Two Ohio congresswomen are slamming the FBI over reports that agents on Thursday searched the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, an organization that advocates for voting and labor rights and against outsized corporate power.

Agents also reportedly fanned out across the state to interview people who have worked with the collaborative and in some cases seized their electronic devices such as phones and laptops.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Prentiss Haney, a board member of the organizing collaborative, confirmed to multiple news outlets that FBI actions happened on Thursday. He and others with the organization couldn’t immediately be reached.

Ohio Democratic U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, who represents Cleveland, said her inquiries haven’t been answered, either.

“My office has contacted the FBI demanding information, and I am deeply concerned that this is an effort to use federal law enforcement to intimidate and halt voter registration and organizing efforts,” she said in a written statement. “This is an unprecedented attack on democracy: these raids must end immediately.”

The collaborative was formed in 2007.

“Ohio Organizing Collaborative is a grassroots people-centered power organization,” its website says. “We unite base-building community organizing groups, student associations and faith organizations, with labor unions, and policy institutes throughout Ohio. It is our mission to organize everyday Ohioans, building transformative power organizations for racial, social, and economic justice. Our vision is to build a democratic multi-racial populist governing coalition in Ohio.”

Brown said the searches, seizures and interrogations appeared to an effort to harass voting-rights groups ahead of November’s midterm elections. 

“Unfortunately, this appears to be part of a systematic effort by (President Donald) Trump and (Director) Kash Patel’s FBI to attack our elections and perpetuate more myths of voter fraud — all to undermine and challenge any election result that Trump does not agree with. It’s an attack on the People.” 

In a written statement, Ohio Democratic U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes said the FBI action was “an apparent effort to use federal law enforcement to intimidate community organizers and halt voter registration. Voter registration and lawful voting by American citizens is not fraud.” 

Sykes added, “This egregious federal overreach is another example of coordinated efforts to suppress voting rights and voter registration, and it amounts to an unprecedented attack on our democracy.”

Former Ohio Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running against incumbent Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted in November, also said the FBI’s actions were highly disturbing — especially since the agency hasn’t explained what the organizing collaborative is supposed to have done wrong.

“Reports of the FBI raiding a voting rights organization in Ohio are deeply disturbing and are a transparent attempt at silencing Ohioans and their ability to vote in free and fair elections,” Sherrod Brown said in a written statement. “Federal law enforcement should never try to intimidate eligible voters from exercising their right to participate in democracy.

He said that the FBI should immediately make public any and all activities around these raids in Ohio.

“For years, Ohio has had safe and secure elections that have been administered in a bipartisan fashion. Any attempt to intimidate Ohio voters is wrong, and will not work. Millions of Ohioans are ready to hold Washington politicians accountable for voting time and again to raise the cost of gas, groceries, and utility bills,” he said.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said from the bench the agreement must be signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“The balance of harms tips in the favor of the plaintiff,” said Brinkema, a Clinton administration appointee.

Brinkema had already temporarily blocked the fund on May 29 on an emergency basis.  

The prospect that the fund would pay Trump’s supporters, including those who assaulted police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, sparked multiple lawsuits, including the filing in Virginia. 

Plaintiffs included a former Department of Justice Jan. 6 prosecutor who was fired last year and a protester at an immigration raid last year who was charged with a felony, and has since been acquitted by a jury. The plaintiffs are represented by the legal advocacy groups Democracy Forward and Common Cause. 

The Department of Justice announced the creation of the fund, in the amount of $1.776 billion, on May 18 in exchange for President Donald Trump voluntarily dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for the leak of his tax returns nearly seven years ago.

This is a developing report that will be updated.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward Markey of Massachusetts demanded that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott pay out refunds to small businesses for the tariffs that the court later determined President Donald Trump was not actually empowered to set. 

In their letter, the senators condemned what they called the administration’s continuous efforts to complicate and dodge the refund process and sought full compensation for all importers who together paid roughly $166 billion in tariff taxes under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. 

Small businesses “deserve better, and the CBP needs to answer for this debacle,” they wrote. 

President Donald Trump aggressively placed tariffs on countries across the globe early in his second term, making the import taxes a centerpiece of his economic agenda.

But the U.S. Supreme Court found Trump’s stack of global tariffs, which he began implementing in early 2025, to be illegal in a February ruling, saying that his use of the emergency tariff act exceeded his powers as president. 

Soon after,the U.S. Court for International Trade instructed CBP to issue refunds to the businesses that had borne the costs. 

But according to court documents filed May 26, the Trump administration has refunded only about $20.6 billion of the tax money, while another roughly $85 billion remains in the processing stage, leaving more than $60 billion that is not even in the process of being returned. 

“That means tens of billions of dollars unlawfully collected from American businesses remain in government hands months after the courts ordered their return,” Markey and Wyden wrote.

Markey is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, and Wyden holds the same position on the Finance Committee, which sets tax policy. 

An ongoing price to pay

Many small business owners struggled under the weight of Trump’s tariffs while they were in effect, forced to raise prices, lay off employees and give up hopes of expansion to offset the costs.

Now, they are still dealing with financial pressures as they wait for repayment from an administration that has, in Markey and Wyden’s words, “slow-rolled implementation of the refund process from the outset.”

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, the administration took weeks to announce a refund procedure, the senators wrote. 

CBP eventually settled on a new claims tool called the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, or CAPE, for the roughly 330,000 importers who paid tariffs to submit refund requests. The system went live in April. 

The lawmakers also pointed to Trump administration claims that some businesses may need to pursue individualized claims through litigation in order to receive tariff refunds, a process that could take up to years to settle. 

“This entire episode raises serious questions about whether the Administration is intentionally slowing the refund process in order to retain access to unlawfully collected funds for as long as possible,” they wrote in their letter. 

The senators included a list of refund-related questions for CBP in their letter and requested that the agency send written responses by June 24. 

A spokesperson for CBP acknowledged a request for comment Thursday, but said they could not guarantee a response in time for publication.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Las Vegas-based Ultimate Fighting Championship company, whose chief executive is an ally of the president’s, will stage the seven-fight card that has drawn curiosity, outrage, a legal challenge and lots of money.

The organization, led by Dana White, who delivered primetime speeches for Trump at the last three Republican National Conventions, is expecting over 65,000 fans at the two-day festival on the Ellipse beginning Saturday. 

The event reportedly cost $60 million, according to a government court filing. VIP sponsorship packages, including a chance to sit cage-side under “the claw” on the lawn of what’s often referred to as “The People’s House,” could cost up to the widely reported price tag of $1.5 million. 

Corporate organizers were laying finishing touches this week on a 92-foot red, white and blue structure that towers over the White House and reaches a radius around the fighting “octagon” — still under protective covering — to fit roughly 4,300 exclusive seats.

Space for tens of thousands more spectators who can watch the fights on large screens is designated on the Ellipse, which will be open only to ticketholders and UFC-approved media. Up to 120,000 fans who scored free tickets in a lottery are expected, according to the administration. Additionally, the administration has invited 1,000 members of the armed services.

The event, which is billing itself as “UFC Freedom 250,” is not affiliated with the national nonpartisan organization America 250, a commission created by Congress to mark the nation’s semiquincentennial.

A June 10 promotional UFC article described the event as a “celebration of how far mixed martial arts has come and how deeply the UFC has embedded itself into mainstream sports and culture.” 

The main card will feature lightweight title champion Ilia Topuria up against interim champion Justin Gaethje and a heavyweight title fight between Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane.

The advertising blitz on grounds owned by the federal government has inspired accusations of corruption. Brendan Ballou, founder of the Public Integrity Project, which is suing to stop the event, said the main purpose is “to enrich the President and his friends.” 

Corporate tie-ins

The event has provided corporate advertising opportunities, including for companies with close ties to Trump, and “came together by special invite from the President of the United States,” according to UFC’s press materials. 

Dodge and Crypto.com are primary sponsors. Dodge is heavily promoting its line of Ram trucks at the event and Crypto.com will offer a $1 million in Cronos, the company’s digital currency, bonus pool to the evening’s top fighters. 

The fight will stream on Paramount Plus, the platform owned by Paramount Skydance, the mega-media company whose high-profile 2025 merger the Trump administration approved. UFC recently reached a $7.7 billion deal with the streamer giving it exclusive streaming rights for seven years.

The White House collaborated with sports apparel company Fanatics to create an exclusive “USA 250” patch and logo that will be featured on fighters’ uniforms and on merchandise for sale, according to the UFC.

The “Octagon girls,” scantily clad young women who are fight mainstays and promoted by the company, “will wear a variety of custom outfits that will align with the overall theme of UFC FREEDOM 250 and further celebrate America’s history,” according to press materials.

Trump has made no secret of his support for the MMA fight promotion company owned by his friend. He began promising a UFC fight on the White House lawn while on the campaign trail in 2024. 

The president purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in TKO Group Holdings, UFC’s parent company, in March, according to public reporting and court filings.

In April, as Vice President JD Vance was in Pakistan wrapping up failed peace negotiations to end the U.S.-Iran war, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared together at a UFC cage match in Miami. 

A press conference is scheduled for the event Friday at the Lincoln Memorial and the Georgia-based Zac Brown Band is set to perform Saturday night, according to a court filing from the government. 

Block attempt

Critics have panned the event as a “corrupt scheme,” and some are hoping for a last-minute court order to stop the event altogether.

The nationwide anti-Trump organization No Kings has partnered with the Committee for the First Amendment to host and livestream a concert from New York City that will feature Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright and Bette Midler. 

The groups are encouraging people to organize watch parties for the concert, which will occur at the same time as the “UFC cage fight spectacle,” No Kings organizers said in a statement.

The Public Integrity Project, an anti-corruption advocacy organization, is backing two Virginians who say the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior are illegally lending out the public land for a massive event without permission from Congress and necessary environmental reviews.

“If this fight is allowed to proceed, it will be only the beginning, and our national monuments will become little more than branding opportunities for the rich and well-connected. We plan to stop that,” Ballou said in a statement June 6 upon filing the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The plaintiffs, a Vietnam War veteran and a civic activist, requested an emergency order from the court to halt the fight while the case plays out.

Legal decision coming 

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, issued an order Thursday stating he would not schedule an emergency hearing but rather decide based on written briefs.

In its response, the Trump administration dismissed the lawsuit as meritless, and noted that it did not name UFC as a defendant. Department of Justice lawyers wrote the plaintiffs are “two individuals: one who plans to walk past the event (intentionally ‘coming to the nuisance’) and another who might happen to drive past it.”

“Two Plaintiffs with idiosyncratic preferences cannot use equity to upend an event of this cost and magnitude at the last minute and spoil the evenings of tens of thousands of other Americans who wish to celebrate their pride in their country in a manner that Plaintiffs disdain,” the DOJ argued.

“No one is holding Plaintiffs in a jiu jitsu lock, forcing them to watch UFC Freedom 250 against their will,” the brief continued. “The public interest does not favor allowing them to exercise a heckler’s veto, particularly at this late date.”

The White House, which has referred all questions about the event to the UFC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mehta’s decision to not hold a hearing.

The UFC did not respond to questions, including a request for comment on the pending lawsuit, the cost of the event and sponsorship packages, how many tickets have been sold and if the organization has a weather contingency plan for possible storms. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Ohio Supreme Court in April issued a landmark opinion on a long-running conflict, ruling that submetering companies are public utilities – a technical finding that triggered a broad set of financial and legal protections for tens of thousands of renters in submetered apartments. 

Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate voted roughly on party lines to send to Gov. Mike DeWine legislation to roll that decision back. The final roll call came around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. 

Submetered customers – those who pay bills to a middleman instead of a distribution utility – under the bill would lose some legal advantages held by traditional utility customers, like the ability to shop around for better energy prices or for low-income earners to enroll in payment assistance programs funded by utilities. And they could be stuck with a quasi-utility company that’s regularly accused of unfair billing practices. 

For those reasons, Angela O’Brien, deputy director of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the state’s legal advocacy for electric ratepayers, said the bill turns submetered renters into “second-class utility consumers.” And she has emphasized years of news stories about tenants facing alarmingly high utility bills from unregulated submetering companies. 

Better Business Bureau pages for Nationwide Energy Partners and American Power and Light, another submeterer, are laden with charges of unfair billing or fees, most of which are denied by the companies. Over the past five years, state regulators have received 604 people complaints against the two companies combined, according to a spokesperson for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

But industry players and Republicans say the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling set up a confusing legal standard, where the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is required to regulate submeterers but given no guidance as to which kinds of companies are included or what kind of rules to establish. For that reason, they say lawmakers needed to act. 

Plus, they say the new legislation codifies several new legal protections for submetered customers that didn’t exist before the Supreme Court’s ruling. 

“The last thing I want is a department making rules over an entire industry without any legislative direction,” said Rep. Dave Thomas, an Ashtabula Republican who sponsored House Bill 173, legislation that predated the court’s ruling, in an interview Thursday. 

Industry spans at least 55,000 Ohioans

Starting around the 2000s, “submetering” companies began showing up at newly built apartment complexes. They struck deals with landlords, paying them tens of thousands of dollars per tenant to assume electric distribution operations behind the master meter. Industry operators buy electricity in bulk prices and resell it at the traditional rate, pocketing the difference. 

The companies source electricity, deliver it to customers’ residences and bill them for it every month. This “exactly” matches the legal definition of the electric utilities the PUCO has regulated for more than 100 years, according to the Ohio Supreme Court. 

But these submetered customers have lacked some legal protections other customers get like price controls, billing standards, payment assistance and the ability to shop among suppliers for better prices. 

Nationwide Energy Partners has said it has about 34,000 electric customers. American Power and Light has about 21,000, per its legislative testimony. 

Tenants and ratepayer advocates have long accused submetering companies of price gouging, a charge its advocates in Columbus have denied, along with other practices like charging tenants for electric use in common areas. 

The PUCO has declined to investigate or intervene, saying the agency lacks jurisdiction. 

House Bill 173 would unwind the classification of submeterers as public utilities. It would, however, establish protections for submetered customers. This would include ending the practice of the industry passing “common area” charges on to tenants; requiring they resell power at a 3% discount compared to the region’s standard service offer; and others. 

Submetered customers lose protections

The legislation would move Ohio backward by creating a weaker, separate set of legal protections for submetered customers compared to traditional electric ones, said O’Brien, of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. 

For instance:

• They couldn’t shop for their own electric supplier, who might provide a cheaper price than the utility’s default offer

• They’re ineligible for a utility-funded program that allows low income earners to pay a reduced bill every month, used by hundreds of thousands of Ohioans

“Utility consumers should not lose protections simply because they live in an apartment or condominium rather than a single-family home,” she said. 

“A family living in an apartment or condominium should not receive fewer rights, fewer protections, and fewer choices than a family living across the street in a single-family home.”

American Electric Power, a major utility in central Ohio where the submetering industry is concentrated, has tussled with the industry for years. That includes fights at the PUCO and the successful appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, demanding that the state recognize that submeterers are operating as unregulated electric utilities, even if under a different trade name. 

Frank Strigari, a company lobbyist, told lawmakers that submeterers add no value and only extract money from an electric market that was working fine without them. A company spokesperson said Thursday that submetering harms Ohioans through higher electric bills. 

“We are disappointed the bill passed,” the company said. 

AES Ohio and Duke Energy, two other major investor-owned utilities here, opposed the bill, as well. 

Sen. Bill DeMora, a Columbus Democrat, said the bill would have been a good idea before the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision. But now, he said, lawmakers are only rolling back protections that exist under the status quo and “screwing” customers. 

He represents a district with a concentration of submetered apartments. He gets plenty of complaints from tenants, but no happy campers. 

“I’ve never heard anyone who’s submetered say anything nice about submeterers,” he said. 

Others, including the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund, Legal Aid and AARP Ohio, all urged lawmakers to reject the bill as well. 

Submeterers say they need legal clarity

Teresa Ringenbach, a lobbyist for Nationwide Energy Partners, a Columbus-based submetering company named in AEP’s lawsuit, testified in support of the bill. 

Rather than settle the issue, the Supreme Court’s ruling called lawmakers to action because regulators lack the legal guidelines they need. 

“The Court’s opinion removed that legislative anchor,” she said to lawmakers during committee testimony. “In more than 25 years practicing before the PUCO, I have never seen a situation where the Commission could operate with so little direction or oversight from the General Assembly.”

Rep. Thomas, the bill sponsor, said it’s true that submetered renters would lose their ability to shop around for power. While the landlord (technically the utility’s customer) could do so, Thomas conceded that he or she might not pass those savings on. This is “inherent” with the business model of submetering.

But that’s part of a compromise, he said. Customers lose access to some bill payment assistance programs, but it codifies eligibility for another while also guaranteeing other safeguards like disconnection protections into law.  

Champion Real Estate, an investment, development, and management firm focused on multi-family housing, as well as the Ohio Manufactured Homes Association, both supported the legislation.

Signal Ohio is a nonprofit news organization covering government, education, health, economy and public safety.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ohio Senate Bill 276 passed 58-36 during Wednesday’s House session and the Ohio Senate concurred with the changes made to the bill later that night before going on summer break. 

Ohio Republican state Reps. Haraz Ghanbari, Gayle Manning, and Jason Stephens joined Ohio House Democrats in voting against the bill. 

State Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, introduced the bill, which originally began as legislation that would allow Ohio to join the Interstate Compact for School Psychologists, which allows licensed professionals to provide services across state lines.

The bill passed the Ohio Senate unanimously in November. 

The Ohio House Education Committee made changes to the bill, including adding the success sequence. 

“Young people are statistically far less likely to live in poverty when they complete high school, work full time, and marry before having children,” said Ohio Rep. Sarah Fowler-Arthur, R-Ashtabula. 

“This gives young people tools to make informed decisions about education, work, family, and their future stability.” 

The Heritage Foundation — the right-wing think tank that published Project 2025 — provides model legislation for the success sequence.

The bill requires the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to have a curriculum list for the success sequence for grades 6-12 and this would be a graduation requirement.

Following these sequences of events means people are “overwhelmingly less likely to live in poverty in adulthood,” the bill says.

However, a 2021 study funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found those who finish high school, work full time, and get married are less likely to experience poverty, but the order did not matter much. 

“I feel like some of us must have missed the basic statistical lesson that correlation is not causation,” said state Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio, D-Gahanna. 

“It completely misses the fact that there are so many other explanations for why so many people struggle in life so much. … Teaching that graduation, then work, then marriage, and then kids equals success also leaves out all of the unique ways that people live in our state.”

Ohio Senate Bill 156, a standalone success sequence bill, passed the Ohio Senate last year accross party lines.

State Rep. Sean Brennan, D-Parma, shared the story of his mom who graduated high school, got a job, got married, and eventually gave up her job to raise her two children. 

“Her path did not follow a fairytale outcome,” Brennan said. “She suffered horrible abuse from her husband, lost everything when he left. She’s forced to work two low-paid, non-union jobs, supplemented by public assistance to keep clothes on her kids’ backs, food on the table.”

She later died of breast cancer. 

“The so-called success sequence did not save my mother,” Brennan said. “It didn’t shield her from poverty or systemic societal problems. … Just because some individuals who follow a certain pathway avoid poverty, it doesn’t mean those steps cause success for everyone.” 

Brennan also said teaching the success sequence is one more burden on teachers. 

“They’re already stretched thin, and this part of this bill adds another requirement,” 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.

In a hearing before the Ohio Senate Health Committee, physicians emphasized the informed consent that’s already part of the standard of care under they were trained to use.

They said Ohio House Bill 347 not only bars patients from getting timely care, but creates disparate treatment for those who treat individuals who can get pregnant.

“Requiring physicians who perform abortions to do this, without similar requirements for all other procedures, is discriminatory and frankly, it is patronizing to people seeking abortion that they would need extra rules and time to decide about abortion,” said Dr. Elise Berlan, an Ohio physician who treats pediatric and adolescent patients.

Berlan and other opponents of the bill spoke at the last expected hearing of the committee before legislators head for a break that may last until after the November election.

The committee didn’t vote to advance the bill before the break, but heard from several Ohioans about their feelings on the bill.

Ohio House Republican lawmakers passed H.B. 347 along party lines in March.

Abortions rights advocates who spoke in the most recent hearing gave similar arguments to those in previous hearings when the bill passed the House.

They criticized the bill for not only being unnecessary, but also in conflict with a 2023 amendment to the Ohio Constitution that established rights to abortion and other reproductive health issues.

H.B. 347 would establish a requirement in Ohio law that physicians meet with patients 24-hours before an abortion procedure, which sponsors and supporters of the bill said allows patients to receive and reflect on needed information about risks and methods of abortion procedures.

A 24-hour abortion care waiting period has been in state law before, but a Franklin County court called off enforcement of the law until a lawsuit has been completed.

In pausing enforcement, Judge David C. Young cited the constitutional amendment passed by voters as part of his ruling.

Dr. Annalise Celano, a family medicine resident physician, said informed consent is already a “critical, and heavily mandated, piece of all medical care.”

“Informed consent ensures that our patients know the benefits and risks of any procedure or medication indicated, enabling autonomy and empowerment for the patient to make the best healthcare decisions for their lives,” Celano told the committee.

The doctor said the 24-hour waiting period could create more barriers to care, and having physicians provide state-mandated information, including information about abortion “reversal” that she and Berlan said has been debunked in multiple medical studies, would not help her empower her patients.

“H.B. 347 would be legally forcing me to coerce my patients into doing what state legislators want them to do, not what is best for them and their family,” Celano said.

Unlike decisions such as which antibiotic to use for an infection or a particular inhaler to be used for asthma, reproductive health decisions are “highly sensitive to patients’ priorities and values,” Berlan said.

However, the same delays that are included in H.B. 347 aren’t being considered for other procedures, like vasectomies.

“Having worked in urology for a number of years prior to medical school, I saw the consent process for (vasectomies) quite a few times,” Celano said.

“I can assure you that nowhere in the process of consent was there counseling on anxiety, depression, or PTSD.”

The bill has until the end of the year to come up for a vote before it would need to be reintroduced as new legislation in the next General Assembly.

Committee chair state Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, said “unless something extraordinary comes up,” he does not plan to hold another committee until after the legislature’s break, “most likely in November.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The settlement comes after the university had previously reached six other settlements with more than 300 more former athletes totaling $61 million. The latest agreement effectively ends much of the eight-year-long legal battle between victims and the university, as the university said all remaining victims but one had agreed to settle. 

During a June 3 Board of Trustees meeting, members unanimously voted to approve the settlement resolution, saying 279 of 280 victims had agreed. Ohio State President Ravi Bellamkonda said reaching a final resolution is a critical step for the university.

“The survivors of the Strauss abuse are all Buckeyes, will always be a part of our family and our community, and I continue to believe that,” Bellamkonda said. “We continue to be very grateful to them for their courage in coming forward, and reaching a final resolution is very important to us and is an important step forward.” 

Ohio State has been fighting lawsuits in federal court since 2018. The passed resolution allows the Ohio Attorney General and the university’s general counsel to finalize settlements with the plaintiffs. 

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 the university.

Strauss retired from Ohio State in 1998 and died by suicide in 2005 at age 67. 

Strauss victims have been calling for action from the university for years, a group that includes 30 former Ohio State football players and former Columbus Division of Fire Chief Jeffery Happ. 

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a motion on behalf of the university May 10 asking to drop 77 Strauss abuse cases. He argued that any claims of abuse before Oct. 21, 1986 should be thrown out due to a congressional law allowing states and universities to be sued in federal court for failing to prevent sexual abuse of students. 

Survivors of Strauss have also claimed Ohio Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan knew about the abuse during his time as an Ohio State wrestling coach from 1987 to 1995. Jordan has repeatedly denied knowing about any abuse. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Ohio House passed Ohio Senate Bill 19 with a 84-12 vote on Tuesday and the Ohio Senate concurred with changes made to the bill during Wednesday’s session.

State Rep. Michelle Teska, R-Clearcreek Twp., joined some Ohio House Democratic lawmakers in voting against the bill, which previously passed unanimously in the Ohio Senate. 

“This bill is about meeting students where they are,” said Ohio Rep. Sarah Fowler-Arthur, R-Ashtabula. “For the student ready to accelerate, it opens the next door. For the student that is struggling, it provides targeted supports, especially in mathematics and reading.”

State Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, introduced the bill, which requires school districts or individual schools to provide academic interventions for free to students who scored at a limited skill level in a state assessment test in math or English language arts, or both. 

The interventions include high-dosage tutoring, additional instruction time, an extended school calendar, and participating in a learning support program. 

“Senate Bill 19 helps to make sure that students who need additional support are not falling through the cracks, that they receive a more consistent support that is tied directly to the instruction happening in their classroom,” Fowler-Arthur said. 

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.

The bill now also requires automatically advancing students who test highly in math to move onto advanced math courses. 

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce would be required to make a list of high-quality core curriculum and instructional materials. 

“Mathematics proficiency opens doors,” said state Rep. Sean Brennan, D-Parma.

“When students fall behind in mathematics, the consequences can follow them for years. … The legislation is not perfect. There are still provisions I would have preferred to see handled differently there. There are sections I will continue to monitor closely, as will others, as they’re implemented.” 

The Ohio Education Association said the bill is well-intentioned. 

“Struggling students need to be caught up, but classroom teachers already know that,” said OEA President Jeff Wensing. “I still think we can continue to work together to do better for the students in public education across our state.” 

Science of reading

The Ohio House Education Committee added a carveout 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. 

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. 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has said one of the most important things he has done is require Ohio schools to teach the science of reading curriculum.

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. 

More than 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or implemented new policies related to evidence-based instruction since 2013, according to Education Week. 

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.

Yet beyond the immediate physical threats posed by collapsing structures, explosions, spills, and rapidly spreading flames, firefighters also repeatedly confront a far less visible menace: toxic contaminants released amid conflagrations and hazardous material incidents.

Unfortunately, over the years, studies examining firefighter health outcomes have raised growing concerns about the cumulative effects of such exposures — particularly as cancer now accounts for roughly 66% of line-of-duty deaths among career firefighters nationwide.

As such risks continue to escalate, attention has correspondingly intensified within the military fire services, whose specialized environments frequently involve aircraft troubles, fuel suppression operations, and chemical leaks that may have lasting repercussions. 

Across Ohio, these issues are particularly relevant given the state’s extensive manufacturing infrastructure, transportation corridors, military installations, and densely populated urban centers, which collectively shape the range of emergencies and harmful combustion byproducts firefighters confront.

That said, the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer — launched by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) in 2023 — has emerged as a crucial initiative to strengthen scientific understanding and finally combat the occupational cancer risks in the fire service.

However, the registry’s effectiveness ultimately depends on sustained participation from firefighters themselves, since every enrollment contributes valuable evidence vital for future protection standards as well as preventive measures and relevant policy decisions.

The Expanding Threat of Toxic Exposure for Ohio Firefighters

Firefighters throughout Ohio endure conditions that present diverse and evolving occupational hazards.

Essentially, the state’s nearly 40,000 crews not only respond to residential and commercial fires but also routinely manage vehicle collisions, industrial accidents, perilous material releases, and rescue operations along major transportation and manufacturing hubs.

Yet while their acts are noble, they frequently encounter gases and other materials that can emit carcinogenic compositions, such as carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, hydrochloric acid, and heavy metals.

Once released, many of these substances can enter the body and trigger debilitating illnesses. In fact, specific research has further reinforced these concerns.

Examining more than 900,000 cancer cases logged from 1996 to 2019 under the Ohio Cancer Incidence Surveillance System, the recent analysis found that firefighters demonstrated increased odds of several malignancies — most notably those affecting the brain, thyroid, esophagus, and skin — compared with both the police and broader population.

Such findings align with mounting national evidence recognizing firefighting as an occupation associated with heightened cancer risk. 

For military firefighters, the danger may become even more complex, as they typically operate in environments that heavily rely on advanced yet contaminated equipment.

Consistent with this, the Department of Defense has earned a reputation as one of the largest users of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), initially developed in the 1960s to suppress fuel-based fires rapidly.

Regrettably, what the authorities and health experts failed to discover sooner was that this tool’s composition — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — is highly persistent in the ecosystem, allowing it to cause pollution across over a dozen installations in Ohio, including Newark Air Force Base and Gentile Air Force Base.

Besides AFFF, materials used in insulation and fireproofing systems aboard naval vessels are also notorious for containing asbestos, lead, VOCs, and other toxic components — threatening the health of military firefighters who handle them during emergencies.

The Firefighter Registry Can Help Protect Firefighters

One of the most persistent obstacles in tackling firefighter cancer risks is the lack of sufficiently comprehensive long-term exposure data.

Although individual diagnoses continue to emerge across the fire service, isolated cases alone often cannot fully establish broader occupational patterns needed to guide policy reform and workplace protections.

With this, the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer was created to address this limitation by collecting occupational histories, exposure information, and health data from firefighters in Ohio — and nationwide — within a centralized research framework.

As participation increases, such a systemic tool can help researchers better identify how different firefighting environments, duties, and exposure patterns contribute to long-term cancer susceptibility.

In addition, this effort carries substantial implications for veterans seeking access to healthcare and other benefits.

While certain toxic-related conditions are already recognized under the Honoring Our PACT Act, some illnesses — even those associated with PFAS — still require extensive documentation before claims can proceed. 

The National Firefighter Registry may help narrow these evidentiary gaps over time. Since enrollment officially opened in 2023, almost 50,000 responders from across the country — including more than 1,000 residents in Ohio — have joined, making it the nation’s largest firefighter cancer research cohort to date.

Nevertheless, participation still represents only a fraction of the American fire service workforce, which comprises well over one million firefighters.

Expanding enrollment, therefore, remains essential.

Every additional participant strengthens the collective body of evidence used to improve occupational safety standards, guide future health research, and support informed policymaking for firefighters and veterans alike.

For active-duty personnel, retirees, volunteers, and military firefighters throughout Ohio, participation in the registry is more than a personal contribution to research — it is an investment in building a stronger scientific foundation to protect future generations of emergency responders.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Planned by Freedom 250, a public-private partnership, the rally prompted criticism that it blurred the lines separating church and state. According to the Pew Research Center, 73% of adults agree that religion should be kept separate from government policies, and only 19% of Americans say the United States should stop enforcing that principle.

But figures allied with the Trump administration have challenged the premise that the U.S. government should be – or was meant to be – separate from religion. In 2023, Johnson remarked that “The separation of church and state is a misnomer … it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that Jefferson wrote. It’s not in the Constitution. And what he was explaining is they did not want the government to encroach upon the church – not that they didn’t want principles of faith to have influence on our public life.”

As a scholar of American legal and religious history, I have written extensively about the development of religious freedom in the U.S., and the origins of the separation of church and state.

Two of the Founding Fathers shaped American views on these topics more than any other: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Yet their views have also become lightning rods for controversy as the “wall” between church and state comes under scrutiny.

My 2024 book, “The Grand Collaboration,” seeks to answer several questions: What was Jefferson’s and Madison’s understanding of religious freedom? And why were they so deeply committed to that principle?

Bedrock of law – in Virgina and beyond

Jefferson wrote the Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom in 1777, the most comprehensive declaration of religious freedom at the time. The bill guaranteed freedom of conscience, protected religious assemblies from government oversight, prohibited government funding of religious institutions and boldly declared that religious opinions were outside the authority of civil officials.

Several years later, Madison guided these ideals into law. His “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” a protest against a proposal to support Christian teachers with tax money, affirmed the values of church-state separation and religious equality. He helped defeat the proposal – and set the stage for Virginia to adopt Jefferson’s bill.

As president, Jefferson went on to pen a letter to a Baptist association in Connecticut where he immortalized the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state.”

The Bill of Rights contains two clauses about religion, both in the First Amendment: that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

What qualifies as “establishment of religion,” however, is open to debate.

In 1947, the U.S. Supreme Court embraced church-state separation as the guiding principle for interpreting the religion clauses, relying extensively on the two Virginians’ writings and actions. As Justice Hugo Black wrote, “In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between Church and State.’”

The duo’s documents served as the authority for the legal principle of church-state separation, and for more than five decades, their bona fides remained unquestioned in the law.

Shift at SCOTUS

Criticism of church-state separation intensified in the 1980s. As the religious right grew into a political force, commentators argued that the concept was anti-religious and did not represent the prevailing views about church and state during the founders’ time.

In recent decades, such arguments have attracted politicians and jurists, including members of the Supreme Court. Justice Clarence Thomas has written that the court’s earlier separationist interpretations of the Constitution “sometimes bordered on religious hostility.” Legal scholar Philip Hamburger has declared that “the constitutional authority for separation is without historical foundation” and “should at best be viewed with suspicion.”

Several recent Supreme Court decisions have rejected a separationist approach to church-state matters. For example, the conservative majority has allowed taxpayer dollars to be used at religious schools, the display of religious symbols on government property, and religious expression by public school employees.

In a 2022 dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor bemoaned that the court has turned the separation of church and state from a “constitutional commitment” to a “constitutional violation.”

The justices’ earlier reliance on Jefferson and Madison has borne the brunt of criticism that their views on church-state matters did not represent their peers, or that neither man was in favor of separation as he has been portrayed.

Exchange of ideas

To better understand Jefferson’s and Madison’s beliefs, I examined many of the 2,300 letters between the two on “Founders Online,” a National Archives website. I also looked at correspondence with other acquaintances.

Both founders had deistic leanings, meaning they believed in a supreme being, but thought science and reason were the best paths to understanding religion. They were only nominally observant Christians, but more protected from religious intolerance than other “dissenters” due to their high social standing and affiliation with the Anglican Church.

All the more striking, then, that they worked throughout their lives to advance religious freedom.

Religious matters were never far from their minds. For instance, in Madison and Jefferson’s exchanges discussing the need for a bill of rights, freedom of conscience was invariably at the top of the list. Both were convinced that government should avoid supporting religion, even if no particular religion was given preference. They also insisted that people should have broad religious freedoms.

These views were clearly on the vanguard, but other religious rationalists and religious dissenters also advocated a comprehensive understanding of religious freedom.

Both men were committed to advancing religious freedom because they saw it as deeply entwined with freedom of inquiry and conscience. “Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error,” Jefferson wrote in 1784. Allowing people to investigate ideas freely “will support the true religion,” because “Truth can stand by itself.”

Similarly, Madison declared “the freedom of conscience to be a natural and absolute right.”

In their view, free inquiry was the fount of other rights. Religious freedom, for example, was a subset of freedom of conscience. And a healthy separation of church and state was key to ensuring those freedoms.

‘A pillar of support’

The letters reveal the extent to which Jefferson and Madison complemented and reinforced each other’s attitudes toward church and state. They also reveal the close intellectual and emotional affection that each man held for the other, and how much each man valued the other’s support.

In their final exchanges before Jefferson’s death on July 4, 1826, he implored Madison, “To myself, you have been a pillar of support thro’ life. Take care of me when dead, and be assured that I shall leave with you my last affections.”

Madison responded with similar affection: “You cannot look back to the long period of our private friendship & political harmony, with more affecting recollections than I do.”

Jefferson’s and Madison’s half-century of collaboration on behalf of religious freedom and equality is an important chapter in the nation’s founding history. I believe its legacy should be remembered and celebrated, not discarded.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on June 25, 2024.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The records land in the middle of a governor’s race that Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee, has built largely around attacking Democrat Amy Acton’s record leading the Ohio Department of Health during the first year of the pandemic. Ramaswamy’s campaign and Roivant Sciences, the company he founded, did not respond to Politico’s requests for comment.

What the filings show

Two disclosures filed with the U.S. Senate account for the spending. In a first-quarter 2021 report, the law and lobbying firm Baker Donelson disclosed $50,000 in income from Roivant Sciences for lobbying the Executive Office of the President and the National Institutes of Health on “issues related to COVID-19 therapy development and approval.”

A year earlier, the Tiber Creek Group reported $20,000 from Roivant in a second-quarter 2020 filing covering lobbying of the U.S. House and Senate on the “development of therapeutics for COVID-19 and other respiratory conditions.”

Ramaswamy founded Roivant in 2014 and ran the company throughout 2020. He stepped down from its board in early 2023, shortly before launching his presidential campaign.

The candidate vs. the record

On the trail, Ramaswamy has branded Acton “Dr. Lockdown,” accused her of spreading “Covid ideology” and said her role in Ohio’s pandemic response “disqualifies her” from the governor’s office. Acton’s campaign told Politico that rhetoric is contradicted by what Ramaswamy was doing as a biotech executive at the very same time.

Ramaswamy’s position has not been uniformly anti-intervention, and the lobbying is consistent with at least part of his stated 2020 view: in a May 2020 Fox News appearance, he argued that developing Covid-19 therapeutics could allow the country to take a more measured approach than blanket restrictions. The Associated Press has reported that Ramaswamy supported vaccines during the pandemic, received one himself and encouraged mask-wearing, while saying he never backed government mandates for either.

But the public record shows his 2020 footprint went well beyond drug development. Ramaswamy advised Ohio’s own Covid-19 response that year, working with then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted — by his own account in a 2021 op-ed — and backed measures even the DeWine administration considered overreach, including mandatory antibody testing and stay-at-home orders for Ohioans without immunity, as TiffinOhio.net reported Wednesday. Gov. Mike DeWine, for his part, has said the pandemic closure decisions Ramaswamy attacks were his own, not Acton’s.

A Covid record under growing scrutiny

The lobbying disclosures add to a string of pandemic-era episodes that have followed Ramaswamy into the race. The Associated Press reported in May that Datavant, a health-data company incubated under Roivant, pushed for a national Covid-19 registry that would have let the small share of Americans with natural immunity return to normal life while the rest of the population remained, in the proposal’s framing, “segregated” — as TiffinOhio.net previously reported.

This March, Genevant Sciences, a Roivant subsidiary, announced a $2.25 billion settlement with Moderna over the unauthorized use of Genevant’s and Arbutus Biopharma’s patented technology in Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines. The settlement came roughly 3 years after Ramaswamy left Roivant’s board.

And in 2023, Mediaite reported that Ramaswamy paid a Wikipedia editor who removed the reference to his service on Ohio’s Covid-19 Response Team from his page — at the candidate’s “explicit request,” according to the editor’s own disclosure notes — days before he announced his presidential run.

A Ramaswamy-aligned super PAC has meanwhile continued pressing the Covid attack on Acton; a TiffinOhio.net fact-check published Tuesday found one of its recent ads made false claims about her record.

Democrats pounce ahead of November

The Ohio Democratic Party amplified the lobbying report within a day. “Scam artist Vivek Ramaswamy has given Ohioans yet another reason to not believe a word he says,” party spokeswoman Katie Seewer said in a Thursday statement, pointing to the registry proposal, the Moderna settlement and the newly surfaced lobbying as evidence that Ramaswamy’s attacks on Acton conflict with his own conduct during the pandemic.

Ramaswamy faces Acton — who is attempting to become the first Democrat elected Ohio governor in more than 20 years — in the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Husted’s office says Dunn has been working with the committee on his reporting obligations. “Our office holds our team to the highest ethical standards. In this case, Mr. Dunn has been in regular contact with the Ethics Committee to ensure he has reported everything to their satisfaction,” spokesperson Olivia Tripodi said in a statement to NOTUS, which first reported the arrangement Thursday. The statement described Dunn’s Senate role as a capstone to his career in public service.

The disclosure at the center of the complaint is Dunn’s personal financial report covering calendar year 2025, filed with Congress on May 14. It lists $22,652 in self-employment income from Statehouse Impact Group LLC, a lobbying and government-affairs firm headquartered in Columbus, paid while Dunn served as Husted’s senior adviser and counsel.

A firm that carried his name for 2 decades

Dunn’s ties to the firm run deeper than a consulting contract. According to the 5-page complaint filed Friday, May 29, by attorney Anne Griffin of Columbus, the company was incorporated with the Ohio Secretary of State as Sean P. Dunn LLC in June 2002 and operated for years as Sean P. Dunn & Associates, with Dunn as its founder and president. It adopted the Statehouse Impact Group name on Feb. 28, 2025 — days before Dunn began his Senate employment on March 3, 2025, according to the complaint. The firm’s own website still describes one of its vice presidents as a longtime leader at “Statehouse Impact Group (formerly Sean P. Dunn and Associates).”

The complaint states that Dunn was registered to lobby in Ohio as recently as Feb. 26, 2025, and that the firm’s clients include AES Ohio, AT&T, Cordata Health, General Cigar, Meta Platforms, the Ohio Automobile Dealers Association, the Ohio Hospital Association and Philip Morris International.

Beyond the consulting fees, the complaint notes that Dunn’s 2025 disclosure also reported between $100,001 and $1 million in unearned income from Statehouse Impact Group.

What Senate Rule 37 prohibits

Griffin’s complaint argues the arrangement violates Senate Rule 37, the chamber’s conflict-of-interest rule. Senate staffers earning above a baseline threshold are barred from receiving compensation for “professional services,” a category that includes consulting. The complaint contends a stricter provision also applies: because Dunn’s pay exceeded 120% of the GS-15 federal salary level — the complaint cites congressional salary records showing he earned $97,558.32 over a 6-month period in 2025 — he is prohibited from receiving any compensation from a firm that provides professional services involving a fiduciary duty, regardless of his own role there.

The complaint also implicates Husted directly. Under Senate rules, a supervising senator bears primary responsibility for preventing conflicts of interest among staff — a duty Griffin argues Husted “appears to have failed” to meet. The complaint requests an immediate investigation to determine whether Dunn’s compensation from the firm violated Senate rules, and separately whether Husted knew of the conflict and took no steps to prevent it. “An investigation is necessary to ensure Mr. Dunn complies with Senate Rules and to assure the citizens of Ohio that the office of their U.S. Senator is not acting for private gain,” Griffin wrote.

Husted’s office did not respond to NOTUS questions about the nature of Dunn’s work for the firm, and did not acknowledge a question about whether it was aware of the complaint. Griffin did not respond to questions from NOTUS. The Senate Ethics Committee — whose longstanding practice is to neither confirm nor deny that a complaint exists — also did not respond.

Watchdogs see a leverage problem for Ohio lawmakers

Government ethics watchdogs told NOTUS the dual role creates pressure inside the Ohio Statehouse, where legislators and staff weighing requests from the firm know one of its consultants also serves one of Ohio’s 2 U.S. senators. Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, called the arrangement flatly unethical, telling NOTUS that “firewalls are a myth.” Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette of the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight said a lobbyist who also works for a sitting senator carries “additional juice and leverage” into any advocacy meeting with Ohio lawmakers.

Whether the complaint produces consequences is another question. A NOTUS investigation published in January found that the committee has reviewed 2,007 complaints since 2007 without once imposing formal discipline. The committee does issue advisory opinions guiding staffers’ outside employment, but it keeps those opinions confidential.

A widening ethics file

The complaint adds to a series of ethics-related controversies surrounding Husted as the campaign intensifies. In late May, the campaign-finance reform group End Citizens United named Husted 1 of only 3 senators on its 2026 list of the most corrupt lawmakers in Washington, as TiffinOhio.net previously reported. The group cited more than $550,000 in corporate PAC money Husted has accepted since joining the Senate, much of it from the insurance industry, along with a $3,500 donation he took in September 2025 from billionaire Les Wexner — a onetime close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Two months after accepting that donation, Husted voted to block a Senate amendment that would have compelled the attorney general to publicly release investigative documents related to Epstein.

Husted has also drawn criticism for his responses to constituents on affordability. On May 19, asked on an Ohio podcast what he was doing about gas prices — which climbed as high as $4.78 in Ohio amid the U.S. conflict with Iran — Husted replied: “What do you want me to do?” That same day, he voted against a war powers resolution directing the president to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran; the measure advanced 50-47 with 4 Republicans crossing over.

A new front in the Senate race

The complaint lands as Husted — the former Ohio lieutenant governor and secretary of state appointed in January 2025 to fill Vice President JD Vance’s Senate seat — campaigns to keep it. He faces Democrat Sherrod Brown, the former 3-term senator, in a nationally watched special election on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

The Ohio Democratic Party seized on the report within hours. In a statement Thursday, Senior Communications Advisor Tony Wen called Husted corrupt and tied Statehouse Impact Group to the FirstEnergy utility bailout scandal. “Ohioans deserve better, and they will vote Jon Husted out in November,” Wen said.

Husted’s own connection to the FirstEnergy scandal and House Bill 6 is documented. Internal FirstEnergy records released in 2024 allegedly show the then-lieutenant governor played a central role in passing the 2019 utility bailout law at the center of Ohio’s largest-ever corruption scandal, as TiffinOhio.net previously reported. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio rate data show the average Ohio household now pays about $663 more per year for electricity than when the law took effect.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director who led the state’s early COVID-19 response, released the plan — branded the “ActOn Lowering Costs” agenda — on Monday, April 6, at a roundtable with small business owners at a Columbus coffeehouse. The $1,778 figure is the campaign’s own estimate for a family of four at that income, but the tools behind it — a refundable earned income credit and a child tax credit — have an independent research record in Ohio, and one of them was proposed in nearly identical form by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine before lawmakers in his own party stripped it from the state budget.

“As governor, my number one priority will be lowering costs for working families,” Acton said at the rollout, according to the Statehouse News Bureau.

How the Working Families Tax Cut would work

The plan’s first piece is a refundable state earned income credit, which the campaign estimates would support up to 775,000 working families. Ohio already has an earned income credit set at 30% of the federal version — but it is nonrefundable, meaning families with little or no state income tax liability never see its full value. A refundable credit pays out the difference in cash, reaching the lowest-paid workers the current credit leaves behind.

That distinction is not a partisan talking point. Research from Policy Matters Ohio, citing modeling by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, found that even a modest 10% refundable state EITC would reach an estimated 1.75 million Ohioans, including 670,000 children. The federal version of the credit lifted roughly 5.3 million Americans above the poverty line in 2021, and 26 states plus the District of Columbia already offer refundable state versions. Ohio is one of only a handful of states with a credit that is not refundable.

The second piece is a child tax credit: $1,000 per year for each child aged 0 to 6 and $500 per year for each child aged 7 to 18, for families earning up to $85,000. The campaign says it would reach more than 1.4 million Ohio children. The structure closely tracks the Thriving Families Tax Credit that Ohio lawmakers have already introduced as House Bill 290, with Acton’s version extending eligibility to higher ages and incomes. An analysis of that similar proposal by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy estimated it would cut Ohio’s child poverty rate by about 16%, moving roughly 48,000 children out of poverty.

The idea has crossed party lines before. DeWine, a Republican, proposed a $1,000 refundable child tax credit for children under 7 in his 2025 budget. The Republican-controlled Ohio House removed it before passage.

Healthcare: drug prices, medical debt, and Medicaid

The agenda’s healthcare plank cites campaign figures that more than 120,000 Ohioans have dropped Affordable Care Act coverage since 2025 and that 11 rural hospitals in the state are at risk of closure.

Acton proposes launching “Ohio Rx,” an online platform that would use the state’s purchasing power through its Medicaid single pharmacy benefit manager to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for all Ohioans, not just Medicaid enrollees. She would also require that out-of-pocket spending on medications and healthcare supplies count toward insurance deductibles.

On medical debt, Acton pledges to direct the state on her first day in office to join Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo, which the campaign says have relieved nearly $1 billion in medical debt for residents by purchasing it for pennies on the dollar. The plan also calls for cracking down on surprise billing and aggressive collections, expanding hospital and insurance price transparency, and cutting Medicaid red tape and approval wait times.

Undoing HB 6: energy bills and the bailout’s long shadow

The energy section reaches directly into the fallout from House Bill 6, the 2019 utility bailout law at the center of the largest public corruption scandal in Ohio history — the scheme that sent former House Speaker Larry Householder to federal prison for 20 years. Beyond the bribery, HB 6 carried a quieter cost for ratepayers: it eliminated the energy efficiency, demand response, and renewable portfolio standard programs that gave households and small businesses tools to cut their usage and their bills.

Acton pledges to reinstate those programs. She also says she would appoint Public Utilities Commission of Ohio members who are “not beholden to utility companies” and work with the attorney general to restore funding to the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the state’s ratepayer advocate, whose budget has been cut even as utility rate cases have multiplied.

The plan sets out cost guardrails for data centers — requiring the projects and their investors, not taxpayers and surrounding communities, to cover the additional electricity, gas, water, and environmental costs they generate — along with transparency requirements, union labor, and community benefits agreements. Acton also commits Ohio to working with the 12 other states in the PJM regional grid to push for lower power costs. In the plan, Acton writes that she and her husband, Eric, saw their own electric bill jump $140 in a single month last summer.

Wage theft, junk fees, and scams

The consumer protection plank includes a first-day executive order requiring rapid turnaround on wage theft cases; the campaign says more than 213,000 Ohio workers are shorted through unpaid overtime, sub-minimum wages, stolen tips, and misclassification as independent contractors. Acton backs House Bill 563, sponsored by state Rep. Mark Hiner, a Republican from Howard, which would require ticket sellers and online marketplaces to show the full cost of a ticket — fees included — up front, and pairs it with a “First Click Guarantee” that the first price a buyer sees is the price they pay. The plan also proposes a price-gouging hotline, anti-scam protections for seniors, a modernized SNAP EBT system to prevent benefit theft, and parental controls on in-app purchases.

Two tax plans, two theories of who gets help

Neither candidate has fully explained how the state would absorb the cost of their tax promises. The Statehouse News Bureau reported that Acton offered few funding specifics at her rollout, and Ohio Republicans have launched a website claiming her agenda would add $21 billion in spending and require doubling the state income tax — a partisan estimate the campaign disputes. Ramaswamy spokeswoman Connie Luck said the agenda means “billions in new spending, higher taxes and bigger government.”

But the same question hangs over Ramaswamy’s side of the ledger, at a much larger scale. His signature proposal is phasing out Ohio’s income tax, which brought in more than $10 billion last fiscal year — roughly a quarter of the state’s operating budget — and he has not specified which programs he would cut to cover it. As TiffinOhio.net reported last week, Legislative Service Commission analysis of the related capital gains repeal found 81.6% of its benefit would flow to Ohioans earning more than $200,000 a year, while those making under $100,000 would receive 7.3%.

That is the contrast likely to define the affordability debate this fall: Acton’s credits are capped at $85,000 in household income and aimed at the bottom and middle of the wage scale; Ramaswamy’s cuts deliver their largest gains at the top. Acton, for her part, has called Ramaswamy’s leadership a danger to Ohio, and Democrats say his tax plan would blow a $10 billion hole in the state budget.

Acton, who was unopposed in the May 5 Democratic primary, is running with former Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Pepper as her lieutenant governor candidate. Ramaswamy won the Republican primary with more than 82% of the vote. The general election is November 3.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The senators, led by Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee ranking Democrat Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, asked the CFTC to offer guidance to those participating in bustling prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket in an effort to restrict event contract manipulation and insider trading, according to the June 1 letter.  

“The volume of event contracts trading on prediction markets has grown exponentially over the past 18 months,” the senators wrote. “These markets have a significantly higher proportion of retail participants than traditional derivatives markets, heightening customer protection concerns.”

The senators sent the letter before the CFTC proposed rules Wednesday that would ban bets on war, assassination and other extreme events, which critics said did not do enough to rein in the industry.

Lawmakers also want the CFTC to conduct detailed reviews of participating futures markets  to ensure that their policies and procedures are clearly outlined and that they are equipped with adequate resources to prevent market abuse. 

On a similar note, they wrote that the commission should instruct the markets to monitor the terms and conditions of event contracts, as ambiguous contract language can lead to conflicts over resolution and payout once an outcome has occurred. 

“Sufficient resources should be devoted to anticipating and addressing such issues prior to contract listing, rather than after problems arise,” the senators wrote.

In addition to Klobuchar, the letter was signed by Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons of Delaware, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

Concerns around insider trading

Prediction markets allow consumers to bet on the outcomes of future events and trade in products commonly called event contracts. 

Most event contracts offer two possible outcomes, presenting traders with the option to bet either “yes” or “no.” The price of each outcome at any given time, expressed as a fraction of a dollar, corresponds to the market’s forecast of an outcome occurring, with $1 meaning 100%. Consumers who correctly predict an outcome then earn a profit equal to the difference between the price at which they bought and the end fixed payout, typically $1, according to the CFTC.

That system leaves the markets vulnerable to manipulation by people with inside knowledge of an event, which is partly what prompted the Democratic senators to write the letter, they said.

For example, a U.S. soldier was charged in April with making more than $400,000 on Polymarket by betting the United States would launch a military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Prosecutors say the soldier used classified information to make the wagers in advance of the operation.

The senators did not give the CFTC a deadline to carry out their requests. Rather, they urged the commission in their letter to consider their recommendations as it continues to “develop rules and guidance for the prediction market industry.”

The CFTC did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment in time for publication. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Commissioner Frank Bisignano instead deferred to lawmakers, who will need to make changes to the safety net program for tens of millions of Americans before it reaches insolvency in six years.  

Bisignano’s testimony came just one day after the Social Security trustees said in their annual report the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will “become depleted” in the fourth quarter of 2032, earlier than previously expected. Once that happens, benefits will automatically drop by 22% and gradually decrease from there. 

“I always thought my job was to make it perform as well as possible so you all have a set of options and choices to decide on how this great American program, which is, you know, fundamentally called by some the largest insurance program out there, others could call it the largest retirement program out there. Anyway, the idea is to make it perform well so you all can make the decisions,” Bisignano said. 

Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee’s subcommittee on Social Security and subcommittee on Work and Welfare, who held the two-hour hearing, were pleased with the statistics Bisignano shared about his administration of Social Security. 

Democrats on the panels, however, were skeptical that he was giving a full picture of the delays that some Americans face when trying to apply for benefits or ask about an issue they’re having with the program. 

Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny Davis, ranking member on the Work and Welfare subcommittee, said the Social Security Administration’s “statements about customer service do not always appear to reflect the reality Americans experience.” 

“Press releases claiming dramatic improvements in SSA customer service, particularly on the 800-number, conflict with reports from AARP and our constituents,” Davis said. “People across the country report waiting in long lines at Social Security offices or being turned away and told to make appointments, only to discover no appointments are available. 

“Similarly, it seems misleading to claim a zero call wait time for seniors that waited hours or days for a call back, or to praise short call wait times for people whose problems are not resolved.”

Debate over statistics

Bisignano testified that he ushered in “the best all-around performance ever at the Social Security Administration.”

“More than 99% of our field offices are open and serving the public, with average wait times reduced to 20 minutes, a 30% improvement. No field offices closed due to staffing,” he said. “We now answer 90% of calls to our 800-number and have reduced average wait time to five minutes, a 75% improvement.”

Bisignano added that “web transactions” have risen by 37% and that there has been a 21% rise in account creations.

California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu said she found the statistics Bisignano shared “extremely misleading,” in part, because the administration classifies anyone who requests a call back instead of waiting on hold as a zero minute hold time. 

“The American people deserve accurate information on how long they can expect to wait when trying to get help for their benefits,” she said.

Chu then shared the story of a woman who tried to schedule an in-person appointment to apply for survivor benefits after her husband died in July but was unable to get one until October. 

“Once she finally got an appointment, she then had to wait at least four months,” she said. 

Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford pressed Bisignano about wait times at the Las Vegas field office for disability hearings, which he said take nearly a year. 

“My office continues to hear from seniors, people with disabilities and working families who cannot get answers and cannot access benefits that they deserve,” Horsford said. “Last year, you promised improvements. Today, Las Vegas disability applicants are waiting nearly 11 months.”

Horsford then asked if Bisignano would “designate a senior SSA point person to work directly with me and my office on unresolved constituent cases.” 

Bisignano said he would send the head of disability to come see Horsford in his office. 

Social Security solvency

While the subcommittees and Bisignano barely scratched the surface of Social Security’s financial problems during the hearing, a separate event hosted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget delved into those struggles. 

Karen Glenn, chief actuary at the Social Security Administration, said during her presentation on the trustees report that addressing the program’s budget woes is “a simple math problem” but “a difficult political problem.”

“We can either raise scheduled revenue by about one-third, reduce scheduled benefits by about one-fourth or some combination of the two,” she said. “So it sounds simple, but not so easy in practice.”

Glenn said one of the purposes of the annual report to Congress is to “provide information to assess solvency and the changes needed to eliminate those shortfalls.”

“The trustees have consistently advised that Congress should act sooner rather than later,” she said. “We are just about out of time for that sooner. We are basically at the later.”

Mark Sarney, director of Social Security policy at CRFB, said he doesn’t believe Congress will be able to add to the annual deficit in order to avoid a drop-off in benefits since “we’ll probably have debt problems way before 2032.”

That leaves lawmakers in the House and Senate with complex choices to make during the next few years.

“Hopefully there will be a growing call within Congress to actually get serious and do something,” Sarney said. “Because if you let the cut happen, that’s like 1% of the national economy that suddenly doesn’t go out in checks, which may matter less in some parts of the country, but in others, where most of the population is depending on Social Security, that’s going to be a hammer blow to both people’s lives and the economy. And nobody wants that.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland on June 3 published one if its eight annual installments of the Beige Book. It seeks to assess economic conditions through online surveys and interviews with businesses, community leaders, economists and others.

The Cleveland Fed is one of 12 regional federal reserve banks. Its region comprises all of Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

The most recent edition of the Beige Book said that there has been an uptick in manufacturing and overall business activity, but much of that is due to data center construction, it said.

“Demand for manufactured goods rose at a robust pace, largely driven by data center development,” it said. 

However, it cited increasing costs — many of them a consequence of the war with Iran — and said that employers are hiring cautiously.

“The primary drivers of increases cited by contacts were rising fuel costs related to the Middle East conflict and spillover effects on material and service costs through increased fuel surcharges,” it said.

“Manufacturing and agriculture contacts reported cost spikes for fertilizer and petroleum-based products, such as resin, due to the Middle East conflict.”

And as consumers deal with higher energy costs, they’re pulling back on other spending. 

“Consumer spending declined slightly in recent weeks,” the Beige Book said.

“Many retailers reported that higher fuel costs and related inflation had further dampened consumer spending, leading to decreased sales across various retail sectors including convenience and grocery stores, auto dealerships, and restaurants. 

Retailers also reported increased credit card usage — possibly a sign that consumers are going into debt to make needed purchases.

As measured by the University of Michigan, consumer sentiment in May was at its lowest point at least since the 1970s. Consumer spending makes up nearly 70% of the overall economy.

“Consumer sentiment fell for the third straight month as supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz continue to boost gasoline prices,” Joanne Hsu, who directs the University of Michigan’s consumer surveys, said in a written statement. “Sentiment is now just below the previous historical trough seen in June 2022.”

She added, “The cost of living continues to be a first-order concern, with 57% of consumers spontaneously mentioning that high prices were eroding their personal finances, up from 50% last month. Lower-income consumers and those without college degrees posted particularly strong sentiment declines; these groups are more sensitive to increases in the cost of gas and other essentials.”

Eric Pachman, a Dayton-based data analyst who used to work for Exxon, last week published a newsletter saying that petroleum reserves are “frankly, terrifying.”

_Oil inventories are low and declining quickly.

(Visualization courtesy of Eric Pachman.)_

“Look at crude,” he wrote. “After climbing through the spring, inventories have turned and are falling fast – the steepest decline of any year on the chart. If that slope holds, we’re heading for territory we haven’t seen since the early 1980s, when those bottom grey lines were set.

Exxon executives warned late last month that as inventories go down, oil prices will skyrocket in the coming weeks — from about $100 a barrel now to $150 or even $160. Chevron issued a similar warning.

Pachman produced another visualization of diesel inventories that he said was even more bleak. 

Its price affects you even if your car or truck lacks a diesel engine, he said, because 90% of freight tonnage in the United States is carried by diesel engines powering trucks, trains, and cargo ships.

_Diesel inventories are far down compared to earlier years, represented by the gray lines.

(Visualization courtesy of Eric Pachman.)_

“… distillate (i.e., diesel) is the one that should stop you cold: stocks are now lower than they’ve been more than 90% of the time in over 40 years of record,” Pachman wrote.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The justices heard arguments Tuesday morning in the lawsuit and will issue a ruling at a later date. 

At the heart of the lawsuit is municipal home rule, which gives cities and villages in Ohio the constitutional right to certain powers, including establishing laws in accordance with the self-government clause.

Cities have the right to make their own policies, as long as they don’t get in the way of laws in the Ohio Revised Code.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a bill in January 2023 that would have prevented any city or municipality from regulating smoking, vaping, and other e-cigarette usage and sales, saying it would be bad for Ohio’s children. 

Columbus City Council voted to stop the sale of flavored tobacco products in December 2022 and the ban took effect in January 2024.

Ohio lawmakers voted to override DeWine’s veto in 2024 and the law was set to take effect in April 2024. 

Several cities — including Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo — sued the state and the law was blocked from taking effect.

The cities argued the Ohio Home Rule Amendment of 1912 lets cities set rules, including a ban on flavored tobacco. There are now 21 cities involved in the lawsuit. 

A Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge and the Tenth District Court of Appeals agreed with the cities and the ban on flavored tobacco products currently stands.

The state appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.

“We already have a comprehensive system of state tobacco regulations, and we do not want municipalities having a local patchwork on top of that,” said Zachery Keller, a deputy solicitor general for the Ohio Attorney General. 

“Home rule amendment was never supposed to be this weapon that cities used to overturn state law.”

A four-prong test was created through a 2002 Ohio Supreme Court decision to decide if local rules outweigh state law.

The 21 cities say the flavored tobacco ban restrictions fails the four-pronged test. 

“How in the world are we dealing with a situation where the General Assembly can simply say municipalities can’t pass laws,” said Columbus City Solicitor General Richard Coglianese. 

“The home rule amendment says that municipalities have the right to go ahead and address problems that they themselves face.” 

About 1.63 million middle and high school students nationwide used vapes in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Nearly 19% of Ohio high school students vape, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. 

“They are highly addictive,” Coglianese said. “They are marketed with cereal flavors to kids.” 

How the justices rule in the case could have further implications as the Republican-controlled state legislature takes issue with laws Democratic city leaders pass. 

The Ohio Mayors Alliance argues home rule is vital because it allows local governments to create policies suited to their residents since “what works for Cleveland or Columbus may not fit a Cadiz or Coshocton.”

Opponents of home rule say local ordinances create a patchwork of laws that can infringe on a statewide jurisdiction.

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.

According to a report from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (ODRC), over 20,000 people are released from state prisons each year, along with about 75,000 from local jails. 

The ODRC report further reveals that one-third of formerly incarcerated individuals are likely to be re-arrested within three years of their release. This cycle of reoffending significantly impacts thousands of families and communities throughout the state. 

With so many Ohioans leaving prison, reentry has become a critical social issue. When returning citizens lack stable employment or housing, their chances of successful reintegration diminish.     

Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) indicate that reentry and repeat offending are widespread issues in the United States, with over 1.25 million people held in state and federal prisons. 

Concerns are rising as nearly three out of four released individuals are re-arrested within a few years, and about one-third of them end up back in prison, according to the BJS. 

While the criminal justice system is making frantic efforts, the cycle of incarceration remains one of its greatest challenges. 

With 12 years of experience in corrections, I can confidently say that many returning individuals struggle to stay out of the criminal justice system. This is largely due to social structures and policies that create barriers to successful reentry.     

As a doctoral student at Ohio University, I took a course on the sociology of prisoner reentry. It became evident that many individuals return from prison carrying trauma, addiction, shame, poverty, mental health issues, and broken relationships. 

Without adequate support, their transition back into society becomes extremely difficult. 

Research in the United States shows that second chances are effective when individuals receive long-term support after their release from prison. 

A national report by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, titled 50 States, 1 Goal: Examining State-Level Recidivism Trends in the Second Chance Act Era, found that individuals are more likely to succeed when society provides stable housing, jobs, healthcare, emotional support, and community acceptance instead of continued punishment and rejection. 

The report examined recidivism trends across all 50 states during the early years of the Second Chance Act, originally signed into law in 2008 by President George W. Bush and later strengthened by subsequent criminal justice reforms.

As a result, three-year reincarceration rates across the United States have dropped by 23% since 2008. Fewer people returned to prison because states expanded reentry support, employment opportunities, behavioral healthcare, housing assistance, and coordinated community programs. 

The national report also indicates that when states invest in support systems, individuals are less likely to return to prison. Second chances are not just moral concepts; they are practical public safety strategies. 

Our communities become safer when formerly incarcerated citizens receive help in rebuilding their lives. Instead of turning our backs on returning individuals, we must welcome them into our society and provide support. 

In 2024, a team of judges, correctional officials, mental health professionals, legal experts, community organizations, and reentry specialists across the state published the Supreme Court of Ohio Task Force on Reentry Final Report. 

The task force was mandated to examine what facilitates successful reintegration for formerly incarcerated people into their communities. 

Its report found that reentry success in Ohio heavily depends on social support, including stable housing, healthcare, education, employment opportunities, mentorship, and strong community relationships.

The task force’s recommendation emphasizes that reentry should not be treated as a one-time event. Instead, Ohio officials view reintegration as a long-term process that must begin during incarceration and continue after release. 

To make second chances practical for returning citizens, laws governing the treatment of individuals with criminal records need to be reviewed.  

Currently, Ohio lawmakers are considering “second chances” bills that could facilitate reentry and reduce repeat offending statewide. I commend our lawmakers for this initiative.   

For instance, Ohio House Bill 393, if passed, would expand programs that help incarcerated individuals obtain state identification cards before their release. Many returning citizens, as it stands now, struggle to find jobs, secure housing, open bank accounts, or even access basic services without a state ID. 

Additionally, Ohio House Bill 268 would streamline the application process for a Certificate of Qualification for Employment for formerly incarcerated citizens. Under current Ohio law, many individuals must wait years after completing all sanctions before applying for the certificate.  

Another crucial proposal is Ohio Senate Bill 143, known as the “ban-the-box” bill. Once passed, this law would prevent employers from asking about the criminal history of job applicants. 

Ultimately, returning Ohioans would have an equal opportunity to be evaluated based on their skills and qualifications rather than their past mistakes.

The United States has the largest prison population in the world, so if we truly believe in second chances, support should not end at the prison gate. The reentry process is gradual and a shared responsibility.

A second chance should not be a mere promise; it should be a commitment we uphold long after individuals leave the prison gate. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

In Maryland, for example, AI usage policies for K-12 schools are “all over the map,” Democratic state Sen. Katie Fry Hester said.

In some school districts, she said, AI use is encouraged, while in others it is restricted, or — a worst-case scenario for Hester — there is little to no policy guidance at all.

“What we heard repeatedly is that the teachers were feeling like they had to navigate artificial intelligence entirely on their own,” Hester said.

Hester said square one for lawmakers is AI literacy, which was the aim of new legislation that she sponsored and that was signed into law in May. It requires an AI coordinator in each school system, a statewide AI professional development for teachers and AI literacy to be a component of career readiness and computer science standards for K-12 students. It also requires the state Department of Education to provide certain guidance on AI.

Many other states have also been trying to create AI policies for schools. Lawmakers filed more than 134 bills across 31 states this year related to AI in education, focusing on data privacy, usage restriction in the classroom, literacy and training, according to MultiState, a government relations firm.

A survey by the Center for Democracy & Technology showed that a large majority of teachers (85%) reported using AI in their classroom during the 2024-25 school year, while 86% of students said they’d used AI for either personal or school-related reasons. But only about half of teachers and students reported that they received some training or information about AI from someone at their school, and few received training or information on risks of AI use.

A turning point for schools came with the rollout of ChatGPT in 2022, said Noelle Ellerson Ng, chief advocacy and governance officer for the School Superintendents Association. “AI was something that could not be gatekept,” said Ellerson Ng. “It was in the classroom the minute students were able to access it.”

Her association does not take positions on state AI bills or policies. But she said districts are trying to avoid knee-jerk, reactive policies such as New York City’s brief 2022 ban of ChatGPT because of fears about cheating.

Some states have made progress in laying the groundwork for AI policy in K-12.

Ohio has set a July 1 deadline for every school district, community school and STEM school to adopt an AI use policy. The state’s model policy recommends that districts address student and staff uses, privacy, ethical use, teacher-specific uses, vendor agreements, third-party AI tools and student assessments.

A new Idaho law signed in March requires local school districts and charter schools to devise local policies for AI usage in K-12 schools, requires state standards for AI literacy and education training and ensures that no AI “replaces or eliminates a human teacher.”

An Oklahoma law enacted last month requires AI tools to be age-appropriate and requires teachers to review anything AI produces before using it in the classroom. It also allows parents to opt their children out of using AI tools. The law also directs the state education department to develop AI guidance and requires local school boards to set policies before the 2027-28 school year.

Yet even as schools are being sold on AI products by numerous vendors, there’s a growing skepticism about AI in classrooms. It follows a similar backlash about social media and digital technology’s academic and mental health effects on students, which has led to more states and districts putting in place cellphone bans and rethinking their reliance on laptops.

In the Center for Democracy & Technology survey, half of students said using AI in class made them feel less connected to their teachers, and 70% of teachers said they were concerned that students’ use of AI was preventing them from learning important skills.

Schools need to weigh the benefits of adopting AI tools in the classroom against their effect on student privacy, mental health and social skills, said Sue Thotz, director of outreach for Common Sense Media, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on technology and its effect on children and families.

Schools, Thotz said, may be the “only mandated safe space” where students can learn to use and access emerging technology. But she and other education experts believe districts need to increase scrutiny of products.

Globally, the market for AI products in K-12 schools was worth around $391.2 million in 2024, and could rise to more than $9 billion by 2034, according to market.us, a market research company. That includes AI products for tutoring, personalized learning, automated grading, lesson planning and administrative tasks.

“When I talk about AI literacy, it’s not how to use AI. It’s understanding how AI is built,” said Thotz. “Why is it being created? Who’s profiting off of this?”

‘Giving a tool to children’

New York Assemblymember Robert Carroll said he uses artificial intelligence in his own work and sees its value. As someone who struggled with dyslexia as a child, he also thinks technology can help students with disabilities.

But he also wants to keep AI out of most K-8 classroom instruction. Students should learn basic subject matter first — in conjunction with critical thinking — and then later use the tools that can assist them, he said.

Carroll, a Democrat, has introduced legislation that would prohibit the use of most AI in K-8 classrooms, with exceptions for diagnostic testing and support for students with disabilities.

“It is imperative that all children gain strong foundational skills, especially in literacy and numeracy, and it seems that AI is uniquely positioned to possibly undermine that,” he said. “There’s a difference between giving a tool to adults and giving a tool to children who have yet to master skills.”

Rather than full bans, most bills seeking to restrict AI have opted to focus on age restrictions, parental opt-outs, oversight and bans on using AI to replace teachers.

This year, Florida’s “AI Bill of Rights” proposal would have included a statewide restriction on student access to AI instructional tools before sixth grade, with exceptions for use supervised by school personnel, English-learner translation support and disability accommodations. It overwhelmingly passed the Senate 37-1, but died in the House.

A new Connecticut law adds computer science to the required public school curriculum, including AI and emerging technologies. Connecticut lawmakers in 2025 failed to pass a bill aiming to stop AI from “replacing” public school educators.

Sophia Romee, the general manager of the GenAI Studio, an initiative studying how students and educators use generative AI at the College Board, the nonprofit that administers the Advanced Placement curriculum and SAT tests for high schools, said she is concerned that only about 1 in 5 districts that allow students to use generative AI have a formal policy governing its use.

The College Board’s research, Romee said, shows many students are worried about becoming too reliant on AI, and that adults need to give clearer guidance about where using AI tools for brainstorming, revising and tutoring crosses the ethical line into cheating.

“Students are far more self-aware about AI’s risks than headlines suggest.”

Like aviation in 1905

Jason Coley, director of the Center for Academic Innovation at Maria College in Albany, New York, said the policy debate needs to move beyond whether schools are “for” or “against” the use of AI.

“The better question is what kinds of AI use are supervised, age appropriate, transparent, and tied to real learning,” Coley said. Schools need guardrails around privacy, student data, bias, teacher training and equity of access, he said, but also permission to “experiment responsibly.”

Ellerson Ng, of the School Superintendents Association, said superintendents see AI as part of a larger umbrella of disruptive technologies in schools that has evolved from calculators to laptops to cellphones. The lesson, she said, is that overreactive policy rarely works. She also said schools should not cover AI in a separate policy, but as part of a broader technology policy.

“I don’t have a calculator policy. Why would I have an AI policy?” she said, describing how some district leaders think about the issue. “I have a technology policy.”

With past technologies such as cellphones and laptops, adults could often control when students had access, Ellerson Ng said. With AI apps and platforms, many students accessed the tools before teachers, principals or state officials were even aware of them.

That makes bans difficult, she said. Schools can block tools on school-owned devices and networks, but “you’re only one personal device away from social media and AI being in your schools.”

Justin Reich, an associate professor of digital media at MIT, said that uncertainty around AI should make policymakers cautious about declaring best practices too soon.

Reich said states are trying to regulate classroom AI at a moment when the field is still so unstable that “writing a guide for AI in 2026 is like writing a guide for aviation in 1905” before airlines, airports or even commercial flight.

“If you were to take any of the AI literacy documents, AI readiness documents, even the moratorium documents, and put them against a checklist,” said Reich, “there would be a lot of boxes in the ‘we’re making this up’ column and not a lot in the ‘we have evidence’ column.”

State lawmakers and school districts should be honest that they don’t know what they’re doing, are relying on limited expert information and that policy is subject to change with new information, Reich said.

“Lawmakers will need to be honest that what they propose now could be completely outdated in two years.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@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.

Providers of non-emergency medical transportation and nonmedical home care services will face extra state scrutiny before they can get paid by Medicaid, under a new anti-fraud bill passed by state lawmakers on Wednesday.

Senate Bill 315 requires these types of providers to support their payment claims through what’s called electronic visit verification. That can include GPS tracking when home aides clock in and out. This type of tracking is already required under federal law, but the state has struggled with implementation and compliance as families and providers have reported glitches with the system.

The bill contains various other measures meant to detect or crack down on fraud in Medicaid, the massive state healthcare program for poor and disabled Ohioans.

These include requiring state officials to use technology meant to detect suspicious billing activity, like when GPS location doesn’t match with billing information, and giving two elected offices – the state auditor and attorney general’s office – extra legal authority to demand records as part of their fraud investigations.

Republican lawmakers passed SB 315 on a fast track after a national conservative website published a series of reports last month that highlighted a disproportionately high volume of claims in the Columbus area for home health services. The Daily Wire’s series also identified several examples of people with questionable backgrounds being approved to bill Medicaid. 

State Rep. Brian Stewart, a Pickaway County Republican who leads a committee that negotiated the bill, said Democrats who were initially concerned that the bill would pose a barrier to people who rely on Medicaid ultimately agreed with what it was trying to accomplish. 

The bill received broad bipartisan support on Wednesday, clearing the House 85-10 and the Senate with a unanimous vote. It now heads to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk for his signature. 

“I think it’s helped us do a better job of being able to catch fraud and make sure we have tighter controls. And a lot of the people that came in and said we’re concerned about this bill also said I’ve been defrauded as a recipient, so there’s clearly a middle ground there,” Stewart said.

The measure directs the state to set up a pilot program for the GPS tracking within a year and to implement it within 18 months.

SB 315 also contains a separate anti-fraud measure for the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The bill requires the state to replace all of Ohio’s Electronic Benefits Transfer cards – the electronic payment cards people use to access state food aid – with cards containing a security chip like those found in modern debit and credit cards. EBT cards currently use magnetic strips, which are previous-generation technology susceptible to being “skimmed” and copied. 

The bill doesn’t set a deadline for the transition. The changes will happen as the state frantically tries to comply with a federal mandate to reduce program mispayments to avoid losing hundreds of millions in funding. 

The EBT and Medicaid elements of the bill ended up in the same proposal after Republican lawmakers merged them during a frantic week of lawmaking in what they expect to be their last legislative session until after the November election. 

Republicans backtrack on banning family caregivers

The bill notably doesn’t include a provision that drew hours of emotional testimony to the Statehouse over the past week. 

Reacting to a series of articles by The Daily Wire, Republicans initially moved to ban family members from providing non-medical care to their relatives, after the outlet described home health aid services, which are widely offered in state Medicaid programs across the country, as a way to pay people to hang out with their family.

In response, relative caregivers, including multiple mothers of children with severe disabilities, flooded state legislative committee hearings to describe their reality. They testified the provision would be life-altering for their family. 

One mom from the Cleveland area, Emily Lark, testified on June 3 that getting paid by Medicaid to serve as an aide to her seven-year-old daughter allowed her family to make ends meet while giving her daughter, Annika, a normal life that includes baseball and figure skating practice and art classes. Many families described family care as a solution to a shortage in the state pool of home health workers.

In response to a lawmaker’s question, Lark said during the committee hearing she doesn’t think there is a lot of fraud by family providers in the Medicaid program.

“If I was committing fraud, I’d have a wheelchair accessible vehicle for my kid. I’d have an accessible house. I’d have better clothes than this,” Lark said. “But we do it because we love our family members and we want to see them in our community.”

The testimony moved one Republican member of the House Medicaid Committee to tears. 

“I want to tell you coming in here means a lot,” said state Rep. Ron Ferguson, of Wintersville. “We have to address the fraud issue in this state. But what you said, we’ll take very seriously and make sure we get it correct.”

When Republicans unveiled an updated version of the bill on Monday, the ban on family caregivers was removed. And final changes approved by the House Finance Committee on Wednesday exempted live-in family caregivers from the GPS tracking requirements.

Stewart, a Republican who chairs the House Finance Committee, said lawmakers’ views changed as they learned more about the Medicaid system. He said it still could be a topic lawmakers address at a later date.

“I think there is still an appetite to take a look at whether we’re paying grandson to come cook soup for grandma,” Stewart said. “There are some things that have been raised over the past month that were worth taking a look at. But it’s hard to make that granular change without affecting the broader pool … It’s never been the intention that we would get into preventing family members from providing medical care.”

‘Government by YouTuber’

Democrats also went on a journey with the bill, going from initially questioning the need to pass laws in response to an out-of-state conservative outlet to getting on board with the final product. 

Cleveland State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, the ranking Democrat on the finance committee, Sweeney said Republicans agreed with many Democratic-suggested changes while taking out the worst parts of earlier versions of the bill.

Democrats voted for the bill even as some people with disabilities, their family members and other advocates warned GPS tracking of home aides posed a barrier for legitimate care. 

These advocates also described technology that glitched or areas of the state, particularly in Appalachia, that lacked consistent Internet or cell phone access. 

Sweeney said she’s comfortable that language in the bill, which also exempts those with developmental disabilities who receive home care through what’s called a waiver from GPS tracking, will not be a major impediment to those who rely on Medicaid. She said fraud in the system is driven by a lack of funding to pay for program oversight. 

And, she still heavily criticized the process behind the bill even as she came to vote for the final product.

Sweeney contrasted with the lengthy testimony the Medicaid committee allowed the Daily Wire reporter to deliver while limiting families to speak for a few minutes each on a constantly changing bill.

“This was an example of the legislature at its worst,” Sweeney said. “What happened was, one of the best quotes from an individual said this, ‘We’re in an experiment of government by YouTuber.”

In a House floor speech, Stewart described the legislative process as a “group project” that played out in public view. He said the resulting dialogue benefited the bill and public awareness of the realities of the program. 

“I think this process gave the public a better understanding of what people on Medicaid deal with,” he said.

Signal Ohio is a nonprofit news organization covering government, education, health, economy and public safety.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Republican lawmakers in Ohio have backed off their efforts to reduce or eliminate a sales tax break for the technology behemoths behind the data center boom here, which cost the state $2 billion in 2025 alone in lost state and local sales tax revenue.

Revelations about the $2 billion figure – lawmakers say they had no clue how big the tax credit had gotten in the last few years – have stirred the General Assembly into overdrive over the past few weeks. A joint committee formed to study the issue has met for more than 18 hours since May 27, fielding testimony from state, local, industry and union officials, plus the public. 

But as the clock neared 10 p.m. Wednesday in the last scheduled session before the November elections, the General Assembly abruptly pulled a vote on the committee’s much-hyped data center legislative package. 

The legislation would have reduced the size of any new tax breaks to data centers, although it wouldn’t impact any existing tax exemptions or abatements. Its implosion indicates either a political inability or unwillingness to cut into a lucrative tax break for players behind the meteoric artificial intelligence sector. 

This all amounts to a major win for the tech developers, which state officials entirely exempted from nearly $1.6 billion in 2025 from Ohio’s statewide 5.75% sales tax, plus another $446 million from local sales taxes, according to the state Department of Taxation. The combined figure was about $722 million in 2024. 

House Speaker Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, told reporters late Wednesday that Senate leaders pulled the vote because House Republicans wanted to eliminate – and not reduce – the tax breaks for data centers. 

“There’s some sore elbows here over, ‘Hey wait a minute, we keep finding out what a great deal these guys have. Why would we give them additional tax exemption?’” Huffman said, per the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau. 

For some of the biggest names in the industry – Google, Meta and Amazon – those exemptions are worth $600 million in total by the time they mature over their 40-year lifespan, per newly released data from the state’s economic development office. All told, Ohio has agreed to at least $2.3 billion in state sales tax exemptions to 18 companies, but officials warn the real dollar number could be “significantly higher.”

And while statewide property tax abatement data is not available, most data centers strike long-term deals with local governments that drastically reduce their local property tax bills as well. For instance, in New Albany, the epicenter of the local data center economy, there are 17 data centers, all of whom have been granted property tax abatements of between 65% and 100% over 15-year periods. 

Data centers grow increasingly unpopular

New awareness about the ballooning nature of the tax breaks has renewed political interest in killing them, given public opinion polling and overwhelmingly negative public hearings indicate data centers have grown increasingly unpopular with voters. 

Republicans passed legislation last year that would have ended the state sales tax exemption. Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the bill, emphasizing the tens of billions of dollars data centers have spent building facilities in Ohio and the importance of the credit in their siting decisions. 

Last year, lawmakers – relying on estimates of the size of the tax breaks that turned out to be dramatic underestimations by a factor of more than 10 – voted to end the sales tax break entirely. Gov. DeWine vetoed the provision. 

While Huffman has previously expressed interest in overriding the governor’s veto, on Tuesday he acknowledged he didn’t have the required 60 votes. 

“I don’t think it’s practical and perhaps even possible at this point to get a veto override,” he said. 

Rep. Gary Click, a Sandusky County Republican who identifies as a data center critic, characterized the legislation as a compromise between the industry, the absolutists seeking a moratorium, and the skeptical but persuadable Ohioans. 

As for what happened with the tax credits, Click said in an interview Wednesday it’s all about basic political math.

“You have to get to 60 [votes to override a veto] and there doesn’t seem to be 60,” he said. 

Leading up the vote, Democrats framed the bill as better than the status quo, but lamented the way it preserves hugely favorable tax deals for companies who bring in more revenue than most countries. 

Sen. Kent Smith, a Euclid Democrat, said Wednesday that the blame rolls from Gov. John Kasich – whose administration inked the 40-year deals with Meta, Google and Amazon – through DeWine, who has protected the industry. 

“Tonight Statehouse Republicans could have ended it but they chose not to do so,” he said. “This is the latest example of the GOP supermajority looking out for billion-dollar corporations and not everyday Ohioans.”

Signal Ohio is a nonprofit news organization covering government, education, health, economy and public safety.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

They introduced the proposal a few weeks ago.

Ohio law already requires citizens to provide photo identification before voting thanks to a bill the lawmakers passed in 2022 and took effect in 2023.

The Ohio House passed Senate Joint Resolution 10 61-27 during Wednesday’s marathon session. The resolution needed 60% of Ohio House members to approve the resolution, which the Ohio Senate easily passed last week.

“It’s a simple proposal that will give (voters) the opportunity to protect the foundations of our constitutional republic, that means free and fair elections,” said state Rep. Adam Bird, R-New Richmond. 

“It is a straightforward question on the ballot to the voters — should Ohio’s elections be secured by government-issued photo ID requirements? These requirements ensure that we know that the person at the poll is who they say they are.”

Democratic lawmakers said the law is already on the books and working.

“Our current form of photo identification and the laws that govern it are working as they were intended, yet many of my colleagues across the aisle have decided today that the urgent issue of the moment ….  is to turn this existing law that is already working into a change in our constitution,” said state Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington.

Ohio House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, also pointed out the existing law. 

“We are spending all of our energy and time on putting something that is already the law as it relates to voter ID into the Constitution,” he said. 

“It’s not going to change a single person’s life. … We already have safe and secure and stable elections.” 

The Pew Research Center showed 83% of Americans support requiring photo identification to vote. Critics argue Republicans want the amendment on the ballot to boost voter turnout, but Republican leaders deny that’s the case. 

Ohio Republican governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Ohio must enshrine voter ID in the state constitution. 

Ohio state Sens. Jane Timken, R-Jackson Township, and Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, introduced the resolution a few weeks after Ramaswamy shared his stance on Ohio voter ID. 

A valid photo ID includes an unexpired driver’s license, state ID card, a passport, a U.S. military ID card, an Ohio national guard ID card, or an ID card issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

If an Ohio voter is unable to provide a valid photo ID in person on election day, the joint resolutions would allow a voter to cast their ballot provisionally and provide photo ID at the board of elections by the deadline for their ballot to be counted.

Former Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost brought forth six indictments for voter fraud in 2024 after receiving 600 referrals of alleged voter fraud from the Ohio Secretary of State. The indicted were accused of voting at least once between 2008 and 2020 despite not being U.S. citizens then. 

Hawaii and Virginia had voter photo ID requirements laws, but those laws were repealed. 

Ohio Democratic lawmakers put forth a handful of amendments on the House floor, but they were not adopted. 

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.

Green Springs Fire Department Chief Greg Lowe issued an Evacuation Order with the cooperation of facility administrator Deanna Turner. Many residents required complex medical care, including ventilator support and bariatric care, adding to the complexity of the response.

Emergency crews working alongside Medical Direction Physician Dr. Jordan Singer of University Hospitals provided on-site medical evaluation and treatment while incident command established a nearby cooling center where residents could shelter in a climate-controlled environment.

A number of ventilator-dependent and bariatric residents were transported to Bellevue Hospital for inpatient care and continued monitoring. Crews also coordinated with vendors to bring in mobile generators and portable air conditioning units as part of mitigation efforts at the facility.

No injuries or fatalities were reported. The majority of residents returned to the facility by approximately 5 p.m. Tuesday, and emergency officials said regional EMS and fire response coverage was not disrupted during the event.

The incident command team included Seneca County Emergency Services, Sandusky County Emergency Management Agency, Green Springs Fire Department, and Green Springs Police Department. More than 30 additional agencies provided mutual aid, including Tiffin and Fostoria fire departments, University Hospitals, MetroHealth Hospital, Firelands Regional Medical Center, and several county health departments and EMS services across north-central Ohio.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Ohio Senate passed the bill 23-10. Ohio Sen. Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Twp., joined Ohio Senate Democrats in voting against the bill.

The Ohio House voted 60-34 to concur with changes made to the bill. 

Under the bill, absentee voters would be required to show their ID either when they request an absentee ballot or if they submit their ballot in-person.

It requires the Ohio Secretary of State, the board of electrons, the Registrar of Motor Vehicles, and public libraries to provide free copies of electors’ photo IDs. 

It also requires the Secretary of State to create a secure online portal where a voter can apply for an absentee ballot starting Sept. 3, 2027. 

Changes were made to Ohio House Bill 472 this week during the Ohio Senate General Government Committee. The bill originally started as a bill that would waive fees for birth certificate copies for people experiencing homelessness. 

Ohio Reps. Christine Cockley, D-Columbus, and Jodi Salvo, R-Bolivar, introduced the bill, which passed the Ohio House with only one dissenting vote earlier this year. 

Cockley expressed her frustration with the changes made to the bill and asked that her name to be taken off the bill, saying “Senate Republicans hijacked” the bill. 

“People experiencing homelessness should not be used as political leverage,” Cockley said. “A bill designed to help individuals obtain the documents they need to stabilize their lives should not become a bargaining chip for unrelated policy purposes.”

Ohio state Sens. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, and Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, said the changes to this bill are needed to strengthen election integrity. 

“It is important that all voters, regardless of how or where they vote, with few exceptions, show a photo ID when they vote to verify that they are indeed who they claim to be,” Roegner said.

“Confidence and democracy depends on confidence in our voting process. Requiring photo ID is a great way to verify identity and strengthen public trust.” 

Ohio Rep. Marilyn John, R-Richland, said the Senate Republicans made changes to the bill “which complement the framework set up by SJR 10.” 

“These changes plan a package that ensures the integrity of the mail-in ballot process and guards against voter fraud, while preserving options to vote for voters challenged by physical and medical conditions,” John said. 

Ohio Democratic lawmakers, however, argue this would hurt senior citizens who tend to vote absentee. 

“This legislation will not prevent fraud and will make voting more difficult for groups, especially our seniors,” said Ohio state Sen. Willis Blackshear Jr., D-Dayton.

“Voter fraud is incredibly rare, and when it does occur, usually it is not the result of someone attempting to impersonate another individual.”

Former Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost brought forth six indictments for voter fraud in 2024 after receiving 600 referrals of alleged voter fraud from the Ohio Secretary of State.

The indicted were accused of voting at least once between 2008 and 2020 despite not being U.S. citizens then. 

“Mail-in voting is safe and secure, and there is zero evidence that there is fraud here in Ohio in our mail-in voting process,” said state Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington. 

“There is zero evidence that there is fraud here in Ohio in our mail-in voting process. This amendment is half baked and it is sloppy.” 

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, said there are security risks when it comes to comes to putting a photo of your ID in the mail. 

“It could be intercepted,” she said. “It could be stolen. … Criminals could use your ID for fraud. They could open a bank account, they could take out a loan, they could do all kinds of things with your ID.”

Ohio House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, said this bill does not solve “a real problem.” 

“We are creating a real barrier for people to vote, particularly seniors across Ohio, and it makes no sense,” he said. 

The Ohio Association of Elected Officials testified against the bill saying many senior citizens and those with chronic health conditions or mobility limitations rely on mail-in voting. 

“For these voters, the requirement is not merely an inconvenience. It is a significant obstacle to voting,” said Franklin County Board of Elections Director Antone White. 

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The energy index accounted for more than 60% of May’s monthly price increase, according to the bureau, and has climbed 23.5% over the past year. Gasoline alone rose 7% in May and is up 40.5% from a year ago, according to the BLS data. Grocery and restaurant prices together are up 3.1% over the year.

Outside of energy, price pressures were more contained. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy costs, rose just 0.2% for the month — below forecasts — and 2.9% over the year, CNBC reported.

The report carries particular political weight in Ohio, where Sen. Jon Husted — a Republican appointed to the seat last year and seeking his first full term in November — has repeatedly defended the war driving the price surge and voted against congressional efforts to end it.

A war-driven price shock

The conflict began Feb. 28 with joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to NPR. Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil, PolitiFact reported, sending fuel prices sharply higher worldwide.

The national average for regular gasoline stood at $4.15 per gallon Wednesday, according to AAA — down nearly 20 cents from a week ago as prices ease from their late-spring peak, but still more than a dollar above the $3.12 average of a year ago. Diesel, the fuel that moves freight and farm equipment, averaged $5.30, up from $3.51 a year earlier.

Husted’s defense of the war

Husted has been among the war’s steadier defenders in the Senate. In March, he told reporters the U.S. military operation in Iran was going “much better” than expected, according to video published by the Dayton Daily News. In April, he said of the war: “This is good news for the global economy.”

On May 19, Husted voted against a war powers resolution directing the president to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran without congressional authorization. The measure advanced anyway, 50-47 — the first time such an effort cleared a procedural hurdle after seven failed attempts — with four Republicans crossing over: Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Husted was not among them. That same day, asked on an Ohio podcast what he was doing about gas prices, Husted responded: “What do you want me to do?”

On June 3, the House passed its own war powers resolution, 215-208, with four Republicans — including Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio — joining Democrats, according to NPR. It marked the clearest bipartisan rebuke yet of the war, though the White House has argued the War Powers Act’s 60-day clock no longer applies.

‘Earn more’

The inflation report also revives scrutiny of Husted’s past comments on affordability. In a December Fox Business interview, after voting against extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, Husted said: “Look, there are three ways to make things more affordable: Earn more, keep more of what you earn, and drive down prices, and that’s exactly what we’re doing in Congress,” MeidasNews reported.

In a January radio interview promoting his bill to let states impose stricter work requirements on public assistance recipients, Husted said, “Our work ethic is broken,” American Journal News reported. “We don’t have the work ethic in this country that we once had, and we literally have the federal government telling people we will give you more money if you stay home than if you go to work. That’s crazy,” he said.

Husted was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2025 to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance. He faces former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the Nov. 3 general election, a race expected to help decide control of the U.S. Senate.

What comes next

Economists warn the squeeze is not over. “Americans are getting squeezed financially by inflation that’s back at a 3-year high,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, told CNBC, adding that ending the war would help moderate inflation but that the worst of the food price increases is likely still ahead.

The next consumer price report, covering June, is scheduled for release July 14.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The resolution covers a renewal levy for the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wyandot Counties, the agency that plans, funds and oversees behavioral health and addiction services across the four counties. Because the rate sits outside the state’s 10-mill limitation, commissioners were first required to formally declare the levy’s necessity, citing Ohio Revised Code sections 5705.221 and 5705.25, before it can advance to voters.

The board does not directly provide treatment. It contracts with local agencies for services that include in-school counseling, crisis intervention training for first responders, and housing assistance for residents living with mental illness. As a renewal, the measure would continue the existing rate rather than add a new tax.

Commissioners Bill Frankart, Anthony Paradiso and Brent Busdeker approved the resolution unanimously.

Task force plans free Elizabeth Smart event in Tiffin

Commissioners also heard an update on the Seneca County Violence Prevention Task Force, which formed earlier this year in response to a fatal Tiffin shooting. Kenneth Clason, a Seneca County Common Pleas Court magistrate who initiated the group, told the board it now includes about 25 organizations and meets monthly.

Clason said the task force plans to bring Elizabeth Smart, a nationally recognized survivor advocate, to Tiffin for a free, roughly one-hour presentation, a moderated question-and-answer session and a book signing at the fieldhouse on the Heidelberg University campus. He said the event is tentatively scheduled for November 17 but that the date could change as the group finishes fundraising. He described it as the task force’s first major awareness event.

The task force launched May 1 at the Seneca County Public Safety Building, following the Nov. 19, 2025, murder-suicide on Huss Street that left four people dead, including two children. Clason, who works under Common Pleas Judge Steve Shuff, said he approached Sheriff Fredrick Stevens before convening the group. He told commissioners the task force has since formed subcommittees and fielded eight additional requests to join after its initial announcement. Busdeker, who said he was recently added to the task force, asked Clason to brief the board.

Commissioners proclaim Elder Abuse Awareness Day

The meeting opened with a proclamation marking June 15 as Elder Abuse Awareness Day in Seneca County. June is National Elder Abuse Awareness Month, and residents are encouraged to wear purple on June 15 to recognize the observance.

The proclamation was presented to Jennifer Schumacher, protective services administrator for Seneca County Job and Family Services, and Jessica Bartson, who supervises the agency’s intake and adult protection units. According to the proclamation, the county’s adult protective services received 132 referrals between May 1, 2025, and May 1, 2026, of which 29 involved alleged abuse, neglect or exploitation of residents age 60 and older. The proclamation also cited an estimate that Ohioans 60 and older will make up more than a quarter of the state’s population by 2030.

Roughly $253,000 in supplemental spending, including two new roofs

Commissioners approved eight supplemental appropriations totaling about $252,781. The two largest were roofing projects drawn from the county’s capital projects fund: $74,500 for a new jail roof and $54,725 for a new roof on the Public Safety Building. Commissioners said the Public Safety Building — the former EMS building at the county fairgrounds — had its roof damaged during high winds in March and was temporarily patched.

The remaining appropriations included $57,980 for a preventive maintenance contract with Earl Mechanical, $42,970 for preventive maintenance at the Justice Center and Annex, $9,406 for the auditor’s office “VIP” cloud migration, $9,980 plus an additional $20 for Board of Elections travel and expenses, and $3,200 for a jail contract-services stipend tied to federal immigration enforcement grants.

Other business

In additional action, commissioners:

• Established a Community Corrections Grant (CCA) fund on behalf of Common Pleas Court II to cover salaries, Medicare and retirement contributions for the court’s Pivot Court personnel.

• Set a June 23 deadline to receive sealed bids for a pavement repair and resurfacing project on County Road 7 and County Road 592 (Project C-2026-2).

• Authorized the board to sign an Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction grant agreement for community-based correction services.

In their reports, commissioners noted a D-Day anniversary commemoration held over the weekend at the Frankart farm. They also pointed to an EMS station dedication and an Ottawa-Sandusky-Seneca Joint Solid Waste District tire-collection event, both scheduled for Saturday, June 13.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The annual update on the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund shows that it will “become depleted” in the fourth quarter of that year, a few months earlier than projected in last year’s report.

That would lead to recipients receiving 78% of their benefits — the projected yearly income to the trust fund — unless Congress acts before then. By 2100, benefits would be only 62%, according to the report.

That decrease would have a significant impact on the tens of millions of Americans who rely on the program to stay out of poverty, especially retirees. 

Social Security Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano wrote in a statement that in order to “protect the promise of Social Security, it is important for lawmakers and the Social Security Administration to work together to ensure the trust funds continue to provide financial stability now and for future generations.”

Bisignano is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, where he will likely face several questions about the new report and whether the administration has policy suggestions for Congress. 

More than 68 million Americans received Social Security payments in April, according to data from the administration. More than 56 million of the beneficiaries were 65 or older. 

Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, wrote in a statement November’s midterm elections will have an impact on who is in the Senate, where lawmakers have six-year terms, in the lead-up to the deadline. 

“It’s important to recognize that the Senators we elect this year will be in office when Social Security becomes unable to pay out full benefits, so this must be a central campaign issue,” he wrote. 

Peterson added that “there are many well-known solutions available” and that it’s “time for responsible, bipartisan leadership to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, ensuring the stability of these programs for generations of Americans to come.”

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, wrote in a statement that “Washington is sleepwalking into a retirement crisis, allowing our nation’s most important trust funds to go insolvent at the expense of over 70 million beneficiaries who count on these programs.”

MacGuineas added that there is “no shortage of options out there to avoid this.”

“It’s time for our leaders to start telling the truth on Social Security and Medicare, and working on real plans to save these programs,” she wrote. “Time is running out.”

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 federal court filing Monday night, the Justice Department significantly hedged the data-sharing plan, pulling back from a position the Trump administration advanced last week. DOJ lawyers now cast the idea as in the early stages and dependent on approval of a new U.S. Postal Service rule for mail ballots, citing a memo that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin signed earlier Monday.

“The Secretary authorized DHS to continue preliminary conversations with USPS concerning potential data-sharing arrangements, and should USPS finalize its rulemaking process, consider working to advance potential coordination to the extent feasible and consistent with applicable law and privacy protections,” the notice says.

Mullin’s memo, the Monday court filing says, “more accurately reflects the current policy of the Administration with respect to the implementation” of the executive order, reversing a Friday notice that said Homeland Security “contemplates” working to “integrate” the Postal Service’s voter data in an effort to monitor the flow of mail ballots and identify possible fraud. Friday’s filing said Homeland Security would use the information to generate investigative leads.

Trump’s March 31 executive order requires states to submit lists of potential mail voters to the Postal Service if they want ballots delivered and directs Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age citizens in each state. The order faces several lawsuits ahead of the November midterm elections but so far hasn’t been paused by a federal judge.

Trump signed the executive order amid an ongoing campaign to influence how states administer federal elections. Under the U.S. Constitution, states run elections. While Congress can pass regulations, the president has no unilateral authority over voting. 

Trump has long attacked mail voting and has also promoted the idea that noncitizen voting is rampant. In reality, it’s extremely rare.

Democrats and voting rights groups say the order represents an unconstitutional attempt by Trump to assert authority over elections. They also argue the order endangers the independence of the Postal Service, which is overseen by a Board of Governors, not the president.

Running out the clock

Michael McNulty, the policy director at Issue One, a group focused on protecting American democracy, said the Justice Department’s second notice almost appears to anticipate that a court will block the Postal Service’s new rule, which would require states sending ballots through the mail to provide lists of voters.

“It looks like they definitely walked back the USPS data-sharing language,” McNulty said in an interview.

Downplaying the current effect of the rule could be part of a legal strategy to shield the administration from court challenges.

Despite a series of legal challenges, the Trump administration has urged judges not to block the March order because federal officials haven’t taken major action to implement it — making the lawsuits premature. That argument will become more difficult to maintain as the Postal Service moves forward on the new rule for mail ballots and Homeland Security begins to take action.

David Becker, a former Justice Department Voting Rights Section attorney who leads the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said that since the beginning of the second Trump administration, the Justice Department has sought to “run the clock out” in legal challenges until it’s too late for courts to act or judicial action would cause chaos.

While Trump and his aides speak publicly about the alleged threat of noncitizen voting, in court the Justice Department seeks to minimize the extent of the actions the federal government has taken to carry out the executive order, Becker indicated.

“So I think this is a case of the government trying to have it both ways,” Becker said. “The government is trying to satisfy an audience of one, the president, while at the same time trying to play this rope-a-dope game with the court so that the court might not rule against them, they might say that a case isn’t ripe yet.”

In response to questions from States Newsroom, Homeland Security said in an unattributed statement that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency within DHS, is “lawfully implementing” the executive order.

“President Trump has been clear: Nothing is more fundamental than the integrity and security of our elections,” the statement said.

Quest for voter rolls

The Trump administration has spent the past year attempting to obtain unredacted state voter rolls to feed into a powerful Homeland Security computer program that can identify potential noncitizen voters. The Justice Department has filed more than 30 lawsuits seeking to force states and the District of Columbia to turn over the information, but so far none have been successful.

Eight states — including heavily Democratic California, Oregon and Washington — have all-mail elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. For those states, complying with the executive order would effectively mean turning over the names of all or nearly all their voters to the Postal Service.

It’s unclear if those lists would include voters’ sensitive personal data, like driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers, that the Justice Department has sued to obtain.

In its Monday notice, the Justice Department appeared to suggest Homeland Security had been planning to go beyond the scope of the executive order. 

The executive order does not explicitly direct the Postal Service to share voter and mail ballot data with Homeland Security. Instead, it tells the Postal Service to coordinate with the Justice Department on investigations into suspected election crimes.

Data-sharing arrangements between DHS and the Postal Service “are not directed” by the order, the Monday notice says. Any future sharing would be contingent upon both the Postal Service’s mail ballot rule and “any policy and legal determinations as to the desirability and feasibility of any such data-sharing” — in other words, a decision the Trump administration will make later.

Computer system participation

The Justice Department had also reported Friday that Homeland Security planned to launch a “State Voter Roll Verification” powered by the Systematic Alien Verification for Eligibility, or SAVE, system — the computer program that can flag possible noncitizen voters.

The Friday notice said states would be able to upload their voter rolls to SAVE, but Homeland Security already allows states to voluntarily run this information through the program. Some Republican-led states have previously used SAVE to scan their voter rolls and it’s unclear how the new verification process would have been different.

On Monday, the Justice Department reversed itself on that issue as well. DOJ lawyers wrote in the second notice that the executive order “does not direct that approach, and the new memorandum no longer includes that discussion.”

The Justice Department’s Monday notice makes clear that Homeland Security still plans to create lists of citizens in each state, as mandated under the executive order. The agency plans to have a way for states to obtain citizenship information from federal agencies by June 30, the notice says.

The executive order also requires Homeland Security to allow individuals to access their citizenship-related records and update or correct them ahead of elections. The Justice Department said Monday that Mullin approved a phased plan for a portal accessible to the public.

Monday’s notice, citing Mullin’s memo, says only that those capabilities will be developed and launched later this year after the completion of legal, privacy and technical groundwork. That leaves open the possibility that states will have access to federal citizenship information weeks or months before individual voters will be able to view the same data and call attention to any errors.

Questions linger

What prompted Mullin to sign the memo on Monday is unclear. Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for a copy of the memo.

Early on Monday evening, lawyers for the League of Women Voters filed a court document in a separate lawsuit challenging Homeland Security’s use of the SAVE system that alerted the judge to the Justice Department’s Friday notice. 

“It remains unclear—from the Implementation Notice or otherwise—what specific legal authority either the USPS or DHS have to share, consolidate, and use data in this way,” the lawyers wrote, referring to the initial data sharing plan between Homeland Security and Postal Service.

The Justice Department responded on Tuesday, saying in a court filing that information was “no longer accurate, as of yesterday evening.”

Also unclear is what role, if any, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has played in Mullin’s decision to change course. Trump’s executive order charges Lutnick with coordinating implementation efforts.

The Commerce Department didn’t respond to States Newsroom’s questions.

Sixteen Democratic senators last week demanded Lutnick halt implementation of the executive order. The letter, led by Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Alex Padilla of California, urged Lutnick to preserve records related to the development of the order ahead of congressional oversight.

“Vote-by-mail is safe, secure, and convenient, and it has been used successfully across the political spectrum over many election cycles,” the senators wrote.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The report by the Government Accountability Office documenting problems at Camp East Montana is one of the first independent investigations into a facility quickly constructed from the $170 billion in immigration enforcement and detention funding provided by Republicans’ “big beautiful” law enacted in July 2025 as part of the president’s mass deportation campaign. The camp is considered the largest immigrant detention center in the United States.

The Department of Defense and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August 2025 set up the soft-sided detention site of Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. It was intended to hold as many as 5,000 immigrants and is still currently operating under a private  contractor as well as ICE.

The facility was plagued with several tuberculosis cases and at least four detainee deaths, with one ruled a homicide by the local coroner. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit against the government over inhumane conditions. 

“The facility also did not meet key detention standards, risking the safety and security of detained noncitizens and staff,” GAO said.

The report came as the U.S. House this week prepares to take final steps to pass a $70 billion package to fund immigration enforcement until the end of fiscal year 2029. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the legislation into law.

Congressional Democrats requested that GAO do a report on Camp East Montana, including Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Gary Peters of Michigan and Rep. Bennie Thomspon of Mississippi. 

Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that he was concerned the U.S. military was responsible for the quick construction of the detention camp.

“Preventable deaths, inhumane conditions, and millions of dollars in waste are the direct result of the Pentagon cutting corners and handing a billion-dollar contract to an inexperienced vendor that wrote its own performance standards,” Reed said.

$1.3 billion contract

GAO investigators found that the Department of Defense’s contracting vehicle used to handle the $1.3 billion contract for Camp East Montana provided no flexibility and resulted in paying for meals and employee services during times when no immigrants were detained at the facility, resulting in millions of dollars wasted. 

For example, the Army paid the full cost for guards, medical services, transportation, meals and other services from Aug. 1, 2025 to Aug. 15, 2025, when there were no detainees at the facility, wasting up to $11.5 million, GAO said. 

“Further, because the Army set a fixed price for meals based on the capacity of the facility, it paid about an additional $423,000 for meals it did not need when the facility was operating below its designated capacity from August 16, 2025, through September 30, 2025,” according to the GAO report. 

Same failures could repeat, GAO says

GAO investigators also noted that the same mistakes could be made with the Department of Homeland Security’s ongoing move to spend $38 billion to convert warehouses for the purpose of detaining thousands of immigrants. 

“GAO points out that ICE’s planned facility expansion—a $38 billion program to convert warehouses into detention facilities using the same contracting vehicle—risks repeating every one of these failures at a dramatically larger scale,” according to the report. 

Investigators made four recommendations, including that ICE consider tiered pricing for food to account for fluctuations in populations of detained immigrants and that ICE ensure that new facilities meet detention standards before housing immigrants. 

The report notes that DHS and DOD agreed with the recommendations. DOD deferred comment to DHS, which did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Homicide investigated

Investigators also raised use-of-force concerns, including one in January in which an autopsy found the death of a detainee to be due to asphyxia and ruled it a homicide. 

“However, the contractor did not provide use of force and death reports to ICE, as required,” according to the report. “In addition, evidence associated with the incident was missing or destroyed.”

Durbin, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee,  called the GAO report “damning.”

“We now know even more details of how dangerous and irresponsible the Trump Administration’s mass deportation campaign truly is,” he said in a statement. “Excessive use of force, lacking medical and mental health care, and wasted taxpayer dollars are emblematic of this mass deportation scheme. The American people have rightfully expressed outrage at these policies, and it’s time to hold ICE and their private contractors responsible.”

GAO investigators noted several health issues. They pointed out that none of the detainees with HIV or diabetes had treatment plans in place. 

Also, facility employees did not follow proper procedure for tuberculosis screening. One contractor used a questionnaire rather than administering the required skin tests for tuberculosis. 

Investigators found that as a result in November, a detained immigrant with tuberculosis was housed with the general immigrant population. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Actor Rainn Wilson, widely known for playing Dwight Schrute on NBC’s “The Office,” joined a press conference that U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., hosted along with religious leaders to advocate for the American tradition of religious freedom.

Reading from the Declaration of Independence, Wilson, an outspoken member of the  Baha’i faith that originated in 19th-century Persia, now Iran, said the nation’s 250th anniversary “is an opportunity to ask profound questions.”

“How can we give fresh expression to the ideals in the declaration?” he asked. “How can we leave behind tendencies that divide us and replace them with a widening circle of concern? We need to be able to speak and think in terms of spiritual and moral dimensions of individual and collective life.

“We need to do that in ways that are meaningful across different perspectives, both religious and secular,” he continued. 

Wilson’s appearance marked the public release of the Baha’i faith’s five-part letter “A Common Endeavor,” which argues for the realization of “ideals, like freedom, equality, and justice” as many Americans have become “exhausted and disillusioned by polarization.”

The press conference was attended by members of several denominations, and is among numerous independent events ahead of the 250th anniversary of the United States. 

‘A universal human right’

Boyle cited Baha’i writings that “beautifully” emphasize unity.

“My own Catholic faith teaches a similar truth. Pope Francis reminded us that we are called to come together as brothers and sisters, quote, ‘as children from the same earth,’” Boyle said.

“My hope is that for America’s 250th anniversary, this will be more of a focus on what our next 250 years look like, rather than just a wonderful commemoration of the past quarter of a millennium.”

Bilirakis, an Orthodox Christian who co-chairs the Congressional International Religious Freedom Caucus, said, “Religious freedom is not simply an American value, it is a universal human right, and I truly believe that.”

“Whether we are speaking out on behalf of the persecuted Christians, Muslims, Jews, Baha’is, Hindus, Buddhists, Uyghurs, or members of other faith communities, our message must remain clear,” he said. “Every person is endowed with inherent dignity and deserves the freedom to live according to their conscience.”

Bilirakis is an original cosponsor of a House resolution condemning the Iran government’s persecution of Baha’is. The resolution was introduced in December 2025, just months before the U.S. escalated war in Iran.

Pentagon list

The event on Capitol Hill, though unrelated, happened just one day after the Pentagon modified its list of recognized religions following criticism from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church.

Utah’s two Republican Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis directly appealed to the administration to change the Department of Defense list, which did not categorize the Latter-day Saints as Christian.

On Friday, the Pentagon revised its list of recognized religions for service members to 31, down from roughly 200.

The Pentagon’s shortened list includes the Baha’i faith.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Drawing on testimony from the Select Committee on Data Centers, Ohio state Sen. Brian Chavez put together a laundry list of changes and then grafted them onto a measure originally meant to study the issue.

It’s a significant revision of state policy, touching on tax breaks, nondisclosure agreements, water use and testing, utility billing, and potential impacts on local governments. Despite some quibbles, lawmakers and witnesses found a lot to like in the initial proposal. But given the rapid timeline Chavez envisions for passage — potentially moving to a vote on the Senate floor one day after introduction — opportunities to tweak the language are scarce.

Ohio state Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, complained about the rapid timeline.

“Anything the legislature does in a swift amount of time ends up being bad for everybody,” he said, “because there are always problems with it.”

What’s in the bill

Currently, data center projects can apply for an 100% sales and use tax exemption. It’s a discretionary program, but it has ballooned to roughly $1.6 billion in the last year. The proposal would generally cut that tax break in half, but projects that build on brownfields and bring their own power are eligible for a 75% tax break.

The bill also caps local property tax abatements for data centers at 50% and eliminates access to Ohio’s 30-year mega project job creation grant.

Data center developers’ use of nondisclosure agreements has drawn sharp criticism, and the bill includes a provision stating NDAs do not supersede public records law.

On the water use front, the measure directs the Ohio EPA to develop a water quality testing plan and report “any anomalies” detected as part of its water monitoring program. Data centers, meanwhile, would be required to track and report water usage to state regulators, and employ water conservation best practices including closed loop cooling systems.

Under the bill, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio would create a data center rate class. Similar to the data center tariff the PUCO approved for AEP Ohio last year, the move is meant to apply costs associated with power generation, distribution and transmission to data centers.

Another protection included in the proposal is a surety bond equal to the average salary of all a data centers workers over a ten year period. Chavez described the provision as a way to give “financial insurance to local governments and communities impacted by the development.”

Quibbles & pushback

The Ohio Manufacturer’s Association is currently challenging AEP’s data center tariff in the Ohio Supreme Court, and the group wasn’t thrilled with the idea of extending that approach to the rest of the state’s utilities.

Speaking on behalf of OMA, energy consultant John Seryak explained tariffs spread costs over an extended period of time rather than requiring developers to pay the full amount of their impact up front.

“We see that as pretty workable,” Seryak said, because there’s little opportunity to shift costs to other consumers.

But by implementing a separate rate class, those costs get spread over several years. Seryak pointed to one project in AES Ohio’s territory that would require roughly $230 million supplemental equipment.

“By the time that’s financed over 40 years, with return on equity and interest payments, it’s about $850 million. One project. This tariff would recover only $300 million of that,” he said.

Seryak also contends the tariff’s minimum demand payments could just juice the overall load forecast — forcing utilities to plan for greater capacity which is then spread across all ratepayers. Making data centers pay a minimum amount each month also reduces the incentive to use power efficiently.

Nolan Rutschilling from the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund urged lawmakers to include explicit directives for the PUCO about an upcoming backstop auction.

The regional grid operator PJM Interconnection will hold the auction this September to secure 15 gigawatts of new power generation to meet growing demand driven by data centers. Those costs will get passed on, and PJM has urged states to develop regulations to ensure the costs are borne by data centers. Without them, the grid operator warned, “it is possible that these costs will be allocated to other consumers in the states, including residential consumers.”

“It’s entirely possible that this large load tariff could address that issue,” Rutschilling said, “but I’m urging just some clarifying language to ensure that it does and to ensure that the PUCO undertakes this matter in a timely fashion.”

Cathy Cowan Becker from Save Ohio Parks said there were many good provisions in the bill, but “we’d like data centers to meet their energy demand, at least some of it, with carbon free energy.”

Many facilities rely on diesel backup generators, “which are quite polluting,” she said while battery storage would generate no additional carbon emissions.

What’s next

Quibbles weren’t confined to public testimony. DeMora complained the bill “does nothing” on nondisclosure agreements. Instead of banning them, it simply states an NDA can’t “prohibit or otherwise limit a public record from being made available.”

“They might say that you can find out if there’s an NDA,” DeMora insisted, “but the bill does nothing to stop NDAs.”

Meanwhile, Ohio state Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, worried lawmakers might be doing something that’s “a detriment to data centers coming in and negotiating with local governments.”

The Senate Energy Committee is lined up to advance the bill Wednesday morning, with the goal of voting the measure through the full Senate later that day.

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

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

From the local government perspective, data centers boost the local tax base without making many demands for services, officials testified.

To the trades, data centers represent a reliable source of good-paying jobs, representatives said. The bulk of that work is in the initial construction, but with servers and chips becoming obsolete every few years, the demand for workers has a long tail, they said.

State lawmakers said they plan to introduce legislation and move it through an Ohio Senate committee in a matter of days.

“Even though it wasn’t our intention when we started this committee to do legislation, we think that we have enough information to get some legislation through before we go on recess,” Ohio state Sen. Brian Chavez, R-Marietta, told reporters.

Chavez declined to elaborate on what’s in the proposal.

Local leaders

To New Albany Community Development Director Jennifer Chrysler, managing data center development comes down to a math problem.

“The city created a formula that calculates a minimum payment for the data centers in New Albany that are in the amount of what that property would have generated if it had been developed as either corporate office or advanced manufacturing.”

Data centers first showed up in the city in 2010, and in the years since, revenue from those developments has helped the local school district avoid going to the ballot for funding, she said. Chrysler said one data center alone generated $3.9 million in local tax revenue.

“If you use our 2% income tax rate,” she said, “that is the equivalent of a company with a payroll of over $165 million.”

“All of that with not as many impacts to our safety services and traffic on the roads,” she added, “Yet we were able to get value from these data centers because of this formula that we developed.”

Johnstown Mayor Tiffany Hollis is far more skeptical of big tech development, but she doesn’t want to see lawmakers block data centers or eliminate a costly sales tax exemption.

Hollis recalled the secrecy surrounding the arrival of Intel in her community.

Land acquisitions began before the project became public, she said, and no one could get straight answers.

“What I watched happen in Johnstown in those early days was entirely preventable,” she said. “When people don’t have information, they fill the vacuum with fear. Rumors spread faster than facts.”

Still, she told lawmakers a one-size-fits-all approach would be wrong. A moratorium on data centers would only help communities outside Ohio competing for new investments. Getting rid of the data center sales tax break would be bad, too.

“That exemption is not a favor to a company,” Hollis said. “It’s the chip local governments use to get investment to the table and keep it there. Take it away, and you haven’t protected anyone.”

Instead, she pushed lawmakers to focus on policies that ensure transparency.

Chrysler, on the other hand, defended nondisclosure agreements. She stressed that New Albany only signs onto NDAs the city drafted, rather than agreements written by the companies.

That approach allows cities to balance public disclosure with protecting information like trade secrets.

“We will severely limit our ability to do economic development if we don’t have the ability to sign NDAs and do them and implement them in the right way,” she said.

Labor perspective

Matt Szollosi is an unabashed cheerleader for data center development in Ohio. The head of the Affiliated Construction Trades of Ohio Foundation said the industry is pushing employment in the trades to new heights.

“Our collective intent here today is to cut through the BS that data centers in Ohio do not create jobs,” he said.

Demand for workers and applications to apprenticeship programs? Skyrocketing, he said. Wages and benefits? Szollosi said those are increasing, too.

“Don’t fall prey to the false reality, being perpetuated by social media influencers that data centers don’t create jobs,” Szollosi said. “This is the reality. In 2025, the building trades have thousands of members working on or in data center plants across the state of Ohio.”

You won’t find those workers on social media, he said, because they don’t have time for that: “Our members work.”

Bryan Stewart added that the opportunities for ongoing work on data centers is significant. The CEO of electrical design firm Superior said his company grew from 300 people 15 years ago to more than 3,000 today.

He explained working on one data center often means working on the next building a company is developing on that site, extending work over several years.

Once a building is up and running, there are opportunities for service and maintenance, as well as retrofitting a few years down the road.

“So, we’re coming back in constantly in cycle working in that facility,” he said. “Because technology changes, so the electrical infrastructure may need tweaked or changed dramatically, and we may be back in building one two years later, and then we’re constantly providing service activities.”

Stewart warned that sweeping action against the data center industry won’t actually harm the big tech firms investing in Ohio — they can just move on to some other state — but it would be devastating for the Ohio companies that have sprung up to serve them.

The way Szollosi put it, “guardrails” to protect local communities are fine.

“We want them to get every penny,” he said, “That’s easy for us, because our members live in those communities.”

“We just don’t want to see any disincentives put in place that cause projects to go elsewhere.”

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

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Most governors recommended state budgets for fiscal year 2027 that would essentially keep spending flat from the general funds that pay for most state services. That’s according to the Fiscal Survey of States by the National Association of State Budget Officers. (Forty-six states will begin the 2027 fiscal year in July.) 

The survey of budget leaders found nearly half the states were implementing some form of spending cuts to balance the books. 

In their budget plans, 14 states said they would eliminate vacant positions, four reported hiring freezes and eight reported changed retirement benefits to reduce costs. Four states reported layoffs and cuts in employee benefits.

“While budgets are tightening, states overall remain in a strong fiscal position due to steps taken in recent years to manage spending carefully and build reserves,” Alexis Sturm, director of the Illinois Governor’s Office of Management and Budget and current president of the National Association of State Budget Officers, or NASBO, said in a news release.

The survey found that most states planned to increase the size of their rainy day funds: 25 states project those reserves to grow in fiscal 2027, 10 expect theirs to decrease and 11 states expect no change in dollars unadjusted for inflation. Four states did not report. 

But researchers at The Pew Charitable Trusts earlier this year found that the power of those reserve funds is weakening as states confront rising costs. Pew researchers concluded that the median state in 2025 could fund its operations on reserve funds for 47.8 days — down from a record 54.5 days in fiscal 2024.

States pay for most spending from three primary tax revenues: sales and use taxes, personal income taxes and corporate income taxes. In the recent survey, 29 states reported tax revenues were coming in higher than forecasted for fiscal year 2026. Nine states reported collections were on target, while 11 said their revenues were below expectations. One state did not report on revenue collections and NASBO noted the revenue numbers may change following the April tax season.

In their budgets, governors proposed a mix of tax increases and decreases for the upcoming fiscal year that NASBO says will collectively have a near-zero net impact on general fund revenues. 

With federal stimulus dollars and strong consumer demand, states recorded record revenue growth in fiscal years 2021 and 2022. But NASBO expects more modest growth for state revenues in the coming years with a slower national economy, the impact of state tax cuts and changes in federal tax policy.

“States are continuing to navigate a tighter fiscal environment than they experienced earlier this decade,” Shelby Kerns, executive director of NASBO, said in a statement. “While revenues in most states are meeting or exceeding forecasts, growth remains modest and many states are seeing ongoing spending demands outpace recurring revenue growth in the out-years.” 

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.

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Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Three years earlier, residents at another Connecticut nursing home, the Quinnipiac Valley Center, were relocated after two resident deaths triggered a state health investigation.

The nursing homes were both owned by private equity-backed Genesis HealthCare, among the largest skilled nursing operators in the nation. It’s already faced lawsuits or investigations in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada and Vermont over allegations of patient neglect and abuse.

This year, Connecticut enacted what may be the strongest law in the country addressing transparency and accountability for private equity-owned nursing homes.

It is the latest in a string of states stepping into a regulatory vacuum created by limited federal laws and a presidential administration that’s proven friendly to private equity while showing little appetite for scrutinizing private equity’s role in the healthcare industry.

Private equity’s foray into healthcare over the past several years, particularly into hospital ownership, has drawn public outrage and legislative scrutiny.

It’s all happening as states are staring down steep federal cuts to Medicaid, the public health insurance for people with low incomes that is also the primary payer for long-term nursing home stays. Those cuts, experts fear, could ultimately direct more older Americans into nursing home care.

Last year, at least seven states (California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maine, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington) passed legislation putting more guardrails around private equity’s involvement in healthcare.

Virginia is still considering a bill to curb predatory property financing practices that have been used by private equity in nursing homes.

Illinois lawmakers sent two measures to Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker that aim to strengthen oversight and transparency requirements of healthcare mergers or acquisitions, and place new restrictions on private equity ownership of disability service providers. The first bill was Democratic-sponsored, while the second had both Democratic and Republican sponsors.

Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont signed Connecticut’s measure last week. The new law requires nursing homes that are owned by private equity to disclose their financial dealings with the state and bans private equity from controlling day-to-day care decisions about nursing home residents. Lamont also signed a related bill to curb private equity’s influence over hospitals in the wake of financial moves by equity-owned health groups in his state that led to hospital closures.

Genesis HealthCare declined an interview with Stateline, but provided a statement saying it “remains focused on supporting our affiliated centers in delivering high-quality care to patients and residents.”

The nursing home industry argues that private equity controls a relatively small share of the nation’s facilities, and that reported problems have been the result of a few bad actors. The federal government estimated that about 5% of Medicare-enrolled nursing homes nationwide had private equity owners in 2022, but admitted that some nursing homes don’t always list all of their owners in the federal database. Some researchers have pegged the real share as high as 13%.

“Focusing on private equity in long term care has become a distraction from the real issues that impact the majority of providers, like chronic Medicaid underfunding and a growing caregiver shortage,” said John Kane, a senior vice president at the industry group American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, in a statement to Stateline.

“If we truly want to improve care throughout the health care system, we need policymakers to find a proper balance of oversight while still encouraging more investments.”

But a growing number of states are moving to regulate investment companies that draw heavily on Medicaid and Medicare dollars.

“The big question about private equity is not whether profit belongs in the nursing home; it’s whether public dollars meant for care are being converted into financial returns (for investors) without enough accountability,” said Gregory Orewa, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio whose research has focused on private equity ownership in U.S. healthcare.

“Nursing homes exist to care for the most vulnerable who cannot care for themselves,” he said, “so we should be holding private equity or anybody to high standards on providing quality care.”

Quality and profits

Private equity firms use pooled investments from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and wealthy individuals to buy a controlling stake in a company. Then they try to maximize the company’s value before selling it at a profit, usually within a few years.

Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are attractive to investors because demand is always there; the share of Americans 65 and older has been steadily rising and is expected to continue.

Nursing home care is heavily subsidized by the government through Medicaid and to a lesser extent Medicare, the public insurance program for adults over 65 and some people with disabilities, offering investors a predictable revenue stream.

And it’s an industry where investors can scoop up struggling independent facilities and improve their margins through corporate consolidations, streamlining management, adjusting staffing or capitalizing on valuable real estate owned by the nursing homes.

Private equity’s defenders say it provides nursing homes with much-needed capital, disciplined management and operational improvements that help facilities scale up their services.

But the private equity model’s primary goal in any sector is to generate returns for shareholders, usually within a few years.

Critics say that priority conflicts with the kind of long-term investment that’s needed to provide quality healthcare, such as paying enough to hire sufficient staff or upgrading facilities.

“One of the biggest misunderstandings is that private equity ownership is only bad,” said Orewa, of the University of Texas at San Antonio. “The issue is more structural. Nursing homes operate on very thin margins, they depend heavily on public dollars and they care for the most vulnerable people who can’t easily exit when nursing home quality declines.”

Nursing home residents aren’t like other healthcare consumers. They may lack financial literacy, or their decision-making may be impaired by cognitive decline, which could lead to them making choices not in their best interests, researchers have noted. They’re a captive audience, often choosing a facility that’s nearby or near family, rather than shopping around for the best option.

Research on how private equity ownership affects nursing homes has found few positive effects. One large 2023 study found it increases a nursing home’s death rate by 11%. Private equity-owned facilities tended to maintain care quality for sicker patients by adding registered nurses, but researchers found those gains were offset by staffing cuts to the frontline nursing assistants who handle most of the hands-on care. Other studies have linked private equity involvement to increases in emergency room visits and rising Medicare costs.

Orewa and his colleagues published a comprehensive review last year of a dozen major studies, linking private equity ownership to a higher number of deficiencies in nursing homes, increased hospitalization rates and higher mortality. They also found that private equity-owned facilities bill Medicare more than other nursing homes.

Facilities’ financial outlooks initially improved after a private equity buyout, Orewa said, but they later faced long-term challenges. The financial maneuvers that private equity uses to extract more revenue from nursing homes can hurt their stability long term.

Hidden disclosures

All nursing homes that receive federal funding are required to publicly disclose the names of any entities that exercise financial control over them. But companies can use complex methods to mask that ownership, meaning it’s difficult even for experts to find out who really owns a nursing home.

“A lot of nursing homes will not provide that information, and their information may not be audited,” said Michael Fenne, healthcare policy coordinator at the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a research group that tracks the private equity industry.

For example: The private equity-backed Portopiccolo Group acquired more than 130 nursing homes across 9 states from 2016-2022 and yet didn’t appear in federal data as an owner of those facilities, according to the consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen.

And ownership information matters to consumers looking for a safe place for their loved ones: The Portopiccolo Group’s nursing homes have faced heavy fines. A 2023 study by watchdog group Good Jobs First found Portopiccolo had an average fine per facility of more than $81,000, landing it on a list of parent companies with largest average penalties in the U.S.

Predatory tactics?

Virginia lawmakers are considering a Republican-sponsored bill that would cut funding to nursing homes that pay excessive rents to landlords. If passed, it could become a first-in-the nation effort to directly curb a financial maneuver known as sale-leaseback that state regulators have deemed predatory.

In sale-leaseback arrangements, a private equity-backed firm buys a healthcare company, such as a nursing home chain, and then sells its underlying real estate property to a separate investment trust. This sale generates quick returns for investors but saddles the nursing homes with monthly rent payments they may struggle to make, leaving less money available for patient care.

It’s a tactic that has contributed to healthcare bankruptcies across the nation, including for Genesis HealthCare and for Georgia-based nursing home chain LaVie Care Centers.

Increased need for nursing homes

By 2030, 1 in 5 Americans will be 65 or over, and most older adults say they would prefer to remain living in their homes for as long as possible.

For many, that’s possible because of services — such as home health aides or visiting nurses — that are funded through Medicaid.

But elder care experts worry those services will be the first on the chopping block for cash-strapped states facing $665 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This is because federal law requires state Medicaid programs to cover nursing home care, but home-based services are optional.

Most people who receive those home-based Medicaid services need the kind of care that would land them in a nursing home without such services, said Jason Resendez, president and CEO of the advocacy group National Alliance for Caregiving.

“When we take those benefits away, it doesn’t take away the need for that care,” he said. One of the impacts of cuts to home-based services “will certainly be more folks forced to make the hard choice of going into more institutional-based care.”

And cuts to Medicaid could financially weaken smaller, independent or safety-net nursing homes that serve lower-income patients who heavily rely on Medicaid.

“Those distressed facilities may become cheaper acquisition targets for private equity,” Orewa said. “That creates an opportunity for investors with capital to buy at a discount.”

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.

But the public record shows Ramaswamy spent 2020 inside the same pandemic response he now campaigns against: advising the DeWine administration, backing mandatory antibody testing and stay-at-home orders for Ohioans without immunity, pitching a national registry to “segregate” Americans by biomarker — a registry his own company then worked to build — and founding the biotech firm whose subsidiary collected a $2.25 billion settlement over COVID-19 vaccines this spring.

Critics, NBC4 reported, call the contrast “hypocritical”: Ramaswamy attacks Acton over policies similar to ones he was advocating at the same time — in some cases, stricter versions of them.

He advised the response he now attacks

While Acton stood at the podium for Ohio’s daily briefings as state health director, Ramaswamy was advising the state’s pandemic response from the private sector. As CEO of Roivant Sciences, Ramaswamy “worked with the lieutenant governor as an adviser on COVID-19” during 2020, he wrote in a 2021 op-ed cited by the Associated Press. The lieutenant governor at the time was Republican Jon Husted, now a U.S. senator, who appeared alongside Acton and Gov. Mike DeWine at those same daily briefings.

He backed mandatory testing and stay-at-home orders

Ramaswamy’s 2020 positions went beyond advising. A recording from that year exclusively obtained by NBC4 shows Ramaswamy backed universal “mandatory” antibody testing and isolation — a system in which people with natural immunity could return to normal life while everyone else remained under lockdown in a mandatory stay-at-home order, with those locked down first in line for a vaccine.

“It would be a waste, arguably, to vaccinate somebody who already had immunity and I think the only way to ensure that we are sending the right people back to normal life now versus the people we keep in shelter at home mandates is on the basis of individual testing for immunity,” Ramaswamy said in the 2020 recording, according to NBC4.

Sources close to the DeWine administration in 2020 told NBC4 that implementing the system Ramaswamy suggested would have required a government registry of who had antibodies and who didn’t — and that mandated testing and isolation for select groups struck them as government overreach. Those are policies in the same family as the closures imposed by the DeWine administration and by states across the country — the very measures Ramaswamy’s campaign and running mate, then-state Sen. Rob McColley, have condemned as overreach.

In April 2020, on an episode of Rockefeller Capital Management’s client podcast, Ramaswamy laid out the concept in his own words, according to reporting by Contra that transcribed the interview. “Could we tolerate a national system in which certain people on the basis of a biomarker are segregated?” Ramaswamy asked. He answered his own question: “I personally think that it is better than the status quo if we can send 10 or 20 percent of the people back on the basis of having immunity.” He said he had discussed the idea with policymakers, including members of Congress and a U.S. senator.

A discussion draft obtained by Contra shows Ramaswamy formally pitched the strategy, proposing a public-private partnership whose stakeholders would include an “Organization X” — a government division, private company or nonprofit — to maintain “the registry of individuals who are immune and individuals who should be prioritized for testing.”

During the pandemic, Ramaswamy supported vaccines and received one himself, and he advocated mask-wearing, the AP reported — though he has said he never supported governments mandating either.

His company tried to build the registry

The registry was more than talk. Datavant, a health-data company launched in 2017 under the Roivant umbrella, pushed for a national COVID-19 registry that would have allowed the small share of Americans gaining natural immunity to “get back to normal life” while the rest of the population continued to be “segregated,” the AP reported. The quoted language comes from the proposal itself.

Five days after Ramaswamy’s podcast appearance, The Wall Street Journal reported that Datavant was spearheading an effort to create a registry of COVID-19 patients by pooling medical records from across the country, according to Contra. By November 2020, Datavant announced a partnership supporting the National Institutes of Health’s National COVID Cohort Collaborative, a centralized platform built to store and study medical record data from people tested for the virus.

The pandemic paid — $2.25 billion from COVID-19 vaccines

The pandemic was also lucrative for the corporate empire Ramaswamy built. On March 3, Roivant announced that its subsidiary Genevant Sciences and partner Arbutus Biopharma had reached a $2.25 billion global settlement with Moderna over the pharmaceutical giant’s unauthorized use of their lipid nanoparticle delivery technology in its COVID-19 vaccines, including Spikevax. Moderna will pay $950 million upfront in July, with an additional $1.3 billion contingent on a federal appellate ruling. If the full amount is paid, the companies said, it would be the largest disclosed patent settlement in pharmaceutical industry history.

Genevant played a “fundamental role” in the global pandemic response, the companies’ announcement said. Ramaswamy founded Roivant in 2014 and served as its CEO until January 2021 and executive chairman until February 2023, when he stepped down to focus on his political career. TiffinOhio.net detailed that record in earlier reporting.

Then he paid to erase the record

As Ramaswamy entered politics ahead of his 2024 presidential run, he took steps to distance himself from his pandemic-era role. In early 2023, he paid an editor to remove a reference to his service on Ohio’s “COVID-19 Response Team” from his Wikipedia page, the AP reported. Ramaswamy called the edit a simple correction, saying the panel never met.

The attacks, and his explanation

Ramaswamy has kept Acton’s pandemic record at the center of his campaign. At rallies he accuses her of spreading dangerous “COVID ideology,” and supporters have dubbed her “Lockdown Amy.” The latest salvo is a 30-second TV ad from V-PAC: Victors Not Victims, the super PAC backing his campaign, which began airing Tuesday, June 9, branding Acton “the liberal who shut down Ohio, closing your child’s school and your friend’s business.”

Ramaswamy has said his talks with Husted and his support for the COVID registry were about “getting the economy going again,” and he describes his position on the virus as “nuanced.” He says the difference between his 2020 proposals and Acton’s orders is that Acton did not differentiate between people with natural immunity and people without it.

“She never engaged with those data points, and when the legislature required her to draw those distinctions, she did not do the hard work,” Ramaswamy said, according to NBC4. “She quit. It disqualifies her.” His campaign referred the AP’s questions about his time at Roivant to the company, which did not respond.

DeWine: ‘They were my decisions’

The premise of the attacks — that Acton shut down Ohio — is contradicted by the Republican governor who appointed her. Acton signed the closure orders as health director from February 2019 to June 2020 under emergency authority granted by DeWine, who has repeatedly said the decisions were his own — even after endorsing Ramaswamy.

“I got advice from her. I got advice from people around the country,” DeWine said in December. “I was trying to get as much information as I could about something that we did not know much about, and I made decisions based upon that, but they were my decisions. They were not, they were not her decisions.”

Acton’s campaign has dismissed the COVID-19 attacks. “Dr. Acton is proud of the work she did alongside Governor DeWine to put public health over politics, save lives and keep Ohioans safe,” campaign spokesperson Addie Bullock said in a statement to the AP. “It is unfortunate that Vivek Ramaswamy wants to play politics on this issue.”

Ohio ranked 22nd among states in its per capita COVID-19 death rate during the pandemic’s first year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited by the AP.

Ramaswamy won the May 5 Republican primary and faces Acton in the general election on Tuesday, November 3.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Data centers are coming to Ohio, and cities and towns wary of the projects should try to win concessions from developers, Gov. Mike DeWine said this week.

DeWine offered that advice to local governments during a conversation with reporters on the sidelines of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Big Bets for America summit in Cleveland on Tuesday. At the summit, DeWine talked up the advanced manufacturers and technology companies that have settled in the state, particularly Columbus. 

“I know it’s been controversial,” DeWine said in response to the question from Signal Cleveland about whether data centers should be included in the state’s high-tech portfolio. “Here is my message to any community that is not — is worried about data centers: Cut a good deal. The deal is in your hands.” 

In DeWine’s telling, communities have a right to insist that data centers conserve water and pay for their own electricity. Local governments should “be aggressive” in seeking a deal and “don’t just take what they give you,” he said. 

“But we can’t throw them completely out and say, ‘Oh no, we don’t — we want to close the walls of the state of Ohio and we don’t want any data centers to come in’ any more than we can do that to any other business,” he said. “It’s just where the future is. This is now, and we have to be, we have to be part of it.”

The governor made the comments as his administration is reconsidering Ohio’s own deal with data centers. In May, DeWine paused a sales tax exemption for new projects. As Signal Statewide reported, that exemption had cost $1.6 billion, far more than expected. 

DeWine said that Ohio will let the tax exemption “pause for a while,” although he still expects data centers to open in the state without it. If the state needs to restart the tax exemption later, it can do so, he said.

As DeWine spoke in Cleveland, the state legislature in Columbus was preparing a slate of proposed data center regulations. 

Cleveland City Hall has weighed the data center question, too. Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration rejected a permit application from a developer for a data center in the Slavic Village neighborhood. 

City officials said they also don’t want data centers to open in The Midline, a stretch of vacant industrial land on the East Side that Cleveland plans to redevelop. 

Ohio voters may get the chance to weigh in on the issue. A group of data center opponents is collecting signatures to put on the ballot a constitutional amendment banning the projects in the state.

Signal Ohio is a nonprofit news organization covering government, education, health, economy and public safety.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Once dedicated, the club will be known as the James A. Speaker AMVETS Post 48. Speaker died Aug. 11, 2025, at St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima at age 76.

In announcing the dedication, the post said Speaker, as a past commander, “gave countless hours of his time, energy and commitment to this Post, its members and our community.”

“Amvets Post 48 would not be what it is today without Jim Speaker, so please join us as we proudly become the James A. Speaker Amvets Post 48,” the post wrote in its announcement.

The ceremony will be held at the post, located at 1909 S. State Route 100 in Tiffin.

Read the full story at https://tiffinohio.net/posts/amvets-post-48-tiffin-renamed-jim-speaker/.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Cain, 23, faces one count of strangulation, a third-degree felony, in Seneca County Common Pleas Court, stemming from a May 19 incident at the Tiffin home he shared with his girlfriend. The Ohio Department of Public Safety Director D. Andrew Wilson signed Cain’s termination letter on Wednesday, June 3, citing a violation of OSHP Rule 4501:2-6-02(I)(2) — Conduct Unbecoming an Officer. The termination was served to Cain at approximately 11:00 a.m. the following day, Thursday, June 4, with that date listed as the effective date.

The records, released to TiffinOhio.net in response to a public records request, trace the full internal sequence.

An OSHP administrative investigation was opened on Thursday, May 21 by Lieutenant Chad E. Smith of the Administrative Investigation Unit, two days after Cain’s arrest. The agency placed Cain on unpaid administrative leave effective Friday, May 22.

Read the full story at https://tiffinohio.net/posts/oshp-terminates-trooper-nathaniel-cain-strangulation-charge/.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The 30-second spot, paid for by V-PAC: Victors Not Victims — the super PAC formed by Ramaswamy’s allies — brands Acton “the liberal who shut down Ohio” and warns that “it gets worse from here.” Here is what the record shows.

Claim: Acton “shut down Ohio, closing your child’s school and your friend’s business”

False as framed. Acton was DeWine’s appointed director of the Ohio Department of Health from February 2019 to June 2020 and signed the orders that closed schools and businesses — but she did so under emergency authority the governor granted her, and DeWine has repeatedly said the decisions were his. “The decisions that were made during COVID, they were my decisions, so no one should blame someone else if they don’t like it. The buck stops with me,” DeWine told NBC4 in December. DeWine, a Republican, has since endorsed Ramaswamy. Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, disputes DeWine’s account and calls Acton the “central architect” of the restrictions, but the governor who held the authority has said the calls were his alone.

Claim: Acton runs “on a radical far-left platform”

A characterization the record undercuts. Acton, a Democrat, was DeWine’s final cabinet appointment, and the Republican governor praised her without reservation when she resigned in 2020. “No one that I’ve ever met has more passion for helping people, has more passion for public health than Dr. Amy Acton,” DeWine said at the time. “She’s always put the health of Ohioans first.” Acton’s campaign platform centers on school funding, lowering health care and prescription costs, and a working-families tax cut.

Claim: Acton says illegal immigrants “have the right to be here”

Unsupported, and contradicted by her own words. The ad cites no statement, and Acton’s on-record position is the opposite. Asked in January about immigration enforcement, Acton told Ideastream Public Media: “If people are here as criminals, if people are here illegally, we need to enforce the laws of this country and the laws of the state of Ohio. But we need to do that lawfully.”

Claim: Acton “wants woke DEI racial preferences for hiring at Ohio colleges and universities”

Unsupported. The ad points to no Acton statement, and there is no record of her calling for racial hiring preferences at Ohio’s public universities. Ramaswamy, by contrast, has a documented higher-education position: he has proposed closing or consolidating public universities he considers “subpar,” naming the University of Akron, Kent State and Cleveland State, to help pay for an income-tax cut.

Who is paying for the ad

V-PAC is a federal super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited sums but cannot coordinate with a candidate’s campaign. It reported raising about $18.6 million tied to the 2026 cycle, with its largest contributions coming from out of state: $10 million from Pennsylvania-area investor Jeff Yass and $5 million from New York financier Ross Stevens. The PAC also accepted $275,000 in late 2025 from IT Serve Alliance, a group that has backed expanding foreign-worker visa programs, then refunded it after conservative backlash. Ramaswamy himself drew bipartisan criticism in December 2024 when he argued American culture “has venerated mediocrity over excellence” while defending tech companies that hire foreign-born engineers.

The campaign’s response

Acton campaign manager Philip Stein said in a statement: “Vivek Ramaswamy has spent his campaign calling Ohioans lazy and backing tax scams that benefit billionaires while raising our costs and bankrupting our schools; no wonder his billionaire friends are coming to his aid. This is just another desperate attempt to salvage his struggling campaign. Ohioans know the truth- Vivek Ramaswamy is only out for himself.”

Acton and Ramaswamy advanced from the May 5 primary and meet in the general election on Nov. 3, 2026.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The 214-212 vote sent the nearly $70 billion package to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign the measure. Republican senators approved the bill earlier this month, with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski the only member of the GOP in opposition.  

California independent Rep. Kevin Kiley, who conferences with Republicans, voted no, along with Democrats. 

Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., argued Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol need the additional funding so they can deport anyone in the country without proper authorization. 

“They want you to think that it’s just everybody coming in to seek the American dream,” he said. “We have a legal method for that to happen.” 

Scalise then read a list of Americans killed by people who were present in the United States without legal status.

“It’s not some hypothetical, it’s happened over and over and over again,” he said. 

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he opposed Republicans’ plans to “give a blank check to ICE without any guardrails, any oversight, or any accountability.”

“Donald Trump promised America that he would target violent felons who are here illegally, but instead taxpayer dollars are being used by ICE and his violent mass deportation machine to target and brutalize American citizens, in some cases killing them,” he said. 

Jeffries contended that “immigration enforcement should be fair, just and humane” and that ICE “needs to conduct itself” according to the same standards other law enforcement agencies follow. 

Funds will stretch over 3 years

The legislation will provide $38.53 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26.02 billion for Customs and Border Protection and $5 billion for the secretary of Homeland Security.

The funding, which lasts through September 2029, is in addition to the $170 billion Republicans provided in their “big, beautiful” law. About $100 billion of that remains unspent, according to Democrats. 

Republicans opted not to place any new constraints on how federal immigration agents operate or provide additional funding for oversight, despite officers killing two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. 

Those shootings led Democrats in Congress to demand new restrictions on officers, which led to weeks of bipartisan negotiations amid a 76-day shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security. 

That stalemate ended in April after lawmakers approved DHS’ annual appropriations bill without funding for ICE or the Border Patrol. Republicans had to remove those provisions in order to move the legislation through procedural votes in the Senate that require the support of at least 60 lawmakers. 

A new path

Republican leaders then turned to the complex budget reconciliation process to provide three years of funding for ICE, CBP and the secretary of DHS without requiring any changes to how they operate. 

The special legislative pathway allows bills to move through the Senate with simple majority votes as long as they adhere to certain rules.

Senate Republicans originally included, but later removed, $1.46 billion for several Department of Justice Programs and $1 billion for the Secret Service to make security upgrades linked to the new White House ballroom, also called the East Wing Modernization Project. 

The funding for ICE, CBP and the DHS secretary clears the way for the Trump administration to continue its immigration crackdown until just a few months before his second term is scheduled to end.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

President Donald Trump ordered the operation, which began at 5 p.m. Eastern and was “a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression,” a social media account for U.S. Central Command posted Tuesday evening.

Trump said earlier Tuesday the United States would retaliate after Iran shot down the helicopter late Monday over the Strait of Hormuz, and that the two American pilots aboard were unharmed.

Trump announced the cause of the helicopter’s downing in a Truth Social post just before 1 p.m. Eastern. As of early Tuesday morning, the incident had still been under investigation, according to U.S. Central Command.

“I have just been informed by our Great Military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the president wrote.

Despite recent exchanges of fire, the administration maintains the war, named by the Pentagon as Operation Epic Fury, is over and that an April 7 ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran remains in place. 

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with moderator Kristen Welker of NBC News, Trump said, before abruptly walking out of the interview a short time later, “I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. It’s not a big war for us.” 

The two military pilots were rescued at 7:33 p.m. Eastern time after the AH-64 Apache went down off the coast of Oman while the military was patrolling regional waters, according to U.S. Central Command.

“The Soldiers were safely rescued within approximately two hours and are in stable condition. The cause of the incident is under investigation.

“Rescue efforts were led by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the 82nd Airborne Division, with support from U.S. Air Force and Navy units including U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59,” according to the command’s statement posted on social media just after 6 a.m. Eastern.

The U.S. continues to block traffic to and from Iranian ports, and as recently as Monday fired on an empty oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman the military said was breaking the blockade just southeast of the Strait of Hormuz.

According to U.S. Central Command, American forces have disabled seven non-compliant vessels, redirected 134 ships that complied, and allowed 42 vessels supporting humanitarian aid to pass since initiating the blockade on April 13.

Iran has all but choked off international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s petroleum supply traveled before the war.

War status

Thirteen U.S. service members have died in the conflict, which began on Feb. 28. 

The Pentagon’s tally for service members injured stands at 411 as of Tuesday. Despite the administration’s stance that the war is over, the Defense Casualty Analysis System lists one U.S. sailor as “wounded in action” in June as part of Operation Epic Fury.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified last week before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that the U.S. war in Iran was “over.”

In response to a question from Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., about who won the war, Rubio answered, “Epic Fury is over, which is what you would consider the war.”

The U.S. launched the conflict in conjunction with Israel, and the Israeli government’s continued bombardment of southern Lebanon has stymied further peace talks — though Trump has repeatedly claimed Iran wants to make a deal.

Iran and Israel exchanged rocket fire Sunday into Monday for the first time since April.

Despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in mid-April, Israel’s bombing campaign has continued in southern Lebanon, as Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters refuse to recognize the agreement.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Tiffin clinic dates and hours

Walk-in clinics at the health district’s Tiffin office, located at 92 E. Perry St., will be held on June 11, June 18, June 23, and June 25 from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Fostoria clinic dates and hours

In Fostoria, walk-in clinics will be held July 21, Aug. 18, and Sept. 15 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the health district’s Fostoria office at 801 Kirk St.

What to bring

Residents attending a clinic should bring a photo ID and insurance card. Vaccines are also available by appointment at the Tiffin office; call (419) 447-3691 ext. 6333 to schedule.

For more information about available vaccines, visit senecahealthdept.org.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Food service begins at 5 p.m. and runs until 7 p.m. or until the food runs out. The menu includes shredded chicken sandwiches, sloppy joes, cole slaw, potato and three-bean salad, baked beans, assorted pies and the church’s strawberry shortcake, made with fresh strawberries and ice cream.

Guests can go through the main food line for a full meal or use a separate dessert-only line for shortcake. The event is dine-in only, with no carry-out available. Assistance is available for elderly guests and people with limited mobility.

New additions and family activities

New this year, the festival will feature bingo and a raffle. Visitors can also take photos with the “Strawberry Truck,” and children can use a bounce house.

A long-running community tradition

“Though the funds we raise are very valuable to our church and our mission, we don’t really see the Festival as a fundraiser,” said Audrey Naegele Flood, president of the church’s Consistory board. “Our congregation has so much fun socializing and visiting with people, this is one of the things we look forward to most all year. Tons of work goes into preparing for this event, but it’s more than worth it for the memories made.”

Troy Kagy, president of the Bloom Township trustees, said he has seen the festival’s impact firsthand. “Having grown up in this church and been involved in this community for years, I’ve seen firsthand what this festival means to people here,” he said. “The volunteers pour hours of work into it, and the good it does for both the church and the community makes every bit of it worthwhile.”

“Every summer this festival draws people to Bloomville and gives our neighbors a chance to gather, catch up, meet new people and enjoy each other’s company,” Bloomville Mayor David Auble Jr. said. “It’s been a cherished tradition in the Village for nearly 70 years.”

Preparing for the festival is a monthslong, all-hands effort, according to the church. Volunteers bake each shortcake ahead of time, hand-cut thousands of berries and set up chairs the morning of the event, then scoop ice cream, make change and keep hot food coming through the evening before washing trays and taking down tents at the end of the night.

How to give and learn more

Supporters who cannot attend can donate online, mail a gift to PO Box 55, Bloomville, or bring a donation to the event. More information is available on the church’s website and its Facebook page.

About the Bloomville United Church of Christ

The Bloomville UCC was founded in 1850 with nine members. The congregation has changed names, pastors and buildings over the years and remains an anchor institution in the village of Bloomville.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Ohio Senate passed Senate Joint Resolution 10 on a 22–9 vote Wednesday, June 3, just two weeks after the measure was introduced, according to the Ohio Capital Journal. A final vote in the Ohio House could come as soon as Wednesday, June 10, the Statehouse News Bureau reported. If 60 of the House’s 99 members sign off, the question goes before voters this November.

What the amendment would not do is change how a single Ohioan votes. And that gap — between what the measure claims to accomplish and what it actually does — has produced an unusual coalition of opponents, from the ACLU of Ohio and the League of Women Voters to conservative election activists, while Republican leaders deny the charge that the whole exercise is designed to pull their voters to the polls in a difficult midterm year.

The law already on the books

Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 458 in January 2023, and its photo-ID mandate took effect that April. Since then, every Ohioan voting in person — on Election Day or during early voting — has been required to present an unexpired Ohio driver’s license, state ID card, or BMV interim ID form; a U.S. passport or passport card; or a U.S. military, Ohio National Guard, or Department of Veterans Affairs ID card. The 2023 law eliminated the documents Ohioans had used for years, including utility bills, bank statements, paychecks, and Social Security cards.

SJR 10 would copy the core of that requirement into the Ohio Constitution, where no future legislature or court could undo it without another statewide vote. Sponsors introduced the resolution in mid-May — Sens. Jane Timken, R-Jackson Township, and Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, in the Senate, with a companion measure, House Joint Resolution 9, from Reps. Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, and Heidi Workman, R-Rootstown.

“This is about fair and free elections,” Timken said when the resolutions were introduced, according to the Ohio Capital Journal. On the Senate floor, she pointed to Virginia as a cautionary tale: “After several years of operation, surviving judicial challenges, Virginia repealed its photo ID requirements in 2020 after a single seat in the General Assembly flipped.”

The Capital Journal noted what Timken’s Virginia example leaves out: even after that state returned to allowing non-photo documents, a 2021 review by The Virginia Mercury found only about 0.05% of voters in several large localities cast ballots without showing a photo ID.

A fast track with a campaign behind it

The amendment push did not begin in the legislature. Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor, called in a mid-May Cincinnati Enquirer op-ed for enshrining voter ID in the state constitution, writing that the existing statutory requirement is “fragile.” Days later, Republican lawmakers introduced HJR 9 and SJR 10. Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon — who shepherded SJR 10 through his chamber — is Ramaswamy’s running mate for lieutenant governor.

The resolutions then moved at a pace rarely seen for constitutional amendments. In committee and on the Senate floor, Democrats offered amendments to guarantee a free state ID card, expand the list of acceptable documents, permit future electronic IDs, and allow same-day voter registration. The GOP-majority committee tabled every one, the Capital Journal reported.

“The general response was, well, those provisions are already in statute,” Sen. Willis Blackshear, D-Dayton, said on the floor. “Well, photo ID’s already in statute. So then the question becomes, if we believe photo ID is important enough to enshrine in the Constitution, then why not include those protections?”

Trump turns up the pressure

President Donald Trump injected himself into the fight Monday night, June 8, posting on Truth Social as the House committee weighed the measure:

“Congratulations to the Ohio State Senate for passing Senate Joint Resolution 10, which would require VOTER I.D. in Ohio Elections! Democrats fought hard against this, presumably so they can CHEAT. I am now asking all of my Republican friends in the State House to, also, PASS THIS NOW, and put a Constitutional Amendment on the Ballot so that the Great People of Ohio can vote to enshrine VOTER I.D. in the State Constitution. I will be watching, and am strongly supportive of this Resolution.”

Trump’s claim that the amendment “would require VOTER I.D. in Ohio Elections” describes a requirement that has been in force since April 2023. His assertion that Democrats opposed it “so they can CHEAT” is not supported by the legislative record; Senate Democrats’ objections centered on the omission of the free-ID guarantee and same-day registration, not on photo ID itself, which remains state law regardless of the amendment’s fate.

Gavarone amplified the post on Facebook within hours: “Thank you Mr. President for your support of Senate Joint Resolution 10! I look forward to its swift passage in the House!”

‘Hope that they turn out’

The central question hanging over the effort is why Republicans are spending legislative time and a ballot line on a law that already exists. Critics across the spectrum have an answer: turnout.

“It’s ‘put something on the ballot attractive to certain voters, and hope that they turn out,’” ACLU of Ohio Legislative Director Gary Daniels told News 5 Cleveland statehouse reporter Morgan Trau, in a story published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Daniels testified that the ACLU’s opposition “is much less about the underlying policy issue of photo IDs for voters and much more about taking away valuable policy and legislative time to quickly place an unneeded constitutional amendment on the ballot for purely political reasons.”

There is recent precedent. In 2022 — another midterm year — Ohio Republicans placed a measure on the ballot banning noncitizens from voting in all Ohio elections, even though noncitizens already could not vote in state or federal elections, News 5 reported.

McColley rejected the comparison. “Seeing this as a turnout juicer or anything like that, it’s not really backed up,” he told Trau, pointing to polling showing broad support for photo-ID requirements. After the Senate vote, he predicted the amendment “will pass overwhelmingly.”

House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, said the GOP was putting the amendment forward “politically.” “This is a way to try and distract voters from the fact that their gas is over $5 a gallon,” he said. “You think that Ohioans, when they can’t afford their childcare, their healthcare, their gas, their utility bills, are going to be motivated, instead, to go out and vote for something that is already the law in Ohio.”

Public testimony has run overwhelmingly against the measure. At one committee hearing on HJR 9, 78 people and groups opposed the resolution while a single Ohio group submitted supporting testimony, News 5 reported. In a later Capital Journal tally, just 2 of the more than 80 witnesses who submitted testimony supported the idea — and neither appeared in person. Asked about that lopsided record, House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said, “Uh, yes, it means something to me,” before adding: “The number, as we know, often it’s the same set of people who are being invigorated by the same groups to come and testify.”

The fraud the amendment targets is vanishingly rare

Ohio’s own elections data undercuts the security rationale. On the Senate floor, Sen. Kent Smith, D-Euclid, said roughly 22 million votes have been cast in Ohio since 2008 — and 18 voter fraud charges filed in that span. “Phony voting just is not happening very much at all in the state of Ohio,” Smith said. “In-person voter fraud is less common than UFO sightings, or more importantly, Bigfoot sightings in Portage County.”

That tracks with the state’s findings under Republican leadership. Then-Secretary of State Frank LaRose identified possible fraud in about 1 of every 222,000 votes cast in the 2020 election, the Capital Journal reported when HB 458 passed in 2023.

What the amendment leaves out — and what it slips in

When lawmakers enacted photo voter ID in 2023, they included a guarantee that any Ohioan can obtain a free state ID card — a provision tied to the U.S. Constitution’s 24th Amendment ban on poll taxes. That guarantee does not appear in the proposed amendment, a gap voting-rights advocates flagged repeatedly in committee.

“You can easily argue that it is unconstitutional at the federal level to not have free ID,” League of Women Voters of Ohio Executive Director Jen Miller testified, “that if you require something that costs money, that that is a poll tax.” Miller opposes the resolution but told lawmakers that if they proceed, the free-ID language should at minimum be written into the amendment’s text.

Opponents are equally focused on language the resolution adds. Its final section asserts that nothing in the amendment requires lawmakers to allow voting “in any location or manner other than in person at a polling place on the day of an election.” To Steve David of All Voting is Local Action Ohio, that clause reveals the longer game: “Rather than installing protections for Ohio voters, the General Assembly is telegraphing its intentions to restrict early in-person voting and eliminate the no-fault absentee system.”

McColley has denied any such plan, telling News 5: “There are no plans to eliminate early mail-in voting or absentee voting in the state of Ohio. I don’t believe there would even be support in either one of our caucuses to do that.”

Friction on the right — including a familiar face from Tiffin

The amendment has also splintered the activists who usually champion stricter voting rules. Marcell Strbich, a retired Air Force officer who ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state in last month’s Republican primary, testified that the amendment locks in “unequal treatment” because it constitutionalizes photo ID for in-person voters while leaving absentee voters under the current, looser standard of writing identifying information on a ballot envelope.

Among those echoing that argument was Eric Watson of Tiffin, who narrowly lost last month’s Republican primary for the 88th Ohio House District, which covers Seneca and Sandusky counties. Watson told the committee he supports the resolution only if lawmakers “close these loopholes.” “You need to show a government photo ID for many other things,” Watson testified, “so it only makes sense that a government photo ID would also be required for mail-in ballots to help protect one of the greatest privileges we have as a citizen.”

Republican committee members pushed back on the photocopy idea from both directions. Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Twp., raised data-security concerns: “Before you leave today, give me your driver’s license. I’ll keep it for a while and return it to you, maybe, and store all the data. Is that a good idea?” Committee chair Rep. Sharon Ray, R-Wadsworth, questioned the logic itself: “What are you going to compare the copy to? Do you see how nonsensical that is?”

The split reached the Senate floor, where Sen. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, voted no from the right. “When you mail in your ballot, you should have to have some type of form of ID. Unfortunately, I don’t see that here, and that raises major concerns for me,” Cutrona said. “I think this is creating a loophole within our own constitution if this is indeed passed.” Rep. Ron Ferguson, R-Wintersville, wrote on X that “The Ohio Senate missed the mark, but we have the chance to salvage it in the Ohio House,” calling for “Photo ID for every voter.”

What happens Wednesday

The House’s general government committee took two hours of testimony Monday, June 8, and adjourned without amending the resolution, the Statehouse News Bureau reported. Ray, the chair, signaled changes are still possible: “I think there’s got to be a little bit more conversation regarding the free IDs.”

A final House floor vote could come Wednesday, June 10. Passage requires a three-fifths majority — 60 votes — and any amendment to the resolution would send it back to the Senate. If the chambers agree, the question goes straight to the November ballot, where the voters Republicans are counting on will decide whether to constitutionalize a rule they have been following at the polls since 2023.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a member of the church widely known as the Mormon church, said the policy for military chaplains announced Friday was “offensive” and demanded the Pentagon reverse course, which the department did Monday afternoon.

“It’s also just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations,” Lee, a Utah Republican, said in a video statement posted to social media Sunday night.

“So I’m respectfully imploring the people at the Pentagon to reconsider this, not just reconsider but undo it,” Lee continued. “Secretary Hegseth: Tear down that wall. This is not cool.”

Hours later, Lee wrote on social media that he personally spoke to President Donald Trump on the phone about the “Pentagon’s ‘Christian list’” and told people to “stay tuned.”

“I won’t speak for him, but I’m thrilled about where this is heading,” Lee wrote. “We’re most fortunate that President Trump (1) loves Latter-day Saints, and (2) is our commander in chief.” 

A spokesperson with Lee’s office told States Newsroom Monday the senator received assurances from the administration that the issue will be resolved.

Just after noon Eastern time Monday, the Pentagon pointed States Newsroom to a social media post showing an updated list without the word “Christian” before any of the denominations.

“The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks,” according to the post by an account with the handle “DOW Rapid Response,” using the acronym for the administration’s preferred but unofficial name, Department of War.

Sen. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, also spoke out on social media stating the church is “unequivocally Christian.”

“It is unacceptable for a government entity to characterize a faith in a manner that contradicts the religion’s own foundational tenets,” he wrote Saturday.

A concern from lawmakers is that service members who belong to the Latter-day Saints may not receive services from a Christian chaplain.

The issue places the Pentagon in the middle of a longtime theological dispute between Latter-day Saints, who believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and consider themselves Christian, and some members of other Christian faiths who believe the Salt Lake City-based church should be viewed as outside of Christianity.

Latter-day Saint church leaders declined to comment Monday.

The White House pointed States Newsroom to the department’s Monday afternoon social media announcement.

Shorter list

Citing a two-page letter posted to social media Friday, Parnell said the department was making a “long overdue move” to reduce the military chaplains’ overall list of religious affiliations to 31, down from an “unmanageable” 200.

“This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions. Rather, it is designed to allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups,” Parnell wrote.

The list includes 21 separate Christian denominations, but lists the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints separately.

‘Christian nationalist takeover’

Criticism of the new list reverberated beyond Latter-day Saints.

Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, a Baptist minister and president and CEO of the Interfaith Alliance advocacy group accused the administration Friday of pushing a “Christian nationalist takeover of the Department of Defense.”

“Religious freedom in the military must mean religious freedom for everyone who serves, not just those this administration finds politically useful,” Raushenbush said in a statement.

“Secretary Hegseth is not ‘streamlining’ anything. He is elevating one narrow religious worldview from the top of the chain of command. That is dangerous, discriminatory and fundamentally un-American. The First Amendment does not allow the government to create a hierarchy of faiths, and it certainly does not allow the Pentagon to decide which beliefs are worthy of recognition.”

Hegseth announced a restructuring of the military’s chaplain corps in March, which he said had been “infected with political correctness and secular humanism.”

Hegseth hosts a monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

All 12 victims are reported to be in stable conditions and their ages range from 14-61, according to the Toledo Police Department. No arrests have been made as of Monday afternoon. 

There have been 217 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to MassShootingTracker.site. 

The shooting happened Saturday night around 5:37 p.m. near the Old West End, a historic Toledo neighborhood that was celebrating its 53rd annual festival. 

“It’s just a shame when a few people, for whatever reason going through their head, decide to disrupt something that has been a beloved community event for many, many, many years,” Toledo Deputy Police Chief Joe Heffernan said during a Saturday night press conference. 

There were at least two shooters who were likely shooting at each other, he said. 

“If we have some people out there, some groups of young people that are thinking that this is exciting, it’s not,” Heffernan said. “This is a perfect example of how, when bullets start flying, they can go anywhere, they can strike anybody.” 

Toledo Police are asking for the community’s help and for people to come to share any videos they might have taken that could lead to the suspects. 

“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Toledo,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said. “Summer festivals should be safe spaces for families to spend time together without fear of violence. Fran and I are praying for everyone impacted by the incident at the Old West End Festival.”

DeWine signed a bill into law in 2022 that got rid of all training, background check, and permitting requirements to carry a concealed weapon.

A 2021 law no longer requires people to retreat before they can justifiably hurt or kill someone with a gun in self-defense.  

Ohio received an F on the Giffords annual gun law scorecard. 

“(Ohio) has very, very weak gun laws,” said Danniyal Ahmed, a senior federal policy attorney with Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 

“We really hope the legislature takes this opportunity to maybe reconsider its strategy on this policy area.”

Ohio state Sen. Willis Blackshear Jr., D-Dayton, called on his fellow lawmakers to take action on gun legislation. 

“This isn’t a Democrat issue or a Republican issue, but a human issue,” he said in a statement Monday. 

“I’m asking Governor DeWine to revisit the commonsense gun legislation he proposed after the 2019 mass shooting in Dayton and fight for its passage. Gun violence is an expense that our cities and our state can no longer afford.”

After a 2019 mass shooting in Dayton killed nine people, chants of “do something” drowned out Gov. DeWine’s speech during a vigil for the victims. 

Ohio politicians were quick to offer their thoughts and prayers.

“Our community is in pain as a result of senseless gun violence in Toledo’s storied Old West End community,” Ohio Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur said. Kaptur represents the Toledo area in Congress.

“Praying now for victims and our Old West End community — one of the most joyous and celebrated events in our region will endure. It will take time and work to restore comfort, security, and trust.”

Derek Merrin, a Republican who is competing for Kaptur’s seat in Congress in the general election, thanked the first responders. 

“Please join me in praying for the victims, their families, and everyone affected by tonight’s shooting,” Merrin said. “Let’s pray that law enforcement will apprehend the individuals who carried out this horrendous act.”

Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted said he is praying for those affected by the “senseless violence.”  

Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno said he has been in touch with Toledo authorities. 

“To the thugs behind this lawless violence: we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. This will not stand,” Moreno said in a statement. 

Ohio’s gun legislation

Ohio Senate Republicans recently passed a bill that would penalize local governments for enacting gun safety regulations. 

Ohio Senate Bill 278 allows anyone to sue municipalities that have gun safety laws. It also would let judges fine cities, award money to plaintiffs, and require cities to pay all legal fees. Ohio Senator Terry Johnson, R-McDermott, introduced the bill. 

Ohio Senate Bill 392 would ban cities or townships from making their own weapons restrictions by making gun and knife laws uniform across Ohio. Ohio Sen. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, and Johnson introduced the bill, which has had one hearing. 

Ohio Democratic lawmakers introduced various bills intended to prevent gun violence, but they have had no hearings so far. They include:

• Ohio House Bill 45 would prohibit certain firearm transfers without a background check. Ohio Reps. Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, and Rep. Rachel Baker, D-Cincinnati, introduced the bill. 

• Ohio House Bill 351 would create the Ohio Task Force on Gun Violence, which would study gun violence as well as programs to reduce gun violence. Ohio Reps. Darnell T. Brewer, D-Cleveland, and Karen Brownlee, D-Symmes Twp., introduced the bill. 

• Ohio House Bill 901 would penalize adults who leave firearms accessible to minors. Brewer introduced the bill.

Requiring background checks on all gun sales and having laws in place to prevent children from accessing firearms are two starting points when it comes to reducing gun violence, Ahmed said. 

“When we see these events that are both really horrific and also gain state and national attention, that’s the time for politicians to actually look to see what has worked in other places, and what the weaknesses in their state’s laws, and take action,” 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.

The Ohio House Children and Human Services Committee held its own version of a vote-a-rama, passing the four bills in rapid succession.

Ohio House Bill 647, one of two bills that sought to bolster the state’s system for investigating childcare funding fraud, was passed after multiple hearings and amendments to the bill.

Both childcare fraud bills received criticism for separate issues from childcare providers and local prosecuting attorneys throughout the committee consideration process.

National scrutiny of childcare facilities cropped up following a right-wing influencer’s claims that Minnesota childcare facilities, particularly those run by Somali immigrants, were misusing federal funds.

The Trump administration temporarily froze funds to Minnesota and other Democratically-led cities, questioning the legitimacy of fund usage at some facilities.

While Ohio was not targeted, Gov. Mike DeWine and Kara Wente, head of the Ohio Department of Children & Youth, sought to get ahead of concerns, standing behind the oversight of childcare facilities in the state, particularly those who receive federal funding for publicly funded childcare.

H.B. 647 came about as part of the defense of the state’s system, a GOP-led effort to add layers of investigation to the system through the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and Ohio Inspector General’s Office, and spell out other regulations within the system.

The bill had the support of Wente, who said provisions in the bill were goals of the department already.

The committee also moved Ohio House Bill 7, Ohio House Bill 484, and Ohio Senate Bill 218, along for a full House vote, which could happen before the legislature goes on summer break.

The chair of the committee, state Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, is co-sponsoring H.B. 7, which would guarantee publicly funded childcare for those who take care of foster children and family members like grandchildren or siblings.

Caregivers are required under the bill to have a job or be in an education or other training program to be eligible for the publicly funded childcare.

H.B. 484 is also a Republican-led bill, one that would create a new pilot program specifically for childcare workers.

Under the bill, the Workforce Investment Now for Child Care program would be established within the Ohio Department of Children and Youth, and publicly funded childcare would be provided to children of childcare facility employees, without consideration of household income.

The bill creates exceptions for child day camp employees and administrators, along with owners of childcare facilities, according to an analysis by the Legislative Service Commission.

The Children & Youth department will be required to complete a report on findings from the pilot program within six months of the end of the program. The bill appropriated $20 million for the program.

This is not the first pilot program to be sent through the legislature related to childcare. A cost-sharing pilot program became part of the most recent operating budget the state passed, appropriating state funds to start a program that would split up the cost of childcare between the state, employers and eligible employees.

That program is also under the purview of the Ohio Department of Children & Youth.

Ohio Senate Bill 218 addresses a very specific population of kids: those whose parents are in the armed forces.

The bill exempts family childcare providers who have already been certified by any military branch from state license requirements, to avoid duplicative regulations.

“Passing Senate Bill 218 would add Ohio to a growing list of states seeking to expand access to quality childcare for military families and reduce barriers for military spouses who support their families by operating family childcare homes and move frequently between states with differing licensure requirements,” said bill sponsor state Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, during the first hearing of the bill on Monday.

The bill also had the support of child advocacy group Groundwork Ohio, according to the group’s vice president, Brittany Boulton.

“By aligning state policy with existing federal oversight … this bill offers a practical solution that supports military families and the providers who serve them without reducing accountability or quality,” Boulton told the committee.

The House heard a companion bill with similar language, and because of the companion bill, White said the committee had “basically heard this bill,” and moved forward with passage of S.B. 218.

“I understand there is broad support for this bill,” White said before its unanimous passage.

All the bills passed Monday will now move to the Ohio House for a full vote.

House-originated bills will need to move through the Ohio Senate before moving on for the governor’s signature.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Brian Massie, a campaign leader and the co-founder of AxOHTax, announced early Friday that the group hasn’t reached its goal of collecting 620,000 signatures.

Facing a July 1 deadline to submit petitions to the Ohio Secretary of State, he and fellow volunteers have decided to hold off — for now.

To qualify for the ballot, organizers needed to turn in 413,488 valid voter signatures. They’ve been trying to collect plenty of extras, since thousands of signatures routinely get thrown out during the state’s verification process.

“We thought that we would need quite a buffer,” Massie said during an interview with WEWS.

During a news conference in late April, Massie said the campaign had amassed 305,000 signatures. On Friday, he refused to provide an updated total.

“We’re declaring war on the legislators,” he said, describing some members of the General Assembly as callous and slow to act. “And when you’re at war, you never give the enemy any intel. Giving them information — specifically how many signatures — that’s like giving them intel.”

Massie and his fellow organizers say they’ve lost confidence in politicians in Columbus. They’re reflecting the outrage of elderly taxpayers, in particular, who feel overburdened and ignored.

The proposed constitutional amendment would scrap property taxes entirely — on housing, commercial, and industrial real estate and land.

There’s a growing anti-tax movement across the country, as cash-strapped homeowners feel the pain of post-pandemic house-price spikes, broader inflation and tax levies. But no state has jettisoned real estate taxes entirely.

Opponents say eliminating property taxes is a drastic move. Ohio governments would have to make deep cuts, sharply raise other types of taxes or do a combination of both things to have any chance at making up the difference.

“What it ends up being is a tax shell game, the biggest tax shell game you could imagine,” state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a Kirtland Republican, said during an interview Friday. “Because, yeah, we can get rid of property taxes. But then sales tax will have to be tripled. … Homeowners, individuals will end up, I think, paying more in tax. Just different types of taxes. And that doesn’t really solve the problem.”

A coalition called Ohioans to Protect Public Services, which includes firefighters, police, teachers, and librarians, issued a statement Friday morning calling the push to abolish all property taxes “reckless” and pledging to continue fighting the effort.

“Local property taxes pay for services Ohioans count on every day, including police, fire and EMS, 911, public schools, senior services, supports for children and people with disabilities, to name just a few,” Jen Detwiler, a representative for the coalition, said in a written statement.

“Eliminating two-thirds of local tax revenue overnight does not make those needs disappear — it forces our state into impossible choices: severe cuts to local services, massive increases in sales and income taxes, or both.”

Massie said lawmakers in Columbus now have another year to prove they can make meaningful reforms, while the signature-gathering continues.

“We’re saying okay, let’s give the legislators more time. And let’s see what they do,” he said, challenging lawmakers to cut spending and bureaucracy.

The General Assembly approved a handful of tax-relief measures late last year, but homeowners aren’t feeling the effects of those changes yet.

The reforms included some property-tax credits and rollbacks, changes to the math around school levies, adjustments to the state review process for county reappraisals and increases in oversight powers for county budget commissions.

Lawmakers expect those updates to yield $2.4 billion to $3 billion worth of savings for homeowners over the next few years.

“Next month, with the tax bills coming out, people will start to see it,” Cirino said of the impact. “Particularly if you write a check twice a year to pay your property taxes, it will be very visible to you. If you pay through your mortgage, you’re going to have to look for it a bit harder than people who are paying taxes directly.”

He said lawmakers are still discussing additional reforms. “We have a number of bills in both the House and Senate,” he said.

Cirino said he’s sympathetic to homeowners who are struggling.

But he’s clearly fed up with the anti-tax campaign — which faces long odds, as a volunteer-led effort that’s been gathering signatures for just over a year. As signatures age, they’re more likely to get tossed because voters move or die.

“I’m not sure whether these people are delusional or not,” Cirino said, “but they haven’t done their homework. I don’t think they’ve put the intellectual rigor behind evaluating this problem and what the right solution is.”

So far, Massie isn’t impressed with the legislature’s actions. And he views the campaign’s shortfall as a delay — not a defeat.

“We will continue to collect these signatures. And we’re going to prove Jerry Cirino wrong,” Massie said.

As for whether that will happen next year? “My response is, it’s in God’s hands,” he said.

Michelle Jarboe is the business growth and development reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @MJarboe or email her at Michelle.Jarboe@wews.com.

This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The original legislation was passed when Republican Gov. James Rhodes held office. The open meeting laws were passed under Democratic Gov. John Gilligan. This shows that public record disclosure was not a partisan issue.

But now the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court just threw a giant wrench into the gears of Ohio’s public records laws, causing major damage to people seeking public documents.

Republicans no longer want transparency or disclosure. They want to control the documents and control the public narrative.

On May 27, the six Republicans on the court banded together to halt discovery proceedings in a case that required the production of certain public records and the deposition (oral testimony under oath before trial) of then-Ohio Attorney General David Yost.

The court sent the case back to the 10th District Court of Appeals (Franklin County) for that court to review and amend the scope of discovery limiting what the plaintiff could rightfully demand in seeking public records.

Why you should care

The right for anyone to be able to see and receive public records should be inviolate. We must be able to see exactly how our public institutions are operating. We need to be able to peek behind the curtains of governmental secrecy at any time.

Our right to public records should not be compromised or politicized.

The majority decision by the Ohio Supreme Court was a political one. It supported a Republican Attorney General who looks to be trying to evade Ohio’s clear public record statutes to protect from sunlight on pro-Trump political activities.

It is as if the justices knew the decision they wanted to make to support Yost and then tortured their legal arguments and reasoning to support that decision.

More importantly, I see a Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court chipping away at the state’s public records statutes to promote secrecy in government, as a tenet of the MAGA form of Republicanism.

Ohio once was a bipartisan pioneer in public transparency. It is sad to see strong public records laws being diluted by legislative fiats and partisan Supreme Court decisions.

Unfortunately, what the United States Supreme Court is to the Trump Administration, the Ohio Supreme Court is to the MAGA Ohio General Assembly.

This Ohio Supreme Court even has gone so far as to now allow elected judges in Ohio to endorse candidates for any political office.

In April the Ohio Supreme Court, in a 5-1 decision overturned the state’s decades-old ban on judges publicly endorsing political candidates.

That made Ohio the first — and only — state in the nation to explicitly allow state judges and judicial candidates to endorse politicians running for office.

I have no faith in Ohio’s top court to call out governmental impropriety or secrecy.

Therefore, the people need to fight all the harder to make sure our public offices and public officials comply with public records statutes and open meeting laws. We must fight back.

Every time a city, the county, or a university refuses to give public records, they must be fought to demand the people’s right to information.

If not, we will have a government dominated by secrecy and deceit, and not a government open to the people.

Case breakdown

Let me break down the case of Center for Media and Democracy v. Attorney General David Yost.

The parties

The plaintiff describes itself as a governmental nonpartisan anti-corruption watchdog group called the Center for Media and Democracy. An active party on behalf of the plaintiff is David Armiak, who heads research for the center.

The defendant is David Yost, who was Ohio Attorney General at the time. He resigned in early May to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian advocacy group.

The facts

In 2020, the Center, through Armiak, asked Yost and his chief of staff to provide copies of records related to his involvement with the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), and his attendance at RAGA’s 2020 winter meeting. These are conservative, GOP-based organizations that promote litigation to support President Donald Trump.

The center asked for:

All records that pertain to [RAGA], [RLDF], and the RAGA Winter Meeting held February 29 through March 2 from the Office of Attorney General Dave Yost. The scope of this request includes the Attorney General and Chief of Staff. The scope of this request should include but is not limited to emails, attachments, both sent and received, all draft records, briefing books, memos, notes, minutes, scheduling records, text messages, other correspondence (internal and external) and all other records.

Yost responded that the documents being sought were not records of his office, but instead were personal records and therefore did not come under the public records umbrella.

Armiak disagreed and sent an email to the attorney general stating that Yost and his chief of staff’s interactions with RAGA and RLFD were laced with extensive matters of public policy, and that while participating Yost and his staff were conducting public business. He also stated that Yost and his staff attended events sponsored by RAGA and RLFD in their “official capacities” representing the State of Ohio.

Yost countered saying that his office had no “email, test, drafts, memo, minutes, or other correspondence records” requested and repeated that other information was not public record.

Tenth District Court of Appeals

The center did not believe Yost and filed a legal action against him to provide the records. The lawsuit was for a writ of mandamus from the Tenth District Court of Appeals. In essence, the center was asking the court to mandate that the attorney general and his office provide the public records requested.

The court of appeals appointed a magistrate (a lawyer who is not a judge but makes recommendations to the judges) to hear the case.

As part of that litigation, the center attempted to get the documents through a civil discovery process. Discovery is a multifaceted process for gaining information from opponents prior to a case going to trial.

The center used 16 requests for production of documents which, in a civil case, demands that the opponent provide documents prior to trial for the parties’ and the court’s review.

The center also issued eight interrogatories to Yost. Interrogatories are written questions that need to be answered under oath by a party prior to trial.

Additionally, the center asked that Yost sit for a two-hour, under oath, deposition to answer questions about the documents that were not provided. Depositions were also requested from several of Yost’s staff members.

The Tenth District Court of Appeals gave the center the right to pursue these forms of discovery. The magistrate granted the center’s demand that Yost produce documents, with the caveat that some of the documents would be reviewed privately by the magistrate (in camera review) to determine if they should be given to the center.

The magistrate also ordered Yost and his staff members to participate in the depositions.

Yost disagreed with the magistrate’s rulings and appealed the Tenth District’s ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court, consisting of seven justices chosen in statewide elections.

The Supreme Court decision

In a 6-1 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down the Tenth District’s ruling, thereby vacating the Tenth District’s discovery order.

The six members of the court agreeing with Yost are all Republicans, as is Yost. The lone Democratic justice on the court, Justice Jennifer Brunner, filed a written dissenting opinion.

The decision, written by Justice Patrick F. Fischer, vacated the orders, saying the Tenth District Court of Appeals “misapplied the law and abused its discretion” in granting the center’s motion to compel the attorney general to comply with discovery measures.

The court vacated the Tenth District’s order demanding discovery compliance and remanded it (sent it back) to the court of appeals for that court to properly apply the discovery rules as outlined by the supreme court.

Let’s try to succinctly summarize the court’s 28-page decision.

The decision states that court-mandated discovery must be limited to what is “relevant and proportional” to the case. The court used the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure (rules governing how a civil case proceeds) as authority.

The supreme court said that in a public records request case, the “relevant and proportional” standard goes to whether the documents requested are or are not public records under the statutory definition.

Discovery must be limited to arguments that the documents are public records and defenses that they are not, according to the court.

Justice Fischer’s opinion stated that the Tenth District’s order inappropriately mandated the attorney general to produce information beyond what was “relevant and proportional” to the question of whether the documents requested fit the definition of “public records.”

“The court of appeals, in our view, placed the proverbial cart before the horse,” Fischer stated.

The dissenting opinion

Democratic Justice Jennifer Brunner issued an 18-page written dissent. A “dissenting opinion” does not carry the weight of a majority opinion, but it does state a firm position of a justice against the majority view.

In essence, she said the court’s majority substituted its judgment in favor of the attorney general over the broad discretion given, by law, to the Tenth District Court of Appeals.

She also noted that the court did not give the appellate courts any guidance for managing discovery in a public records case.

She argues that the court of appeals, in fact, applied the discovery rules properly, especially given the behavior of the attorney general and his office and the appellate orders should have been maintained.

Justice Brunner stated that the attorney general’s reasoning for not releasing the documents had shifted and evolved — at one point, he even said some of the documents were, in fact, public records. Therefore, she thinks the many and varied attempts for discovery to lock him down was appropriate by the court of appeals.

“The approach employed by the court of appeals in determining what information would be relevant to the claims and defenses of the parties was not unreasonable, especially in the light of the attorney general’s office’s evasive conduct and evolving defenses,” the dissent says.

Justice Brunner says that the court’s majority opinion limits governmental transparency.

Although the decision may be in sync with the new era of governmental secrecy, Brunner disagrees.

She ends her dissent saying: “Public scrutiny through broad access to public records is a fundamental tenet of the people of Ohio’s right to exercise self-governance. … As this court continues to whittle the public’s right to examine the public’s own records into almost nothing, I ask the people of Ohio to consider whether this is consistent with their collective ideas and values. I have grave doubt that the people of Ohio consent to their government operating in secrecy. I therefore continue my adamant dissent to this court’s path of enabling the government to do so.”

This commentary was originally published by the Athens County Independent.

In Inside Courts, retired judge Tom Hodson explains the complexities of the law and legal cases, helping you understand what’s at stake — and how it affects you.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.