.

Ohio regulators already put a version of that principle into an enforceable tariff.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta fought it.

Now Husted is asking voters to accept a federal bill based on principles from a pledge signed by those same companies — a bill that requires every state to consider protecting ratepayers, but does not require a single state to actually do it.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Miller is seeking reelection in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District. He faces Democratic nominee Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker and member of the Brook Park City Council, in the Nov. 3 election.

“I am in full support of Ohio’s HB 983 as it requires large new or expanded Ohio data centers to obtain local voter approval, operate with closed-loop water systems and stringent environmental controls, pay for any water or environmental impacts they cause, generate their own electricity off-grid without imposing costs on Ohio ratepayers, disclose development agreements and chemical use, and forgo local tax incentives,” Miller wrote in an Aug. 10 post on X. “Ohioans deserve a say in their future. These common sense measures should be considered by the federal government.”

H.B. 983, the Data Center Accountability and Citizen Protection Act, is awaiting action in the Ohio Legislature. 

In May 2025, however, Miller’s vote for the budget package helped it pass 215-214, with one abstention. That version of the bill contained a preemption provision — removed by the Senate and not included in the version signed in July by President Donald Trump — that would have prohibited states and localities from regulating AI data centers. The final version provided billions of dollars in tax cuts for big tech companies by allowing them to write off capital investments in the centers. 

As in other states, large artificial intelligence companies have proposed several data center construction projects in Ohio. Those plans have been met with public outcry, as residents object to the environmental and economic damage large-scale data centers can bring to communities.

Poindexter’s campaign manager told the New Republic on Sept. 11 that the Democratic nominee “believes that while AI has the potential to make transformational scientific breakthroughs, we need to balance that against the risks it poses—especially when it comes to workers and the safety of children,” including establishing clear regulations to protect workers, communities, and natural resources.

According to MIller’s 2025 financial disclosure, filed Aug. 10, 2026, he owns more than $100,000 worth of stock in Elliott Associates LP, an investment fund that reportedly is heavily invested in data centers.

“Rep. Miller has a financial advisor that handles his investing portfolio. He is not involved in, nor aware of, where his money is invested,” a MIller spokesperson told the Ohio Independent in an emailed statement. “As far as AI data centers, as they have been rapidly growing so have the needs for updates. There is a clear need for them to be self sustained and not place any further burden the communities they inhabit.”

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that millions were wasted because DHS began expanding detention operations without putting a plan in place to meet U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s goal of detaining up to 100,000 immigrants. 

As the second Trump administration aims to deport 1 million immigrants a year, DHS has rapidly increased the numbers of people in immigration detention after congressional Republicans last year approved roughly $175 billion for immigration enforcement.

“As ICE spends the unprecedented multi-year detention funding provided by (the One Big Beautiful Act) and the Secure America Act, it is critical that the agency uses these taxpayer dollars efficiently and effectively,” according to the report by the watchdog agency. “In the absence of a comprehensive strategic plan to guide detention expansion, ICE has wasted funds on unsuccessful detention initiatives and lacks important information about the long-term affordability of its investments.” 

Tents assembled, never used

In the report, GAO found those detention expansion efforts wasted millions by using facilities that were high in cost or impractical, such as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, which is so remote that water needs to be imported to the base, making it a costly operation. 

Inspectors with the Department of Defense and Department of State estimated that DOD spent $2.85 million to assemble tents that were never used and that ICE obligated $43 million from the start of fiscal year 2025 to June 30, 2026 for a small population at the base. GAO found that 16 noncitizens were held on average daily at Guantanamo in fiscal year 2026. 

Other efforts that lacked proper planning also included domestic military operations, such as the soft-sided facility, Camp East Montana, built on a military base in El Paso, Texas.

GAO previously reported that ICE wasted more than $11 million in taxpayer funds in operating Camp East Montana, such as paying for meals when detainees had not yet arrived at the facility. Investigators noted that ICE had awarded another contract in March for Camp East Montana and “as of August 2026 had not yet incorporated these cost saving measures into the contract and continued to pay for services that it did not need.”

Warehouses cost more than $1B

Investigators also examined the purchase of 11 warehouses at $1.07 billion for the purpose of immigration detention. 

The initiative was initially undertaken by former Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, but she stepped down following the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis who were shot by immigration officials. Her replacement, former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, paused the warehouse effort. 

DHS now plans to sell seven of the sites that were purchased. Investigators said the department’s change of course has led to nonrecoverable costs, such as $7.7 million spent in zoning assessments and title insurance. 

Additionally, ICE is still paying for utilities, security and other services at the warehouses it intends to sell, costing approximately $12.8 million as of last month.

Investigators also warned that ICE’s separate move to purchase $1.5 billion in existing detention facilities has the potential to waste money because the agency has not assessed any long-term costs of operating the facilities. 

And GAO notes that while ICE did not have an agreement with the state of Florida to reimburse funds for its soft-sided facility, the now shuttered “Alligator Alcatraz,” DHS used funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to award $608.4 million to the state. 

No idea of long-term cost

Investigators also raised concerns that ICE has not made an assessment for the long-term cost of operating the expanded detention facilities. 

“ICE has not projected the costs of these facilities beyond the first 3 years of operation, after which ICE will no longer have OBBBA and Secure America Act funds available for obligation because these funds are only available through fiscal year 2029,” according to the report. 

Investigators made a recommendation that the Director of ICE “should develop a comprehensive strategic plan to guide its detention expansion efforts that includes goals, activities, and resource needs.”

GAO reported that the department agreed and that ICE would develop a strategic plan for its detention expansion, but that plan will not be completed until Aug. 31, 2027. 

“Given ICE’s unprecedented multi-year detention funding and the potential for continued waste of taxpayer dollars, more timely completion may be warranted,” according to the report. 

Congressional Democrats requested that GAO do the study. 

Those lawmakers include Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, ranking member on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Dick Durbin of Illinois, ranking member on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and Mississippi Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, ranking member on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Like most taxpayers across Ohio, we want our public schools to excel so that our children, economy, and democracy can thrive. Our focus is state policies that impact the ability of communities to provide students the quality of education they seek for their children.

The current financial crisis facing Ohio public schools and the legislature’s continued indifference is the latest case in point. 

Communities across Ohio are facing new school levy requests and/or deep cuts to education opportunities. The Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools have done both. 

More than 20% of Ohio school districts will run out of funds in FY2029. 

The Ohio Legislature triggered this crisis when the current state budget abandoned the final phase of the Fair School Funding plan.

According to Policy Matters, the state appropriated $2.75 billion less for FY26 and FY27 than what the plan required. Like more than 400 districts, our district received less funding than in the previous two-year budget.

By failing to fulfill its constitutional obligation to adequately fund public education, the Legislature shifted even more of the funding burden to local communities.

This year the state share dropped to 32.2% compared to 43.3% in FY24. In a fair system, the state share would reduce not increase reliance on local property taxes.

Ohio ended its fiscal year in June with more than $2.428 billion in unencumbered funds in part because tax revenue was higher than predicted (estimated $1.237 million) while expenses were about $778 million less than planned. 

Instead of directing this substantial surplus to fill the public education funding gap, lawmakers passed Ohio House Bill 479 and committed more than $1.2 billion to the rainy-day fund and one-time rebates. 

None of the money benefited public education — the only expenditure mandated by the Ohio Constitution.   

As students head back to school, their public schools are hurting. The state could provide them some immediate relief. About $536 million of the surplus is still sitting in the General Revenue Fund. 

Lawmakers should use this remaining surplus to increase state funding for Ohio’s most vulnerable students: children with disabilities and children from low-wage families.

This investment would give school districts across the state short-term financial relief and improve education opportunities for students whose unique costs have been studied for the Fair School Funding Plan but not addressed in the state budget. 

Over the last four years the number of children with disabilities and the number of children from homes with limited income have increased.

These higher cost students now make up a larger share of public-school enrollment. Their needs are real and extra resources matter, but per pupil spending has been stagnant and shamefully inadequate.

An infusion of funds would enable resource starved school districts to better meet student needs during this school year.

It would not remove the need for local levies or the need for the legislature that is elected in November to bring forward a budget for the next biennium that adequately funds public education. 

What can we do? 

• State lawmakers can commit any remaining surplus funds to the education of our neediest students for this school year. 

• Make sure public education is lawmakers’ priority in the next state budget.

• Sustain our local public schools. 

The next state budget is the real opportunity to ensure that state policy makers support our aspirations for the 1.2 million children who rely on public education. We need leaders who share that goal and understand that it’s essential to a state budget that helps public schools thrive. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Emergency crews were dispatched shortly before 1 p.m. to the intersection of West U.S. 224 and South County Road 7 for a two-vehicle crash with initially unknown injuries, according to Seneca County dispatch records.

Responders arriving at the scene reported finding a woman in a field with a large laceration to her leg and immediately requested that Life Flight availability be checked. The roadway was closed while emergency crews worked at the scene.

Multiple fire and EMS agencies responded, including Bascom Joint Fire & EMS and New Riegel Fire & EMS. The Ohio State Highway Patrol also responded to the scene, and the Ohio Department of Transportation was contacted to assist with the road closure.

Read the full story at https://tiffinohio.net/posts/woman-airlifted-seneca-county-crash-us-224/.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The confrontation came during the Tiffin Area League of Women Voters Candidates Night at Tiffin Middle School, where Click and Jones faced voters ahead of the November election for Ohio House District 88, which covers Seneca and Sandusky counties.

Click, a Vickery Republican first elected to the Ohio House in 2020, is serving his third term. A former Baptist pastor and community theater actor, Click quietly stepped down as lead pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple in March 2025 after 19 years and became pastor emeritus. No contemporaneous public announcement of the transition has been identified, despite Click later insisting the change had been “very public.”

Jones, a Tiffin Democrat, is a U.S. Army veteran, longtime factory supervisor and member of Tiffin City Council. He served four years as an Airborne Infantryman with the Army’s 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, The Old Guard, before building a manufacturing career of more than two decades. He currently represents Tiffin’s 1st Ward on City Council.

The League had established at the beginning of Wednesday’s forum that candidates were expected to focus on issues rather than personal attacks.

Asked how he would help LGBTQ residents in the district feel safe and welcome, Jones said an elected official has a responsibility to represent everyone.

“First of all, I won’t publicly attack them or anyone for that matter,” Jones said.

Jones said he would represent residents “without prejudice, without discrimination” and argued that state government should spend less time on culture-war legislation.

“There will be no culture wars because there’s more important things that this state needs done rather than focusing on culture wars and singling out groups of people for who they love or what they worship or how they worship,” Jones said.

“If elected, everyone in Aaron Jones’ district has a fair shot no matter who you are.”

When the same question went to Click, the incumbent did not initially explain how he would make LGBTQ residents feel safe or welcome. Instead, he accused Jones of misrepresenting his record and then attributed two positions to Jones that Jones had not stated.

“So for the record, what you’re saying is that you would vote to keep men in women’s sports, and you’d vote to continue pediatric sex change procedures,” Click said.

Audience members immediately booed and groaned.

“Oh, you can moan and groan all you want,” Click responded.

A woman in the crowd reminded Click: “No attacks.”

Click objected, asking whether Jones’ earlier remark had also constituted an attack, before complaining that the interruption was using up his allotted time.

“Thanks for using up my time,” Click said to the crowd.

He then said he had “shown respect to every single person” and defended his record on legislation restricting gender-affirming care for minors and transgender participation in girls’ sports.

Nothing in Jones’ answer to the LGBTQ question said he supported either of the positions Click attributed to him.

Click also did not point to a previous vote, public statement or policy proposal from Jones supporting either position during the exchange.

And one portion of Click’s attack concerned conduct already prohibited under Ohio law.

Ohio Revised Code Section 3129.02 prohibits a physician from performing gender-reassignment surgery on a minor. The law also generally prohibits prescribing cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs to minors for gender transition, with a limited exception allowing certain treatment that began before the law took effect to continue.

Those restrictions took effect April 24, 2024, through House Bill 68 — legislation for which Click was the primary sponsor.

The same legislation established Ohio’s restrictions on transgender participation in school sports. State law prohibits schools and organizations governing interscholastic athletics from knowingly allowing individuals of the male sex to compete on teams designated only for female participants.

Jones returned to Click’s accusation during the next question, which dealt with school vouchers.

“And on the last question, Gary, and you should know this, in the state of Ohio, it’s illegal to perform any gender affirming surgeries under the age of 18,” Jones said.

“Thanks to the SAFE Act,” Click interjected.

Jones finished his sentence, after which Click repeated: “Thanks to the SAFE Act.”

Click pivots from campaign finance question

The LGBTQ exchange was not the only point during the forum when Click moved away from the question he had been asked.

Earlier, the candidates were asked whether Ohio should limit or require greater disclosure of PAC and out-of-district contributions in Statehouse races and whether they would commit to raising money only from people living within the district.

Instead of initially addressing those questions, Click used much of his one-minute response to complain about reporting by TiffinOhio.net.

He eventually gave a direct answer: He would not support restricting candidates to contributions from inside the district.

“Nobody’s gonna limit that to just the district, and I would not support that as well,” Click said.

Jones said voters should examine the candidates’ publicly available campaign-finance reports and said roughly 75% to 80% of his campaign contributions came from within the district.

“None of it, none of it is coming from a corporate PAC,” Jones said. “Not one dime.”

Jones said he supported campaign-finance limits and questioned why people outside Seneca and Sandusky counties should be able to pour money into a legislative race affecting residents who live there.

“My dad always told me, ‘Follow the money,’” Jones said. “Why would you want someone from a different community pouring money into this community that they don’t live in and it doesn’t affect them?”

Data centers bring rare agreement

Click and Jones found considerably more common ground when the candidates were asked about the rapid expansion of data centers in Ohio.

Jones called data center growth in the state “out of control” and said local communities should retain authority over whether the facilities are built.

“The state has an obligation to give communities the right to decide, meaning all of you as citizens of Seneca and Sandusky County, the right to choose whether you want a data center in your backyard,” Jones said.

Jones also criticized the tax treatment of data centers and raised concerns about their effects on water, electricity and farmland.

Click responded by saying he agreed with “about 80%, if not more” of Jones’ answer.

He pointed to House Bill 646, his legislation establishing a state study commission on data centers, and said he supports maintaining local control over development decisions.

Click also said he had initially wanted a statewide moratorium before being advised that such an approach presented home-rule concerns.

School funding fight spills across questions

The candidates repeatedly clashed over public school funding.

Jones argued that continuing local levy requests demonstrate that the state is not adequately funding public schools, pointing specifically to Tiffin City Schools and its projected revenue shortfall.

“If we were funding schools, then we wouldn’t have asked for a levy in the city of Tiffin,” Jones said.

Click rejected that argument, saying public schools receive more funding than ever and pointing to increases in state education spending.

The disagreement resurfaced when the candidates were asked about school vouchers.

Click defended the voucher system, arguing that parents who choose schools such as Calvert Catholic Schools should not effectively have to pay once through taxes and again through tuition. He said the state share of education funding follows the student while locally generated money remains with the public district.

Jones argued that private and charter schools receiving public money should face stronger public accountability requirements.

“If you’re receiving taxpayer money, you ought to be held accountable to that,” Jones said.

Gas tax proposal raises questions about road funding

Click and Jones also addressed a proposed temporary suspension of Ohio’s gas tax after the moderator asked how the state would continue paying for road paving, bridge repairs and snow removal if gas tax revenue stopped flowing.

Click said he supported providing relief while ensuring transportation infrastructure remained funded, but acknowledged that he had not yet seen the legislative language and had only recently learned details of the proposal.

“I’ve just found out about this about the same time you — just shortly before you did,” Click said.

Jones said he was open to gas tax relief but cautioned against creating another hole in the state budget.

“I don’t like paying the gas tax any more than anybody else, but we can’t underfund the state,” Jones said.

He then pointed to Ohio’s public funding for the Cleveland Browns’ planned stadium project.

“There must be enough money because we gave $600 million to a billionaire to build a football stadium,” Jones said. “Maybe we should’ve used that to give you all a break.”

Click is seeking a fourth term representing House District 88. Jones is making his first run for the Ohio House after serving on Tiffin City Council.

The general election is Nov. 3.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The contrast emerged during the Tiffin Area League of Women Voters Candidates Night at Tiffin Middle School, where Frankart and Ziegler faced questions on data centers, the county jail’s use for ICE detention, the landfill, large poultry operations, solar development, property taxes and county spending.

Frankart, a grain farmer and former Adams Township trustee, was elected to the Seneca County Board of Commissioners in 2022 and is seeking a second term.

Ziegler, a lifelong Seneca County resident and Eden Township trustee, is challenging Frankart as an independent. He said during his opening statement that party politics should be left “at the door” in local government.

Ziegler gives blunt answer on data centers

The candidates were first asked what they thought about data centers coming to Seneca County and whether they would support prohibiting them.

Ziegler gave one of the most direct answers of the evening.

“We’re here to be honest, correct? I don’t like them,” Ziegler said. “I don’t think they belong in small communities like that or like we live in.”

He continued:

“I really don’t have anything else to say about it. I don’t think that we need to be involved with that type of industry in Seneca County, period.”

Frankart did not give a similarly direct answer when asked the same question.

Instead, he said the issue “falls back to the townships,” referenced Tiffin’s moratorium on data centers, discussed his own decision to enroll farmland in a preservation program and pointed to ongoing discussions in Columbus.

“As far as data centers, I think the Legislature’s really looking hard at them,” Frankart said. “And I think that in time we’re gonna see, you know, where they end up at.”

Frankart did not say whether he personally supports or opposes data center development in Seneca County, whether he would support a data center proposed in the county or what restrictions he believes county government should pursue.

His comments about townships suggested a preference for decisions being made at a local level, but he did not spell out what role he believes the Board of Commissioners should take if a major data center project comes to Seneca County.

Candidates questioned about ICE detention at county jail

The candidates were also asked directly whether they support the Seneca County Jail being used as a detention facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Frankart noted that the arrangement has existed for years but largely deferred questions about its operation to the sheriff.

“It’s been an ICE detention facility for quite a while,” Frankart said.

He said there are fewer people moving through the jail under the arrangement than in the past and described much of the issue as contractual.

“As far as getting into all the details, it’s all contractual and stuff on that,” Frankart said, adding that he would “yield to the sheriff” for a more detailed explanation of how the agreement works.

Frankart did not explicitly say whether he supports or opposes continuing the arrangement.

Ziegler was more direct, describing the federal detainees as a source of county revenue and saying he did not object as long as the program is being operated properly.

“It is a revenue source,” Ziegler said.

“As long as it’s being used properly, it’s bringing money in the community,” he continued. “I really can’t be negative about bringing money into our community.”

Ziegler acknowledged the political controversy surrounding ICE.

“I know ICE is a touchy situation,” he said. “Some people like it. Some people think it’s great. It’s something that we have and hopefully we use it for our best interests.”

Landfill remains major issue

The WIN Waste landfill near Fostoria again emerged as a major issue in the commissioner race.

The candidates were asked about both the landfill and large poultry operations, including how county officials should respond when residents believe companies are not complying with promises or regulations.

Ziegler said residents deserve straight answers.

“The people, they need straight answers when it comes to these,” Ziegler said.

He said communities should not be told one thing before a facility is developed only to later discover that requirements or commitments are not being followed.

“We have these facilities. We have the landfill. We have the chicken farms. They’re not going anywhere,” Ziegler said. “But we do need to keep the regulation.”

Ziegler said the Seneca County General Health District should ensure the landfill is held accountable and said officials should examine whether setbacks for large poultry operations need to be changed to provide greater separation from neighboring homes.

Frankart pointed to Seneca County’s ongoing effort to withdraw from the Ottawa-Sandusky-Seneca Joint Solid Waste Management District and establish its own district.

He said the county has also established additional landfill oversight through the health department.

“Now we do have, again, more local control and more activity with boots on the ground working with the Ohio EPA,” Frankart said.

Frankart later returned to the solid waste issue when asked specifically whether leaving the three-county district was the right move.

He said Seneca County is the largest contributor among the three counties and argued it has struggled to get enough money back for local landfill oversight.

“We get crumbs back, and we get a lot of pushback there,” Frankart said.

He said that was one reason commissioners decided to pursue a separate Seneca County solid waste district.

“At the end of the day … we decided to bring it back to our county so that way we can assist our health department with more help to be able to have oversight out there,” Frankart said.

State lawmakers last year enacted Senate Bill 147, which created a process allowing an individual county to withdraw from a joint solid waste management district without securing approval from the other counties in the district.

Frankart testified in favor of that legislation during its consideration in Columbus.

Frankart says poultry operation is ‘out of compliance’

Frankart also made a notable statement about a large poultry operation while answering the combined landfill and poultry question.

He said siting of the poultry facility was handled at the state level because of its size.

“To this day … I think that they are — they’re out of compliance,” Frankart said.

Frankart did not identify during the forum what requirement he believed the operation was violating or provide additional details about the alleged noncompliance.

“We will keep on them,” he said, before adding that he believed “everything’s okay there at this point.”

The seemingly conflicting remarks were not explored further before the moderator moved to the next question.

Ziegler: Showing up would be ‘my job’

The candidates were also asked how they would manage their schedules to ensure they remain available at public events and forums where residents can raise concerns.

Ziegler gave another pointed answer.

“Well, it’s gonna be my job,” he said. “I’m gonna be there.”

Ziegler said he does not view accessibility as something a commissioner should have to fit around other responsibilities.

“It’s not balancing your time,” he said. “It’s showing up to your job.”

Frankart defended his own accessibility, saying residents regularly contact him outside traditional business hours.

“My phone’s on at five in the morning,” Frankart said, describing receiving calls late at night and early in the morning about county issues.

“I’ve always told everybody, ‘Give me a call.’ I’m always around,” he said.

Frankart said he spends considerable time attending events throughout the county and working with residents, townships and villages.

Both point to local authority on solar

The candidates found more agreement when asked about large solar projects.

Frankart discussed Senate Bill 52, the state law enacted in 2021 that expanded county authority over certain large wind and solar developments and established procedures for local review and, under some circumstances, a referendum.

Frankart said he worked with opponents of large wind projects while serving as a township trustee and testified in Columbus during debate over the legislation.

He said he supports the framework that is now in place.

Ziegler agreed with Frankart’s general position.

“I agree with Bill on that and with the SB 52,” Ziegler said.

He said residents should have a say over whether large solar developments move forward in their communities.

Foster care costs strain county budget

Asked whether they would make significant changes to the Seneca County budget, Ziegler said he would first need to examine county programs and finances rather than enter office with a predetermined list of cuts.

“I’m not coming into this position acting like I know … or I have all the answers on day one,” Ziegler said.

He said programs that are working should continue to receive support, while programs that are not working should be changed or eliminated.

Frankart identified foster care costs as a significant and growing pressure on county finances.

He said some children with more complicated needs must be placed in specialized facilities, sometimes outside Ohio.

“It can be up to eight, nine hundred dollars a day to take care of kids,” Frankart said.

He described the costs as an unfunded mandate placing increasing pressure on counties and said local officials are working with state lawmakers on the issue.

Property tax changes worry both candidates

Property taxes also drew concern from both candidates.

Asked about state legislation affecting property taxes and local government revenue, Frankart said the county can tighten its own spending but ultimately has to wait to see what lawmakers in Columbus enact and how those changes affect future county budgets.

He said county officials are already looking ahead to the 2027 and 2028 budgets as the state considers changes.

Ziegler said he personally wants lower property taxes and worries that continued increases could eventually make it difficult for some homeowners to remain in their homes.

But he also cautioned that major changes can affect services funded through property taxes, including schools, parks, libraries, mental health services, developmental disability programs, fire departments and EMS.

“I have a concern that in years to come, I could possibly be taxed out of my home,” Ziegler said.

He said county leaders should examine the actual financial consequences of any changes before deciding how to respond.

“I wanna look at the actual numbers and find out the most responsible path forward to protect our taxpayers, but make sure that essential services … are still available when the people that need them most need them,” Ziegler said.

Different pitches for the commissioner’s office

The candidates used their closing statements to offer different arguments for how they would approach the office.

Frankart highlighted his work on solid waste policy, county government operations and his effort to remain active throughout Seneca County.

“My responsibility is to listen, ask questions, make fact-based decisions and keep working,” Frankart said.

Ziegler emphasized his experience as an Eden Township trustee and his decision to run without a party label.

“I don’t believe party labels should determine whether somebody gets heard by their local government,” Ziegler said.

He said he would not claim to have all the answers or make promises about issues beyond a county commissioner’s authority.

“What I can promise is that I’m willing to listen. I can ask questions. I will tell you the truth, and I will be careful with your money,” Ziegler said.

Frankart is seeking a second four-year term on the Seneca County Board of Commissioners. Ziegler is challenging him as an independent after serving as an Eden Township trustee.

The general election is Nov. 3.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

It comes less than two weeks before Ohio’s voter registration deadline.

The case

Under 2025’s Ohio House Bill 54, BMV clerks offer clients the opportunity register to vote, but only after completing a driver’s license application which requires documentary proof of citizenship.

Two civic organizations, The Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans and Red Wine & Blue, challenged those provisions.

The National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the motor voter law, requires vehicle registration agencies to offer the opportunity to register when someone submits a driver’s license application. It also directs states to require the “only the minimum amount of information necessary.”

Voter registration forms — including those available at many other public agencies around Ohio — have no proof of citizenship requirement. Instead, applicants declare under penalty of perjury that they are eligible to vote.

Red Wine & Blue and the Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans argued the BMV conditioning access to voter registration services on proof of citizenship violates the minimum information standard.

The groups presented two members who were initially barred from registering, both women, whose documents didn’t reflect their name change after marriage.

In one case, Margaret Dutcher showed up with a valid U.S. Passport — documentary proof of her citizenship — but was still unable to register because she did not have all the documents necessary to get a license.

Research from the University of Maryland indicates 21 million Americans don’t have readily available, up-to-date citizenship documents.

The district judge attempted to cut a middle path. He ordered state officials to stop requiring BMV visitors produce proof of citizenship to register. He added that his order applied to those whose license applications are “ultimately unsuccessful” over lack of documents, but not those who affirmatively indicate they are not a citizen.

The Circuit Court majority opinion

Circuit Judges John Nalbandian and Whitney Hermandorfer, both Trump appointees, downplayed Ohio’s policy and the alleged injury the plaintiffs suffered.

The BMV’s electronic system walks applicants through their license application and once it’s accepted, moves forward to a prompt asking the applicant if they’d like to use their information to register to vote. That’s a reasonable arrangement, the majority opinion concludes, because the universe of eligible license holders is includes minors and non-citizens — neither of whom can vote.

The majority also noted the BMV has paper forms available, and clerks are required to process applications. The state argued a more proactive effort to offer registration would require “wholesale retraining and restructuring of the BMV application process.” The majority bought that argument.

But the majority’s central problem with the case was the underlying harm.

The majority didn’t buy the idea that the individuals identified in the case had suffered an injury, and without injury, there’s no standing to sue.

“Neither Dutcher nor Fazio ever encountered anything having to do with the Associations’ H.B. 54 voter-registration challenge,” the majority wrote, “Instead, BMV officials rejected their driver’s-license applications based on independent paperwork defects.”

The majority contends the challengers aren’t so much finding fault with Ohio’s new law as its administration of drivers licenses, and so enjoining the law wouldn’t address their concerns.

The majority also determined the case is moot because the women in the case have since gotten their licenses and registered to vote.

The dissent

Circuit Judge Kevin Ritz, a Biden appointee, sees the case differently. He brushed aside the majority’s questions of standing and mootness. Two people who wanted to register weren’t afforded that opportunity when they applied for a license. “That is enough,” he said.

The plaintiffs later getting registered, doesn’t mean the case is moot, he added, because that injury could happen again to others.

“A contrary ruling as to rnootness would mean that potential voters who challenge an unlawful state law governing voter registration would have to forgo their registration and right to vote for as long as it took to litigate their challenge to the law,” he wrote. “I am reluctant to construct a Catch-22 that would require a litigant to renounce a ‘fundamental’ right in order to bring suit.”

Like the district court judge, Ritz focused on the importance of “submission.” Under the motor voter law, BMV clerks have to offer registration to people who “submit” a driver’s license application.

To Ritz and the district court, that happens when a person seeks a license, not when the BMV agrees to accept their application. So even people who don’t have all the documents necessary for a license should still be afforded an opportunity to register.

Ritz also said “there’s nothing in the record” to support the state’s argument that a more proactive approach to registration could create voter confusion.

“There is no proof, for instance,” he wrote, “that voters will be confused by a deputy registrar offering them a paper form that is already available elsewhere at the BMV.”

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.

Then taxpayers paid for a radio ad telling Ohioans how Max Miller helped a constituent.

On Aug. 28, Miller’s congressional office aired an advertisement featuring a woman recounting how the Republican congressman helped resolve an immigration case after her husband died.

“Congressman Miller stepped in and never gave up,” the woman says in the ad. “He helped me locate my paperwork and follow it up on my behalf.”

The testimonial continues by telling listeners that Miller’s persistence helped get the case approved.

Miller then comes on himself.

“I’m Congressman Max Miller,” he says. “When our constituents need help navigating federal agencies, my office is here to help you every step of the way.”

Then comes the part taxpayers might want to hear most:

“Paid for by official funds authorized by the House of Representatives.”

In other words, it was not a Miller campaign advertisement paid for by campaign donors.

Taxpayers paid for it.

Seven days before the cutoff

The timing makes the ad especially notable.

The House Communications Standards Commission reviewed Miller’s proposed radio advertisement Aug. 19 and deemed it permissible under congressional communications rules.

Miller’s office then ran the ad Aug. 28.

The House’s official 2026 blackout calendar shows that members seeking reelection were barred from sending unsolicited mass communications beginning Sept. 4 — 60 days before the Nov. 3 general election.

Miller’s taxpayer-funded radio ad ran seven days before that blackout began.

Nothing in the available record indicates Miller violated the House’s franking rules. In fact, the House commission specifically approved the material as “Frankable.”

But legality is not the same question as whether taxpayers should be paying for it.

The congressional franking system allows lawmakers to use official funds to communicate with constituents about their work. What began as a way for members of Congress to keep constituents informed now includes mail, digital advertisements, television, radio, texts and other communications.

Axios reported in April that House members had already spent nearly $1.4 million in official congressional funds on advertisements during the 2026 election cycle, describing the practice as incumbents using taxpayer dollars to give their reelection campaigns a “thinly veiled boost.”

The House’s own communications rules make the distinction on paper: official resources cannot be used for campaign content or electioneering. But lawmakers are still permitted to advertise their official work and constituent services — including with their own names and voices — until the pre-election blackout takes effect.

Miller had just promised to put $1 million of his own money into the race

The taxpayer-funded ad came only weeks after Miller publicly said he was prepared to spend heavily to keep his seat.

On Aug. 6, The Wall Street Journal reported that Miller planned to loan his reelection campaign $1 million, split into two $500,000 installments.

“I am invested in this election in every way and I will invest the resources into my campaign to win,” Miller told the newspaper.

“I am in this for the long haul,” he added.

Twenty-two days later, a radio advertisement featuring a constituent praising Miller was being paid for not by Miller’s campaign account, but by official congressional funds.

The distinction is important: the advertisement was legally classified as an official constituent communication, not campaign spending.

For taxpayers listening to it, however, the ad still repeatedly told them what Congressman Max Miller had done for a constituent weeks before a competitive election.

‘Cutting the fat’

That use of taxpayer money collides directly with the fiscal message Miller has spent years cultivating.

In February 2023, Miller was asked on Fox Business where Republicans intended to cut federal spending.

“We’re going to be looking over every single aspect of where we can be in cutting the fat out of the federal government,” Miller said.

He complained about trillions of dollars in federal spending and warned that continued spending would put the country “into an oblivion.”

The message continued into his reelection campaign.

In October 2024, Miller told Ohioans that inflation was hurting families and promised to address rising costs by “prioritizing responsible spending.”

And earlier this year, he again presented himself as a defender of taxpayers while promoting legislation targeting remaining COVID-era unemployment funds.

“Trying to distribute COVID-era funds years later is not relief, it’s an invitation for fraud,” Miller wrote in February. He said his legislation would “protect taxpayers” and “close the door on waste and abuse.”

Six months later, taxpayers were footing the bill for an advertisement centered on a constituent describing how Miller had helped her.

A taxpayer-funded advantage available only to the incumbent

Miller is running for a third term in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District against Democrat Brian Poindexter.

Poindexter cannot use congressional funds to buy radio advertisements describing people his campaign has helped. Miller can use official funds to advertise constituent services because he already holds the seat.

That is the advantage built into the franking system.

The practice is not unique to Miller and is used by incumbents of both parties.

But the amounts have become substantial.

Axios found that House offices spent a combined $44 million on franked mail during the 2024 election cycle, plus another $19 million on other official communications. About $5 million went toward television and digital advertising, according to advertising tracker AdImpact.

The spending has continued in 2026 as control of the House hangs in the balance.

And Miller is now running in a race that has drawn national attention after allegations of domestic abuse triggered calls from members of his own party for him to step aside. Miller has denied the allegations. The House Ethics Committee announced Aug. 4 that it was reviewing allegations involving Miller.

Miller refused to leave the race and instead announced plans to put $1 million of his own money behind his campaign.

But when it came time to tell Ohioans on the radio about the work of Congressman Max Miller, he did not need to reach into that campaign account.

Taxpayers picked up the bill.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.