Ramaswamy’s news conference, reported by The Associated Press, came one day after Vice President JD Vance directed the federal anti-fraud task force he leads for President Donald Trump to turn its sights on Ohio. Vance’s announcement followed an investigation by the conservative Daily Wire that alleged rampant abuse within the state’s Medicaid-funded home health program.

Ohio Medicaid covers more than a quarter of state residents and operates on a $43 billion budget. The program has been overseen by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine for more than seven years.

Running mate’s budget killed the oversight panel

At the heart of the story is a contradiction the AP laid out plainly: Ramaswamy’s running mate, Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, held key decision-making power over the state budget that last year eliminated Ohio’s Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee, known as JMOC.

The bipartisan panel — five senators and five representatives — had served as a single legislative checkpoint on Medicaid since 2014. Its dissolution was slipped into House Bill 96, the state’s biennial operating budget, in the final hours of negotiations.

According to Bloomberg Law reporting, JMOC was actively probing multi-billion-dollar contracts with Gainwell Technologies — the nation’s largest processor of Medicaid claims — at the time the provision was inserted. The committee had spent months pressing Ohio Medicaid officials over delayed reimbursements to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and other providers.

State Rep. Jennifer Gross, a Republican from West Chester who served on JMOC and chairs the House Medicaid Committee, told the AP on Tuesday that the panel could have helped accomplish exactly the fraud-fighting goals that Vance and Ramaswamy are now promoting.

“I believe that if we had kept JMOC it always could have been something that we kept in place that could have morphed into a DOGE Ohio, an Ohio Medicaid DOGE,” Gross said.

Ramaswamy declines to assign blame

Asked by the AP to what extent the Republican establishment that has controlled state government for more than 15 years should be held accountable for failing to catch more Medicaid fraud, Ramaswamy declined.

“I’m not playing that game, OK?” he said. “I think we need a fresh approach, and what my candidacy represents is, I believe, a bottom-up movement and a demand for change, positive change in the state. A movement beyond the status quo that takes a lot of this for granted.”

Ramaswamy’s plan, which his campaign estimates would save $3.1 billion, is modeled on a Medicaid waiver Tennessee negotiated during the first Trump administration. It would renegotiate Ohio’s agreement with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to increase the share Ohio receives in fraud-fighting incentives and streamline the program’s bureaucracy.

DeWine administration pushes back

DeWine’s office defended the state’s record. The governor announced a new series of Medicaid fraud prevention initiatives on May 13, including pausing new enrollments in the home health program cited by the Daily Wire.

“A general sentiment that Ohio was not working to combat or prosecute Medicaid fraud prior to the publication of the Daily Wire stories is just not true,” DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney told the AP. “There may be people who were unaware of Medicaid fraud prior to that, but Mike DeWine was not one of them.”

Tierney noted that Ohio is consistently ranked among the top states in the nation for prosecuting Medicaid fraud, with 2,300 indictments, 2,200 convictions and $644 million recovered since 2011.

Auditor: findings brought to Medicaid director before her departure

Republican Ohio Auditor Keith Faber, who is running for attorney general in 2026, told the AP that the Medicaid fraud Ramaswamy is highlighting was not a surprise to state officials. Faber said his office brought numerous findings to DeWine’s previous Medicaid director, Maureen Corcoran, who left her position last fall after more than six years.

Records obtained by the AP through a public records request show that Corcoran was fighting JMOC shortly before it was disbanded over access to the fiscal experts critical to Ohio’s budgeting process. Those inquiries ended when the committee was eliminated.

Acton campaign: ‘scam policies’

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton’s campaign rejected Ramaswamy’s plan.

“As governor, Dr. Amy Acton will prioritize rooting out Medicaid fraud, waste, and abuse while ensuring that Ohioans can access affordable, quality healthcare,” campaign spokeswoman Addie Bullock said in a statement to the AP. “Dr. Acton is fighting to lower healthcare costs, protect Medicaid and Medicare access, and end the rampant corruption in Ohio’s Statehouse that has allowed fraud, waste, and abuse for far too long.”

Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director who became a national figure during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, won the Democratic primary on May 5. Ramaswamy won the Republican primary the same day. The two will face each other in the November general election.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, signaled that Republicans will target majority-minority districts in blue states as they seek to maximize their opportunities to reshape the political map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. GOP-controlled Southern states are already rushing forward gerrymanders.

Schmitt urged the Department of Justice to crack down on states with maps drawn to protect majority-minority districts. A top DOJ official has suggested the agency supports scrutinizing the districts. The demand seems to extend the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision that limited states from using race to draw districts.

“These maps do not become constitutional because they’re already in use,” Schmitt said. “They do not survive because politicians call them voting rights maps. Yet, they will not disappear on their own. The Department of Justice has an obligation to act.”

The court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision gave states the OK to eliminate districts where most residents belong to racial minority groups in the pursuit of a partisan advantage. Alabama, Florida and Tennessee have advanced new maps, and Louisiana is expected to follow soon. South Carolina is debating its own gerrymander.

The new district lines, along with gerrymanders enacted before the Callais decision, could ultimately provide Republicans with a net gain of upwards of 10 seats.

The seats could prove critical as Republicans face political headwinds approaching the midterm elections amid sagging approval numbers for President Donald Trump. A successful legal campaign that forces Democratic states to break apart majority-minority districts could create additional competitive House races.

Breaking up Democratic districts

About one-third of all House districts drawn following the 2020 census were majority-minority, according to a Ballotpedia analysis — 148 in all. Democrats held 122 as of 2024. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote on social media on April 30 that the department continues to prioritize equal protection under the law, including in voting. Dhillon’s post came in response to a letter Schmitt sent to DOJ raising similar points to what he said on Tuesday.

“Senator — we are ON IT!” Dhillon wrote.

Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat and the subcommittee’s ranking member, said the Supreme Court’s decision leaves many communities of color with few enforceable tools to fight unfair maps. He called on the Senate to act by passing a federal ban on mid-decade redistricting and partisan gerrymandering.

“Our democracy depends ultimately on protecting and preserving the right of individual citizens to pick their politicians, not intensifying the control that politicians have about who the voters are that they will permit to be involved in the election,” Welch said.

‘The definition of racism’

Some Republicans have begun to cast majority-minority districts as racist. The loaded rhetoric suggests eliminating these districts is not just politically useful but also a legal and moral imperative.

Missouri, where Republicans hold six of the state’s eight congressional districts, exemplifies the new reality under Callais. The Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a map in September that divides Kansas City in a bid to oust Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat who has long represented the city core. 

State lawmakers left in place a St. Louis-area district held by Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell where fewer than half of residents are white. But some Missouri Republicans have called the district a racial gerrymander and want the General Assembly to split it apart, too.

“That’s the definition of racism, is drawing districts based on the color of one’s skin,” Missouri Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins told reporters last week. “We don’t want that in Missouri.”

The Supreme Court in the Callais decision did not formally strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race and other characteristics. In practice, however, it may be effectively impossible for gerrymandering opponents to prove discrimination, voting rights experts say.

“It begs the question whether or not lawmakers will have to say, ‘not only do I not like Black voters, but this is the reason why I’m drawing up this piece of legislation,’” Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of the nonpartisan voting rights group Fair Elections Center, said in an interview with States Newsroom days after the release of the Supreme Court opinion.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court cleared away a court order that had blocked Alabama from implementing a map passed by state lawmakers in 2023 that could hand Republicans another seat. A lower court had found the map violated Section 2.

In Louisiana, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the state’s ongoing congressional primary election in anticipation of a new map that will likely eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black districts. The Supreme Court fast-tracked paperwork in its Callais decision to clear the way for state lawmakers to act quickly.

Obligation to act

During Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article III Project, a conservative legal group, said all states with maps drawn to protect minority representation have a “clear duty” to redraw them using race-neutral criteria. 

The calendar should be no obstacle, he argued, saying state legislatures can be called into special session and primary elections delayed until new maps are in place.

“The fact that we are well into the 2026 election cycle provides no blanket exemption from these constitutional obligations,” Chamberlain said.

Callais has unleashed chaos and already undercut fair representation for Black voters, Todd Cox, associate director-counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, told the subcommittee. But he argued the decision doesn’t call into question the constitutionality of majority-minority districts or other districts that give voters of color an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

Cox cautioned against using Callais to justify targeting majority-minority districts that provide that opportunity, saying it might indicate that states intentionally discriminated against minority voters.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The lawsuit — filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland — challenges a portion of the incoming federal student loan system overhaul that sets stricter loan caps for students partaking in postbaccalaureate degree programs that do not fall under the department’s “professional” classification, such as nursing, teaching and social work.

The department finalized regulations, published May 1, that implement the student loan overhaul outlined in congressional Republicans’ mega tax and spending cut bill signed into law by President Donald Trump last year. Most of the student loan provisions will take effect July 1. 

The forthcoming regulations eliminate the Grad PLUS program, which allowed graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. 

Graduate student loans will have a $20,500 annual limit and $100,000 aggregate cap. Professional student loans will have a yearly limit of $50,000 and aggregate cap of $200,000. 

However, the programs that fall under the department’s “professional” category — and thus are eligible for the higher borrowing limit — are limited to pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology.

‘Professional degree’ definition at issue

The states allege that the department “unlawfully altered” the “professional degree” definition “by adding new requirements and narrowing eligibility in ways Congress never authorized,” per a press release regarding the lawsuit. 

The states also argue that the “professional degree” definition will harm them by “reducing funding for many State institutions of higher education and impeding the States’ abilities to meet critical workforce needs and provide services to their residents.” 

The states also allege that the regulations will threaten their “ability to meet critical workforce needs, especially in healthcare,” and that the forthcoming reduced loan limits will “likely cause students to graduate with more debt, discouraging them from finding less remunerative jobs in rural areas or the classroom.” 

The lawsuit included attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, in addition to the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Administration defends loan caps

Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said that “after decades of unchecked student loan borrowing that gave schools no reason to control costs, these commonsense loan caps — created by Congress — are already incentivizing colleges and universities to lower tuition,” in a statement shared with States Newsroom. 

“Clearly, these Democratic governors and attorneys general are more concerned about institutions’ bottom-line rather than American students and families’ ability to access affordable postsecondary education,” Kent added. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The richest 0.1% of Americans have seen their cumulative wealth spike by 53% between 2018 and 2025 — to $22.48 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data analyzed by the Institute for Policy Studies.

That means the richest 343,000 Americans control 5.5 times as much of the national wealth as the 172 million who make up the bottom half of the income distribution.

Put another way, the average person in the richest 0.1%, has as much money as 2,782 people in the bottom half. 

As the labor and consumption of people in the bottom half make the rich ever richer, average Americans are burdened with growing costs for healthcare, childcare, groceries, housing, and now gasoline, according to various inflation measurements.

At least a majority of Americans in the bottom half is one $15,000 expense away from poverty, Dayton data analyst Eric Pachman has found.

New data confirm the economic trend in Ohio.

Columbus-based Scioto Analysis this month crunched 2023 census data to update a 2022 analysis it had done of 2018 data.

By some measures, there was improvement between 2018 and 2023 — a period that bookended the coronavirus pandemic and government programs aimed at propping up the economy by putting money in people’s pockets.

In 2018, the bottom 50% of Ohio earners got just 13% of total state income. By 2023, that figure had risen to 18%.

But by another measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, things had gotten worse. Named for Italian statistician Corrado Gini, the system ranks inequality on a scale of zero to 100. Zero means that everybody has the same income and 100 means one person gets all the money — a state of perfect inequality.

In 2018, Ohio’s Gini coefficient was 45. Five years later, it had risen to 46.6. 

By way of comparison, the national Gini coefficient in 2023 was 48.6. So Ohio is somewhat more equal than the United States as a whole.

To illustrate Ohio’s inequality, the latest Scioto Analysis report compared the federal poverty level to the wealth of the richest man in Ohio.

“In 2026, the federal poverty threshold for a family of four is $41,250,” it said. “Someone making a poverty wage would need to work about 225,000 years and not spend a dime over that period to accumulate a fortune the size of Les Wexner’s.”

In Ohio, 1.5 million people fell below the poverty threshold in 2023, according to the Ohio Housing Finance agency.

The level of inequality varies around the state, with it being greatest in the urban centers of Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, as well as in the Appalachian region of Southeast Ohio, the report said. 

Members of some demographic groups are more likely to be nearer the bottom of the inequality curve, with minorities and young Ohioans being overrepresented.

“Income inequality in Ohio translates into housing inequality, where homeownership rates and housing-cost burdens vary sharply by demographic,” the report said.

“Housing-cost burden” refers to households that spend more than 30% of their income on housing. It is often expressed in terms of the share of a given group facing that situation.

“White Ohio residents have a 73% homeownership rate and a 21% rate of housing-cost burden,” the Scioto Analysis report said.

“In contrast, Black Ohio residents face a 37% homeownership rate and a 42% rate of housing-cost burden. Homeownership rates are highest among older and higher-income Ohioans, and housing cost burdens disproportionately affect younger and lower-income Ohioans.”

The report said that a negative income tax would be an effective tool for addressing Ohio’s inequality. Under such a system, the government would pay people falling below a certain income level.

However, Ohio’s Republican leadership did something to the contrary when it adopted the flat income tax that took effect this year. By passing it, “state legislators ensured that in 2026, Ohio’s millionaires will pay the same state income tax rate as public school teachers, child care workers, firefighters or any Ohioan with income over $26,050,” Policy Matters Ohio said earlier this year.

The Scioto Analysis report said the expected increase in inequality brought about by the flat tax can be measured.

“… Ohio is currently moving in a more regressive direction with recent changes to the tax structure,” it said. “The transition to a flat income tax structure in 2026 will eliminate most of the equality gains from Ohio’s 2023 income taxes, increasing the Gini coefficient back to 43.6. Reverting to Ohio’s more progressive 2003 income tax structure would lower the Gini Coefficient to 43.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ohio Senators Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Township, and Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, introduced Ohio Senate Bill 348 earlier this year and gave sponsor testimony last week in the Ohio Senate Small Business and Economic Opportunity Committee.  

“This legislation is vital towards creating common-sense safety measures to ensure that Ohio’s nightlife and hospitality industry is safe for its patrons,” Blessing said. 

The testing device would use test strips or something similar to detect any potential drugs in a drink. The test kits can detect at least 10 controlled substances — including ketamine, GHB, and Rohypnol — in less than five minutes. 

“Within those five minutes, we can save someone from facing a lifetime of trauma,” Blessing said. 

About 1 in 13 college students reported having a drink spiked at some point and about 15% of those who had their drink spiked reported a sexual assault happening afterward, according to a 2016 study from researchers at the University of South Carolina. 

“This legislation empowers individuals to know whether their drink has been spiked, enabling them to better protect themselves and their peers,” DeMora said. 

Bars and restaurants would be required to post a sign informing patrons about the availability of the testing kits. 

“Having a sign in a bar that says we have these strips, it might stop some idiot from trying to do this,” DeMora said. 

“Every Ohioan deserves to feel safe when they go out.”

The bill, however, does not have any penalties for not offering testing kits. 

“A lot of this is up to the bar owner — how they want to implement this or not at all,” Blessing said. 

The lawmakers argue people will feel safer going to a bar that has the testing strips. 

“When customers feel safe, they’re more likely to come back and spend more at that business,” DeMora said. 

An establishment could provide a drink testing device for free or charge a fee “not to exceed a reasonable amount based on the wholesale cost of those devices,” according to the bill’s language. 

A single Think Twice drink test strip costs $1.49 per test. 

A bar or restaurant would not be held liable for defective tests or inaccurate results, like false positives or negatives, according to the bill.  

“The goal of this legislation is not to penalize bars and restaurants that play such an integral role in the Ohio hospitality scene; it is to make sure those patrons have a safe environment to enjoy Ohio’s bars and restaurants,” Blessing said. 

Ohio Sen. Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, asked the bill’s sponsors if they thought about putting drink testing strips in vending machines. 

“I love that idea,” Blessing said. “I mean, even if it’s not required, the fact that it’s there is a good thing.”

The Ohio Bar Owners Association has not yet taken an official position on the bill. 

Executive Director Andy Herf supports the idea behind it, but has some issues with how the bill is written. 

“The safety of the patrons is the main concern,” he said. “I think the spirit behind this is good.” 

His primary issue with the bill is bars being unable to restock the drink testing strips if there is a distribution in the supply chain. 

“We don’t want to get in trouble for not being able to comply,” Herf said.

Instead of being in bars, he would like to see drink testing strips available at university wellness centers. 

California has mandatory drink testing strip requirements and requires establishments that serve alcohol to notify patrons that they have drink testing strips.

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.

Nobody sees them, said Vance. But a former reality TV star convinced them that he did. The pretense made Donald Trump the president of the United States in 2016 and again in 2024 — despite normally disqualifying baggage of two impeachments, a felony conviction, a jury verdict of liability for sexual abuse and defamation and, of course, attempted overthrow of a free and fair election.

Vance, who shape-shifted from Never Trumper to Die-hard Trumper and rode his born-again sycophancy into the office of vice president, kept his boss’s charade.

But the farce isn’t landing in Ohio like it used to and Trump’s approval rating is under water here because the economic pain of his voters is real.

In a state Trump won handily three times, 56% percent of Ohioans say he’s made their financial situation worse over the past year.

Indiscriminate tariffs slapped on longtime U.S. trading partners jacked up prices across the board for consumers. Trump’s import taxes are passed onto you in added costs for everything from clothing to cars.

In the first year of Trump’s second term, his tariffs cost the average U.S. household an estimated $1,745. Those same tariff-related price hikes are on track to cost families more than $2,500 on average this year. 

Compounding price pressures from broad tariffs is Trump’s impulsive war with Iran.

The attacked Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz. Global energy markets constricted. Gas prices in the U.S. climbed to their highest level since July 2022. The national average of more than $4.50 per gallon strained already stretched budgets and with the vital shipping artery in the Persian Gulf still shuttered, economists warned Americans they have not seen the worst of inflated prices at the pump or grocery store.

New data released last week showed inflation jumped to 3.8% in April, the highest it’s been since May 2023.

The invisible Americans who once felt seen by Trump take a few items off the belt at the checkout line. Fill up only half the tank. Hold off on big purchases. Stop eating out. Those that earn the least suffer the most.

Inflation is the decision financially-strapped families make in the middle of the store. The jet-setting Mar-a-Lago bunch, for whom money is no object, cannot relate.

The unequal burden of Trump’s economic policies — driven by price-inflating tariffs and whimsical military conflict in the Middle East is borne by lower and middle-income families — not the wealthy.

Those at the lower rungs of the 99% barely afford the basics which take up most of the paycheck. There is no category to cut when everything goes up at once. There is no flexibility to save when you’re paying more for rent, food, utilities, and gasoline on flat pay.

Weekly wages in Ohio have not risen to meet the cost of living that ballooned under the billionaire head of state whose net worth has nearly tripled in his historically corrupt regime.

In a state Trump swept by over 11% two years ago, people face severe financial distress with some of the highest gas prices in the country, skyrocketing diesel and fertilizer prices, and tough trade-offs in especially car-dependent rural areas between daily commuting needs and household necessities.

They are the ones absorbing the most economic damage from the unforced errors of the clown Ohio returned to the White House by the widest presidential margin of victory since Ronald Reagan. 

Like millions across the country, Ohioans are racking up huge credit card debt to cover what their wages won’t. They’re begging for a life raft (temporary suspension of the federal and state gas?) to get through the turbulence of Trump’s “Golden Age.”

But their leader who promised “to bring prices down” at his inauguration, apparently doesn’t care if they go under because of him.

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody,” Trump said last week. “I think about one thing: You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

Never mind that he repeatedly bragged about obliterating Iran’s nuclear facilities a year ago. But the serial liar finally told the truth about you. He’s “OK” with higher gas prices if it helps the U.S. achieve its on-the-fly goals in Iran.

Shapeshifter Vance defended Trump’s callous remarks about Americans’ worsening finances with spin that denied his boss said what he did. On video. That went viral.

Other Ohio Republicans on Capitol Hill were equally flippant with the truth. U.S. Sen. Jon Husted suggested constituents buried under oppressive bills and sticker shock prices (while Trump fiddles) should just “earn more, keep more of what you earn, and drive down prices.”

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan was similarly blasé about soaring fuel prices that eat up half a week’s income in his state: “That’s life, that’s the world we live in.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno dismissed Trump’s costly war as “a momentary blip” and claimed, “as quickly as gas prices went up, they’ll come back down.”

The political elite do not give a damn about your maxed out credit card, Ohio. Not their problem. But at least the Nero building monuments to himself sees you, right? 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The study, published May 18, found a shift away from managing miscarriages with a two-drug approach that includes mifepristone — which has been the subject of numerous legal battles that are still playing out in federal courts — and toward approaches that include only misoprostol, which has a lower rate of effectiveness.

The states with abortion bans had a nearly 3% increase in expectant management, the study showed, which means a health provider monitors the condition without prescribing any form of treatment to see whether the condition resolves without intervention. The study was conducted by researchers in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University.

Among those patients who received medication, there was a nearly 14% increase in the use of misoprostol-only regimens, which goes against the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ recommendation of using a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol as the most preferred method of managing miscarriages. Used together, the medications are the most effective at completing expulsion of pregnancy tissue and reducing side effects such as bleeding and cramping.

The expectant management approach, the study said, could increase the risk of hemorrhage and retained pregnancy tissue, which can cause infection if it is not removed.

The method of treatment for a miscarriage is the same two-drug regimen that is used to terminate a pregnancy before 12 weeks. A group of anti-abortion doctors unsuccessfully tried to revoke the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone altogether in 2023, and government officials in Louisiana are trying to strike down a 2023 rule enacted by the FDA that allows the drug to be prescribed by telehealth and mailed to a patient. That case is ongoing.

Using healthcare claims data, the study included nearly 123,600 commercially insured patients who had a miscarriage before 77 days’ gestation between the beginning of 2018 and the end of September 2024. That time frame includes 53 months of data from the years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022 to allow states to regulate abortion access, and 27 months after at least a dozen states implemented abortion bans.

The states with bans that affect pregnancies at six weeks of gestation or earlier are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. They were compared with 18 other states that do not have bans before fetal viability, which is generally considered to be about 24 weeks.

Some of those states with bans have gone further in adding criminal penalties to the use of mifepristone for abortion, which doctors have said affects abortion patients as well. Louisiana classified mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances in 2024, which meant providers had to start treating the storage and access to the medication much differently. Patients have tried to fill a prescription for misoprostol at major pharmacies in Louisiana, only to be told it’s unavailable, Louisiana Illuminator reported.

“It’s definitely getting more and more challenging to provide for patients and provide for them adequately,” Dr. Nicole Freehill, an OB-GYN in New Orleans, told Stateline in March. “That criminalization, more than anything, has created so many problems, because so many providers are just afraid to act.”

Mississippi enacted a law in April adding mifepristone and misoprostol to the state’s drug trafficking law, making it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison to distribute or intend to distribute the drugs. Lawmakers said the law would help limit the number of people sending the medications through the mail.

Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@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.

From local streets in small towns to major urban corridors, transportation agencies are grappling with deferred maintenance, rising construction costs and limited revenue streams. Even as federal infrastructure dollars increased in recent years, some transportation officials and infrastructure experts say the need continues to outpace available funding.

Gas taxes, which historically have largely gone to road repairs, have not kept up with inflation or shifts in vehicle efficiency, including the growing use of fuel-efficient and electric vehicles. The federal gas tax, at 18.4 cents per gallon, has remained unchanged since 1993. President Donald Trump has proposed temporarily suspending the federal gas tax to provide relief from surging fuel prices because of the Iran war.

“What states end up doing, partly because resources are limited, is they’re sort of triaging the system,” said Rocky Moretti, the director of policy and research at TRIP, a nonprofit research group focused on transportation issues.

For drivers, the cost of deteriorating roads often becomes clear only after damage occurs. At a time when many Americans are already feeling squeezed by fluctuating gas prices, tire blowouts, bent rims and suspension repairs can turn potholes into costly and unexpected expenses.

At the same time, some state and local governments are struggling to keep up with repairs while exploring new technologies — including artificial intelligence-powered road monitoring systems, sensors and camera-equipped vehicles — to identify road damage and respond more efficiently.

Federal transportation data shows that U.S. road conditions have changed little over the past three decades. Nationwide, the share of roadways rated in acceptable condition peaked at about 91% in 1999, but has since declined and averaged around 80% in recent years — leaving roughly 1 in 5 roadways in poor condition.

In 2024, the latest year with available data, the share of road miles rated in poor condition ranged from 34% to 89% in the five states or jurisdictions with the worst roads: the District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Hawaii, California and New Mexico. By comparison, the share of roads rated in acceptable condition ranged from 94% to 97% in the five best-performing states: Kansas, Tennessee, Indiana, Wyoming and Vermont.

With spring bringing warmer weather and heavier traffic, many transportation agencies have ramped up seasonal repair efforts by launching “pothole blitzes” aimed at rapidly filling road damage ahead of the busy summer driving season.

Just last month, West Virginia Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey pledged to have potholes across the state filled by the end of May, saying road crews had already patched more than 18,000 miles of potholes since January.

New York City also hit a milestone in April, filling 100,000 potholes in the first 100 days under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. New Yorkers called in at least 19,406 reports flagging potholes in fiscal 2026 through April, up roughly 88% from at least 10,297 reports during the same period in fiscal 2025, according to the city’s 311 data.

In Baltimore, crews filled at least 32,000 potholes from late February through mid-March, and the city aims to fill another 25,000 potholes and resurface 10 lane miles by mid-July, according to Veronica McBeth, the director of the Baltimore City Department of Transportation. The agency repaired more than 134,000 potholes in 2025, she said.

“(Potholes are) one of those things that is a real pain,” McBeth said. “City services are out here trying to get the work done, and we are actively trying to grow deeper partnerships with the state to get larger pots of money to do bigger and more robust infrastructure investments.”

A growing maintenance gap

Potholes form when water seeps into cracks in pavement, freezes and expands, then melts and leaves gaps beneath the road surface. As vehicles repeatedly drive over those weakened areas the pavement breaks apart, creating potholes. The cycle is especially common in regions with frequent freeze-thaw weather swings.

“Years of that combination of traffic and climate action will cause you to have to do maintenance. Things will break down,” said Bill Buttlar, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Missouri.

Poor drainage is also a major factor, Buttlar said, as moisture and stormwater can significantly weaken pavement over time. The aging transportation systems in many parts of the country can make the problem even worse, as older roads are often more vulnerable to cracking and deterioration.

Responsibility for repairing potholes depends on who maintains the roadway. Local streets are often maintained by city or county public works departments, while state departments of transportation typically oversee highways and major roads.

Many agencies rely heavily on resident complaints submitted through 311 systems or online reporting tools to identify new potholes, alongside routine inspections and maintenance crews.

State and local governments increasingly rely on a patchwork of federal funding and local revenue sources to cover maintenance costs. Research from The Pew Charitable Trusts found that state roadways face a combined maintenance and repair shortfall of $86.3 billion over the next decade.

“(Transportation agencies) don’t have the budget to do proper maintenance practices and stay out ahead of things, just with the increase of costs and the lack of funding that we’ve been putting into the roads as a nation over the last 30 years,” said Richard Willis of the National Asphalt Pavement Association. Willis is the industry group’s vice president for engineering, research and technology.

The lack of funding often creates a cycle of reactive maintenance, according to experts. Delaying repairs can worsen deterioration as water continues penetrating cracks and weakening pavement foundations, leading to more costly reconstruction later.

“The last thing you want to do is try to save a buck here and there, kind of kick the can down the road, and pushing the maintenance back,” Buttlar said. “It turns out, it’s less expensive to do light maintenance more often.”

Innovative tools

Some states and cities are turning to technology to stretch maintenance dollars further.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, City Councilor Satya Mitra said he wants the city to become the “city with no potholes.” Since joining the council earlier this year, Mitra said he has heard repeated concerns from residents about road safety and infrastructure conditions and is pushing for the city’s transportation officials to explore whether artificial intelligence could help detect potholes earlier.

“It is not only the damage to our vehicle that happens, but also it is a potential health risk,” Mitra told Stateline. To underscore how seriously he takes the issue, Mitra even made a T-shirt that reads, “Proud to live in Worcester, a city with no potholes,” which he said he would like to distribute to residents if the city reaches that goal.

Worcester is far from alone. Transportation agencies across the country are increasingly experimenting with AI-powered cameras, sensors and predictive software to identify road damage before it worsens. Supporters say the technology can help agencies prioritize repairs, respond faster and potentially reduce long-term maintenance costs. But for many cities already struggling with limited budgets, the systems can also come with significant upfront costs.

Last week, Chicago announced a partnership with tech company Samsara to test artificial intelligence tools designed to improve road operations. The system will use sensors and video technology to detect and log potholes.

Similar technology is also being tested in more than a handful Massachusetts communities through a pilot program using pothole detection software.

In Hawaii, the state Department of Transportation has expanded its “Eyes on the Road” initiative, which relies on volunteer drivers equipped with free dash cameras to collect roadway footage statewide.

Last year, San Jose, California, released results from an AI-powered road safety pilot project that found the technology identified potholes with 97% accuracy and roadway debris with 88% accuracy. The pilot, launched in 2023, uses cameras mounted on city vehicles to detect potholes, illegal dumping and other infrastructure problems.

In recent years, some municipalities have upgraded their 311 systems with mobile apps, photo uploads and GPS-based reporting tools aimed at making them easier and faster to use.

But some researchers warn that complaint-based systems can leave behind communities that are less likely to engage with local government reporting tools. A 2024 study published in the Policy Studies Journal found that in Houston, lower-income neighborhoods and communities with larger Black and Hispanic populations submitted fewer 311 pothole complaints despite often having worse road conditions.

Rather than waiting for roads to deteriorate into major reconstruction projects, focusing on preventive measures such as crack sealing, resurfacing and rapid pothole patching could help more. Experts say addressing smaller problems early can extend the lifespan of roads, reduce long-term repair costs and help prevent more dangerous driving conditions.

“If we invest in maintaining what we have, that’s the most effective way to preclude the formation of potholes,” said George Conner, the deputy director for operations at the Alabama Department of Transportation. Conner also serves as the chair of the committee on maintenance with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

“A prioritized overall preservation is probably the best starting point. But there is no single fix for potholes, especially if you want the repair to last,” Conner said.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The line came during an appearance on Northeast Ohio’s “Strictly Speaking Unfiltered” with host Bob Frantz, one of two Ohio podcasts Husted used Tuesday to defend the conflict. Hours later, the senator again voted against a resolution that would have forced President Donald Trump to seek congressional authorization to continue it.

That resolution advanced anyway, 50-47 — the first time after seven failed attempts that a Senate war powers effort cleared the procedural hurdle. Four Republicans crossed over to join nearly all Democrats: Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Husted was not among them.

‘What do you want me to do?’

On the Frantz show, Husted framed constituent concerns about gas prices as a dilemma with only one acceptable answer — continuing the war:

“I have been urging the president and the team to make this brief and successful because you talk to people and you say, you know, they’re concerned about their gas prices, and I’m concerned about their gas prices, but then you go the next level, and you say ‘Well, what would you do? What do you want me to do? Should we walk away from the situation? Do we let the leading sponsor of state terrorism just go back to the process of having a nuclear weapon?’” and [they] say, ‘Well, no, I don’t think you should do that either.’ So, it’s a dilemma that we need to bring to a quick end, and I believe the president is sensing the urgency.”

Absent from Husted’s framing was the option in front of the Senate that same afternoon: requiring the president to come to Congress for authorization, the constitutional path supporters of the war powers resolution say would force a clearer strategy and a defined endpoint. Husted voted to block it.

Ohio’s costs

Ohio drivers have been paying roughly $2 more per gallon for gas than they did before the war began Feb. 28, according to CNN. Three Ohio service members have been killed in the conflict. Ohio Capital Journal reporting republished on TiffinOhio.net has placed the cost to American taxpayers at more than $1 billion a day. A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll cited in that reporting found just 33% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the war.

On a second podcast Tuesday — the Findlay-based “Good Mornings Podcast Edition” with host Chris Oaks — Husted recounted what he described as a conversation with a truck driver to illustrate the same framing:

“I talked to a truck driver the other day, and he told me, he’s like, ‘Hey, we need to get these diesel prices down.’ I said, ‘Well, what do you think about, you know, the- Iran being a nuclear power? What do you think about that?’ and he’s like, ‘Well, we got to do- we got to get the Strait of Hormuz open, we got to get gas prices down, and we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.’ I think that that’s what I want to hear from a lot of folks.”

’Weekly conversations’ with the administration

Later in the Good Mornings interview, Husted said he is in regular contact with the Trump administration about the war — though he did not say whether those talks have included any push for the kind of congressional authorization Tuesday’s resolution would require:

“Well, in my- I’m in my Senate office right now, so I’m not going to talk about politics, but I can talk about timing, and that is the sense that, yeah, I believe that this could be something that’s resolved soon, but I don’t know that Chris, like that’s why we’re going to have a conversation. I’m going to continue to have conversations, weekly conversations with the administration, urging them to articulate the plan to the American people and to resolve this quickly.”

The Tuesday appearances mark a notable shift after weeks in which Ohio’s two Republican senators were characterized as “mum” on the war in earlier TiffinOhio.net coverage. Senate roll call records show Husted voted against the previous war powers attempt on May 13, part of a consistent pattern of opposing every such resolution since the conflict began.

Political stakes

Husted, the former lieutenant governor under Gov. Mike DeWine, was appointed to the Senate in January 2025 to fill the seat vacated by JD Vance when Vance became vice president. He faces former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in a November special election. Brown has made the war’s economic and human costs a centerpiece of his campaign.

“It’s clear this war is hurting people financially and in other ways. There’s no end in sight,” Brown said at an Austintown campaign stop earlier this month, according to the Tribune Chronicle. “(Republicans) have no idea how to end this war. They didn’t plan anything. Husted hasn’t raised one voice against this war or any idea about how to end it.”

The war powers resolution Husted opposed Tuesday now awaits a final passage vote in the Senate, the timing of which has not been announced.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Trump, his sons Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization moved to drop the $10 billion suit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, with prejudice — meaning he cannot revive it in the future. 

Shortly after Trump’s filing hit the court docket, the DOJ announced the creation of a $1.776 billion settlement, not to be paid to Trump or his family, but to be divvied up among “others who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” according to a department press release.

Democrats swiftly denounced the settlement as a “slush fund.”

The move presumably means those pardoned by Trump for crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol could seek money from the government. The DOJ’s announcement did not specifically mention President Joe Biden, former Attorney General Merrick Garland or the Capitol riot, and noted there are “no partisan requirements to file a claim.” 

Trump campaigned on pardoning anyone prosecuted by the Biden administration for crimes related to the 2021 attack, describing them as “patriots” and “hostages.” He pardoned roughly 1,600 defendants on the first night of his second term, and the White House published a dedicated web page to those targeted by “a weaponized Biden DOJ.”

In addition to monetary relief, eligible claimants will also receive a formal apology from the government.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, said in a statement, “The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again.”

“As part of this settlement, we are setting up a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress,” he added.

Trump, his family and the Trump organization will also receive a formal apology but no monetary damages as part of the arrangement, according to the DOJ.

Trump tax info leaked

The president and his family had filed suit in January against the IRS for the leak to news media of their tax information by a contractor in late 2019. The contractor was sentenced for the leak in early 2024.

When questioned by the press Monday afternoon, Trump said he knew “very little about” the creation of the fund. 

“These were people that were weaponized and really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt, with corrupt people running it, and they’re getting reimbursed for their legal fees and the other things that they had to suffer,” Trump said.

A committee of five “very talented people, very highly respected people” will decide how to distribute the money, he said.

Funding an ‘insurrectionist army’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced the plan Monday afternoon as “one of the most depraved” uses by Trump of the Justice Department.

“This weekend, Trump worked up a plan to shake hands with himself in order to fund his insurrectionist army to the tune of billions,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

“Donald Trump sued his own government. Trump’s DOJ settled with Trump. And now Trump gets a nearly $2 billion slush fund to reward his own allies, loyalists, and insurrectionists. That is not justice. That is corruption happening in broad daylight,” he continued.

In an amicus brief filed Monday afternoon, 93 House Democrats urged U.S. District Judge Kathleen Mary Williams, nominated by President Barack Obama, to immediately dismiss Trump’s “collusive lawsuit” for lack of jurisdiction.

The Democratic lawmakers argued in the filing the fund is “plainly unlawful” for numerous reasons.

“(F)iling a collusive lawsuit only to immediately dismiss it in order to produce a collusive settlement that is illegal multiple times over would not only be legally barred; it would also raise serious questions about whether the parties have manipulated the court system to achieve illicit ends,” according to the brief.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Introduced in February, Ohio House Bill 698 — the S.B. 1 Compliance Supplemental Appropriation Act — would link a portion of public higher education funding to institutions’ compliance with the Ohio Senate Bill 1 law that bans diversity efforts, prohibits faculty strikes, regulates classroom discussion of “controversial” topics, and blocks unions from negotiating on tenure.

State Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Township, is H.B. 698’s primary sponsor, and said in his opening statement to the Ohio House Workforce and HIgher Education Committee that while the bill is not a “reiteration” of SB 1, it intends to strengthen accountability and transparency to ensure institutions’ adherence to the law. 

“This bill does not dictate curriculum, it does not eliminate academic freedom, it does not create political litmus tests, and it is not intended to relitigate the debate surrounding SB 1,” Young said. “What it does do is reinforce public accountability for institutions that receive taxpayers dollars and ensure the law passed by this General Assembly is implemented as intended.” 

Young said purported efforts at universities to “work around the intent” of SB 1 have been “astounding,” but did not provide any specific examples of institutions working to do so. He praised university presidents and administrators who have moved forward in complying with SB 1. 

“I understand that large institutions are complex, with many departments, employees and moving parts, and at times it can be difficult to be sure every individual within a university is operating consistently with the law,” Young said. “That is precisely why the additional provisions in HB 698 are necessary.”

Young’s new bill would require universities to create a “justification report” for university employees who formerly worked in DEI positions as of Jan. 2025, including their names, new salaries, responsibilities, and proof that their reassignment does not include DEI- related initiatives. 

The state’s higher education department would be required to review these reports under the bill, leading the reports to become public record. 

Last week was the second hearing for the bill, and the first time opponents were allowed to share their opinions on the bill. Seven opponents testified in person, while many more submitted written opposition. Lawmakers capped the session at an hour and a half. The bill is slated to be picked up again by lawmakers this week.

Opposition

Critics raise concerns that the bill will expand government overreach and, strip labor protections for faculty and staff.

Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said during her testimony the bill would have detrimental effects on labor protections for higher education’s faculty and staff. 

She said the bill represents a “dangerous escalation” of political interference within the state’s institutions of higher education. 

“H.B. 698 is not about accountability, it is about control,” Cropper said. “And to be blunt, this bill is anti-labor, anti-educator, anti-student, and fundamentally anti-education.” 

Cropper said the threat of lost funding is causing over-compliance with SB 1, and this supplemental bill would pave the way to broaden state overreach into unions’ collective bargaining process. 

“At its core, House Bill 698, attempts to weaponize state funding in order to force conformity onto the highest institutions of higher education,” Cropper said. 

She said the bill’s reporting requirements are designed to “intimidate” faculty and staff into “silence and submission.” 

“This should concern every worker in Ohio, educators and non educators alike,” Cropper said. “When the state begins stripping bargaining rights from one sector of workers, it creates a blueprint for broader attacks on organized labor across the state.” 

Steve Mockabee, the director of the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati, spoke on behalf of the Ohio AAUP, a labor union representing over 6,000 faculty and staff members from Ohio’s institutions of higher education. 

Mockabee said the bill’s reporting requirements raised “serious constitutional questions.” 

“HB 698 would create a system where Ohioans who were doing perfectly legal jobs in good faith would be placed on a watch list and monitored by the government in perpetuity,” Mockabee said. 

Mockabee criticized the bill’s language surrounding retrenchment, and said broad terms such as “organizational restructuring” and “strategic alignment” would enable administrators to shut down programs and terminate faculty at any time.

“After SB 1, job security for Ohio faculty is on life support,” Mockabee said. “HB 698, would pull the plug.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Lawmakers in the Ohio House Education Committee recently approved changes to Ohio Senate Bill 19 that would excuse Ohio’s classical schools from having to teach the science of reading, which is based on decades of research that shows how the human brain learns to read and incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. 

“This legislature and the governor placed a major emphasis … on science of reading to great effect, and now is not the time to start carving out loopholes for certain schools,” said Devin Babcock, senior legislative director for ExcelinEd in Action. 

Ohio school districts were required to teach the science of reading curriculum starting with the 2024-25 school year after the law took effect in 2023 through the state’s two-year operating budget. 

The budget gave $86 million for educator professional development, $64 million for curriculum and instructional materials, and $18 million for literacy coaches.

“We’ve held the line as a state for the last few years, as have all the other states that have made this move,” Babcock said.

“If you’re a public school taking public money, then let’s do the best thing for kids and use the science of reading that we’ve adopted here as a state.”

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or implemented new policies related to evidence-based instruction since 2013, according to Education Week. Mississippi went from being ranked the second-worst state for fourth-grade reading in 2013 to being ranked 21st in 2022 after implementing science of reading policy. 

Ohio has eight classical schools that follow the K-12 curriculum of Hillsdale College, a Christian liberal arts college in Michigan. 

Some tenets of classical school curriculum include teaching Latin and a close reading of Western classics, among other things, according to Hillsdale College. 

Ohio S.B. 19 — which passed unanimously in the Ohio Senate in November — originated as an academic intervention bill to help students who score below proficient on state assessment tests. 

The bill would allow a public school student who scored below proficient in a state assessment test in math or English language arts to receive academic intervention services at no cost. 

The Ohio Education Association testified in opposition to the bill in March, 

“The bill is well-intentioned, but the details matter,” OEA President Jeff Wensing said in his testimony. “These tests provide useful information, but classroom educators have more information about a student’s knowledge and abilities in the subject.” 

The bill would require school districts or individual schools to come up with a math achievement improvement plan if 51% or less of the district or school’s students who took the third grade math achievement assessment scored at least a proficient score on the assessment.

Under the bill, schools would be required to develop math improvement and monitoring plans for each student that qualifies for math intervention services within 60 days after getting the student’s third grade assessment math results.

A math improvement and monitoring plan would identify the student’s “specific math deficiencies,” describe the additional instructional services they will receive, offer a chance for their parent or guardian to be involved, outline a monitoring process and offer high-dosage tutoring at least three days a week.

“From the experience of Reading Improvement and Monitoring Plans (RIMPs), I can tell you that this is an onerous task that will often fall on classroom teachers,” Wensing said in his testimony. “Educators’ time is in too short supply to add more paperwork, administrative tasks, and exercises in compliance.”

Ohio Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, introduced the bill, which has had five hearings in the Ohio House Education Committee.

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 rule has gone final and is expected to take effect July 13. Some Ohio families will the be hardest hit in the United States.

In the midst of an already-existing affordability crisis, the government on Tuesday reported that inflation had spiked to its highest rate in three years. The spike has been driven by gas prices inflated by Trump’s war with Iran — and before that by massive tariffs levied on trade with most of the rest of the world. 

At the same time that Trump last summer cut $1 trillion in taxes on the richest 1% of Americans, he cut health and food benefits for the poor by a similar amount. Trump and Republicans in Congress also allowed healthcare subsidies to expire, which is expected to cost 356,000 Ohioans their coverage.

In the midst of all that, the administration moved in January to scrap a 2024 attempt by the Biden administration to cap the cost of childcare for families making $77,000 or less a year. The Trump administration did that by proposing a rule that goes beyond the 7% cap.

“The rule rescinds the requirement to cap child care copayments at 7% of household income, rolls back the use of grants and contracts for care that the market doesn’t readily provide for (like care for infants, toddlers, and kids with disabilities), rescinds prospective payments to providers and also enrollment-based pay, which risks destabilizing provider payment schedules, since they rely on predictable, reliable payments to cover fixed operating costs,” Hailey Gibbs of the Center for American Progress said in an email.

An analysis by her organization showed that some Ohio families will be hardest hit by the loss of the benefit. The researchers estimated that without the 7% cap, some eligible Ohio families are paying as much as 27% of their income on daycare.

For the maximum-earning family of three, that’s $1,700 a month. Under the Biden cap it would have been $452.

In other words, some Ohio families will now have to pay nearly $15,000 more for childcare than they otherwise would have. That’s nearly $4,000 more than the next-closest state, Vermont, the analysis said.

An extra bill of that size would plunge a huge number of Ohioans into poverty.

An analysis of government data earlier this year found that a $15,000 surprise expense would swamp the resources of virtually every single-earner, median income household of four in the Buckeye State.  

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Enquirer’s April 2023 analysis of state lawmakers’ driving records placed Click among the three most-cited members of the Ohio General Assembly. Only two state lawmakers — Niraj Antani with 14 tickets and Rep. Jay Edwards (R-Nelsonville) with 13 — had more.

The newspaper reported that Click, identified at the time as the pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple, “holds a commercial driver’s license for transporting passengers, according to state records.” Click has since stepped down from active pastoral leadership, quietly assuming a pastor emeritus title in 2025 without a public announcement.

‘More important issues’ than tickets, Click said

Asked about his record by the Enquirer, Click did not dispute the citations.

“There are more important issues than lawmakers’ speeding tickets,” Click said, according to the newspaper’s reporting.

He did not offer further explanation in the published article. Edwards, the Nelsonville Republican who outranked Click in citations, took a different posture in the same Enquirer report. “This isn’t something I’m proud of but I accept responsibility,” Edwards said in a written statement, noting he had driven nearly 300,000 miles across his southeastern Ohio district and to Columbus. “I’m certainly not above the law. I have tremendous respect for those who work to keep our roadways safe and will continue to support law enforcement.”

‘Look very hard at your driving behaviors’

The Enquirer’s analysis included a response from Ohio State Highway Patrol Superintendent Charles Jones, who said traffic laws apply regardless of occupation. Jones specifically singled out lawmakers in Click’s tier — those with 10 or more tickets — saying they should “look very hard at your driving behaviors.”

The BMV data showed most Ohio lawmakers had clean or near-clean records. Of the 129 state legislators examined, 52 had no traffic tickets in the decade reviewed and another 28 had only one. Three lawmakers — Antani, Edwards, and Click — had 10 or more citations, placing them in roughly the top 2 percent for traffic violations among their colleagues.

A 2023 snapshot heading into November

The Enquirer’s review remains the most recent comprehensive public accounting of Ohio lawmakers’ driving records.

Click won a contested Republican primary on May 5, 2026, defeating Tiffin entrepreneur Eric Watson by a 52-48 margin while losing Seneca County to Watson and holding the seat only on the strength of Sandusky County. He now faces Democratic nominee Aaron Jones — a U.S. Army veteran, Tiffin City Council member, and longtime manufacturing supervisor — in the November 3, 2026 general election. Jones lives in Seneca County and graduated from Clyde High School in Sandusky County.

Click currently chairs the Ohio House Community Revitalization Committee and the Ohio Christian Legislators Caucus and serves on the House Ways and Means, Education, and Children and Human Services committees. He is seeking what would be his final term under Ohio’s four-term legislative term limit.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

An afternoon rally in Montgomery that drew over 5,000 people featured politicians, activists and civil rights dignitaries as of the All Roads Lead to the South campaign, aimed at organizing voters to offset the advantages Republicans may gain from redistricting.

“Our democracy is on the line,” said Victor Coar, who traveled from Birmingham to Montgomery. “Our rights are on the line. They are trying to take it all away. They are suppressing our vote, trying to keep us quiet, trying to silence our vote.”

The events on Saturday deliberately invoked the Civil Rights Movement in cities that featured some of its most famous moments, and came just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court targeted one of its major legacies. In Louisiana v. Callais, decided last month, the nation’s high court weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in voting and election laws, by saying plaintiffs challenging maps under Section 2 would have to prove intentional discrimination, a significantly higher standard than the prior one.

The court’s decision led Republican-controlled legislatures across the South to introduce redistricting legislation targeting Black majority districts. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Alabama to use a 2023 congressional map it had previously ruled racially discriminatory. Gov. Kay Ivey set special primary elections in four congressional districts for August, though plaintiffs in the state’s major redistricting case, known as Allen v. Milligan, have continued litigation. A federal court Friday set a hearing in the case for Friday.

A woman raises a fist as protestors march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Earlier on Saturday, faith leaders gathered at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma and offered prayers, criticisms of the Supreme Court and President Donald Trump and calls for voting rights protections for vulnerable communities.

After an hour, 400 people then marched silently from the church to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where civil rights protestors were attacked on March 7, 1965, an assault that eventually led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

“I know how important moments like these are, and I am here because I know that one of us can go far but we cannot go far enough,” said Rev. Cece Jones-Davis, who traveled from Washington, D.C. to participate in the day’s events, in an interview after the march. “It is going to take all of us, and so I am just here to add my voice to the collective.”

At the Montgomery rally, speakers spoke to several grievances aimed at the Trump administration and at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding voting rights, but also urged the crowd to have resolve during the current political climate.

Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and CEO of the King Center, harkened to the past as a rallying cry for the present.

“Today we return to the very grounds where my parents and freedom families stood, when Black voter registration was scarce, when discrimination was the norm, and when violence was the price for seeking dignity. Their sacrifice opened the door to the Voting Rights Act,” she said.

Protestors step on a marker on Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama marking the extent of the crowds in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march during the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Now, she said, people are called once again to act.

“Because the recent Supreme Court rulings demand our presence,” she said. “It was not only a legal decision, it is a moral disgrace and a shameless assault on Black political power.”

Lawmakers from Alabama took the stage to urge the crowd to continue their efforts to mobilize the vote.

“Sometimes I wonder what would I have done if I had been present and alive during the movement,” said Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove. “Would I have marched? Would you have marched? Would I have participated in a boycott? Would you have done that? Would I be one of the lawyers who filed one of those lawsuits? Would I have been a freedom singer, singing and moaning for the movement like my grandfather? We are here to tell you, you don’t have to wonder anymore. This is our time, right now, and we are fired up and ready to go.”

Then Alabama’s congressional delegation and their colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives took the stage to rally the audience and to meet the moment.

Changing Alabama’s congressional maps will significantly threaten the re-election prospects of U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile, and could eventually put U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, at risk.

“It is time to show up and show out, not just in one state capital, not just for one election but we need you to step up and show up for every one of our state legislators who are trying to get out the vote,” Sewell said.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, said that the freedom that we enjoy also requires responsibility.

Protestors enter the All Roads Lead to The South Rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

“We also stand here with the understanding that the freedoms we inherited from our ancestors are not possessions that we hold, they are rights that we hold in trust,” he said to the crowd. “That we were given to be stewards of. A lot of people are drinking deeply from wells of freedom and liberty that they did not dig. They are eating from banquet tables prepared for them by their ancestors, sitting back, getting dumb, fat and ugly, and happy and comfortable. This is one of moments where we understand our blessings come with obligations.”

Khadidah Stone, one of the Allen v. Milligan plaintiffs, criticized Ivey’s decision to schedule the special session during an interview at Saturday’s event in Montgomery.

“I would really like those legislators to focus on the quality of life of Alabamians,” Stone said. “We have a lot of rural hospital closures, we have the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, 50,000 Alabamians just lost SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, and most of the recipients are the elderly and children.”

Figures said after the rally that he was “inspired by what we see.”

“It is an incredibly humbling experience to see thousands come out and, in essence, help defend my seat, and defend Congresswoman Terri Sewell’s seat, so we can’t help but be overwhelmed by gratefulness and humility by what we are seeing, and encouraged because we think this is going to carry over until November,” he said.

Figures, however, said that he felt there were factual differences between the Callais case and the Milligan case, and expressed confidence that the Milligan plaintiffs could still win.

“The dispute with our district goes all the way back to the 2020 census, and the original maps that the state Legislature redrew, and the three-judge panel, two of whom were appointed by Trump and one by (Ronald) Regan originally, they found that the state had engaged in intentional discrimination in how they drew those maps.”

Several of those who attended the afternoon rally criticized attempts by the various legislatures to reconfigure their district maps.

U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile (third from left, in Blue shirt) addresses a crowd attending the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

“It is important for folks to understand what folks are getting taken away from them, and they are getting taken away their right to representation,” said former Sen. Doug Jones, D-Alabama, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to be governor, in an interview at the event in Montgomery. “We have come so far in the state of Alabama. We have 60 years of progress that has been thrown backwards by the Supreme Court and the Legislature just a few blocks from here.”

Reginald Mason, who also traveled from Birmingham, said voting is what matters.

“People who don’t actually vote are not informed, they don’t know about the struggle that our ancestors went through,” Mason said. “I never thought I would be standing here today fighting for what they have already fought for me.”

Religious and faith leaders expressed many of the same concerns when they led congregants in prayers prior to the morning march across the Edmund Pettus bridge.

“What I realize is that it is just our turn, and freedom is not fought for once, freedom has been fought for many times,” Jones-Davis said. “We are here to do our part.”

Corey Minor Smith of Canton, Ohio holds a “Black Voters Matter” sign while marching over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. Faith leaders gathered in Selma Saturday for a prayer event as part of the “All Roads Lead To The South” protests, aimed at mobilizing voters amid Republican efforts to eliminate majority-minority districts. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector)

Faith leaders in the Tabernacle Baptist Church In Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, which drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, addresses the Tabernacle Baptist Church In Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, which drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, addresses the Tabernacle Baptist Church In Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, which drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, addresses the Tabernacle Baptist Church In Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, which drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, addresses the Tabernacle Baptist Church In Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, which drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, addresses the Tabernacle Baptist Church In Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, which drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, addresses the Tabernacle Baptist Church In Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, which drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, addresses the Tabernacle Baptist Church In Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, which drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

A speaker addresses the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The service was part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans. The events drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors gather in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors march in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors march in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors march in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors march in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors gather in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors march in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors march toward the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

A woman raises a fist as protestors march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as part of the All Roads Lead to the South rally on May 16, 2026. The two rallies, protests against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors attend the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors attend the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors attend the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors enter the All Roads Lead to The South Rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors attend the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors attend the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Protestors step on a marker on Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama marking the extent of the crowds in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march during the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, addresses a crowd attending the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. To the right is Dee Reed of Black Voters Matter. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, addresses a crowd attending the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. To the right is Dee Reed of Black Voters Matter. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reedaddresses a crowd attending the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile (third from left, in Blue shirt) addresses a crowd attending the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. The event, a protest against redistricting efforts by southern Republicans, drew over 5,000 people. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the CEO of the King Center, speaks to the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. More than 5,000 attended the event, which protested recent moves by southern Republican governments to draw Black Democratic congressional members out of their districts. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the CEO of the King Center, speaks to the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. More than 5,000 attended the event, which protested recent moves by southern Republican governments to draw Black Democratic congressional members out of their districts. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the CEO of the King Center, speaks to the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. More than 5,000 attended the event, which protested recent moves by southern Republican governments to draw Black Democratic congressional members out of their districts. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the CEO of the King Center, speaks to the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. More than 5,000 attended the event, which protested recent moves by southern Republican governments to draw Black Democratic congressional members out of their districts. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the CEO of the King Center, speaks to the All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16, 2026. More than 5,000 attended the event, which protested recent moves by southern Republican governments to draw Black Democratic congressional members out of their districts. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)

This story was originally produced by Alabama Reflector, 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.

Now, the Supreme Court is the one upending elections.

For the past two decades, the Supreme Court has advanced the idea that federal courts should not order major changes close to an election to limit voter confusion. Over time the doctrine, first articulated in the 2006 case Purcell vs. Gonzalez, became known as the Purcell principle. 

But election law experts and one of the court’s liberal justices say the Supreme Court is wielding — or disregarding — the principle unevenly in ways that aid Republicans.

In recent weeks, the Supreme Court has effectively allowed last-minute election changes in Southern states that hold major consequences for what districts voters are assigned to and the future of Black political representation across the region.

These Republican-controlled states are racing to redraw congressional maps to eliminate majority-Black districts, many of which have elected Black Democrats to Congress. The gerrymandering rush has come even with early voting underway in some states.

Wilfred Codrington III, a professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, who has studied the Purcell principle, said limiting voter confusion is common sense. But after that general idea, the principle “just falls apart” because the Supreme Court has never answered questions raised by the doctrine — like how close to an election is too close.

“The court has not thought through them and it seems like when the court applies them, they’re being applied in partisan ways,” Codrington said, about questions the doctrine raises.

April ruling OK’d redistricting

After the high court gutted the federal Voting Rights Act in Callais, a landmark decision on April 29 that found Louisiana’s map unconstitutional, it fast-tracked paperwork so the state could quickly redraw district lines. 

Voting had begun in the state’s congressional primary election, which Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended, discarding 42,000 votes already cast.

A majority of the court voted to immediately certify its decision instead of observing its typical 32-day waiting period. In a blistering dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the justices were disregarding their previous insistence that courts shouldn’t risk assuming political responsibility for a redistricting process that often produces hard feelings.

“There is also the so-called Purcell principle, which we invoked only five months ago to chide a federal district court for ‘improperly insert[ing] itself into an active primary campaign,’” Jackson wrote. “The Court unshackles itself from both constraints today and dives into the fray. And just like that, those principles give way to power.”

The conservative justices on May 11 then cleared a path for Alabama to move toward implementing a Republican gerrymander that state lawmakers approved in 2023 but was blocked by a lower court. Their decision came a little more than a week before the state’s primary election. 

Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has called an August special primary election for some of the state’s congressional districts.

“The United States Supreme Court’s decision is plain common sense and enables our values to be best represented in Congress,” Ivey said in a statement.

‘Like it doesn’t exist’

The Supreme Court’s actions this spring stand in stark contrast to its December decision to allow Texas’ gerrymander to take effect. After President Donald Trump urged GOP states to redraw their maps for partisan advantage, Texas was the first state to respond, enacting new lines that could help Republicans pick up five seats.

A three-judge district court panel ruled against the map, finding that it was racially gerrymandered. The Supreme Court paused the panel’s decision, finding that the panel likely made serious errors and that the district court was “causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections” amid the campaign season.

That language echoed the Purcell decision, which found that an appeals court had erred in blocking an Arizona law requiring a photo ID to register to vote. The Supreme Court’s unsigned opinion cautioned that court orders affecting elections can cause voter confusion. 

“As an election draws closer, that risk will increase,” the 2006 opinion said.

Nearly 20 years later, the Supreme Court made no mention of Purcell in its Callais opinion, which dropped like a political bomb across the South. Since the decision, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee have either enacted new maps or are seeking to do so ahead of the November midterm elections.

Mark Johnson, a Kansas City-based lawyer with a long history of working on election litigation, noted that Callais was argued at the Supreme Court twice, first in March 2025 and again in October. The justices then waited a long time before releasing their decision, he said, adding that if they didn’t realize the implications of their ruling they were “asleep at the wheel.”

“That’s why the Callais case is so disturbing, because a Supreme Court that has by and large followed Purcell just acted like it doesn’t exist,” Johnson said.

Court legitimacy at stake

Several high-profile observers of the Supreme Court have been unsparing in their criticism of the justices’ approach. 

Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and a foremost expert on the court, wrote in an online post that the court’s recent decisions “fatally undermine” the animating purpose of the Purcell principle.

“The Court’s own interventions are now wreaking havoc—and a majority of the justices either don’t think it’s their fault, or don’t care that it is. Either way, they don’t seem to mind the inconsistency—in a context in which it’s having the remarkably coincidental effect of benefiting Republicans,” Vladeck wrote.

Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA School of Law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, wrote on social media that the Supreme Court in Chief Justice John Roberts’ hands “has become a chaos agent in elections.”

Public support for the Supreme Court was dropping prior to Callais. An August 2025 Pew Research Center survey found 48% of Americans hold a favorable view of the court, a 22-percentage point drop from August 2020.

In the wake of the decision, Democrats have renewed their calls for court reform. Some have proposed term limits for the justices or expanding the size of the court to dilute its conservative majority. However, major changes are unlikely to become law while the U.S. Senate retains the filibuster and Trump remains in office.

For his part, Roberts has taken pains to paint the court as outside of politics. But at a judicial conference in Pennsylvania in early May, Roberts acknowledged the public thinks the justices are expressing policy preferences rather than interpreting the law.

“I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do,” Roberts said, according to The Associated Press.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another of the court’s conservatives, has drawn a distinction between federal courts ordering last-minute changes to elections and states making changes themselves — suggesting that courts shouldn’t necessarily thwart state legislatures that alter rules and procedures in the run-up to elections.

In a 2020 concurring opinion about a federal judge who had altered Wisconsin’s absentee ballot deadline amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Kavanaugh wrote that it was one thing for state legislatures to change their own election rules “in the late innings” and bear responsibility for unintended consequences.

“It is quite another thing for a federal district court to swoop in and alter carefully considered and democratically enacted state election rules when an election is imminent,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Chaotic campaign season

But voting rights advocates say Callais is unleashing a wave of voter confusion as Southern legislatures rush to gerrymander.

Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a map May 7 that divides the Memphis area among three congressional districts. The move splits a majority-Black district in Memphis represented by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a white Democrat. Cohen announced Friday he wouldn’t seek reelection.

The state’s primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.

“This is a year where we’re already in the cycle and they’re going to have to redo everything they’ve already worked on because these districts are completely different,” Matia Powell, executive director of the voting rights group Civic TN, told reporters.

The Tennessee Democratic Party and several Democratic candidates, including state Rep. Justin Pearson, who is running for Cohen’s current seat, have filed a federal lawsuit against the map. They argue the new map will cause “significant voter confusion” and severely burden the right to vote.

Tennessee Republican Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti argues the Democrats have a solution in search of a problem. Tennessee lawmakers have provided more than $3.1 million to implement the new map and that state officials are already working to meet election deadlines, Skrmetti’s office wrote in a Wednesday court filing.

“At bottom, this suit is an invitation to play politics, not law,” Tennessee Senior Assistant Attorney General Zachary Barker wrote in the filing.

U.S. District Court Judge William Campbell, a Trump appointee, on Thursday declined to immediately halt the map.

The Supreme Court has sent states the message that “there are no rules” and that state legislatures are welcome to gerrymander Black representation at any point, said Anna Baldwin, voting rights litigation director at Campaign Legal Center, which has sued over Florida’s recent gerrymander.

And the way the court applies the Purcell principle encourages states to make changes close to elections — because courts are more reluctant to block them.

“The court is creating a perverse incentive structure that ultimately does make it harder for people who are trying to protect voting rights to prevail,” Baldwin 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 House Children and Human Services Committee brought Ohio House Bill 647 up for a hearing recently for the sole purpose of making changes to the bill. The committee’s chair, Republican state Rep. Andrea White, said she hopes to see the committee approve the bill soon.

The bill was initially introduced in response to a right-wing influencer’s claims out of Minnesota that federal funding was being fraudulently used by childcare facilities, particularly those managed and owned by Somali immigrants.

The Trump administration responded to the Minnesota claims by freezing childcare funding to that state, and other Democratically led states.

Ohio officials including Gov. Mike DeWine made comments at the time that the claims were made, hoping to avoid a freeze on federal funds coming to the state for its Publicly Funded Child Care program.

The sponsors of H.B. 647, Republican state Reps. Phil Plummer and Tom Young, defended the state’s oversight of the childcare system, while also introducing the bill to help prove enforcement of laws would be strong and swift, so the federal funding distributors didn’t take action.

“We can’t gaslight this and freak out the federal administration, and they pull our funding,” Plummer said in January when the bill was announced. “Because then we lose childcare centers.”

The bill focuses on increasing the state’s data analysis skills when it comes to childcare centers and funding. It would also put in a new oversight system, including not only county prosecuting attorneys who are typically the ones to investigate local childcare fraud allegations, but also the state Inspector General’s Office, and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office as well.

The legislation would base funding from the Publicly Funded Child Care coffers on a child’s enrollment in a childcare facility, rather than on a child’s individual attendance. It would also allow the Ohio Department of Children & Youth to suspend a childcare center’s license without a prior hearing “if DCY has reason to suspect that (the center) has engaged in the misuse of public dollars or acted with intent to commit fraud against the PFCC program,” according to bill analysis by the Legislative Service Commission.

H.B. 647 received the support of Kara Wente, director of the Ohio Department of Children & Youth.

Changes made this week by the House committee remove money for a pilot program that Republicans have been trying to enact for several years, a program that was an attempt to increase accessibility in a state that advocates say is in “crisis” when it comes to affordability and access to childcare.

The Child Care Cred Program was originally a standalone piece of GOP-led legislation, but had since been absorbed into H.B. 647. The program was sold by supporters as a cost-sharing model, one in which the state would contribute to the cost of childcare, while the remaining cost would be split between participating employers and eligible employees.

In the committee changes, an appropriation for the program of $600,000 for fiscal year 2026 and $4.4 million in 2027 was removed, among other changes.

“So, instead of using the Child Care Cred money, that money is going to stay in (the budget of the Ohio Department of Children & Youth), and then the department will use other funds that are within their budget,” White told the committee.

The most recent state budget put forth $10 million in support of the Child Care Cred program.

There were no objections to the changes made to the bill. State Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, R-Ashtabula, said the bill changes were “a big improvement,” but commented on a different change, one in which the time period for childcare centers to “backdate,” or make changes to attendance records, was increased from seven days to 10 business days or 14 calendar days, whichever is later.

“I would prefer to see even tighter timelines,” Fowler Arthur said. “I think we really need to be making sure that we have the most accurate data possible.”

Another change made to H.B. 647 eliminated an increased to the Department of Children & Youth’s “community projects and assistance” funding by $2 million in 2026 and $3 million in 2027. In a previous version of H.B. 647, the money was required to go toward “enhanced data analytics for use in conducting automated attendance reviews of publicly funded childcare providers.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ohio state Rep. Adam Holmes, R-Nashport, and Ohio Senator Brian Chavez, R-Marietta, will be co-chairs of the committee. 

The committee will include Ohio reps. Thad Claggett, R-Licking County, Heidi Workman, R-Rootstown, and Chris Glassburn, D-North Olmsted. Ohio Sens. Bill Reineke, R-Tiffin, Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro, and Willis E. Blackshear Jr., D-Dayton, will also be on the committee. 

“The mission of this committee is to ensure that Ohio citizens have accurate, relevant and usable information concerning the economic, environmental, and security impacts of Ohio data center development,” Holmes said. 

The committee’s first two meetings will be May 27 and May 28 with the plan going forward to have at least one meeting a week, Chavez said. 

“We’re going to go until we get to a natural breaking point, and then we’ll let the information disseminate,” he said. 

“We intend to get this information out to council trustees, county commissioners, mayors, and concerned citizens. We want to make sure that folks are able to get information and be able to have critical conversations with the relevant information.”

Holmes said they have talked to companies like Meta and Google about coming to testify.

“They’re anxious to come,” he said. “I think they have a message they want to broadcast on exactly how they’re handling the concerns.”

Ohio has about 200 data centers, the fifth-highest state in the country. Most of the data centers are in central Ohio. Cincinnati has 26 and Cleveland has 23, according to the Data Center Map. 

“Some Ohioans are troubled by reports of exorbitant water use, negative land and wildlife impacts, excessive sound light and electromagnetic emissions and increased local energy costs,” Holmes said. 

A large data center can use as much electricity as 100,000 homes, according to the Office of Ohio Consumers’ Counsel.

Data centers used 4% of all U.S. electricity in 2023 and that is expected to grow to 9% by 2030, according to the counsel. 

Virginia has a high concentration of data centers and electricity prices there have increased by up to 267% in recent years, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. 

“Energy and information are not only the economic drivers for the 21st century; they are also a national security imperative,” Holmes said. “It’s crucial Ohio establishes sound data center development policies that benefit all Ohioans.”

A group of Ohioans are currently collecting signatures to get a data center ban on the November ballot. 

The proposed constitutional amendment would prohibit building data centers with a peak load of more than 25 megawatts per month, but the amendment will need more than 413,000 signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties by July 1. 

“We’re just trying to get information out so the folks can have critical thoughts and critical conversations,” Chavez said when asked about the amendment. 

The Ohio House unanimously passed Ohio House Bill 646, which would create a new data center study commission. The bill is now in an Ohio Senate Committee. 

“We took a look at (Ohio H.B. 646), and we felt like this was going to be a much faster process,” Chavez said when asked if this is replacing the data center study commission bill. 

“This doesn’t necessarily have to replace it, but it seems to be the quicker vehicle that we’re going to pursue right now.” 

Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, favors the committee over the bill that would create a data center commission. 

“We can be a little bit more prepared to delve deeper into the issues, rather than a commission that’s so broad that it can’t delve very deep into the issues at all,” he said. 

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, is optimistic about the work that will come out of the committee.  

“We definitely think that it’s important that we address some of the policy issues and safety issues, the environmental issues and local control issues around data centers,” she said. 

Lawmakers in at least 11 states — Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin — have introduced legislation that would temporarily ban data centers. 

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.

Redistricting, the process of redrawing the geographic boundaries of U.S. House and state legislative districts, usually takes place every 10 years following the census.

Trump upended that schedule early last year, when he began pressuring state GOP officials to redraw their maps to help Republicans hold onto a slim, five-seat majority in the U.S. House ahead of potentially grim 2026 midterm elections for his party.

The Supreme Court recast the redistricting fight with its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. That decision all but nullified a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that required states to draw electoral maps to give racial minority voters the opportunity to elect their chosen candidates.

A total of nine states — Alabama, California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — have redrawn their maps since last year. At least three other states — Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina — appear likely to follow suit, though Georgia’s new maps would not be in effect for the upcoming midterm elections.

As things currently stand, Republicans are likely to gain up to 17 seats, while Democrats are likely to gain up to six seats.

In the aftermath of the Callais decision, hundreds of protesters have gathered at statehouses in recent weeks, particularly in the South, to decry what they say is a concerted effort to dilute Black voting and governing power. Republicans argue that maps should be “colorblind.” Gerrymandering to benefit one political party over another is legal at the federal level, though some states have their own laws restricting it.

The latest redistricting efforts are changing elections that have already begun. Some candidates must now pivot to races in brand-new districts with just a few weeks until their primaries. They’ve spent money and time reaching people who can no longer vote for them, fighting opponents different from the ones they now face. At least one Tennessee Democratic candidate no longer lives within the new boundaries of the district he’s seeking to represent.

Voters in states such as Alabama will now be asked to turn out for primary elections in both May and August, in addition to the November general election.

Here’s where things stand now.

Nine states already have redrawn their maps

Alabama

Republicans could gain 1 seat.*

A 2023 court order required Alabama to draw a congressional map with a second majority-Black district. But after the Callais decision last month, Alabama’s Republican state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let them reinstate the old map, which has just one majority-Black, majority-Democratic district and which the court had previously ruled racially discriminatory. The high court quickly agreed.

Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has announced new primary elections in August for the affected districts. These will be held in addition to next Tuesday’s statewide primaries for other federal and state offices.

Alabama is also appealing a separate ruling requiring it to redraw two state Senate districts. That case is still ongoing.

California

Democrats likely to gain 3-5 seats.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year led the Democratic response to Trump’s call for Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps.

In November 2025, California voters approved Newsom’s proposal to temporarily override the state’s independent redistricting commission and instead to allow the Democratic-dominated legislature to redraw the maps to create districts more favorable to Democrats. The new map is valid through 2030.

Florida

Republicans likely to gain 1-4 seats.

Last month, the Republican-majority Florida Legislature approved Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new congressional map that could net the GOP up to four new congressional seats.

Both DeSantis and the voting rights organizations suing to block the new map agree it violates parts of the state constitution. But DeSantis argues the constitution’s anti-gerrymandering amendments, which were overwhelmingly adopted by Florida voters in 2010, are invalid, partly due to the Callais ruling.

Missouri

Republicans likely to gain 1 seat.

Earlier this week, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the state’s gerrymandered 2025 congressional map, handing Republicans a victory. Last summer, Trump pressured Missouri Republicans to help maintain the GOP majority in the U.S. House, so lawmakers met in a special session to draw a map that likely will give them an additional seat by carving off parts of Kansas City into surrounding rural districts.

The new map will be used in Missouri’s August primary, the state Supreme Court ruled this week, because it’s uncertain whether a referendum petition seeking to repeal the map will succeed.

North Carolina

Republicans likely to gain 1 seat.

At Trump’s behest, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature redrew the state’s congressional map last fall. It was an effort to make the state’s only competitive district solidly Republican. The maps passed strictly along party lines. The state’s congressional delegation is now likely to be 11 Republicans and three Democrats. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein is a Democrat, but redistricting isn’t subject to the governor’s veto.

Ohio

Republicans likely to gain up to 2 seats.

Last fall, Ohio Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman publicly rebuffed Trump’s national push to gain more seats in Congress, while state Democrats proposed their own maps. An Ohio redistricting commission eventually approved a new map last October that is likely to yield 12 Republicans and three Democrats, compared with the current 10-5 split. GOP and Democratic lawmakers called it a “compromise.”

That map will be in place for the next six years. But political operatives told the Ohio Capital Journal they expect to see more redistricting efforts in 2030.

Tennessee

Republicans likely to gain 1 seat.

In a chaotic special session earlier this month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee redrew congressional maps to shatter the state’s only majority-Black, majority-Democratic district. The newly passed map now favors Republicans in all nine Tennessee districts. Hundreds protested at the Tennessee statehouse as House Republicans voted on the new map and House Democrats gathered at the front of the chamber, locking arms in a show of solidarity.

This week, Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, punished his Democratic colleagues for their protests by stripping them of committee and subcommittee appointments. On Friday morning, longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen announced he would not seek reelection after his district was carved up in the redrawing of the maps.

Texas

Republicans likely to gain 3-5 seats.

The nation’s redistricting battle kicked off in Texas last summer, after Trump pressured the Texas GOP to redraw the state’s congressional map to add up to five more Republican seats. State House Democrats pushed back, fleeing the state temporarily in August to halt the vote. But the map eventually passed after they returned. Civil rights groups sued, saying the new map was racially discriminatory.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court permanently upheld the new map, ensuring it remains in place for the 2026 midterms.

Utah

Democrats likely to gain 1 seat.

In 2018, Utah voters approved an anti-gerrymandering ballot measure that created an independent redistricting process, but Utah’s Republican-dominated legislature repealed and replaced it in 2021. Voters rights groups sued, arguing the resulting new map was a partisan gerrymander.

Eventually, after a multi-year legal battle, a new court-ordered map in 2025 gives Democrats a chance to win one of the state’s four congressional districts. The Utah GOP proposed a ballot initiative this year to ask Utah voters to officially repeal the 2018 anti-gerrymandering law, but it failed last month after thousands of petition signers removed their signatures.

Three states are in the process of redrawing their maps

Georgia

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has refused to pursue redistricting ahead of this year’s elections, which are already underway. But Kemp announced Wednesday that he will call a special session to redraw the state’s political maps for the 2028 elections. Georgia’s congressional delegation currently has nine Republicans and five Democrats.

Louisiana

Republicans could gain 1 seat.

The day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s existing congressional districts as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the state’s congressional primaries to give lawmakers enough time to pass new maps.

This week, in a nearly 10-hour overnight committee hearing, Louisiana lawmakers advanced a bill that would eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black districts. The new map, if it passes, likely would give Republicans another seat in Congress.

The new map must win approval from both chambers by June 1. Litigation over the decision to delay primaries is ongoing.

South Carolina

Republicans could gain 1 seat.

South Carolina legislators will gather Friday for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional lines just 12 days before early voting opens. Lawmakers have set a deadline of May 26 to pass a new map. Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who previously said the matter was for the legislature to decide, called for the special session under pressure from the White House and state GOP.

The South Carolina GOP’s goal is to pass a bill that would delay U.S. House race primaries until August while keeping other primaries on schedule for June. One proposed map would cut South Carolina’s lone congressional Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, out of the seat he’s represented since 1992 and create all seven Republican seats.

At least a half dozen other states are interested in redrawing their maps

Mississippi

This week, Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves canceled a special legislative session he’d called to redraw districts for the state’s Supreme Court. Some GOP officials had hoped he’d add congressional redistricting to the agenda. Instead, he said this week, he’s working with Trump and the White House on a plan to redraw Mississippi’s congressional districts and legislative districts in the future. Reeves wants a map that would boot the lone Democrat in Mississippi’s U.S. House delegation, Rep. Bennie Thompson, from his seat.

If that happens, Republicans would likely gain one congressional seat.

Virginia

The Virginia Supreme Court earlier this month struck down a voter-approved redistricting amendment that could have given Democrats a 10-1 advantage in the state’s U.S. House delegation. Virginia voters last month had approved a referendum that would have netted Democrats three or four additional seats. Earlier this week, Virginia Democrats asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the amendment, in a case that’s ongoing.

Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Washington 

Officials in Arizona, New Jersey, New York and Washington all have suggested drawing new maps following the Callais decision, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Colorado Voting Rights Act, passed last year by the state’s Democratic-majority legislature, will likely prevent the state from embarking on a redistricting effort. The state’s congressional delegation is currently split 4-4 between Democrats and Republicans. But a Democratic-led group is gathering signatures for ballot measures that would allow the state to change its maps ahead of the 2028 election.

*Seat gain predictions from The Cook Political Report.

This story was updated to include the Friday morning announcement by Tennessee Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen that he will not seek reelection. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@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.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas issued dissenting opinions.

In his dissent, Thomas said the rule violates the Comstock Act, a long unenforced 1873 law that bans the mailing of “obscene” material. During the 2024 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump said he didn’t support using the Comstock Act to stop mail delivery of abortion pills, saying he thought the federal government should have nothing to do with the issue.

Mifepristone’s manufacturer “makes a passing reference to the possibility of lost sales,” Alito wrote in his dissent. “But lost sales in states where abortifacients are generally illegal are not ‘irreparable injuries’ that can justify granting a stay.”

Abortion-rights advocates around the country called the decision a relief after two weeks of uncertainty.

On May 1, the appellate court sided with Louisiana, where state officials sued the FDA in October, arguing that a rule allowing telehealth access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used to terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester or to treat miscarriage, undermines the state’s abortion ban. Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, two manufacturers of mifepristone, filed emergency appeals, leading the Supreme Court to issue a 10-day stay on May 4, extended until today.

“Though today’s decision means that mifepristone remains available through telehealth for now, this fight is not over,” said Dr. Camille A. Clare, president of the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, in an emailed statement. “The chaos and confusion wrought by competing decisions and the revocation and restoration of access on an almost daily basis do real harm to patients and to the clinicians who care for them.”

Abortion opponents decried Thursday’s decision.

“Women deserve better than dangerous abortion drugs sent through the mail without physician oversight or in-person support,” said Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International, a major network of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. “A state like Louisiana that values life in its laws should be able to protect its smallest residents as well as their moms.”

The FDA’s approved two-drug regimen via telemedicine is an increasingly common abortion method, especially for people living in parts of the country where abortion is banned or difficult to access.

Last month, a federal district court paused the lawsuit at the request of the FDA until after the completion of a safety review on mifepristone. That review was prompted by non-peer reviewed, anti-abortion research and in spite of the drug’s record of safety and efficacy since 2000. The state appealed to the 5th Circuit.

Due to multiple ongoing efforts to restrict or block mifepristone, abortion providers have told Stateline they are ready to eventually switch to a misoprostol-only method, which researchers have found to be as safe as the two-drug regimen but typically involves more symptoms and is slightly less effective.

National groups have tried to pressure the Trump administration to drop the Biden-era rule allowing telehealth abortion and called for the head of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary for reportedly slow-walking a safety review of the drug until after the midterm elections. Makary resigned on Tuesday, and anti-abortion groups wasted no time in getting Acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas on the phone.

Live Action founder and president Lila Rose, in a written statement, said she talked to the acting commissioner on Wednesday and that he said he was morally opposed to abortion. “Diamantas told me that reviewing the abortion pill is a top priority for him and the administration,” Rose posted on X.

Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins wrote a similar message to supporters in an email on Thursday, saying Diamantas will be the “most pro-life FDA commissioner in American history.”

But many doctors around the country say curbing access to telehealth abortion is likely to cause harm to people in states with bans who may face more barriers to obtaining an abortion without that option.

“Women will be forced to travel long distances — at times hundreds of miles — to access safe, essential health care at a doctor’s office, no longer having the option to receive mifepristone via telemedicine,” wrote Rob Davidson, an emergency physician in Michigan and executive director of the Committee to Protect Health Care, in a letter asking the Supreme Court to maintain access to telehealth abortion. The letter was cosigned by more than 2,200 physicians.

Stateline reporter Sofia Resnick can be reached at sresnick@stateline.org.  Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@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.

Edwards, of Nelsonville, served four terms in the Ohio House representing the 94th District from 2017 to 2025, leaving office under term limits. He served as House majority whip from 2019 to 2020 under Householder and chaired the House Finance Committee in 2023 and 2024 under Speaker Jason Stephens. He defeated state Sen. Kristina Roegner 53% to 47% in the May 5 Republican primary, according to unofficial results reported by the Ohio Capital Journal. He will face Democrat Seth Walsh, a Cincinnati city councilmember, on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Edwards has not been charged with any crime in connection with the HB 6 corruption scandal or any other matter discussed in this article.

House Bill 6 and the Householder leadership team

In 2019, the Ohio House passed House Bill 6 — the $1.3 billion bailout for two FirstEnergy nuclear plants that federal prosecutors would later describe as the product of a $60 million racketeering conspiracy. The bill cleared the chamber 51-38. Edwards voted yes.

By that point, Edwards was a member of Householder’s leadership team. According to the Athens News, which described him in 2020 as a personal friend of Householder, Edwards was tapped by the Speaker to serve as majority whip in the 133rd General Assembly. The federal indictment against Householder later described a closed-circle “enterprise” that funded the campaigns of 21 candidates in the 2018 primaries with FirstEnergy money to build “Team Householder” in the chamber. Edwards’ 2018 campaign was not among those funded by Householder’s public-facing political action committee, the Athens News reported. He was not named in the federal complaint against Householder.

Trial evidence later presented at Householder’s 2023 racketeering trial included a July 21, 2019 text — two days before HB 6 cleared the House. According to Associated Press wire reporting on the trial, Householder texted an unidentified legislator: “The state plane has been arranged to come get you, Tom Brinkman and Bob Cupp on Tuesday morning at Midway and return you to Chicago that afternoon. Jay Edwards will be calling you.” The flight ultimately did not take place. Then-FirstEnergy vice president Michael Dowling, in a separate text quoted in the trial coverage, celebrated the planned flight with a one-word reaction: “Boom.”

In July 2020, federal agents arrested Householder along with lobbyists Matt Borges and Neil Clark, political strategist Jeff Longstreth, and lobbyist Juan Cespedes. U.S. Attorney David DeVillers called the scheme “likely the largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.” Edwards joined the unanimous House vote that immediately stripped Householder of the speakership. He did not, however, support removing Householder from the chamber.

The following month, the new Republican Speaker, Bob Cupp, asked Edwards and the rest of the Householder-appointed leadership team to step down from their positions, saying the move would “clearly demonstrate our resolve to start anew.” Only one member, Assistant Majority Whip Laura Lanese, complied. Edwards refused, telling the Athens News he saw no reason to step down from a position he had been elected to unanimously. Cupp then removed Edwards from the House Rules and Reference Committee, which sets the chamber’s agenda. Edwards eventually declined to seek another term as whip in the next General Assembly, taking a roughly $12,000 pay cut as a result.

The FBI-recorded dinner at the Aubergine

On Sept. 23, 2019, Householder attended a $2,400 dinner at the Aubergine Private Dining Club in Grandview Heights, a wealthy inner-ring Columbus suburb. According to trial reporting later published by CBS, Clark had arranged the dinner so two men he believed were potential clients could meet the Speaker; the two men were undercover FBI agents wearing recording devices. Clark had advised them to bring a $50,000 check made out to Generation Now, the 501(c)(4) dark money entity prosecutors say Householder used to launder FirstEnergy money.

Edwards was at the table.

In a 2020 interview with the Athens News, Clark identified Edwards as “Representative 8” in the federal affidavit supporting Householder’s indictment. The FBI’s affidavit specifically stated that “Representative 8” was “not known to be a member of the alleged criminal enterprise,” according to the Athens News, which reported Clark’s claim. Edwards declined at the time to confirm or deny that he was Representative 8 and said he did not recall attending the dinner. Clark died by suicide in March 2021 while awaiting trial.

The dinner became trial evidence in Householder’s 2023 racketeering trial, which ended with a conviction and a 20-year federal prison sentence. In a 2023 letter to ethics officials reported by Signal Ohio, Edwards acknowledged the dinner had been described in media reports as costing more than $2,400 and said that as soon as he became aware of that information, he contacted caucus legal counsel to ask whether he had a duty to amend his financial disclosure statement.

A $200 check to Generation Now

Four months after the Aubergine dinner, Edwards wrote a personal check to Generation Now.

The Energy and Policy Institute, citing bank records published in March 2023, reported that nine checks of $200 each — totaling $1,800 — were deposited by Generation Now in February 2020 from members of what federal prosecutors called “Team Householder.” Eight came from Republican Ohio House members, including Householder himself, Edwards, Jon Cross, Douglas Swearingen, Donald Wilkin, Philip Plummer, Jeffrey Lare, and Brian Baldridge. The ninth came from Brian Gray, a Householder aide.

Edwards’s check, written in January 2020, included the phrase “Brown Tix” in the memo line, according to the bank records. The memo lines on checks from Householder, Gray, Wilkin, and Plummer referenced the “Big 10” championship. Baldridge’s check said “Football.”

The federal racketeering indictment unsealed six months after Edwards’s check described Generation Now as the vehicle through which approximately $60 million in FirstEnergy money was laundered into political activity supporting Householder’s speakership bid and the passage of HB 6. The entity later pleaded guilty to racketeering and was dissolved.

The vote against expelling Householder

In an October 2020 interview with the Athens News — three months after Householder’s federal indictment — Edwards was asked about his relationship with the former Speaker.

“I’ll openly admit I still consider Larry Householder a friend,” Edwards said. “Am I upset by him and some of his actions? Yeah, absolutely, but I think he deserves an untainted day in court and we’ll find out what happens.”

Eight months later, on June 16, 2021, the Ohio House voted 75-21 to expel Householder from the chamber. Edwards voted no, joining 19 other Republicans, Householder himself, and one Democrat in opposition, according to the Ohio Capital Journal’s roll call of the vote. Householder had not yet stood trial. Of the 11 sponsors of HB 6, six voted against the expulsion.

Edwards declined to give interviews explaining the vote at the time.

Deleted texts and a denied records request

In February 2022, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Householder had texted Edwards from outside the chamber about a data privacy bill Edwards opposed — and that Edwards’ opposition stalled the bill that day. The next month, the Ohio Capital Journal filed a public records request for all text messages between Edwards and Householder dating back to June 2021, the month of the expulsion vote. Lawyers for the Ohio House denied the request, telling the outlet no responsive records existed.

Edwards offered a simple explanation: he deletes them.

“You’re going down the rabbit hole saying Jay Edwards deletes texts with Larry Householder. No, that’s not true,” Edwards told the Ohio Capital Journal, referring to himself in the third person. “Jay Edwards deletes all texts. To members, to other people; I go through at night and erase text messages I don’t find useful.”

Edwards said he and Householder — old friends from Perry County and Hocking College — usually avoid discussing the criminal case or public policy in their texts, and that he would have preserved any message he considered a public record. Ohio public records law generally requires elected officials to preserve communications conducted on personal devices when those communications concern public business.

The “Blue 22” speakership and a party censure

On Jan. 3, 2023, Edwards was one of 22 House Republicans who joined all 32 House Democrats to elect Jason Stephens as Speaker over Derek Merrin, the candidate Republican caucus members had endorsed in a closed-door November vote. Stephens won 54-43.

Edwards told the Statehouse News Bureau that he and other members felt Merrin had not been reaching out enough since the caucus vote. “People have been pretty upset and so that’s what led us to today. It didn’t have to be this way,” he said.

Eight days later, the Ohio Republican Party State Central Committee passed a resolution censuring Stephens and his 21 Republican supporters. The censure said the bipartisan vote “dishonors the historic brand” of the party. Edwards was named in the resolution.

Stephens served one term as Speaker. Matt Huffman replaced him in 2025.

On tape in the 2025 Dark Money Game documentary

In April 2025, the streaming service Max released “Ohio Confidential,” a documentary by Academy Award winner Alex Gibney examining the HB 6 bribery scandal as part of his two-part “Dark Money Game” series. The documentary featured previously unreleased FBI recordings of Edwards in conversation with Clark.

In one exchange aired in the film and quoted by WKYC, Clark told Edwards: “I don’t want to say he’s a pay-to-play guy, but he’s clearly influenced by his friends who have money.” Edwards responded: “Why the hell do you not run for office then?” Clark answered: “‘Cause I’m the son of a [expletive] convicted felon mafia guy. What are you, out of your mind? The attack ads would just write themselves.”

A separate recording, not included in the documentary but referenced in the WKYC report, captured Clark describing Edwards to an undercover FBI agent.

“He and I are the two principal advisers to the speaker,” Clark told the agent. “So having him, you know, there as a support device, yes. If you want to, if you want to get somebody that’s a member who has influence on the speaker, Jay Edwards would be the guy.”

That description sits alongside the FBI affidavit’s earlier statement that “Representative 8” was “not known to be a member of the alleged criminal enterprise.” Edwards declined to comment to WKYC on whether he ever received any benefit from money in the Generation Now account.

“The recent release of a docuseries has given this subject renewed interest with the press, but this has been exhaustively covered in the past and there is nothing new that was covered,” Edwards told WKYC by email. “It is time to move past this and focus on working to make our state a stronger place to live for hardworking Ohioans.”

Householder’s attorney, Scott Pullins, told WKYC that Clark’s description of Edwards as influential with the Speaker was not accurate, adding that Clark “would talk and exaggerate, especially late at night after drinks.”

The 2025 gift disclosures

In April 2026, Signal Ohio reporter Jake Zuckerman published a review of the financial disclosure Edwards filed as a statewide candidate, documenting more than 42 separate gifts of $75 or more that Edwards reported receiving in 2025. The total reached at least $3,100. By comparison, Signal Ohio’s review of every other statewide candidate’s disclosure found that gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy disclosed 24 gifts, Secretary of State Frank LaRose disclosed 23, and most other candidates disclosed none or only a handful. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton disclosed none.

In an interview with Signal Ohio, Edwards said he had not actually received some of the gifts he reported.

“You don’t get in trouble by overreporting,” Edwards told Zuckerman. “I know for a fact I didn’t receive gifts from some of them.”

Asked about specific names on the list, Edwards said he hadn’t seen Cleveland restaurateur Robert “Bobby” George in roughly a year but listed him anyway. He said Scott Weisman, a jewelry store owner he golfs with, may have paid for some rounds but he could not remember. He said nursing home executive Steve Boymel had hosted a campaign event for him but he did not think Boymel had given him a gift. He said lobbyist Jett Facemyer — a former Edwards legislative aide who now lobbies for Intralot, the Greek-based vendor that contracts with the Ohio Lottery for its central gaming and video lottery terminal systems — “might have” paid for tickets to a Tim Dillon comedy show.

“I fill out these forms for the OEC,” Edwards told Signal Ohio, referring to the Ohio Ethics Commission. “I don’t fill them out for news reporters.”

The Ohio Ethics Commission requires elected officials and candidates to disclose all gifts worth more than $75 received in the preceding year. The rule exists, the commission says, to identify potential conflicts of interest and provide transparency about the relationships of people in or seeking government office. A disclosure of a gift not actually received raises the inverse problem: it makes it impossible to know who is actually buying gifts for the candidate.

The Bobby George listing and a familiar name

Bobby George, whose listed gift to Edwards was of undisclosed value, was originally charged in August 2024 with nine felony counts — one count of attempted murder, one count of rape, four counts of kidnapping, one count of felonious assault, and two counts of strangulation — in connection with the abuse of a woman he was in a dating relationship with between November 2023 and July 2024. The arrest warrant, obtained by News 5 Cleveland, described allegations including strangling, gun threats, and shoving a towel down the victim’s throat. On Nov. 3, 2025, after waiving his right to a grand jury and accepting an indictment by information, George pleaded guilty to a single count of attempted strangulation, a fifth-degree felony. He was sentenced to five years of probation in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. Special Prosecutor Jane Hanlin, of Jefferson County, handled the case after Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley recused.

The Bobby George listing on Edwards’ disclosure is notable for another reason. According to Cleveland Scene’s reporting on a deposition transcript made public in 2025, Bobby George’s father, Cleveland businessman Tony George, was identified as “Individual B” in FirstEnergy’s 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. The agreement, in which the utility admitted paying approximately $60 million to influence Householder on HB 6, used “Individual B” as a codename. A FirstEnergy controller’s deposition in a separate civil case identified Tony George as the person referred to by that codename.

Federal prosecutors and civil filings have described Tony George as the intermediary between FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and Householder beginning in the fall of 2016, as Householder was planning his return to the Ohio House and his run for Speaker. A 2023 Columbus Dispatch story documented that George arranged for the FirstEnergy corporate jet to fly Householder and his son to Donald Trump’s January 2017 presidential inauguration and personally paid Householder’s $1,557 hotel bill in Washington. State audit records show entities controlled by George received nearly $11 million from FirstEnergy over the years.

Tony George has not been charged in the HB 6 scheme and has denied wrongdoing. He has continued to host fundraisers for Republican candidates, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, who has endorsed Edwards for treasurer. In Signal Ohio’s reporting, Edwards confirmed that Tony George has hosted fundraisers for him.

What the office holds and who is running

The Ohio treasurer manages the state’s roughly $280 billion in assets, oversees state investments, runs the STAR Ohio investment pool used by local governments, and signs the checks that disburse state spending. Robert Sprague, the term-limited incumbent Republican, is running for Secretary of State.

Edwards’ campaign website describes him as “a native son of Southeast Ohio” who flipped a Democratic seat to enter the House in 2016, served as Finance Committee chair, and sponsored a $3.2 billion tax cut and universal school choice. The site does not mention HB 6, Householder, or the gift disclosures. Edwards has been endorsed by Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno.

Democrat Seth Walsh, a Cincinnati city councilmember and former community organizer, was unopposed in the May 5 primary and advances directly to the general election. Walsh has said the treasurer’s office should leverage its $280 billion portfolio to direct investment toward community-focused banks and has said the office has a “fiduciary responsibility” to oppose the diversion of state unclaimed funds to finance the Cleveland Browns’ new stadium — a use of public dollars currently blocked by a Franklin County judge.

Edwards has said the unclaimed funds “could have been spent a better way,” particularly for rural Ohioans facing rising property taxes and utility costs, but has not ruled out supporting stadium financing “if we can afford to do them, and if we’ve checked all the other boxes.”

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. The voter registration deadline is Oct. 5, and early in-person voting begins Oct. 6.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Times piece, published Wednesday by political reporter Reid J. Epstein, grouped Ramaswamy with Florida Rep. Byron Donalds in a category labeled “The Politicians Who Could Make a Quick Leap.” The Times wrote that the two Republicans “could bounce from running for governor to national campaigns” and noted that Ramaswamy “already ran for president in 2024.”

That framing arrives as Ramaswamy continues to dominate the Ohio race financially, largely on his own dime. He has loaned his gubernatorial campaign $25 million of his own money so far this year, a sum that accounts for roughly 83% of all the money his campaign raised in 2026, according to a fundraising report filed ahead of the May 5 primary. A federal super PAC supporting his bid, V-PAC: Victors, not Victims, has reported $29.5 million in fundraising this cycle, bringing the combined total behind his candidacy to roughly $80 million.

The four-year-term pledge

When Ramaswamy launched his campaign in February 2025, he told NBC News in a pre-launch interview that he was “fully committed to serving a full term” and said it was his “expectation that an agenda as ambitious as the one we’re pursuing will likely take two terms to fully implement.” NBC reported at the time that the pledge “would take a run in 2028 — and a potential primary clash with [Vice President JD] Vance — off the table.”

Ramaswamy has not publicly addressed the 2028 question since winning the May 5 Republican primary, in which he defeated political novice Casey Putsch 82.5% to 17.5%.

’Not a consolation prize’

Even before Ramaswamy launched his campaign, members of his own party were warning that his ambitions extended beyond Columbus. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who initially ran for the gubernatorial nomination before dropping out, told NBC News in February 2025 that Ramaswamy had spent the previous year cycling through bigger ambitions.

“He has wanted, over the last year, to be president, to have a Cabinet spot, to be co-leader of DOGE,” Yost said. “The governor of Ohio is not a consolation prize. … My concern is that what he seems to do best is to quit.”

Robert Alexander, a political science professor at Bowling Green State University, made a similar observation last month. Alexander told Newsweek that some voters may see Ramaswamy “as an opportunist who is settling for the Ohio governorship as a consolation prize, who may jump ship to run for president again in 2028.”

A national-tier campaign in a state race

The scale of Ramaswamy’s personal spending stands out even by the standards of expensive gubernatorial races. In July 2025, he told Fox News Digital that he was “prepared to invest at the same scale or greater” as the more than $30 million he poured into his 2024 presidential bid.

The campaign has spent more than $500,000 leasing a private jet since launching, with the aircraft leased through V Leasing LLC — a company Ramaswamy himself owns, according to filings reviewed by the Ohio Capital Journal. The campaign did not respond to the Capital Journal’s questions about whether V Leasing earns a return on the arrangement.

Acton’s campaign has leaned into the contrast. The Democratic nominee raised more than $10 million from roughly 76,000 first-quarter donors in 2026, with an average grassroots contribution of $29 and 95% of donations of $100 or less.

“He can continue throwing money at his campaign from the seat of his private jet, but Ohioans see right through his false promises,” Acton campaign manager Philip Stein said in a statement responding to Ramaswamy’s first-quarter figures.

What’s on the ballot in November

Recent polling has pointed to a close general election. A Bowling Green State University poll released in late April found Ramaswamy with a statistically insignificant 1-point lead over Acton. An Emerson College poll in December and a Quantus Insights poll in March both showed the candidates within a single percentage point of one another, while an EMC Research poll in February gave Acton a 10-point lead.

The general election is set for Nov. 3. Ramaswamy has not publicly addressed the 2028 question since the New York Times feature was published.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

JVIS, a Michigan-based automotive supplier, announced Friday that it has acquired the Toledo Molding & Die (TMD) operations in Tiffin and Bowling Green through its affiliate TNJ Ohio, LLC, doing business as JVIS Ohio. The deal retains 629 manufacturing jobs across the two facilities, according to JobsOhio.

The acquisition closes out a Chapter 11 sale process for the plants, which were owned by First Brands Group. First Brands filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2025 and announced on Feb. 27, 2026, that it would permanently close the Tiffin plant on April 30, eliminating 407 jobs, along with the Bowling Green facility, which employed about 302 workers. A U.S. bankruptcy judge approved the JVIS sale this week.

JVIS framed the transaction as its entry point into Ohio manufacturing.

“This acquisition represents an important milestone for JVIS as we establish our first manufacturing operations in Ohio,” said David Robinson, vice president of external affairs for JVIS. “TMD brings experienced employees, strong customer relationships, and manufacturing capabilities that align extremely well with our long-term strategy and operational approach. We are excited to build upon that foundation and continue supporting customers from these facilities.”

Read the full story at https://tiffinohio.net/posts/jvis-buys-tmd-tiffin-plant-retaining-hundreds-of-manufacturing-jobs/.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

For voters in Seneca and Sandusky counties — and for anyone watching this corner of Northwest Ohio from elsewhere in the state — here’s a closer look at the Democratic nominee.

Rooted in Northwest Ohio

Jones was born in Tiffin, raised just outside Green Springs, and graduated from Clyde High School in 1991. He has spent most of his adult life in Seneca and Sandusky counties, the same two-county footprint he is now asking to represent in Columbus.

“I am a husband, father, grandfather, U.S. Army veteran, and factory supervisor who’s spent over 20 years on the line at Toledo Molding & Die in Tiffin,” Jones wrote in his Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey in January. “I’m running for Ohio State Representative in the 88th District — all of Seneca and Sandusky counties — because I know what it’s like to work hard, make ends meet, and fight for your family.”

Four years in the Old Guard

After high school, Jones enlisted in the U.S. Army and served four years as an Airborne Infantryman with the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment — The Old Guard, the Army’s oldest active-duty infantry unit and its official ceremonial regiment, headquartered at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall outside Washington, D.C. The Old Guard provides the military funeral escorts at Arlington National Cemetery and serves as the official escort to the President of the United States.

Jones served from 1991 to 1995, according to his Ballotpedia filing. In March 2026, the national veterans organization VoteVets endorsed Jones, citing his record of service and his commitment to continued public service.

“Serving in the Army taught me that leadership means responsibility, discipline, and showing up for the people who depend on you,” Jones said in response to the endorsement. “Those are the same values I’ll bring to Columbus as I work to represent the people of Seneca and Sandusky counties.”

Two decades on the factory floor

Jones returned to Tiffin in 2006 and built a career at Toledo Molding & Die, the auto-parts manufacturer that operates a plant in the city. Now in his third decade with the company, he works as a production supervisor — overseeing the shift floor, not the executive suite.

“Most politicians in Columbus have never spent a day on a factory floor. I have,” Jones said in his January campaign announcement. “I know what it’s like to worry about healthcare bills, grocery prices, and whether your kids will be able to stay and build a future here. That perspective matters.”

That working-class biography is the through line of Jones’s campaign. At his April 16 kickoff at Reino’s Catering & Party Room in downtown Tiffin, Jones told supporters: “I’m not running because I’ve been planning a political career. I’m running because the people in this district deserve someone in Columbus who actually understands what it’s like to clock in every day, make ends meet, and fight for your family.”

A family man in Tiffin

Jones lives in Tiffin with his wife Tracy. The couple raised a blended family of five boys, and they are now grandparents to four grandchildren — all growing up in the same community where Jones spent his own childhood.

That continuity — same hometown, same plant, same community — is something Jones leans into when he talks about why he is running. He frequently frames the race not as a career move but as another form of service.

“Service doesn’t end when you take off the uniform,” Jones said. “I’m running to continue serving my community and to make sure the people of this district have a strong voice in Columbus.”

From city council to the Statehouse

In 2023, Jones was elected to Tiffin City Council representing the city’s 1st Ward — his first run for elected office. On council, he has focused on neighborhood-level issues including local jobs, public safety, infrastructure, and direct constituent access to local government.

He has also been a visible local voice on environmental concerns affecting Seneca County. At a March 19 candidate forum in Tiffin — which incumbent Gary Click did not attend — Jones spoke about residents who have brought concerns to Tiffin City Council about the Seneca Poultry CAFO and the neighboring Sunny Farms Landfill, which accepts out-of-state waste.

What he’s running on

Jones’s campaign platform, as outlined on his campaign website, centers on seven priorities:

• Lower costs for working families, including utility bills and property taxes
• Good jobs and safe communities
• Affordable and accessible healthcare
• Roads, bridges, and broadband infrastructure
• Strong public schools
• Helping seniors age in place with dignity
• Support for veterans

“My agenda is simple,” Jones writes on his campaign site: “doing what’s best for the hardworking people of the 88th District. I’ll fight to bring down costs — like utility bills and property taxes — protect and attract good-paying jobs, and hold Columbus accountable to Seneca and Sandusky counties.”

He said he will “put the 88th District first — not party leaders or corporate donors.” Jones has also pledged to not take campaign contributions from corporate PACs.

The road to November

Jones ran unopposed in the May 5 Democratic primary and is now the party’s nominee for the general election. He will face Gary Click, who survived a competitive Republican primary against Tiffin entrepreneur Eric Watson by 599 votes — losing Seneca County to Watson by 8.5 percentage points but holding his home county of Sandusky by 15.4 points.

The general election is Tuesday, November 3, 2026.

Learn more

More information about Jones and his campaign is available at www.jonesforohio.com. Voters can also follow the campaign on Facebook at facebook.com/JonesForOhio.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Lawyers for the Democratic National Committee, Democratic minority leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and interest groups argued that, with the midterm elections less than six months away, there was no time to see how the Trump administration executes the order.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, argued the order had not been put into effect yet and therefore could not be overturned.

The groups are seeking a nationwide preliminary pause on Trump’s late-March order that U.S. citizenship and age data from the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security be provided to states.

The proposal would result in a “maximum amount of confusion” and be a “nightmare for election officials,” said Danielle Lang, who argued on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “Waiting will only erode public confidence in elections.”

Thursday’s hearing marked the first courtroom showdown over the executive order. A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general have also sued to block the order. At least five lawsuits have been filed in total.

Trump’s edict also orders the U.S. Postal Service to promulgate a rule that would design special envelopes for mail-in ballots, including a unique barcode. States, which the U.S. Constitution delegates authority over election administration to, have argued the order would restrict mail-in voting.

‘No one knows’

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, had tough questions for both sides. He suggested the Democrats’ and aligned groups’ challenges may be premature because a rule specifying how the order would operate has yet to be written, though he also grasped their argument that the order was inherently unconstitutional. 

“No one knows what’s gonna be in the rule,” Nichols told lawyers for the Democratic groups.

“I think it’s very clear from the EO (executive order) that we know exactly what’s gonna be in the rule,” said Lalitha Madduri, who represented the Democratic groups and congressional leaders.

After back-and-forth, Nichols conceded, “I agree with your point: There can be no rulemaking consistent with the EO that can be lawful.”

Madduri also argued there is “no way to repair that harm” of uncertainty for voters.

Department of Justice senior trial counsel Stephen Pezzi said the plaintiffs have a right to “prepare for the darkest fears,” but, he argued, they can’t win a preliminary injunction based on speculation of error-prone citizenship lists and a postal rule not yet created.

There’s “certainly no irreparable harm,” Pezzi said.

Of the lists of intra-agency government data compiling U.S. citizens and their ages, Pezzi said “it’s not a list of individuals to be targeted. It’s not a list of noncitizens.” He also said it’s “not a concern” of the federal government what states do with the lists, if they even decide to use them.

“No list’s ever going to be perfect,” Pezzi said, adding that “responsible” states would not blindly kick people off voter rolls if their names do not appear on the lists verifying citizenship.

Commitment to updates

Nichols told Pezzi in the event he denied a preliminary injunction, he would expect information sharing from the government as the case continued.

“Fair enough,” Pezzi said.

“I didn’t hear a commitment,” Nichols warned, prompting agreement from Pezzi.

Nichols said he would soon issue an order and opinion, but did not specify a date. 

“I understand the time pressure here,” he said.

He warned the government to notify him of “anything even approaching a material change” on implementing Trump’s executive order — though he stopped short of issuing an official order requiring updates. But, he said, “it would not be good for the government,” if they do not promptly inform him of new developments.

Trump’s elections push

Democrats and voting rights groups maintain Trump’s order is effectively compiling an illegal national voter list and usurping the state authority over elections. The order’s opponents accuse Trump of trying to unilaterally assert power over elections.

Trump and his aides say the order will help secure the midterm elections this November. While voter fraud is extremely rare, Trump has long promoted false conspiracy theories surrounding his 2020 election loss.

The executive order, signed by Trump on March 31, came amid a broader campaign by the president to influence how elections are run. 

The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for sensitive voter data that it plans to use to identify potential noncitizen voters. 

Trump has demanded that Congress pass the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to show documents proving their citizenship, though the bill has stalled in the Senate. Last year, Trump signed an executive order to unilaterally impose similar requirements that was blocked in federal court.

“President Trump has tried repeatedly to rewrite election rules for his own perceived partisan advantage,” Madduri, an attorney at Elias Law Group, wrote in a court filing.

GOP officials defend order

Republican state attorneys general have intervened in the lawsuits on behalf of the Trump administration and have urged federal judges to uphold the executive order. They have cast the order as offering “optional” resources.

Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas intervened in the suit argued Thursday and were represented in the courtroom.  

The states “would like to access this resource so they may verify the accuracy of their own voter-registration lists. This flow of information between federal and state agencies is a common and critical feature of our federal system,” the Republican officials wrote in an April 20 court document.

The order requires lists of voting-age U.S. citizens living in each state to be provided to state officials at least 60 days before each federal election. 

The order does not tell states how to use the data, but it instructs the U.S. attorney general to prioritize investigations into state and local officials who issue federal ballots to ineligible voters.

The list of citizens will be drawn from naturalization and Social Security records, according to the order. It will also include data from SAVE, a powerful computer program maintained by Homeland Security that verifies citizenship by checking names against information in federal databases. 

The order also directs states, at least 90 days before a federal election, to tell the U.S. Postal Service whether they intend to allow ballots to be sent through the mail. States would then have to submit to USPS a list of voters planning to vote by mail at least 60 days before the election.

Opponents of the order argue that under federal law Trump cannot direct the postmaster general to take any action — on elections or any other matter. The Postal Service is overseen by a Board of Governors and the postmaster general reports to the board. 

Trump’s allies argue that the Constitution grants the president sweeping authority over executive branch agencies and that Congress cannot place agencies, like the Postal Service, beyond the president’s reach.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Lawmakers took specific aim at stricter loan caps set to be established for students pursuing advanced programs that do not fall under the department’s “professional” classification, such as nursing, teaching and social work. 

Members on both sides of the aisle voiced their criticisms during a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce, where McMahon defended the incoming federal student loan overhaul as well as President Donald Trump’s administration’s separate, ongoing efforts to dismantle the 46-year-old department. 

McMahon emphasized that her department is “not making any kind of a judgment relative to professional degrees” and instead is trying to “bring down the cost” of tuition. 

The secretary pointed to “exorbitant” college costs, noting that “students are burdened with debt.” 

Megabill provision

The imminent shifts to the federal student loan system stem from congressional Republicans’ tax and spending cut megabill that Trump signed into law last year. The department this month published the finalized regulations consistent with the law’s directive. Most provisions will take effect July 1.

The regulations eliminate the Grad PLUS program, which allowed for graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. 

Graduate student loans will also have a $20,500 annual cap and $100,000 aggregate limit. Professional student loans will have a yearly limit of $50,000 and aggregate cap of $200,000. 

But the programs falling under the department’s “professional” category — and thus eligible for the higher borrowing limit — are limited to pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology. 

The agency has also clarified, in an agency fact sheet on the finalized regulations, that the “professional” student classifications “do not express a value judgment about the importance of any occupation or field” but instead serve a “loan-administration function.”

‘Tone-deaf’ message

Rep. Jahana Hayes said she was “very concerned” about the department’s “professional” student classifications, noting that these limits “make higher education, especially master’s degree programs, more difficult to afford for nursing, social workers (and) teachers.” 

The Connecticut Democrat clapped back at McMahon’s assertion that the overhaul is about bringing down college costs, saying: “The people who can afford it don’t apply for these programs, the people who can afford it don’t need student loans, the people who come from communities like mine and just want to go back and serve those communities are the ones who are going to be most affected, not the colleges, not the universities, not the board of directors, not the top 1%.”

Rep. Joe Courtney, also a Connecticut Democrat, blasted the regulations’ exclusion of nursing from the “professional” category as “one of the most insulting, tone-deaf messages to 5 million nurses imaginable across the country.” 

Courtney added that the exclusion “will, in fact, raise education costs for critically needed nurses,” and pointed to a petition from the American Nurses Association that received more than 245,000 signatures and urged the department to include nursing programs in its “professional” definition. 

McMahon defended her department’s “professional” classification to the panel, arguing that the agency “looked very, very carefully at the entire nursing profession,” and “95% of the nurses that are in programs do not exceed these caps.” 

The secretary added that “78% of the nurses that are moving for graduate programs do not exceed or come up to these caps.”

Even some Republican members on the panel, whose party championed the “big, beautiful” law that sets forth the student loan overhaul, called into question the new limits.  

Rep. Lisa McClain, chair of the House Republican Conference, asked McMahon “if there’s any way, or you had any thoughts on: Can we explore opening the nurse graduate programs up to expand these caps or lift these caps, because it’s a good return on investment, and we sure do need them?” 

In the GOP’s tax and spending cut law, “one of the things we did was we put the caps on, but we had some carveouts and caveats … and I think this sector of graduate nursing programs was just an unintended consequence, perhaps, that got overlooked,” the Michigan Republican said. 

“And what I’m here to do is really advocate for these programs, because I think they’re extremely important.” 

Legislation to reverse the caps

Bipartisan efforts are underway in Congress to both address the forthcoming loan limits and expand the “professional” student definition. 

Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced a bill in December that would expand the “professional” definition to also include “nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, ministry, social work, audiology, physician assistant, public health, business administration and management, accounting, architecture, secondary education, and special education.” 

Rep. Tim Kennedy of New York brought forth legislation in December with fellow Democratic Reps. Jill Tokuda of Hawaii and Rep. Shomari Figures of Alabama that would ensure graduate and professional students are subject to the same annual and aggregate loan caps. 

Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, introduced a bill that would “restore the full loan limits that were narrowed” under the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law. 

In the upper chamber, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat, introduced a companion bill to Torres’ in March, which has drawn more than a dozen co-sponsors.  

Meanwhile, a handful of Democratic lawmakers brought forth a resolution this month that seeks to reverse the forthcoming student loan regulations through the Congressional Review Act, a procedural tool Congress can use to overturn certain actions from federal agencies.

Those lawmakers are: Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Rep. John Mannion of New York, Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois and Alsobrooks. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

When Husted reached the Senate five years later, one of his first moves was to hire as a top advisor a longtime utility lobbyist. 

The lobbyist’s client made millions off the law at the heart of the 2020 utility scandal. The same lobbyist had also represented a massive drug wholesaler that had paid out millions to settle claims that it had negligently distributed vast amounts of opioids in addiction-ravaged Ohio.

He also represented many other clients, including Ashtabula County and AT&T, records show. He canceled all his registrations when he joined Husted’s team, said Tony Bledsoe, executive director of the Office of the Legislative Inspector General.

Critics said his hiring was part of a pattern in which Husted and some other Ohio Republican leaders hire people connected to utility interests to help them make policy.

“With utility folks, it’s not like the consumer advocates get hired,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, which advocates for accountable government. “It’s the ones that are promoting deregulation, better earnings potential… things that are cushier for the utilities.”

Husted’s decision to hire the lobbyist, Sean Dunn, has Turcer questioning whether average Ohioans’ welfare is Husted’s top priority.

“It’s tone deaf because he’s an elected official who doesn’t see how cozy relationships can compromise his decision making,” Turcer said. “Or he sees a benefit to these very cozy relationships.”

‘Public servant’

Husted’s office — of which Dunn is a member — didn’t respond to questions for this story. But less than a month after he took office in 2025, Husted announced that Dunn would be his senior advisor and counsel.

“Dunn brings decades of experience as a lawyer and public servant focused on technology, public utility, workforce and a variety of legislative issues,” Husted’s office said in a written statement distributed in February 2025. “He has held roles with the Office of Chief Legal Counsel to the Ohio Governor, the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee, the Ohio Department of Administrative Services and the Ohio Senate Majority Caucus.”

Dunn had also been a lobbyist for Virginia-based AES, which has 527,000 customers in the Ohio region that includes Dayton. 

According to disclosures filed with the Ohio Lobbying Activity Center, Dunn began lobbying for AES in 2009 and did so until February 2025.

During that time, Dunn lobbied the state legislature and the executive branch on numerous measures relating to Ohio House Bill 6, the 2019 law that was the product of what one federal prosecutor said was “likely the largest bribery and money-laundering scheme ever in the state of Ohio.” 

Akron-based FirstEnergy was the major utility player in the scandal, in which putting $61 million in bribes won a $1.3 billion bailout financed by customers.

It was passed by the legislature and immediately signed by Gov. Mike DeWine, in whose administration Husted was No. 2.

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, is now serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for his involvement in the scheme. A state trial of former FirstEnergy executives ended in a hung jury earlier this year.

$77 million to subsidize a wealthy utility

In addition to FirstEnergy, other Ohio utilities including AES also benefitted from the H.B. 6 law.

The law claimed to promote clean energy because it bailed out two nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy. But it gutted Ohio’s energy efficiency standards and it created a separate bailout for two aging coal-fired generators owned by a consortium of Ohio’s other utilities — including Columbus-based AEP and AES, for whom Dunn lobbied.

The group was called the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation and one of its 71-year-old coal plants isn’t in Ohio, it’s in Indiana.

There was no evidence produced as the federal trial in 2023 that AES executives knew about the corrupt scheme between FirstEnergy and Householder.

Subsidies from the bailout law stopped flowing to FirstEnergy after the FBI started making arrests in early 2020. But money continued to flow to the other utilities for years as the utilities fought their repeal. 

As AES’s representative, Dunn registered to lobby on H.B. 6 disclosures show. And he lobbied on numerous bills that would have repealed the coal subsidies, after the scandal broke. AES executives testified against repeal efforts.

It wasn’t until May of 2025 that DeWine signed a law ending the subsidies. 

By then, AES’s share of them was $77 million, according to a subsidy scorecard kept by the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. That’s part of $670 million in subsidies paid by customers that had gone to the consortium since 2017. 

While AES pleaded poverty to justify its share of the customer-financed subsidies, the company paid CEO Andrés Gluski $9 million last year.

The bribery and bailout scandal

Husted had exposure of his own in the scandal. In March, he was called as a witness in the state trial of FirstEnergy executives and at several points said he didn’t recall events he was asked about.

Emails have come to light in court indicating that shortly after he agreed to be DeWine’s running mate in 2017, he lobbied DeWine to support the massive utility bailout. 

And in 2024, Husted declined to say whether he knew that FirstEnergy was the source of a $1 million dark money contribution to a group supporting him back when he was still vying with DeWine for the Republican governor nomination.

There was also a meeting revealed in court documents that raised a lot of questions.

On Dec. 18, 2018, FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and VP Michael Dowling met with Gov.-elect DeWine and Lt. Gov.-elect Husted at the Columbus Athletic Club, the documents showed.

They discussed whether the executives wanted Sam Randazzo, a former FirstEnergy consultant, to be the top utility regulator in Ohio, according to the state indictment.

Jones and Dowling then drove a mile to Randazzo’s condo and negotiated what FirstEnergy later said was a $4.3 million bribe, according to a deferred prosecution agreement. DeWine nominated Randazzo to be chairman of the Public Utilities Commission six weeks later.

Even though he was supposed to be policing utilities on behalf of consumers, Randazzo helped write the bailout legislation, federal prosecutors revealed and the Public Utilities Commission confirmed. In 2024, facing state and federal indictments, Randazzo took his own life by hanging.

Others with close connections to FirstEnergy also played prominent roles in the DeWine-Husted administration.

Legislative Affairs Director Dan McCarthy was a FirstEnergy lobbyist when he set up one of the main dark money groups through which FirstEnergy would funnel millions in bribes. He joined the DeWine-Husted administration shortly thereafter.

And DeWine’s chief of staff, Laurel Dawson, was married to a former FirstEnergy lobbyist whom a state indictment said had gotten a $10,000 loan from Randazzo a few years before DeWine took office. 

Dawson, the administration said, knew about the massive FirstEnergy payment to Randazzo, but didn’t tell DeWine about it for nearly two years. As of late last year, she still worked for DeWine.

Other lobbying

In addition to Dunn’s ties to AES, he also lobbied on behalf of Dublin-based Cardinal Health, one of the three largest prescription-drug wholesalers in the United States. Dunn’s engagement with the company ran from 2009 to 2019.

Federal enforcement actions and government lawsuits against the drug wholesaler alleged that Cardinal frequently ignored “blatantly suspicious orders” as it shipped billions of opioid pills into Ohio and other U.S. states.

In 2021, Cardinal and two other giant wholesalers agreed to pay $808 million to settle state allegations that the companies’ negligence fueled Ohio’s raging addiction crisis.

Disclosures also show that Dunn made $895,000 in the 15 months before he joined Husted’s team and was owed between $1 million and $5 million by his old firm. 

Ohioans

Median household income in Ohio is $72,000 a year and many say they’re getting crushed by the cost of utilities, prescription drugs, gasoline, healthcare and groceries. 

Husted’s office was asked what the senator was doing to relieve the affordability crisis, and to explain his decision to hire as a top advisor someone who’d grown wealthy lobbying on behalf of some of the industries driving the crisis.

It didn’t answer.

Turcer of Common Cause said Dunn’s hiring and the lack of a response may be a consequence of gerrymandering and longtime, one-party rule in Ohio.

“When power is really entrenched, (leaders) are not asking themselves the kinds of questions that voters would ask them,” she said. “They’re just not challenging themselves to do better for voters because they think they’re anointed rather than elected.”

In the November election, Husted faces former Ohio Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. The Cook Political Report rates the race a tossup.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Yost is arguing that any claims of abuse that happened before Oct. 21, 1986 should be thrown out, he said in a May 10 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Congress passed a law on Oct. 21, 1986 allowing states and universities to be sued in federal court for failing to prevent the sexual abuse of students. 

Yost’s motion applies to plaintiffs in three cases against Ohio State.

He is arguing 43 plaintiffs should have their claims dismissed entirely because the abuse happened before Oct. 21, 1986, and he is asking that 34 plaintiffs should have their claims dismissed in part for the abuse that occurred before Oct. 21, 1986, according to the motion. 

Strauss sexually abused at least 177 male victims between 1979 and 1996 during his time as a physician for Ohio State’s Athletics Department and at the university’s Student Health Center, according to an independent investigation commissioned by Ohio State University.

Strauss retired from Ohio State University in 1998 and died by suicide in 2005 when he was 67. 

Earlier this month, 30 former Ohio State football players joined a federal lawsuit against Ohio State for Strauss’ abuse.

At least three of the football players were part of the 1980 Rose Bowl team and played for coach Woody Hayes. 

Ohio State has reached settlement agreements with 317 survivors for more than $61 million, according to the university. The most recent settlement was with 13 survivors for $1.8 million in April. 

This motion comes days after Yost announced he would resign, effective June 7, to take a job with Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing Christian nonprofit law firm. The Southern Poverty Law Center labels the Alliance Defending Freedom as a hate group.

Ohio state Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, criticized Yost’s motion to dismiss the claims. 

“He is completely betraying the needs of survivors of sexual abuse as he heads out the door,” DeMora said in a statement. “This decision has nothing to do with the case against Ohio State and Dr. Strauss; it is purely Yost using every opportunity he has left to screw Ohioans and benefit the ultra-rich elite class that he has always worked for.”

Survivors of Strauss have said that Ohio Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan knew about the sexual abuse when he was an Ohio State assistant wrestling coach from 1987 to 1995. 

Jordan, who recently ran unopposed in the May primary for his Fourth Congressional District seat, has repeatedly denied knowing about any abuse. 

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.

In a filing with the Ohio Supreme Court, the ACLU of Ohio said Trumbull County Family Court Judge David Engler has “no standing” as a matter of law or fact.

Engler is arguing that the reproductive rights amendment of the Ohio Constitution passed by voters in 2023 keeps him from being able to properly judge cases in which a minor makes a legal request to have an abortion without the need for parental permission, a longtime legal method called judicial bypass.

The method requires judges to hold hearings, receive testimony, and assess the “maturity and voluntariness” of a request to bypass parental permission via the courts.

In April, Engler filed a request with the Ohio Supreme Court claiming that the reproductive rights amendment “is being applied to eliminate parental-consent requirements for minors and to render judicial-bypass proceedings unnecessary or unavailable,” according to the court document.

Engler is in his first year as a judge on the county court, but said that in the five years before he took the bench, Trumbull County’s juvenile court saw about two judicial bypass requests per year.

Since he became a judge on the court, Engler said the court has seen none, according to an affidavit submitted to the Ohio Supreme Court.

As a result, the judge claimed his judicial office “has been stripped of a statutory and historically exercised judicial function.”

The law requiring minors to have the consent of a parent before seeking an abortion goes back to 1998, when the law also allowed minors to utilize judicial bypass proceedings. The law was challenged, and eight years later, a federal appeals court upheld the law.

Engler asked the court to order that the amendment be administered and enforced “in a manner that preserves and does not eliminate or interfere with juvenile-court jurisdiction over judicial-bypass proceedings.”

He also asked the court to render the amendment “unenforceable to the extent it is construed or applied to eliminate or interfere” with juvenile courts and judicial bypass cases.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office filed a motion on May 11 asking the court to dismiss the request, calling the challenge to the amendment “untimely” because the judge “has not alleged an injury that is fairly traceable” to the state.

“Even if (Engler) correctly asserts the amendment ‘eliminates or interferes with juvenile-court jurisdiction over judicial-bypass proceedings,’ the constitutional provision prevails over any conflicting statute,” wrote Julie Pfeiffer, on behalf of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, in the motion to dismiss.

In their response, the ACLU of Ohio and the Reproductive Rights Law Initiative at Case Western Reserve University School of Law made a similar argument.

Attorneys wrote that the data presented by Engler does not warrant a change in the constitution, or provide evidence that the amendment should not be enforced.

“(Engler) has alleged only that fewer judicial bypass cases have happened to arise in Trumbull County recently,” wrote Margaret Light-Scotece, staff attorney for the Reproductive Rights Law Initiative.

“That allegation is manifestly insufficient to support an inference that parental consent laws for abortion are no longer being enforced in Ohio.”

The Ohio Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will take up the case.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Amya went over to her cousin’s house on Dec. 5 to play a video game when her cousin picked up his father’s unsecured gun. 

“Her cousin grabbed his father’s gun and decided to play with it due to his father’s negligence of leaving his gun lying around,” Amya’s mom Hope Frazier said during a recent press conference. 

“His child grabbed it and shot my 11-year-old daughter in the head and ended her life.”

Amya Frazier died on Dec. 8, 2025. 

“It is our responsibility as adults to store our guns correctly, place them in a safe place, and unloaded,” Hope Frazier said.

“Place the ammunition elsewhere, hidden so children can’t find it. Place the clip out of the gun.” 

Ohio state Rep. Darnell T. Brewer, D-Cleveland, is introducing Amya’s Law — a bill that would penalize adults who leave firearms accessible to minors. 

“This bill does not create a storage mandate,” Brewer said. 

“It does not restrict lawful self defense. It does not penalize gun ownership. Instead, it imposes accountability only when a minor gains access to a neglectfully stored firearm and harm results.”

The gun owner would face a fourth-degree felony if a child accesses a neglectfully stored firearm and causes serious harm, and it would be a first-degree misdemeanor if a child gains access to a neglectfully stored firearm and causes physical harm, Brewer said. 

“There is no violation unless the child actually gets a hold of the gun,” Brewer said. 

The bill would also have a sales tax exemption for firearm safety devices and a nonrefundable income tax credit of up to $250 for gun safes, lockboxes, and trigger locks.

This bill is not about punishing gun owners, but about preventing tragedies, said Amya’s grandmother Amy Zahrani. 

“A child finds a gun in a drawer, a friend brings a weapon into a home, a moment of curiosity turns into a lifetime of grief,” she said. 

“These are not criminals. These are children. … We must do more to ensure firearms are stored safely.”

The Columbus Division of Police indicted 33-year-old Matthew Seymour on involuntary manslaughter and endangering children charges after Amya’s fatal shooting.  

Seymour’s 14-old-son was charged with reckless homicide, according to Columbus Police. 

“Gun violence doesn’t just happen somewhere else,” Zahrani said. “It doesn’t just happen to other people. It doesn’t just happen to certain people. It is happening even in middle class homes and safe neighborhoods.”

Amya Frazier loved butterflies and wanted to be both a doctor and a professional soccer player, her family said. 

“She had her whole life ahead of her, and it was cut short,” Hope Frazier said.

“Don’t let my daughter be just a headline. Help her name mean something.” 

There were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Firearm injuries were the leading cause of death among children and teenagers ages 1-19, according to the CDC.

Brewer is also planning on introducing a bill that requires foster caregivers to safely secure firearms in their home and another bill that would require the state to create an Office of Violence Prevention within the Ohio Department of Health. 

“It’s now time to make this known — gun violence should be eradicated here in Ohio,” he said.

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

What happens to a society when selfish, short-sighted, narrow-minded, egomaniacal, power-obsessed men cut down every tree in sight? And future generations will never know their shade?

History will recognize this generation of America as the one that rolled back the Civil Rights era. 

Our time will be known to posterity as a generation that did not plant trees of liberty and justice for all, but struck them down.

It’s shameful. It’s pathetic. And all of us, individually and collectively, must reckon with that.

And if we are ever to recover from this vicious injustice on future generations, we will have to spend the rest of our lives fixing the damage and rebuilding something better.

We have a long way to go. 

The destruction process is ongoing, and there’s no telling how much longer the destruction will last or how much worse it will get.

The U.S. Supreme Court in just the last 16 years has gutted campaign finance regulations, gutted regulation against gerrymandering, and gutted the Voting Rights Act, to name a select few and fundamental.

If you were setting out a plan to rob American voters of power and destroy representative democracy so that elections can be rigged, bought, and sold, and politicians run amok without consequence or accountability, you couldn’t do better.

If we can’t regulate obscene amounts of money buying elections, and we can’t regulate politicians from open partisan gerrymandering, and we can’t have the basic protections of the Voting Rights Act, American democracy is effectively neutered in favor of a rigged game.

Rich people and corporations spend unlimited money to buy candidates and elections. The politicians rig election outcomes with gerrymandering and eliminate competition. States and cities, town and country, carved into fiefdoms for political machines. Shameless propaganda propagated: At best, conditioning; at the least, mass confusion. The politicized courts a rubber stamp on the system. And representative democracy dies.

No individual policy or issue can overcome the primary injustice of rigged districts and bought-and-sold elections.

The pillars of the Republic are corrupted beyond legitimate function.

The “Republic” becomes in-name-only, a veneer masking corruption, oligarchy, lawlessness.

As I have long written, gerrymandering and the campaign finance/public corruption loop are the two central poisons in the bloodstream of America’s body politic.

If legislative outcomes are predetermined by gerrymandering, and all other races are tainted by the unlimited spending of hundreds of millions of dollars of dark money by nefarious backroom actors, true representation of the people’s interest becomes a quaint ideal, instead of a foundational value that can never be compromised.

Faithful and honest representation of the people becomes the central lie instead of the central promise of our social contract.

Cynicism, corruption, backsliding, misrepresentation, abuse, carelessness, recklessness, deprivation, degradation, division, ignorance, hatefulness, these become our cultural and political masters.

The U.S. Supreme Court has unleashed a cascade of gerrymandering across the nation: Brazen public corruption of our elections in a rush of unprecedented scale and fury.

We are in a frenzy of blatantly cheating millions upon millions upon millions of voters out of fair elections in America. Tens of millions, twenties of millions? Thirties of millions? Hundreds?

It turns out that Ohio’s experience in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 with open unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering was not just a horribly embarrassing episode of cynical, feckless Ohio politicians debasing themselves in their lust for power, it was a trial run for the entire nation doing the same.

Ohio was a primer to measure how degraded politicians could get and get away with it.

Now they’re going hog wild, in some cases bringing voters along as accomplice, and in others politically assaulting and insulting voters outright.

Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, California, Washington; it’s actually almost difficult right now to keep track of how many of our nation’s state leaders have willfully fallen to prostrate themselves and crawl through the moral muck and patriotic treachery of cheating voters with gerrymandering.

But alas, in existence the only constant is change, and one day this destruction too will end.

We will eventually, collectively have to deal with the damage done.

One can only hope that some semblance of our constitutional Republic can be saved from the poisons and the depravity of our lawmakers and elected officials.

This generation of America has squandered our birthright.

At 250 years of age, we’ve turned the world’s oldest democracy into a jalopy for the next generation.

We’ve forsaken those who came before us, and the blood and tears they shed to win us the rights and freedoms that we now betray.

While the short-sighted cynics, the ignorant, and the debased celebrate, the rest will have to spend the rest of our lives trying to scrub away this awful stain, seeking solemnly to establish something somehow more just and honest and true than it’s ever been before.

Either we will, or some future generation — at likely great cost — will surely be forced.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

In a 6-3 ruling last month in Louisiana v. Callais, the court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map containing a second majority-Black district, concluding the state relied too heavily on race in drawing district lines. 

The decision significantly narrowed how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be used in redistricting disputes and made it more difficult to challenge maps that dilute minority voting strength. 

The ruling stopped short of invalidating Section 2 altogether, but critics across Virginia say it represents the most consequential rollback of federal voting rights protections since Shelby County v. Holder, the 2013 ruling that eliminated the federal preclearance system requiring states with histories of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing election laws.

“When my great-grandfather registered to vote, he was forced to take a literacy test and find three white men to vouch for his character,” said U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, the first Black woman elected to Congress from Virginia. 

“My father and grandfather were forced to pay poll taxes to register to vote. My family has felt the weight of voter suppression for generations.” 

McClellan said the new ruling “makes it nearly impossible to ensure minority voters have a fair opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice and threatens Black representation across the country.”

But in Virginia, legal experts and political leaders say the fallout could reach much further. 

Eric Claville, director of the Center for African American Public Policy at Norfolk State University, said the decision could eventually reshape congressional, state legislative and local political maps if Republicans regain unified control of state government after the 2030 census.

“The ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais is the most devastating decision of the court as it relates to turning back voting rights of African Americans and other people of color,” Claville said. “And I would even dare say what state legislators could do, it would take us back to the pre-Civil War era.” 

A law born from the Civil Rights movement

Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, the Voting Rights Act followed decades of racial violence and white-led efforts in the South to keep Black Americans from the ballot box. 

The law followed bloody confrontations between voting rights activists and law enforcement in places like the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., and helped dismantle barriers such as literacy tests, poll taxes and other racially discriminatory voting schemes. 

Claville said the law dramatically expanded federal oversight of elections in the South. 

“There were three things that the Voting Rights Act did,” he said. “Number one, it basically prohibited any type of discriminatory practice used to disenfranchise Black voters, like literacy tests, intimidation, poll taxes, suppression, and the like.”

The law also established federal oversight and preclearance requirements for certain jurisdictions, including Virginia, before those protections were weakened by later Supreme Court rulings. 

“Keep in mind,” Claville added, “many people lost their lives fighting for the right to vote.”

Over time, Section 2 became one of the law’s strongest remaining enforcement mechanisms. It allowed minority voters to challenge electoral systems and district maps that diluted their political influence, even absent specific evidence of racist intent. 

But the court’s conservative majority in the Callais ruling said that race cannot be the predominant factor in drawing districts, even when states are attempting to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said Louisiana’s effort to create a second majority-Black congressional district violated constitutional equal protection principles because race played too large a role in the process. 

The ruling suggested that racial disparities alone may no longer be enough to successfully challenge many voting maps in court. 

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan warned that the decision effectively hollowed out one of the nation’s most important civil rights statutes. 

A protest sign outside the U.S. Supreme Court when Louisiana v. Callais was argued on Oct. 15, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

Virginia leaders warn of widespread consequences

Democrats and civil rights groups in Virginia condemned the ruling.

“The Voting Rights Act has long protected minority communities from disenfranchisement,” said U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport News. “This latest decision by the Supreme Court sets voting rights back decades.” 

Scott, currently one of two Black members of Virginia’s congressional delegation, warned that the ruling gives GOP-controlled states more latitude to redraw maps that dilute the electoral strength of minority communities. 

“By creating a nearly impossible standard to challenge racial gerrymandering, the court has opened the door for Republican-led states to draw new maps that weaken the ability of minority communities to elect candidates of their choice,” Scott said. 

Attorney General Jay Jones, Virginia’s first Black top law enforcement official, tied the ruling to “the determination and perseverance of Black citizens who fought tirelessly and gave their lives over the course of a century so that their children and future generations could cast their vote and participate in our democracy.”

He added: “For over 60 years, the law has served as an essential tool for combatting the legacy of Jim Crow. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s decision today ignores that precedent and further undermines the already fragile state of our democracy.”

Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, the first Black House speaker in Virginia history, called the ruling a direct assault on democratic representation. 

“The United States Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to the Voting Rights Act,” Scott said. “This decision guts a core part of that protection — silencing communities that have fought and bled to be heard.” 

Scott also linked the ruling to Virginia’s recent redistricting battles and ongoing debates over political power in the commonwealth. 

“This is exactly why Virginians fought back and voted YES,” he said, referring to the redistricting referendum that Virginia voters advanced April 21. “We made it clear — we’re not going to let politicians rig the system and steal our voices.”

Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, speaks to members of the media on Nov. 6, 2024. (Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., described the ruling as “a very dark day in our history,” saying it threatens decades of civil rights progress.

“The court’s latest ruling will make it extremely difficult to challenge racially discriminatory congressional maps,” Kaine said. 

Virginia remains ‘an enigma’ among other states — for now

Despite the alarm from voting rights advocates, NSU’s Claville said Virginia occupies a different political position than many Southern states because Democrats currently control both the executive and legislative branches and because of the state’s demographic shifts over the past two decades.

“For the rest of this decade it doesn’t change at all,” Claville said. “Virginia is an enigma in this situation.”  

He pointed to the growing diversity of Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads, as well as the record size of the Black delegation in the General Assembly.  

“As a matter of fact, the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus has increased to its largest membership in its history,” he said. 

That political balance, however, could change after the next statewide election and the 2030 census. 

“In the event that Democrats lose power and Republicans gain power and have the numbers, they can redraw districts,” Claville said. “They now have the Supreme Court backing to do so.”

The concerns are already playing out in other GOP-led states, where lawmakers moved quickly after the ruling to revisit congressional maps and election timelines ahead of the 2026 midterms. 

“Louisiana eliminated the primary to redraw district lines,” Claville said. “In the next couple of days, Alabama followed, then Tennessee followed.”

In Tennessee, Republican lawmakers moved within days of the Callais ruling to redraw the state’s congressional map in a way that would eliminate the state’s only majority-Black district centered in Memphis. The proposal triggered heated floor debate, with Democratic lawmakers invoking the civil rights movement and accusing Republicans of weakening Black voting power.

The proposed map would split Memphis across several Republican-leaning districts and could leave Tennessee with an all-Republican congressional delegation despite the city’s large Black population.

Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, speaks to a crowd of protesters on May 5, 2026, the first day of a special legislative session called by Republican Gov. Bill Lee to redraw Tennessee’s congressional districts. (Photo by Cassandra Stephenson/Tennessee Lookout)

Claville added that the ruling’s effects extend congressional districts and could influence state legislative and local government maps nationwide. 

“This case does not specifically emphasize congressional districts,” he said. “Which means that states can now utilize this decision to draw statewide districts and local districts in order to limit Black representation.”

The ruling came less than two weeks before the Supreme Court of Virginia struck down the commonwealth’s voter-approved redistricting amendment, halting a plan by Democrats that would have allowed mid-decade congressional map changes ahead of the 2026 elections.

Claville said that if Republicans eventually regain full control of state government, districts in Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads could become targets for GOP-led redraws designed to reduce Democratic and minority representation. 

However, he added that Republicans likely could not engineer an overwhelming congressional advantage because of Virginia’s increasingly diverse electorate. 

“But they’ll try to get as close as they can,” Claville said. 

State protections gain new importance

In 2021, Virginia became the first Southern state to enact its own Voting Rights Act, legislation advocates say could now become more important as federal protections weaken.

McClellan, the congresswoman from Richmond who sponsored the legislation as a member of the state Senate at the time, pointed to that law as part of Virginia’s response to what she called a broader erosion of federal safeguards. 

“I’ve fought to expand voting rights for decades,” she said. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia said that the Callais ruling makes the state’s own voting protections even more important.

“In light of Callais, there is now greater urgency than ever for states to enact their own Voting Rights Acts,” said Executive Director Mary Bauer. 

Bauer warned that restoring lost federal protections will require political and legal battles far beyond the courtroom. 

“The Voting Rights Act has been foundational in the creation of a multiracial democracy,” she said, “and rectifying the Supreme Court’s decision … will require a fight in the courts, in statehouses, in the streets, and most of all, at the ballot box.” 

Advocates with the New Virginia Majority and the Advancement Project said Virginia’s state protections could become one of the few legal tools left to challenge discriminatory election practices. 

“It is clear that states need to protect voters from the federal judicial branch that is obliterating the basic tenets of democracy,” said Tram Nguyen, co-director of Virginia New Minority. 

Still, Claville said that no state law can entirely replace the federal protections that once existed under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

“Section 2 eliminates and misinterprets how race can be used in voting,” he said. “The majority-conservative court believes that no longer should the Voting Rights Act utilize race as a reason to draw any districts.”

He argued that the court’s embrace of what he called “color-blindness redistricting” ignores the continuing racial polarization that still shapes Southern voting patterns. 

“The Supreme Court said we live in a colorblind society,” Claville said. “But that’s not the case.”

Claville also pointed to renewed efforts in Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation supporters say would restore some of the protections weakened by recent Supreme Court rulings.  

“But in the commonwealth, the only thing that you can do is continue to vote for the party that’s going to be the most inclusive.”

This story was originally produced by Virginia Mercury, 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.

In a February decision, the high court dealt a blow to the president’s trade agenda, ruling by a 6-3 margin that the tariffs he issued under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act were illegal.

Last month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection began accepting applications from importers and brokers who are owed an estimated $166 billion in import tax refunds. While companies are receiving those refunds, it appears that many don’t intend to share those funds with consumers, who paid for much of the tariffs through higher prices. 

“We’re the ones who paid it. We’re the ones that need to get it back, and so any system that doesn’t get it to the little guy doesn’t get it to the right place,” Minnesota State Auditor Julie Blaha said on a press call Wednesday.

She was among eight Democratic state fiscal leaders who urged the White House to publicly disclose which firms are receiving tariff refunds and to ensure consumers are not left out.

Blaha said government agencies are well equipped for that task, noting the public websites set up during the coronavirus pandemic that disclosed which companies received pandemic grants and loans. There is currently no public database of tariff refund requests or agency determinations.  

“We’re not asking the federal government to do anything they don’t ask of states and local entities or nonprofits to do when they are using some of their funds,” she said. “We know how to do this kind of oversight.”

Blaha said transparency is particularly important since the White House is opposed to repaying the tariffs in the first place. The president has said his administration would “fight” the refund effort, though reports indicate more than $35 billion has already been sent to companies. 

Illinois State Treasurer Mike Frerichs said American consumers are suffering from high prices as the president and his inner circle enrich themselves. 

“No one trusts the federal government anymore,” he said. “They feel like the deck is stacked against them, and this example just adds further proof to their beliefs.”

State leaders estimated the tariffs cost Illinois consumers nearly $9 billion. But the current process does not ensure that those funds will be returned to consumers. 

“Trump’s system is opaque by design, with no guarantee of the $9 billion owed to Illinois families and businesses returning home,” Frerichs said Wednesday. “…Millions of Americans and businesses deserve every penny back.”

The president blasted conservative Supreme Court justices who nixed his tariffs, saying their decision earlier this year was a “disgrace to our nation” as well as “unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.”

He has remained committed to tariffs on foreign imports, believing that they will incentivize manufacturers to build products in the United States rather than overseas. 

After the Supreme Court loss, Trump ordered a 10% global tariff, which has also been challenged in court. Last week, the U.S. Court of International Trade granted a permanent injunction to a Florida-based toy manufacturer and a New York-based spice importer that sued the Trump administration over those tariffs. 

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.

Perez, who founded a website dedicated to normalizing aging for women, said she gained more than 30 pounds and struggled with depression for months before she found a health provider who tested her hormone levels and recommended hormone replacement therapy for low estrogen.

That was nearly a decade ago, and in the years since, Perez said the culture around menopause treatment has changed dramatically.

“We still have a long way to go, in my opinion, but I think at least we’re on the path,” she said.

Menopause refers to the time when a woman stops having menstrual periods, which typically occurs between the ages of 45 and 55, according to the National Institute on Aging. The associated changes in hormones can cause hot flashes, night sweats, joint problems, bone density loss, insomnia, mood changes and more.

Lawmakers and advocates alike told Stateline the topic of menopause used to be taboo, but there has been a generational shift in recent years that has led to more legislation in statehouses around the country, providing more access to treatments and preventive care as well as more educational opportunities for healthcare providers.

Claire Gill, founder and president of the National Menopause Foundation, started the nonprofit in 2019 and said over the course of the past seven years, public awareness of the issue and interest from clinicians has noticeably increased.

And in November, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration removed its most severe “black box” warning from hormone replacement therapy for menopause and perimenopause after new research that the presumed risks of cancer, stroke and dementia from its use, once thought to be high, came from a flawed study. In the months since, the demand for the therapy has led to a nationwide shortage of certain products such as the estrogen patch.

Gill said more than 60 pieces of legislation related to menopause have been introduced nationwide this year, and 26 states have enacted a menopause-related law since 2019. There tend to be four categories of the legislation: mandating insurance coverage for treatments, workplace accommodations, awareness campaigns and healthcare provider education.

The subject is bipartisan: Lawmakers in liberal-leaning Illinois, Oregon and Washington have approved bills requiring insurance coverage, but so has conservative Louisiana.

Gill said the insurance conversation is especially significant, because bone density tests are only covered in existing laws when a person reaches the age of 65 and is eligible for Medicare. But women lose up to 20% of bone density in the first five years after menopause, which happens at an average age of 52. That’s a big gap that puts a woman at increased risk for fractures.

“I’m excited that we’re taking time and focusing more on the role that estrogen plays from head to toe in women, and not just looking at it as, ‘Oh, women get hot flashes,’” Gill said. “It’s so much more than that, and we can do more to protect our hearts and our brains and all of our organs — and prevent hot flashes.”

Getting providers to listen

In June 2025, Democratic state Sen. Lori Urso sponsored a bill that made Rhode Island the first state to require workplace accommodations, such as a modified work schedule, for menopause and its related conditions. It was added to the same part of employment law about women who are pregnant or nursing.

Urso said she had a challenging time personally with menopause, and she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to continue functioning at the necessary level to keep doing her job. When she introduced her bill in committee last year and detailed why symptoms could make it difficult to work, several of the men who were present at the hearing followed her out of the room, stunned by what they’d heard.

“They said, ‘Oh my god, I had no idea about any of this,’” Urso said.

In the year since, Urso has watched a flurry of bills spread to other states. Many of them, including another bill from Urso that’s under consideration this year, would mandate insurance coverage for treatments related to menopause and perimenopause, the years leading up to menopause when some symptoms can start.

Others are proposing bills similar to Urso’s workplace accommodations law, with the aim of instituting more education requirements for doctors, directing health departments to conduct a public awareness campaign, or telling agencies to study the issue and make recommendations.

“I don’t think I invented something, I think I just made it okay, and helped open up a necessary dialogue out there,” Urso said.

Urso’s bill to mandate insurance coverage is still pending in the Rhode Island Legislature, but others have already made it law, including in New Jersey.

A new generation

Democratic Assemblywoman Heather Simmons said she was looking at legislation in other statehouses around the country and found the insurance mandates to be inconsistent. She decided to draft a version for New Jersey that she wanted to be the most comprehensive bill in the country, covering hormonal, non-hormonal and preventive treatments for perimenopause and menopause on state-regulated insurance plans.

It was signed into law in January, passing alongside another bill that allows healthcare providers to earn continuing education credits for menopause-related topics.

Although Simmons said her healthcare providers are generally very good and her insurance is excellent, she faced an uphill battle when going through menopause. She said she would ask about symptoms and whether they could be related to menopause, and her providers would shrug their shoulders. Not for a lack of caring, she said, but lack of knowledge.

“I’m just so grateful that my generation and the generations that follow me are saying no, we deserve better than that, we can do better than that,” Simmons said. “We’re not afraid to talk about it anymore.”

Simmons’ bill also includes behavioral health services for those diagnosed with depression or other conditions, and counseling for those who don’t have a formal diagnosis. It also covers pelvic floor therapy, and bone health screenings and treatments.

Her next step, she said, is to make sure that insurance carriers can’t deny testosterone prescriptions for women who need it just because it’s an off-label use.

Testosterone was a hormone replacement therapy that Pennsylvania Democratic state Rep. Melissa Shusterman needed to help her feel like herself again.

Shusterman has introduced four bills this session related to perimenopause and menopause, including insurance coverage for preventive care for hip fractures and a joint government study to review workplace policies for state employees. Four other related bills are pending from other representatives, including one that would mandate Medicaid coverage for menopause treatments.

“All of this is going to help women in the long run, which means mothers are happier, women are happier and partners are happier, and that makes us healthier as a society,” Shusterman said.

Advocates like Gill, who is also CEO of the Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation, say their goal is to stay committed to pushing the boulder up the hill when it comes to passing more laws and creating more awareness of this phase of life. Too many women still think they have dementia or cancer before they realize it might be perimenopause, she said.

Gill noted the entire budget for women’s health research under the National Institutes of Health has long been about 10% of its total budget — that includes juvenile and post-menopausal ages. The gap in health research was already wide, she said, and amid cuts to federal agencies and projects under President Donald Trump’s administration, a recent report from the Washington Post showed a 31% decrease in projects funded in 2025 that contained the word “women.”

“There’s always been a need to increase that (budget) … and now we’re cutting the dollars,” Gill said.

“The important thing is that there are both immediate and long-term things that can be done at the local, state and federal level that can bring about not just better quality of life and symptom treatment for women, but also longer-term health benefits for women,” she said.

Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@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 measure, known as the War Powers Resolution, is a tool for Congress to limit the president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad. The resolution failed in a 212-212 vote. Most Democrats voted for the measure, though Jared Golden of Maine opposed it. Three Republicans also crossed party lines to vote in favor. They were Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey sponsored the measure, H.Con. Res. 75. 

During Wednesday’s debate on the House floor, Gottheimer said that Congress has still not been briefed on the progress or objectives in the Iran war, and argued it’s a violation of the U.S. Constitution. 

“Oversight is a key constitutional responsibility of Congress,” he said. 

Pentagon officials testified before Congress this week that the war so far has cost $29 billion, not including Iran’s drone and missile damage to U.S. military installations in the region.

Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued on the House floor that Iran was an “imminent threat.” He added that he was satisfied with the briefings from the Trump administration’s top military officials. 

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday rejected an identical measure, its seventh vote on the matter. Three Republicans joined nearly all Democrats, a sign of growing dissatisfaction with the president’s own party amid the war. 

GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky joined Democrats. Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, joined Republicans. 

The Iran war started on Feb. 28 and so far, at least 13 U.S. military members have died. Human Rights Activists in Iran, a nongovernmental organization based in Fairfax, Virginia, estimated that at least 1,701 civilians, including 254 children have died because of the war. 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated in late March that up to 3.2 million Iranians have been displaced due to the U.S. and Israel attack on Iran.  

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

House and Senate leaders on Wednesday announced the creation of a new Joint Data Center Committee that will study the economic, environmental and security impacts of data center development — the same scope that Click’s House Bill 646 would have assigned to a separate study commission. The joint committee can be assembled and begin work substantially faster than the commission Click proposed, the new co-chairs said.

The new committee will be led by House Energy Committee Chair Rep. Adam Holmes (R-Nashport) and Senate Energy Committee Chair Sen. Brian Chavez (R-Marietta). Click is not a member.

Click (R-Vickery) told the Toledo Blade the newly created joint committee would likely make the commission he proposed in HB 646 moot, but framed the outcome as collaborative.

“We began with an open concept anticipating input from our colleagues in both chambers. This is the culmination of those efforts,” Click said, according to The Blade. “I look forward to a final product that will provide a reasoned and rational response to the questions Ohioans are posing.”

A signature bill that stalled in the Senate

HB 646, co-sponsored by Click and Rep. Kellie Deeter (R-Norwalk), was introduced in January and passed the Ohio House unanimously in March. It would have created a 13-member Data Center Study Commission within the Department of Development, charged with submitting a report and legislative recommendations within six months of the bill’s effective date.

The bill was referred to the Senate Financial Institutions, Insurance and Technology Committee, where it has not advanced in roughly two months. Senate leaders had Click’s legislation on their desk and elected to build a different vehicle instead.

Click has repeatedly held up HB 646 as evidence that he is responsive to constituent concerns. In a March statement issued after the House vote, Click said, “This legislation originated in the heart of the 88th district, in response to my constituents. They have questions that deserve answers.”

The bill has been backed by the Ohio Farm Bureau and drew supportive testimony from agricultural and environmental stakeholders. Click told Signal Cleveland in March that he had received positive feedback from House GOP leaders on the legislation.

Bill directed commission to study “foreign propaganda”

Beyond its procedural fate, HB 646 also drew attention for an unusual provision tucked among its mandatory areas of study: a requirement that the proposed commission examine “reports of foreign propaganda intended to create opposition to data centers.”

That language appears in the Ohio Legislative Service Commission’s official bill analysis alongside more conventional topics such as environmental impact, effects on the electrical grid and consumer utility rates, water usage, farmland preservation, and noise and light pollution. It frames the possibility that citizen opposition to data centers may be the product of hostile foreign influence rather than legitimate local concern.

The provision drew formal opposition during the bill’s committee process. In testimony submitted to the House Technology and Innovation Committee, the libertarian-leaning Reason Foundation recommended deleting the foreign propaganda language outright, writing that the commission’s report “must studiously avoid the appearance of bias in how it presents its findings.”

TiffinOhio.net reported on the provision in February. The Joint Data Center Committee’s mission statement, as articulated Wednesday by Holmes and Chavez, contains no reference to foreign propaganda. The co-chairs said the committee will focus on the economic, environmental and security impacts of data center development through discussion with experts, stakeholders and Ohio citizens.

Leadership handed the work to its committee chairs

The new joint committee places data center policy in the hands of the lawmakers who already oversee Ohio’s energy and technology committees — and bypasses Click structurally as well as procedurally.

Holmes chairs the House Energy Committee. Chavez chairs the Senate Energy Committee. Rep. Thad Claggett (R-Newark), who chairs the House Technology and Innovation Committee — the panel that held the original sponsor hearings on HB 646 in February — is also a member of the new joint committee.

Click chairs the House Community Revitalization Committee, which has no jurisdiction over energy or technology policy. He sits on the Ways and Means, Education and Children and Human Services committees, per his official Ohio House profile.

The committee structure means that the chairs who would normally shepherd a data center study through the legislative process are now doing that work directly, without HB 646 as the vehicle and without Click in the room as a voting member.

Click reduced from sponsor to invited participant

Chavez said Click, Deeter, Sen. Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester) and Sen. Kent Smith (D-Euclid) are “expected to participate” in the committee process, according to The Blade’s reporting. That is the language typically used at the Statehouse for non-members allowed to attend and offer input but who do not hold a vote on the body.

Click’s role in the work he initiated has effectively been reduced from prime sponsor of the underlying legislation to invited participant on the body doing the equivalent work.

Committee membership and timeline

The Joint Data Center Committee has eight members — four from each chamber, with six Republicans and two Democrats. Senate members are Chavez, Sen. Bill Reineke (R-Tiffin), Sen. Shane Wilkin (R-Hillsboro) and Sen. Willis Blackshear Jr. (D-Dayton). House members joining Holmes are Claggett, Rep. Heidi Workman (R-Rootstown) and Rep. Chris Glassburn (D-North Olmsted).

The first two meetings are scheduled for May 27 and May 28, with at least one meeting per week planned after that. Chavez said the committee will distribute a summary of its findings to local governments to help inform decisions on data center siting.

Holmes and Chavez said they expect testimony from representatives of Meta and Google, as well as from the Ohio EPA, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel.

Political context

The 88th House District covers Seneca and Sandusky counties. Click narrowly won a bruising Republican primary on May 5 over Tiffin Republican Eric Watson, a first-time candidate, and faces Democratic challenger Aaron Jones, a local manufacturing supervisor, Tiffin City Councilman and Army veteran, in the November general election.

The joint committee will meet as supporters of a separate citizen-led constitutional amendment to ban construction of large new data centers continue collecting signatures. Backers of that effort must submit 413,487 valid signatures by July 1 to qualify for the November ballot.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The same was true when Angela Taylor owed $4,655 against her house in Shaker Heights, and Abraham David’s $3,384 debt in Cleveland, court records show. 

The county eventually won title to all three homes via legal actions in county court. The three homeowners are now leading a class action lawsuit against the county treasurer’s office, claiming the county unconstitutionally took their money. 

They aren’t challenging the foreclosures themselves. Rather, they say the county won title to houses that are worth more than the tax debts, yet the ex-homeowners aren’t being compensated. 

The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to take up their challenge – meaning arguments about a hot-button political issue of property taxes could come before the court in an election year. 

“This practice of taking ‘surplus equity’ violates both the Takings Clause and the Excessive Fines Clause of the Ohio Constitution,” wrote Ben Flowers, an attorney for the plaintiffs and a former solicitor general for the Ohio attorney general. 

“Yet this unconstitutional (and unconscionable) practice is widespread in Ohio. And courts, including the Eighth District below, allow it to persist.”

State law allows counties to foreclose on homeowners who fail to pay their property taxes. From there, they can auction the houses, take the money they’re owed, and pass on any surplus. 

But in all three plaintiffs’ cases, the houses didn’t sell. The auctions – cash-only affairs – failed to clear the modest legal minimum sale amounts of between $12,000 and $27,000. 

Jennifer Ciaccia, a county spokesperson, declined to comment on pending litigation or provide data on the county’s home forfeiture practices. The plaintiffs say the county has seized “thousands” of homes in similar fashion. 

Property records show Craig, of Cleveland, bought the house for $5,500 in August 2021 (the median sale price that year was $155,000). County officials by that point had already filed a case in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas to foreclose on the property. 

According to figures provided in his lawsuit, he fell behind on paying the property taxes, to the point where Mr. Craig owed $12,400 on the property. The fair market value of the property, however, was approximately $45,000 in 2022-23.

For Taylor, who lost her house in 2011, she said she fell behind on paying the property taxes and owed about $14,000. The fair market value of the property, however, was about $90,000, and she didn’t receive any proceeds from the surplus. 

Flowers, an attorney for Craig and the other plaintiffs, didn’t respond to inquiries. 

The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in June 2024. They lost in trial court and again at the Eighth District Court of Appeals. From here, justices will determine the timing of written and oral arguments before making a ruling.

This story was originally published by Signal Ohio.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Dr. Brendan Jackson, an epidemiologist and the agency’s team lead in Nebraska, said Americans who were on the MV Hondius cruise ship after others were diagnosed with the illness were flown to the National Quarantine Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Healthcare providers at the site have been talking with each passenger about whether they may have been exposed to any of the people with confirmed cases. They’re also monitoring the Americans for fevers or other symptoms. 

“This particular virus has a long incubation period, so the monitoring period is 42 days,” Jackson said. “And the 42 days started with the departure of the ship, so May 11 was day one.” 

Any cruise ship passengers who traveled on commercial flights, leading to possible exposures for others on those planes, left the ship before the infections were diagnosed, he said.  

“The passengers that are being monitored who were on shared flights were separate from the passengers who were on the ship at the time the outbreak was detected. So they had actually left the ship before the outbreak was detected,” Jackson said. 

“All the passengers that were on the ship after that detection phase were transported just several days ago on a private plane directly from the Canary Islands to here in Omaha, Nebraska,” he added. 

CDC officials are working with local and state public health officials to ensure anyone who may have been exposed outside of the cruise ship isolates at home and monitors themselves for symptoms. 

The officials on the call declined to say how many people are being monitored for possible exposure or where they are located in the country, citing privacy concerns.

They also declined to talk about the two cruise ship passengers taken to Emory University Hospital’s Serious Communicable Diseases Unit in Georgia. 

Dr. David Fitter, incident manager for the agency’s hantavirus response, said that unlike the coronavirus pandemic that spread around the world in 2020, hantavirus is not new to public health officials. 

“At this moment I want to emphasize that the risk to the general public is low,” he said. 

In addition to monitoring Americans who were on the cruise ship and anyone they may have come into contact with, CDC officials have been talking frequently with lawmakers.

“We’ve held two Hill briefings and have just completed a call with the governors from the states of repatriated Americans,” Fitter said. “We’ve also held daily calls with state health officials. 

“Our role now is to continue our conversations with each passenger about their potential exposure and work with partners to ensure appropriate monitoring.”

CDC officials have encouraged the people at the Nebraska facility to stay there throughout the quarantine period but there are not currently any state or federal quarantine orders in place.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ohio Republican U.S. Sens. Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno have voted to block such resolutions, but they have both repeatedly ignored requests to explain their thinking.

The war is costing Americans more than $1 billion a day and has driven gas prices over $4.78 a gallon in Ohio, and is expected to drive grocery prices significantly higher than they are now. 

At the same time, it hasn’t achieved regime change or forced Iran to abandon its nuclear program — two of Trump’s shifting goals.

Meanwhile, with access to the Strait of Hormuz severely restricted, the United States and much of the rest of the world are worse off than before the United States and Israel started dropping bombs on Feb. 28.

The war is historically unpopular. For example, a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released last week said that just 33% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of it.

Most Democrats in Congress — and a few Republicans — have repeatedly tried to force a vote on whether to support the war under the 1973 War Powers Resolution. 

It was passed after years of U.S. involvement in an undeclared war during which presidents often lied about how well it was going. It was an attempt by Congress to reassert its constitutional power to decide whether the nation goes to war.

“The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations,” it said.

However, the current war goes on, with Trump claiming a ceasefire even as the sides launch attacks on one another. And the president continues to hint that a deal with Iran is near — after weeks of such promises and apocalyptic threats have failed to produce a resolution.

The 60-day deadline for congressional approval under the War Powers Resolution passed at the start of the month.

The law says that after that time “the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces… unless the Congress (1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, (2) has extended by law such sixty-day period, or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States.”

Despite that, Husted and Moreno voted four times to block a war-powers vote by mid-April. On April 30, on the eve of the legal deadline, they voted that way again.

Neither senator’s office responded when asked why he supported the war, and to explain what about it justified forcing Ohioans to pay so much for gas. 

Former Ohio Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running against Husted in a November special election, said it was in Ohioans’ interest to end the war now.

“Ohioans are struggling to make ends meet, yet Jon Husted is choosing to send tens-of-billions of dollars overseas rather than using them to help hard working families here at home,” Brown said in an email.

“Too many American service members, including three Ohio soldiers, have lost their lives. Gas and diesel prices are soaring. It is past time to put an end to this conflict and focus on helping people here in Ohio instead of supporting a war that is making their lives harder.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Lisa Flagella and Amanda Ward say they — along with several other petitioners — did not get paid for the signatures they collected for the Ohio Senate Bill 56 referendum effort.

The referendum would have overturned the lawmaker-passed overhaul of the adult-use marijuana law passed by voters in 2023. Ultimately the referendum effort did not gather enough signatures to move forward within the necessary timeline for the ballot.

Thomas Miller and Pat Manning said they only got partially paid for the signatures they collected. 

“We made the decision at one point in the campaign to suspend paid signature collection as we assessed how many signatures we had collected at that point because we did have a large grass roots movement of unpaid volunteers collecting signatures,” Dennis Williard, campaign spokesperson, said in an email. 

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice had more than 5,000 people and businesses pledge to sign, collect, or host places where people could sign the petitions, Williard said. 

If the referendum made it to the ballot, it would have given voters a chance to overturn a law that went into effect on March 20 that changes Ohio’s voter-passed recreational marijuana law and bans intoxicating hemp products, including THC-infused beverages. 

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice would not say how many signatures were collected. They needed to collect 248,092 signatures and also needed to gather 3% of an individual county’s gubernatorial turnout in 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties to get on the Nov. 3 ballot. 

The S.B. 56 referendum collected about 208,000 signatures, said Mark Fashian, formerly the president of hemp product wholesaler Midwest Analytical Solutions in Delaware, Ohio. 

Fashian, who said he helped raise money for the referendum effort, said the number of signatures while testifying during a May 4 injunction hearing of an ongoing lawsuit in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. 

The new law reduces THC levels in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90% down to a maximum of 70%, caps THC levels in adult-use flower to 35%, and prohibits smoking in most public places.

It also bans possessing marijuana in anything outside of its original packaging and criminalizes bringing legal marijuana from another state back to Ohio.

“I believed in the cause,” Flagella said. 

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice hired ​​Arno Petition Consultant as the lead consultant, a California-based firm run by Michael Arno — who hired Larry Laws of L&R Political Consultants to get petitioners to collect signatures. 

The Ohio Capital Journal left messages and sent questions to Arno, but he did not respond. 

Ohio Petitioning Partners, which is owned by Pam Lauter, was hired as a sub-contractor. Lauter said she has not been paid either. 

“I’m infuriated,” Lauter said in an email. 

“This was the biggest debacle I have ever been involved with. I am in the same exact boat as everybody else is. I was not in control of this petition drive.” 

She said her job was to hire people to collect signatures. 

“The whole thing is shameful,” Lauter said in an email. “The whole thing is embarrassing. And my heart is broken over at (sic) all.” 

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice didn’t pay people what they were supposed to be paid, claimed Laws, who has been involved in petition work for 30 years. 

“I don’t think (Ohioans for Cannabis Choice) put out more than $100,000,” he said. 

“We took care of a lot of people as best we could, but certainly there wasn’t enough money there to take care of everything.”

Laws is not optimistic people will be paid. 

“If it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to happen,” he said.

The petitioners were reportedly told they would get paid $9 per valid signature.

Flagella collected 1,012 signatures for the S.B. 56 referendum in 10 days and has not gotten paid. 

“Where’s our money?” she said. Flagella could have been paid about $9,000, depending on how many signatures were valid. 

“I worked really hard, and I want to be paid in full,” she said. “I drove hours away from my house, spent ten hours on my feet, then drove another hour back to my house.” 

Flagella, Miller, Manning, and seven other people sent a demand letter for immediate payment to Lauter, Laws, Arno, and several other people involved in Ohioans for Cannabis Choice on March 27. 

“This letter serves as a formal demand for the immediate payment of all outstanding wages owed to myself and 9 other petitioners for services rendered during the Ohio SB 56 referendum signature-gathering campaign. … Professional petitioners were brought in from California and Florida as well as Ohio that were instructed to stop work and have subsequently been denied their earned pay.” 

The Ohio Attorney General initially rejected the referendum’s summary language in January, but certified it Feb. 3 after Ohioans for Cannabis Choice made changes to the language. 

“That really limited our ability to get our signatures,” Fashian said. 

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice stopped collecting signatures when the money ran out, Laws said. 

“I was all for shutting it down when I seen (sic) that they were delaying (payments),” Laws said. “If I had it my way, I would have shut it down a week earlier.”

The paid petitioners were pulled off collecting signatures for the referendum on Feb. 25, Flagella said, even though the deadline to collect signatures was March 19. 

“We just got started,” Flagella said. “I was ready to pump it up.” 

Pat Manning said he got paid for most of his signatures, but not all of them. 

He collected about 1,000 signatures and he said he got paid about $7,000 from Ohio Petitions Partners.  

“The first two weeks, everybody got paid,” he said. “The last (signature) turn in, nobody got anything.” 

He turned in about 100 signatures during the last turn in, so he was expecting to be paid an additional $1,000, but he has not received any of that money. 

“I’m still baffled as to what happened,” Manning said. “I’m very disappointed in the whole thing.” 

He has been doing petition work for 10 years. 

“It’s a ridiculous amount of money for the people that really know what they’re doing,” he said. 

Flagella has been doing petition work for more than 20 years and said she’s “never been so burned.” 

“I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” she said. “I’ve always gotten paid. I’ve always done an excellent job and I hold myself to very high standards and in the work that I do.” 

Flagella remembers signing a contract, but has not been able to track it down. The other petitioners the Ohio Capital Journal talked to also said they are unable to access the contracts they signed. 

“I signed the contract onboarding through this site, and the site is broken,” Flagella said. “I should be able to see my validity. I should be able to retrieve my contract that I signed.” 

Thomas Miller — who has previously done marijuana petitions in Missouri and Florida — saw a Facebook post about getting involved with the S.B. 56 referendum.

“It’s great money when you get paid,” said Miller, who lives in Mansfield. 

He collected 101 signatures in one day in eight degree temperatures in front of Beyond Hello Cannabis Dispensary in Mansfield to get the initial signatures needed to submit the initial proposal to the Ohio Attorney General.

He got paid $540 for those signatures, but he said he should have received $900. 

“I know my signatures were good because I checked,” Miller said. 

He then went on to collect an additional 311 signatures and estimated he should have been paid $2,800. 

“I need my $2,800,” Miller said. “That’s why I got involved in this. It’s quick money, easy money.” 

Amanda Ward collected about 100 signatures in 16 days and expected to be paid about $900. 

“It’s very frustrating,” she said. “I felt like I put myself out there for nothing.” 

Ward planned on using the money from collecting signatures to go take her family on a summer trip to Connecticut and Pennsylvania. 

“I don’t see that happening,” she said. “It really sucks, but at this point, it’s not even necessarily about the money. It’s about that we were promised something and those conditions weren’t met. I know I’ll probably never see the money.” 

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.

Under federal law, immigrants who are in the United States illegally are generally barred from receiving public benefits such as nonemergency health care, food aid and housing help, though a handful of left-leaning states use their own money to provide such benefits.

Supporters of the new verification and reporting laws say they will help curb illegal immigration by making it more difficult for people who aren’t eligible for public aid to receive it.

Government-funded health care, housing aid and the right to have a driver’s license are a “pull factor that encourages illegal immigration,” said Cooper Smith, director of homeland security and immigration at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has worked on policy development with the current Trump administration.

Government benefits, Smith said, are “an incentive for (immigrants) to come here and cross the border and make this their home, and we don’t want to see that.”

In Tennessee, legislators this week sent a bill to Republican Gov. Bill Lee that would require all state and local agencies to verify the immigration status of people who apply for federal, state or local government benefits, and to report those who are here illegally to the legislature and the state’s new immigration enforcement agency.

The measure, which the governor is expected to sign, authorizes the state attorney general to investigate possible violations, and threatens jail time or a loss of state funding for workers or agencies that fail to comply.

The potential penalties in Tennessee’s law are especially strict, but this year Indiana, Utah, and Wyoming also enacted laws requiring state and local agencies to verify the immigration status of people applying for certain benefits. In Indiana and Wyoming, agencies also must report immigrants who are here illegally to federal authorities. Louisiana enacted a similar verification and reporting law last year.

The Indiana and Wyoming laws go beyond the specific individuals applying for aid.

In considering an application for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Indiana law requires agencies to notify federal authorities if they cannot verify the immigration status of any member of an applicant’s household. Similarly, the Wyoming law requires the state health department and the state department of family services to notify federal immigration authorities if they determine that anyone applying for public benefits resides in a household that includes a person who is here illegally.

Critics say the new state laws will dissuade many people who are eligible for benefits — especially those with family members who are here illegally — from getting help they are entitled to, and force state and local officials to perform an immigration enforcement role for which they are ill equipped.

“They have to do this verification process for everybody that walks in the door. This is something that slows down services for every Tennessean in the name of collecting data and trying to make assessments that folks are not trained to make,” Democratic state Sen. Jeff Yarbro said last month during the floor debate on the bill.

“There’s probably no one who understands enough of the rules to make that determination,” he said. “But we are forcing that decision upon every single government office in the state of Tennessee — it’s just a little bit insane.”

Tanya Broder, an attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for immigrants, said the new laws represent an escalation of state anti-immigration efforts. She said the measures demonstrate that conservative states are moving in lockstep with the Trump administration.

“There are many, many states that impose restrictions on access to public to state and local public benefits, but some of these reporting requirements that states are proposing now likely do violate the law,” Broder said. “I think they are sowing a campaign of fear and misinformation.”

Broder added that the fear of penalties might prompt agency workers in Tennessee to overreport and potentially engage in racial profiling.

The Tennessee bill is part of a sweeping package of immigration enforcement measures the state legislature approved this year. Tennessee’s broad immigration agenda was crafted in coordination with the White House, specifically with Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Earlier this month, Lee signed a measure that requires state judges to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. And last month, the governor signed a bill that makes it a crime under Tennessee law for an adult to refuse or fail to leave the state within 90 days of a final order of removal. The law also makes it a crime for immigrants to try to enter the state if they have an outstanding deportation order.

Other bills that would require local sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration agents and make it illegal for people who are living in the U.S. illegally to operate a commercial vehicle or truck in the state are on Lee’s desk awaiting his signature.

Smith, of the America First Policy Institute, said Tennessee is “serving as a model for other states to follow.”

Republicans struggled this year to secure funding for the Department of Homeland Security, Smith noted, “so they know that their ability to get meaningful legal immigration reform, through both houses of Congress and signed by the president, is very, very unlikely,” he said. “So the next step is to do as much as you can at the state level.”

Julia Gelatt, an associate director at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, agreed with Smith’s assessment of the political situation.

“There are things that the federal government can’t control, or that may be harder to achieve at the federal level, particularly with a Congress that isn’t passing bills,” Gelatt said.

“We know that Stephen Miller advised Tennessee on their immigration bills, and I think that his philosophy is that the federal government and state governments should make life in the United States so hard for people who don’t have legal status that they decide to go home.”

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.

The vote marked the first test for Senate Republicans’ support for a War Powers Resolution after the expiration of the statute’s 60-day period granted to the president for military operations.

The vote failed 49-51, though notably Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, flipped for the first time to support limiting Trump’s unfettered war on Iran. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, for a second time since April 30, voted in favor.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted yes, and Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., opposed the measure, as they both have done on previous votes.

Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., did not vote.

House lawmakers are expected to take up a similar War Powers Resolution as soon as Thursday.

The war, which Trump launched on Feb. 28 in conjunction with Israel, cost the lives of 13 American service members. The latest Pentagon figures reveal 404 service members were injured during Operation Epic Fury, the administration’s name for the conflict.

Ceasefire on ‘life support’

Despite a recent exchange of fire between Iran and the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz, the administration maintains the operation is over, and claimed a 60-day clock on hostilities paused when the two countries agreed to a ceasefire in April. 

However, Trump told reporters Monday that any ceasefire between the two nations was on “massive life support.”

Iranian leaders have contested the existence of a ceasefire because of an ongoing U.S. Naval blockade on Iran’s ports.

Pentagon officials testified in both chambers of Congress Tuesday that the war to date has cost $29 billion, without accounting for Iran’s drone and missile damage to U.S. military installations in the region.

Hostilities ongoing, Dem says

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who sponsored the resolution, said Wednesday morning the Iran war has turned out to be “nothing like” the victory Trump promised.

“Both sides are still engaged in hostilities. And so I don’t accept that the 60-day clock is suspended,” Merkley said.

When asked Wednesday morning whether Republicans were whipping votes ahead of the War Powers Resolution, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that lawmakers should support the president while he’s overseas conducting high-stakes meetings with Chinese officials, including China’s leader Xi Jinping.

“He’s negotiating with the Chinese on a whole range of issues, some of which bear on national security, and I think it would be best if everybody hung together and supported the president,” Thune, R-S.D., said. “But we’ll see. … People have their own minds about some of these issues.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“House Bill 698 is not about accountability, it’s about control,” Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said at a hearing Tuesday. “And to be blunt, this bill is anti-labor, anti-educator, anti-student and fundamentally anti-education.” 

House Bill 698 aims to take Senate Bill 1, the higher education overhaul law passed in 2025, a step further. The new legislation calls for linking some of colleges’ and universities’ state funding to their compliance with Senate Bill 1’s mandates, which include ending diversity, equity and inclusion (or DEI) work and requiring faculty members to publicly post their class syllabi.  

State Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Township, said the bill he wrote strengthens transparency and accountability.  

In opening remarks, he said he wanted to “acknowledge and applaud” the university presidents and administrators complying with Senate Bill 1’s requirements. But he said he has also heard “repeated” concerns that employees at certain institutions are not complying with the law or are trying to circumvent it. 

He didn’t share any additional context, only saying some of what he learned is “astounding.” 

“It can be difficult to ensure every individual within a university is operating consistently with the law,” he said. “That is precisely why the additional provisions in HB 698 are necessary.” 

House Bill 698 would create a new reporting process to certify colleges’ and universities’ compliance, even though institutions already have to submit many plans to the Ohio Department of Higher Education. 

The bill would add public higher education workers’ salaries to an online database, establish new faculty workload rules and require campus officials to produce an “inventory” of employees who previously worked in DEI roles and were reassigned, among other moves.

Opponents criticize bill’s call to list former DEI employees

Tuesday marked the first time opponents could share their concerns with the Workforce and Higher Education committee (supporters will get a separate hearing in the future). Many submitted comments in writing. Only seven critics delivered their remarks in person before lawmakers ended the hearing after about an hour and a half. 

Many of the criticisms touched on similar themes, including that the bill would further restrict employees’ collective bargaining rights, weaken academic freedom and drive both faculty and students away from Ohio.  

Steve Mockabee, director of the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati, delivered remarks on behalf of the state’s largest faculty union.   

He criticized the bill’s requirement that universities create lists of any employees who worked in DEI-related roles as of Jan. 2025 and were later reassigned. In addition to giving names, salaries and current job titles, officials would need to create a “justification report” proving that an employee’s new role “consists of substantially different duties from DEI functions.” 

House Bill 698 said the state’s higher education department would need to review these reports, which would also ultimately become public record under the legislation. 

“HB 698 would create a system where Ohioans who were doing perfectly legal jobs in good faith would be placed on a watch list and monitored by the government in perpetuity,” said Mockabee. “This raises serious constitutional questions.” 

What comes next for Senate Bill 1 enforcement legislation

Tuesday marked House Bill 698’s second hearing. The first happened in February. 

Young said he appreciated the “extensive conversations” he’s had about the bill with some higher education stakeholders, including the lobbying groups representing the state’s 22 community colleges and 14 universities. 

Those discussions may result in potential changes. 

“There are amendments forthcoming that address some of the concerns raised, and those amendments will be considered and adopted during our next hearing,” said Young.

Officials have not yet set a date for that event. 

This article was originally published by Signal Ohio.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

In a red brick courthouse across the street from the state Capitol, the seven black-robed judges of the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday morning weighed the fate of a Republican gerrymander aimed at ousting U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a 11-term Democrat from Kansas City.

In the afternoon, they upheld the map.

Its opponents “failed to show the 2025 Map clearly and undoubtedly violates the requirements” of the state constitution, the court ruled hours after holding oral arguments.

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s late April decision sharply curtailing the use of race in redistricting, much of the legal fight over gerrymandering is moving to state courts. The decision, Louisiana vs. Callais, gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which limited states’ ability to divide districts where a majority of residents belong to a racial minority group.

Southern Republican states have rushed forward new maps over the past two weeks that take advantage of the landmark opinion, adding to a handful of others, including Missouri, that already drew new lines in recent months at President Donald Trump’s behest before the midterms elections this November. Another wave of gerrymanders across the rest of the country will likely follow next year ahead of the 2028 election.

State supreme courts may have the final word on some of the maps. Even if the maps don’t involve issues decided in Callais, like the challenge in Missouri, many states have constitutional or statutory provisions that curb gerrymandering and limit last-minute changes to elections — providing gerrymandering opponents with grounds to challenge new district boundaries.

With federal redistricting lawsuits increasingly difficult, state laws offer gerrymandering opponents another path. 

Thirty states have some form of a constitutional requirement for free elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And at least 10 state supreme courts have found that state courts can decide cases involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering, according to a 2024 review by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. 

“I think state courts are primarily going to be the place where future fights around these maps are playing out in a post-Callais landscape,” said Alicia Bannon, director of the judiciary program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Legal challenges abound

The elevated importance of state courts was on full display Friday, when the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated an election in which voters narrowly approved a Democratic map. The decision leaves a new map in California as the party’s only successful response so far to the GOP redistricting onslaught. Democrats have made a longshot request to the U.S. Supreme Court to block the Virginia ruling.

Lawsuits have already been filed in state courts over new maps in Florida and Louisiana. Alabama’s new map could also face a legal challenge in state court, even after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the gerrymander to take effect. 

At stake in these courtroom fights is which party will control the U.S. House over the next two years, earning the power to advance or thwart legislation. While Democrats remain generally favored to retake the chamber in the November midterm elections, Republicans will likely emerge from the gerrymandering war with at least a handful of seats secured.

Suddenly, every state supreme court decision — including over a single seat in Missouri — takes on greater significance.

Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, which is helping challenge the Missouri map, told reporters on Monday that the state’s high court had a “spotlight on” it.

“Is the court going to do what it has done in the past in a nonpartisan way that is faithful to their own precedent,” she asked ahead of the decision. “Or are they going to roll over?”

Missouri case

The Republican-controlled Missouri General Assembly in September approved a map intended to leave the state with just one Democrat in Congress, in the St. Louis area. Kansas City was divided among three districts, splitting apart its Democratic-leaning and racially diverse core. 

The Missouri Supreme Court considered three challenges to the map. Two similar lawsuits argue that some of the congressional districts don’t follow the state constitution’s requirements that districts be as compact as possible.

A third lawsuit argues that the map shouldn’t be in effect for the 2026 election because opponents in December submitted more than 305,000 signatures seeking to force a statewide referendum vote on the lines. In the past, state officials have paused the implementation of measures subject to a referendum until a vote is held, but in this instance they say the new lines are active.

During Tuesday’s oral arguments, the judges sat almost entirely stone-faced as they listened. Only one judge asked a single question during arguments that stretched for more than an hour, offering no sense of how the court would rule.

“There is no such thing as a perfect map or a perfect district,” Missouri Principal Deputy Solicitor General Kathleen Hunker said.

Jonathan Hawley, an attorney representing Missouri voters who argue the referendum means the map isn’t in effect, said his case will decide whether the people of Missouri “still have a meaningful referendum.”

“The referendum right is the people’s veto,” Hawley said.

The Missouri Supreme Court hours later ruled against both challenges to the maps — allowing the new lines to be used this year.

“Had the drafters intended a referendum petition filing to automatically suspend any act of the General Assembly at issue in the referendum petition, they would have so stated,” the court’s opinion says.

Florida’s GOP gerrymander

Only two Southern states, Florida and Kentucky, allow courts to decide partisan gerrymandering cases.

Kentucky, which has a Democratic governor, hasn’t taken up redistricting this year. But a Florida Supreme Court decision striking down a new map there would effectively offset Democrats’ loss at the Virginia Supreme Court.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a map passed by the state legislature during a special session on the same day as the Callais decision. The new congressional boundaries are designed to hand Republicans up to four additional seats.

Several voting rights groups have sued, alleging the map violates the Florida Constitution. A 2010 amendment approved by voters prohibits districts drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.

“Instead of abiding by this law, the Legislature is defying the will of voters and backing a map that was crafted entirely with partisan intent,” Simone Leeper, senior legal counsel for redistricting at Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement. 

The Campaign Legal Center and the UCLA Voting Rights Project have sued jointly over the map.

DeSantis’s office told state lawmakers ahead of this year’s special session that the 2010 amendment requires the state legislature to account for race when drawing districts — and that the provisions regarding race can’t be severed from the rest of the amendment. In effect, DeSantis contends the whole amendment must be thrown out.

The Florida governor’s pitch, coupled with the Callais decision, persuaded GOP lawmakers.

“I have a ton of comfort because the Callais decision came out,” Florida state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican, said. “I got to read it, and it perfectly summarizes exactly why we could, and should, change our 2022 maps.”

Map opponents’ chance of success at the Florida Supreme Court is unclear. The court as recently as 2015 blocked a congressional map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, but it has moved to the right in the years since. Six of the seven current justices were appointed by DeSantis and the other was appointed by a different Republican governor.

“The composition of the Florida Supreme Court has changed dramatically since that earlier ruling,” Bannon, the Brennan Center expert, said. “So I think there are questions about will the court be as open to those arguments.”

Process challenges

In other Southern states, map opponents are turning to arguments beside partisan gerrymandering.

The Tennessee chapter of the NAACP has sued Republican Gov. Bill Lee and the state General Assembly to block a gerrymander passed last week from taking effect. The organization alleges Lee violated the state constitution in how he called a special session for a new map. 

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, has urged a court to dismiss Lee and the legislature from lawsuit because they don’t conduct elections.

Alabama Democrats and voting rights groups are weighing a legal challenge to a new map that would focus on a 2022 amendment to the state constitution. The amendment requires election law changes to be made at least six months before a general election — a deadline of May 3 this year. Alabama’s redistricting special session began the next day.

In Louisiana, state lawmakers have not yet passed a new map after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current lines as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because the legislature had previously created a second majority-Black district. Lawmakers are expected to advance a map aimed at ousting one of the state’s two Democratic House members, who are both Black.

After the Callais decision, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the state’s congressional primary elections although roughly 42,000 absentee ballots had already been cast. Lawsuits challenging the suspension have been filed in both federal and state court.

Too late to change?

In Missouri on Tuesday, lawyers for Republican state officials took the opposite approach, urging the state supreme court to keep the map in place for the 2026 election, even if the judges strike it down. Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, told reporters afterward that preventing the state from using the map now would lead to confusion, even as 12 weeks remain before the primary election.

“It’ll be disarray for the people that have been going to town halls and listening to candidates,” Hoskins said. “It would be disarray for the candidates that are running and going out and meeting voters in their district. And it’d be disarray for the local election authorities and county clerks that have already started instituting” the new map.

Hoskins’ fears turned out to be unfounded, as the court upheld the map.

Cleaver, who is running for reelection, has said that his work ethic or commitment to voters won’t change regardless of his district boundaries. 

“If I have to serve the people who live just outside of Columbia and Jefferson City, then I’ll do that,” he said when he filed to run earlier this year.

Attorneys for the ACLU of Missouri, which supported challenges to the map, said it was unfair to Missouri residents for the state to create a problem and then argue it’s too late to change it. 

At a rally outside the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday, ACLU of Missouri Policy Director Tori Schafer expressed confidence the judges would side with map opponents — hours before they allowed the lines to move forward.

“But let me clear,” Schafer said, “democracy did not begin in a courtroom and it will not be saved in a courtroom.”

Florida Phoenix reporter Mitch Perry contributed to this report.

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

“I want to thank Dr. Marty Makary for having done a great job at the FDA. So much was accomplished under his leadership,” Trump wrote on social media. “He was a hard worker, who was respected by all, and will go on to have an outstanding career in Medicine. Kyle Diamantas, a very talented person, will be put in the Acting position.”

Diamantas was working as the deputy commissioner for food, leading the program that focuses on nutrition and food safety.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in a social media post that Makary “pushed forward critical reforms and helped advance our mission to Make America Healthy Again.”

“I also want to thank Kyle Diamantas for stepping in as Acting Commissioner — his leadership has already delivered remarkable wins on the MAHA food agenda, and I have full confidence in his continued work,” Kennedy added. “We have an outstanding team at FDA, and the work continues without pause. The search for a new Commissioner is already underway, and we will move forward with urgency.”

Makary’s resignation marks the fourth time a senior member of the Trump administration has either left or been forced out during the last few months. 

Kristi Noem was ousted as Homeland Security secretary in early March, moving to a different job as a special envoy. Pam Bondi resigned as attorney general in early April to move back to the private sector. And Lori Chavez-DeRemer stepped down as Labor secretary in late April, following scandals.

The Senate voted to confirm Makary to lead the FDA in March 2025, with Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois as well as Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire supporting him. 

Medication abortion

Makary’s decision to leave the FDA comes several months after anti-abortion organizations and some Republicans in Congress called for Trump to fire him over his record on access to medication abortion. 

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and Lila Rose, founder of Live Action, both released statements in December pressing for the FDA to restrict access to mifepristone. 

“The FDA needs a new commissioner who will immediately reinstate in-person dispensing as it existed under President Trump’s first term and immediately conduct a comprehensive study,” Dannenfelser wrote in a statement at the time. “Commissioner Makary is severely undermining President Trump and Vice President Vance’s pro-life credentials and their position that states should have the right to enact and enforce pro-life protections. Makary must go.”

Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter to Makary the following day urging him to wrap up a review of the current prescribing guidelines for mifepristone. 

Their frustration followed a Bloomberg Law news article that said Makary didn’t want to release the results of the study until after November’s midterm elections, which will determine which political party controls Congress for the next two years.

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The terminations come after 80,000 Ohioans lost benefits between the July passage of the law and January of this year. An advocacy group said it’s likely that older Ohioans are likely the hardest hit by the latest cuts.

The new requirements were imposed as part of a Trump law that cut federal nutrition and healthcare benefits by more than $1 trillion over 10 years while cutting taxes on the richest 1% of Americans by a similar amount. It also added more than $4 trillion to the federal deficit.

A large portion of the cuts to programs for the poor are being done through new work requirements.

While similar requirements for Medicaid don’t take effect until after the November midterm elections, the requirements to get benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, took effect on Feb. 1.

“Under the new law, adults ages 55 to 64 and parents with children 14-18, as well as veterans, homeless individuals, and individuals aging out of the foster system are no longer exempted from work requirements,” Tom Betti, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said in an email.

“These generally require working at least 80 hours per month or pursuing certain educational or training opportunities.”

About 1.4 million Ohioans receive benefits under SNAP, which is available to households with incomes below 130% of the federal poverty level. 

In Ohio, that’s less than $36,000. Benefits are just $6.28 per person, per day.

Even before the cuts, the benefits weren’t reaching many eligible residents.

In Ohio in 2023, SNAP benefits were going to 95.5% of people at 100% of the federal poverty level — even though everybody making 130% or less was eligible. 

But penetration of the benefit is declining further under the new requirements — which ostensibly address a problem of questionable existence. 

An analysis of census data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that in 2015, more than half of able-bodied adult SNAP recipients worked in the month they received benefits. And in 89% of households with children and a non-disabled adult, someone had worked in the previous two years. 

That’s not bad among people who tend to work low-wage jobs that often lack health benefits, sick days and paid leave, the analysis said.

Critics have said the work requirements weren’t imposed to put lazy people to work, but to achieve savings by hassling otherwise-eligible people off the system. Real-world experience seems to support that.

When Arkansas in 2018 experimented with Medicaid work requirements, it didn’t produce the outcome proponents said they wanted. The mandate created confusion, 18,000 residents lost coverage, and the state’s employment level was unchanged, the Urban Institute reported last year.

In Ohio, the new losses of food benefits are expected to land heaviest on people between 55 and 64, who previously were exempt from work requirements.

Policy Matters Ohio last week reported that half of the 1,350 people in Cuyahoga County losing benefits are over 55. That’s the only county it had data for, but Executive Director Hannah Halbert cited some reasons why older recipients are especially vulnerable.

“These federal changes include requiring Ohioans over the age of 54 to work, or qualify for poorly reasoned, narrow exemptions with criteria that may be difficult to prove,” she said in a written statement.

“That includes seniors ages 60-64, unless they are pregnant, living with another person under the age of 14 who is qualified for assistance, or an ‘Indian, Urban Indian, or California Indian.’“

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Prompted in large part by veterans seeking psychedelic-assisted treatment abroad, Republican lawmakers are looking to research its efficacy in treating post-traumatic stress and opioid addiction.

It’s a significant turnaround for a party that spent decades aggressively pursuing the war on drugs.

“I think that, looking at the effect it has on veterans,” Ohio state Rep. Justin Pizzulli, R-Scioto County, said, “and just hearing people talk about how it helped them — it stopped them from committing suicide — I think that’s a message that Republicans are very passionate about.”

Pizzulli chairs the Ibogaine Treatment Study Committee and lobbied for its creation as part of last year’s budget.

Pizzulli represents Portsmouth which he described as “ground zero” for the opioid crisis in Ohio.

“It was the greatest crisis to ever happen to my community in our lifetime, and we’re still paying and recovering for it,” Pizzulli said.

“I made a promise to my constituency to be sure to find alternative methods to help fix and to research things that I think could potentially be helpful.”

Supporters of ibogaine treatment insist their effort is limited to clinical therapies in a controlled setting rather than opening the door to recreational use. And they point to initial studies that show promising results for the treatment.

Right now, a handful of states are pooling funds and working together to develop a treatment that could pass muster with the FDA.

The White House has blessed the effort and kicked in $50 million. Supporters who spoke Wednesday encouraged Ohio to participate.

Still, even some lawmakers who seem open to the approach remain skeptical about the state’s role in funding the effort.

Committee testimony

Initial studies suggest ibogaine rewires neural pathways in the brain and promotes regeneration. Researchers have already seen some effectiveness in treating opioid addiction and PTSD with ibogaine, but they think it might also have applications in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Geoffrey Lawrence from the libertarian think tank Reason Foundation emphasized its potential in treating opioid use disorder.

He noted current medication-assisted treatments, like methadone and buprenorphine, have low success rates in part because they require regular dosing.

The average person winds up going through treatment for opioid addiction several times before achieving long-term remission.

“Ibogaine works differently,” Lawrence said. “It physically repairs the brain’s architecture and balance of neurotransmitters within a matter of days. As a result, patients are able to move beyond the symptoms of physical withdrawal and get a new lease on life.”

Logan Davidson serves as legislative director for Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions. The group funds grants for veterans traveling abroad for ibogaine treatment. He stressed the conservative case for expanding access to the drug.

“The legislation we have advanced does not legalize, decriminalize or expand recreational use of any substance,” he said.

“It funds rigorous scientific research in controlled clinical settings, preserves FDA and DEA authority, demands accountability for every public dollar invested, and reflects a fundamental commitment to those who served.”

With roughly 17 veterans on average committing suicide each day, Davidson said any work at the state level to advance treatment is important.

“If there is an opportunity to accelerate an effective treatment through that process,” he said, “you can count the lives saves by the days shaved off that timeline.”

Who pays?

To that end, Lawrence explained Texas recently approved an ibogaine research program with the goal of developing a treatment that could make it through clinical trials.

And although Texas put forward $100 million split evenly between private and state dollars, that’s nowhere near enough.

And would you look at that — Ohio is set to receive about $2 billion in opioid settlement funds.

Lawrence said several states are already considering proposals to earmark some of those settlement dollars for the effort. Mississippi, for instance, committed $5 million in March.

“Using this money to create access to a drug that works effectively and immediately to help people turn their lives around could be the most impactful legacy of those funds,” Lawrence said.

But Ohio state Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, pushed back.

“Is it the state’s job to do that?” he asked.

He noted Ohio put $5 million toward pediatric cancer research in the most recent budget, but it’s not common for state lawmakers to do so.

“Is it not the federal government’s job to financially do that to benefit all citizens?”

Huffman also asked why private industry isn’t leading the charge.

Americans for Ibogaine CEO Bryan Hubbard explained ibogaine isn’t patentable.

“There’s not the opportunity to create 6, 7, 800% rates of return on a medication that can essentially be replicated and produced by anyone,” he said. “The lack of patentability is a significant disincentive to the conventional Big Pharma model.”

He added that the current system of medication-assisted treatment for opioid abuse is often billed through Medicaid. That system serves some companies’ interests just fine, Hubbard said.

“We would be foolish to not recognize that there is a business model at work that is rooted in the daily administration of pharmacology,” he said.

If ibogaine treatment proves as successful as its supporters hope, Hubbard added, it could disrupt that approach to treatment.

Hubbard successfully lobbied the Trump administration to issue an executive order encouraging research into psychedelic-assisted treatments.

As part of that order, the president directed the Department of Health and Human Services to put at least $50 million toward state research efforts like the one Texas announced.

Hubbard encouraged state lawmakers to get on board.

“I hope that stalwart Ohio, part of the blue-collar backbone of America, will be among the states which turn the fulcrum of history to emancipate the mind, body and soul of very person who lives at the end of hope,” he said. “Ibogaine heals.”

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

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ohio had 117 antisemitic incidents in 2025 — a decline from 233 in 2024 and 237 in 2023, according to the Anti-Defamation League.  

Antisemitic incidents were down last year nationally. There were 6,274 antisemitic incidents last year in the United States — 33% lower than the 9,354 incidents tracked in 2024, according to the report. 

Despite the overall decrease, it was still the third-highest year on record for antisemitic incidents since the ADL started tracking them in 1979. 

“I think this year it was really impressive to see the numbers finally come down a little bit,” said Kelly Fishman, regional director of ADL Ohio River Valley. 

“It’s not something we’ve seen for over a decade. Unfortunately, the numbers are still up pre-Oct. 7, 2023 levels.” 

There was a spike of antisemitic incidents after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, especially on college campuses. Hundreds of Ohio college students protested the Israel-Hamas war during spring 2024. 

Antisemitic incidents on college campuses decreased last year by 66%, going from 1,694 to 583, according to the report. 

“We know that hate doesn’t stop at one identity group, and it’s the same with anti-semitism,” Fishman said. “We see anti-semitic ideology often bleed into other identities, and universities took that really seriously because they saw that it wasn’t just their Jewish students who were being impacted.” 

Despite last year’s overall decrease, incidents on college campuses were almost three times higher in 2025 than in 2021. 

There was an increase in physical assaults this past year — going from 196 in 2024 to 203 in 2025, according to the report. 

Assaults in Ohio went from none in 2024 to two in 2025, according to the report. 

“While we did see incidents go down, we saw the intensity of incidents increase so they were more likely violent, and they more likely involved a deadly weapon,” Fishman said. “Unfortunately, I do think there is a bit of a correlation to the rhetoric that we’re seeing online manifest in real life.”

Antisemitic harassment went down 39% to 4,003 incidents and vandalism decreased by 21% to 2,068 incidents, according to the report. 

There were 825 incidents at non-Jewish K-12 schools last year, a slight dip from 860 in 2024, according to the report. 

Most of those incidents were antisemitic bullying or vandalizing classrooms with swastikas. 

“We are still seeing incidents with a swastika show up quite a bit in those K-12 spaces,” Fishman said.

Ohio Senate Bill 87 would codify the definition and examples of antisemitism into law, but those opposed to the bill said it would violate free speech and be used to protect speech about Israel.

The bill passed the Ohio Senate in March and is now in the Ohio House Judiciary Committee. 

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

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The citizenry would align with only politically approved, official truths. Shock gave way to censorship.

National Park Service rangers, steeped in the historical journey of a nation like no other, were pressured to deep-six painful truths about everything from slavery to Japanese American internment camps and focus on the “greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.” 

Posted signs at the national park in northeast Ohio urged visitors to report “negative” content or information shared about our imperfect union or material that fell short of fawning over the country’s “beauty, grandeur, and abundance”   

But that executive order, to erase the discomfiting realities of America’s worst moments — lest they detract from the best — was buried in Trump’s flurry of unilateral directives (at least 259 EOs by last count), from dismantling USAID and other federal entities created by Congress to attacking constitutionally protected birthright citizenship.

News about National Park Service employees being forced to remove or alter hundreds of interpretive signs or exhibits across numerous national parks that explored topics deemed too “divisive” or “disparaging” by the Trump regime was just another dystopian flashpoint.

Government mandated accounts of history were to highlight the good and hide the bad.

That covered a lot of territory for fanciful course correction on documents detailing say, the historical effects of climate change, or turbulent labor history, the slaughter of Native Americans, and clearly enslavement to emancipation to the legacy of Jim Crow. 

Flagged items destined for removal included those that revealed key Civil Rights moments on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, or a reproduction of “The Scourged Back,” the infamous 1836 photo of former Louisiana slave Peter Gordon, with horrific raised scars from an old whipping, taken down at Fort Pulaski National Park in Georgia.

Even an exhibit that examined “the paradox between slavery and freedom in the founding of the nation” was stripped from the walls of the President’s House Site in Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia.

I had an up-close visceral reaction to that partially empty exhibit last week.

Hoping to beat the crush of the 250th anniversary crowds traveling to the birthplace of American independence this summer, I set out to see the room where it happened.

To go where courageous idealists, forged in the Age of Enlightenment, gathered to conceive of a new, world-changing republic rooted in self-evident truths, inalienable rights, and the consent of the governed.

Enough ground-breaking liberty to convince Americans to put their lives on the line. To be a free people who refused to bow to tyrannical kings. Then and now.

My Philly pilgrimage to historical landmarks that led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and early years of a fledgling democracy, taught a cynic like me that the spirit of the colonial era (that ended with the American Revolution) may yet save us.

To my surprise, I discovered the essence of open rebellion at the decimated slavery exhibit that once adorned the foundations of the former home of George Washington and John Adams.

The sign was salve for the soul.

First the backstory.

In January, without warning, National Park Service workers removed several panels from the open-air site that commemorated enslaved people who worked at the nation’s first executive mansion — following Trump’s edict to get rid of displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” or promote “corrosive ideology.”

The twisted mandate to present only positive views of American history meant taking a crowbar to panels depicting “The Dirty Business of Slavery” in the making of a new nation.

But Philadelphia fought back.

“Donald Trump will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history — but he picked the wrong city and the wrong Commonwealth,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

A federal judge ordered the slavery exhibit restored in a scathing ruling that cited George Orwell’s “1984” novel — “as if the Ministry of Truth now existed” with its ‘Ignorance is Strength’ motto, “the court is asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not.”

But a later appeals court stayed full restoration of the exhibit and 15 panels of the original 30 — that documented the “hidden history” of slavery at the founding site, traced the lives of enslaved workers, the conditions they endured, the resistance they mounted, and ultimately, their paths to freedom—are conspicuously missing.

Yet anonymous keepers of the flame of historical truth have tacked up copies of some of the omitted panels along with related articles on bare exhibit walls to shed light on what Team Trump purged.

One hand-written sign said while the court battle is underway “ordinary citizens are exercising our First Amendment right of free speech to peacefully protest our government’s attempt to whitewash (literally) history.”

Grassroots groups give oral histories of slavery’s stain during the week in defiance of official suppression.

This story will be told.

The revolutionary zeal of we the people that once tore free of tyranny fights on.

Take inspiration from even small sprouts of passioned dissent that truly embody the American ideal.

I do. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

A Trump administration policy threatening imprisonment without bond has been struck down by three appeals courts, which could soon be joined by a fourth, but upheld by two others. The conflicting orders mean the Supreme Court must straighten out the situation as immigrants now could face different fates in different states.

The new detention policy, implemented in a July 2025 memo, threatens millions of immigrants with imprisonment without bond if they crossed a border illegally to get into the United States, no matter how long ago or whether they’ve applied for asylum. Without bond means they must be detained while awaiting court action.

The policy is a key part of the Trump administration’s stated goal to get 1 million removals a year, including deportations and voluntary returns.

So far the pace is about half that, or roughly 460,000 for the current fiscal year, if the daily rate as of mid-April continues, according to an analysis by Austin Kocher, a research assistant professor at Syracuse University.

This spring’s mixed appeals court rulings mean that in some states, detainees may be offered bond hearings and a chance to be released pending new court dates. In other states, people can now be held indefinitely.

Most recently, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, covering Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, struck down the policy Monday, saying it “strains reason” to suggest Congress intended to put millions of people into immigration detention. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, covering Alabama, Florida and Georgia, also struck it down last week, saying the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 does not give President Donald Trump “unfettered authority to detain, without the possibility of bond, every unadmitted alien present in the country.”

In April, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, covering Connecticut, New York and Vermont, also struck down the policy, calling it “the broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in our Nation’s history for millions of noncitizens.”

Judges in another appeals court covering New England states, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, appeared skeptical of the policy in a hearing this month but have not yet ruled.

Meanwhile the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, encompassing Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, upheld the new policy, saying the status quo gives people living here illegally more rights than those at the border seeking legal admission.

“It seems strange to suggest that Congress would have preserved bond hearings exclusively for unlawful entrants,” the 5th Circuit ruling said. Those states have some of the largest detention centers in the country, often accepting transfers from other states. The cross-state transfers complicate legal cases attempting to free those detained there.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, covering Arkansas and several Midwestern states, also upheld the Trump policy.

Conflicting appeals rulings like these, known as “circuit splits,” generally lead to a Supreme Court ruling to settle them, experts say.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a Stateline request for comment. Last July, a department spokesperson told The Associated Press that “President (Donald) Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe.”

The Trump administration policy flies in the face of decades of federal practice that let many immigrants stay free on bond while they pursue their court cases, said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a trade group.

“This has done a lot of damage to people who are caught in detention with a very low amount of due process,” Dojaquez-Torres said.

The policy has also flooded federal courts with petitions for release by people denied bond under the policy, she added. Thousands were filed each week from January through late April, compared with a few dozen a week last year before the policy was enacted, according to a ProPublica report.

The threat of indefinite detention can be an incentive for immigrants who have been arrested to agree to the administration’s option of “voluntary departure.”

Hannia Ortega, who left Oklahoma for her native Mexico at age 22 last fall to avoid the threat of detention, said the policy has “helped me not to regret leaving.”

“I’ve had the opportunity to meet people here who were deported and were not given the chance to fight their cases in front of a judge. One of the people I met was an Uber driver who was deported after 36 years in the states,” Ortega wrote in an email to Stateline.

Ortega won an award for leadership and good grades in a Tulsa high school, and said she also earned a community college degree there with the help of a private scholarship for students living in the country illegally.

She decided staying in the U.S. was too risky. Her parents brought her illegally as a 6-year-old and she did not qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA, a program with some deportation protections.

“It is scary and just speaks to how dangerous it has gotten for every single immigrant in the United States. I pray that better days are ahead for all but it seems unlikely any time soon,” Ortega wrote.

It’s hard to tell exactly how many immigrants are threatened with indefinite detention, but of about 14.6 million undocumented residents, the Center for Migration Studies estimates, something like 5.5 million could have entered the country illegally, making them subject to the detention policy.

There are no recent estimates for the percentage, said Robert Warren, senior visiting fellow at the Center for Migration Studies of New York. But in 2017 the center estimated 38% of unauthorized immigrants crossed the border illegally either by evading border patrol officers or surrendering to them and getting a court notice to fight deportation proceedings. Others overstayed legal visas and would not be subject to the new policy.

Mustafa Cetin, a New Jersey immigration attorney, said two of his clients from Turkey were denied bond despite a clean criminal record and active asylum cases in court. Both were arrested in October during routine check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said.

Both won release on bond through federal court decisions, and one has already won an asylum case, he said. Both followed a familiar pattern of seeking asylum in 2023 and 2024.

“They say, ‘Don’t come in,’ but if you come in, they will process you (with a court appearance ticket),” Cetin said. “We’ve seen this play out for hundreds of thousands of people. Then, this administration, instead of trying to deal with those who come to the border, they decided to scare people away.”

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.

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.