Pepper, a Cincinnati attorney and former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, is running as the running mate of Dr. Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor. Several of Ohio’s largest labor organizations, including the United Auto Workers, have endorsed the Acton-Pepper ticket. The Lima event was organized by the Ohio Democratic Party.

Pepper framed his remarks around Ramaswamy’s past statements on organized labor. “Ramaswamy often talks about the unions he wants to get rid of. Anyone who thinks it’s his job to get rid of the unions he doesn’t like is a threat to all unions,” Pepper said. “We’ve got a guy who says Ohioans are lazy, mediocre and not working hard enough, and every step he proposes would make life harder for everyone except for billionaires like himself.”

Jeff Adams, president of United Auto Workers Local 1219 in Lima, said the race carries high stakes for local families. “There is too much at stake in this election for Lima’s families. We can’t afford a billionaire who will take away our jobs and call our workers lazy,” Adams said.

Gary McPheron, secretary-treasurer of the Lima Building Trades, said union members were weighing the candidates’ records. “Our members are watching to see which candidate will stand alongside them in good and bad times, and that’s not Vivek Ramaswamy. Instead of fighting for Ohio workers, Ramaswamy would take away our jobs and make already high costs even worse,” McPheron said. “Ramaswamy is an out-of-touch billionaire who can’t be trusted to keep jobs in Ohio or lower costs for working families. Our members and Ohioans across the state are working harder than ever. We can’t afford Vivek Ramaswamy.”

The Democrats’ criticism draws on Ramaswamy’s recent public record. In a December 2024 social media post — before he entered the governor’s race — Ramaswamy argued that top U.S. technology companies often hire foreign-born and first-generation engineers because, he wrote, American culture “has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” He called for a culture that prioritizes hard work over what he described as laziness. The post addressed American culture broadly rather than Ohio workers specifically, and it drew criticism from across the political spectrum. Ramaswamy did not describe Ohioans as lazy in those words; the “lazy” characterization reflects how Pepper and other Democrats have summarized the post. On unions, Ramaswamy has said he might seek to dismantle Ohio’s public-school teachers’ unions while proposing merit-based teacher pay, according to reporting on his education platform.

A biotech fortune built on a failed drug

Much of the “billionaire” framing the union leaders used traces to how Ramaswamy made his money. In December 2014, a company under his Roivant Sciences umbrella bought the experimental Alzheimer’s drug intepirdine from GlaxoSmithKline for $5 million, after GSK had run four failed trials on it. Ramaswamy built a subsidiary, Axovant, around the drug and took it public in 2015 in what was then the largest biotech IPO on record, raising about $315 million and reaching a valuation near $3 billion — even though the company had about eight employees at the time, two of them Ramaswamy’s mother and brother. He reported roughly $38 million in income that year, most of it capital gains. In September 2017, intepirdine failed its late-stage trial; Axovant’s stock fell about 75% in a single day and never recovered. Ramaswamy was largely insulated from the losses because he held his stake through the parent firm, Roivant.

Ramaswamy has called Axovant his “single greatest failure” and said he does not regret how it was run. His campaign has said the drug failed as the vast majority of Alzheimer’s treatments do, and that he was “forced to sell a tiny portion” of his shares in 2015 to bring in an outside investor. No regulator has charged Ramaswamy with wrongdoing, and he has not been convicted of any crime. Critics have been blunter. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale School of Management professor who tracks Ramaswamy’s business dealings, told Fortune that “everything about him is a scam,” and told the Associated Press that his biotech record was “classic ‘pump and dump.’” Ramaswamy rejects those characterizations.

Ramaswamy co-founded the anti-ESG investment firm Strive Asset Management in Columbus in 2022. In November 2024, the firm announced it was relocating its headquarters from Columbus to Dallas, moving most of its Columbus staff and roughly $1.7 billion in assets under management to Texas. He launched his campaign for governor about three months later, in February 2025. Separately, the Associated Press has reported that a Roivant subsidiary, Genevant Sciences, and a partner firm reached a $2.25 billion settlement with Moderna over vaccine technology — part of a pandemic-era record TiffinOhio.net has examined in detail.

A self-funded campaign and questions about who benefits

Ramaswamy, whose net worth has been estimated at roughly $1.8 billion, loaned his own campaign $25 million in 2026 — about 83% of what his campaign raised that year. Because the money is structured as a loan, he can repay himself from funds the campaign raises later.

His signature tax proposals have drawn scrutiny over who would benefit. Ramaswamy has proposed phasing out Ohio’s income tax beginning with the capital gains tax; the nonpartisan Ohio Legislative Service Commission has estimated that step alone would cost the state between $615 million and $645 million a year, with nearly 82% of the benefit flowing to Ohioans earning more than $200,000. His own April 6 filing with the Ohio Ethics Commission disclosed $768,968 in capital gains from a stock sale — the kind of income his plan would exempt. Independent analyses by the Legislative Service Commission, Policy Matters Ohio, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the progressive group Innovation Ohio have reached a common conclusion: his tax agenda would deliver its largest benefits to wealthy Ohioans and corporations while shifting costs toward working families. Innovation Ohio has estimated that his plan to roll property taxes back to 2021 levels would cut roughly $6.6 billion a year from local budgets, including about $4 billion from schools, with no replacement revenue identified.

Ramaswamy has also faced questions about promoting industries he holds a personal financial stake in. His financial disclosure shows holdings in cryptocurrency and in Strive, which has committed much of its treasury to Bitcoin, even as he has urged Ohio to expand crypto and data-center development that the governor’s office would help regulate. His campaign has not publicly addressed the overlap between his holdings and the policies he supports.

Ramaswamy has centered his campaign on cutting taxes and regulation, arguing that lower taxes would spur growth that lifts the whole state. At his February 2025 launch, he pledged to make Ohio “the top state in the country to start and grow a business,” called for eliminating the state income tax and rolling back property taxes, and said he would cut business regulations. His running mate is Ohio Senate President Rob McColley. The Ohio Democratic Party’s announcement of Tuesday’s event did not include a response from Ramaswamy’s campaign.

Ramaswamy won the Republican primary in May and faces Acton in the Nov. 3 general election. The winner will succeed Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who is barred by term limits from seeking re-election.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The sharpest attacks on Ramaswamy’s identity have not come from Democrat Amy Acton’s campaign. They have come from far-right activists, conservative event audiences, online commentators and, during the Republican primary, one of his own GOP opponents — questioning his Hindu faith, his vegetarian diet, his Indian heritage and, in some corners, whether the Cincinnati-born candidate is truly American.

The facts of Ramaswamy’s biography are not in serious dispute. A biotech entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, he was born in Cincinnati to parents who immigrated legally from India, was raised Hindu, and went on to Harvard and Yale before winning the 2026 Republican nomination for governor. He faces Acton, the state’s former health director, in the Nov. 3 general election.

A primary rival questioned his citizenship

The most direct Ohio example came from Casey Putsch, a Perrysburg automotive entrepreneur and Tiffin native who challenged Ramaswamy in the GOP primary. In April, Putsch posted a video firing a rifle and inviting Ramaswamy to play “Cowboys versus Indians,” then adding, “Don’t worry, it’s feather, not dot” — a racialized reference distinguishing Indigenous people from people of Indian descent. Dr. Deepak Sarma, a Case Western Reserve University professor of Indian religions, called the video “one hundred percent” a threat. Putsch denied it was racist or threatening, describing it as a joke protected by the First and Second Amendments.

Putsch’s attacks extended to Ramaswamy’s gun credentials. In a separate video, he canceled his NRA membership on camera after the group’s political arm endorsed Ramaswamy, replaying clips from Ramaswamy’s 2023 NRA speech in which the candidate acknowledged growing up in an “anti-gun household” and having visited a shooting range “probably less than I can count on two hands.” Putsch told an NRA representative there was “nothing remotely American about” Ramaswamy.

Putsch also repeatedly questioned Ramaswamy’s citizenship. Told by a reporter that Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati, Putsch responded that he was “born to Indian foreign nationals who came here just to have an anchor baby,” and in the same interview called him “questionably American.” NBC News has reported that Putsch routinely refers to Ramaswamy as an “Indian anchor baby,” a term that undermines the citizenship guaranteed to U.S.-born children of immigrants under the 14th Amendment.

Turning Point USA crowds questioned his faith

The theme has surfaced nationally. At a Turning Point USA forum at Montana State University in October 2025, Ramaswamy’s Hindu identity was challenged by several students. “Jesus Christ is God, and there is no other God,” one said. “How can you represent the constituents of Ohio who are 64% Christian if you are not a part of that faith?” Another asked why he would have “Christian values.” Ramaswamy responded by citing the U.S. Constitution’s ban on religious tests for public office, according to Religion News Service.

When Ramaswamy headlined another Turning Point USA event at Ohio State University on April 21, 2026, audience members pressed him on immigration and Israel. That event, WOSU reported, did not veer into the attacks on his religion seen in Montana, where some questioned whether a practicing Hindu could lead Ohio.

A fight rooted in the H-1B backlash

The tension predates the governor’s race. In late 2024, Ramaswamy and Elon Musk set off a backlash among Trump supporters by defending the H-1B visa program and high-skilled immigration. CBS News reported that their stance split Republicans, and Axios described the dispute as a “MAGA-world civil war” over race, immigration and American identity. The conflict intensified after Trump named Indian-born venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as an AI adviser, and after Ramaswamy argued in a widely shared post that American culture had “venerated mediocrity over excellence.”

‘Anchor baby’ attacks go national

Far-right commentator Nick Fuentes has targeted Ramaswamy directly. After Ramaswamy argued in a New York Times essay that American identity is rooted in civic ideals rather than ancestry — writing that “no matter your ancestry,” a naturalized citizen is “every bit as American as a Mayflower descendant” — Fuentes wrote that Ramaswamy was “an actual anchor baby” and that “foreigners who have no right to be here don’t get to lecture me about what it is to be American.”

That framing has blended with a renewed national fight over birthright citizenship. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court reaffirmed birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to restrict it. Hours later, the Justice Department directed prosecutors to prioritize investigations of “birth tourism schemes,” keeping the issue alive on the right even after the court upheld broad citizenship protections for people born on U.S. soil.

An outsider in the movement he champions

Ramaswamy’s case is striking because he rose to prominence attacking corporate diversity programs and liberal identity politics. Yet in the Ohio race, much of the pressure he has faced from his right has been explicitly identity-based. The Washington Post reported in May that Ramaswamy, after building a career denouncing “wokeness,” was confronting racist and nativist attacks in his run for governor, including from Putsch, who the paper said called him “not a real American.”

Ramaswamy remains backed by prominent Republicans, including Trump, and won the primary easily. But the attacks from the far right underscore a divide in the party: a candidate can champion “America First” politics and still be treated by some in that movement as an outsider — and, for a Hindu son of Indian immigrants born in Ohio, face questions from within his own coalition about whether being born here is enough.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Sheriff’s Office identified the man as Jeffrey R. Sergent, 43, of Bloomville. In a written release, Sheriff Fredrick W. Stevens said the shooting happened at about 10:17 a.m. Tuesday, July 7, near the intersection of Township Road 8 and State Route 67.

According to the release, a Bloomville police unit and Seneca County deputies attempted to stop a pickup truck driven by Sergent, who the Sheriff’s Office said faced felony domestic violence charges and whom deputies were trying to take into custody on those charges. Officers partially blocked the truck between their cruisers and guardrails on either side of the roadway and spent about 10 minutes trying to persuade him to step out, the release said.

Stevens said Sergent refused to get out, displayed several knives from his pocket during the negotiation, rolled up his windows and would not speak. As additional deputies arrived, the Sheriff’s Office said, Sergent put the truck in reverse in an attempt to leave but was blocked by the Bloomville police vehicle, then shifted into drive. Deputies positioned in front of and beside the truck fired into it, striking him, according to the release. Stevens wrote that deputies fired “before he could run one of them over.”

The truck struck the push bar on the front of a deputy’s cruiser hard enough to bend it, the release said, but officers were able to move out of the way.

EMS was called to the scene, according to the Sheriff’s Office, and deputies who checked for a pulse did not find one — a finding the release said EMS confirmed when it arrived. One deputy was treated for a hand injury from broken glass, the release said.

The Sheriff’s Office said it contacted the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) to process the scene and investigate the shooting. The deputies involved have been placed on administrative leave until the investigation is complete, according to the release.

The account of the shooting comes entirely from the Sheriff’s Office. The release did not say how many deputies fired, how many shots were fired, or which officers were involved. TiffinOhio.net has not independently verified the circumstances of the shooting, and BCI’s findings have not been released.

This is a developing story. Check TiffinOhio.net for updates.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Reuben J. Guilkey II, 29, of Tiffin died of injuries sustained in the June 30 crash on Greeley Street, Sgt. Jared Watson of the Tiffin Police Department told The Advertiser-Tribune, which first reported his death. Watson said Monday afternoon that Guilkey had died of his injuries but that the exact time of death was not known.

Guilkey was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash, and impairment is not believed to be a factor, Watson said. He was operating a Suzuki GSXR 750 “at a rate greater than 60 mph,” Watson said, on a street posted at 25 mph.

According to police, Guilkey was traveling eastbound Tuesday evening when he lost control, struck a utility pole and guide wire and continued eastbound before the motorcycle overturned, ejecting him. Tiffin police and the Tiffin Fire and Rescue Division responded and found the rider seriously injured. He was taken to Mercy Health – Tiffin Hospital and then flown by Life Flight to Mercy Health – St. Vincent Medical Center, a Level I trauma center in Toledo.

Watson urged motorcyclists to operate their vehicles according to their skill level and to be mindful of speed, and he asked other drivers to stay alert for motorcycles on the roadway.

TiffinOhio.net first reported the crash on July 1, when the department said the wreck was reported around 8:30 p.m. June 30 near Greeley and McCollum streets and that no other vehicles were involved.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The meeting also featured the presentation of a Tiffin Police Department Life-Saving Award and a detailed briefing on a new stormwater permit tied to pollution limits for the Sandusky River. Council members present cast every recorded vote 7–0.

Sergeant honored for talking a teen through a crisis

Police Chief David Pauly presented Sgt. Jared Watson with the department’s Life-Saving Award — the second of Watson’s career — for his response to a June 1 mental health emergency involving a 13-year-old.

According to the citation Pauly read into the record, officers responded that evening to a report of a teenager in a severe mental health crisis who was suicidal and had access to a firearm. A crisis hotline worker relayed that the teen had said he would harm himself if police did not leave. After the teen disconnected from the hotline, Watson established phone contact and, over about 30 minutes, built rapport and persuaded him to put the weapon down, leave the residence and accept help. The teen surrendered peacefully, was taken into protective custody without incident, and was transported to a hospital. Officers later confirmed he had immediate access to a loaded firearm.

Pauly said the outcome “was not the result of chance,” but the product of Watson’s training and crisis-intervention skills. Watson turned the recognition toward his colleagues: “I have my name on the certificate, but there were … 10 other guys that were out there that without them, it was a team,” he told council.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Traffic signal set for West Market and Teakwood

Council passed Ordinance 2026-45, authorizing a Local Public Agency agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation and the procurement of construction services for the West Market Street and Teakwood Drive Traffic Signal Improvement Project. The work includes protected left turns at West Market Street.

The project is backed by an ODOT Abbreviated Safety Funding grant that covers 90% of eligible design, construction and inspection costs, up to a maximum of $102,724.90. The ordinance also appropriated $50,000 into the State Highway Improvement Fund for the preliminary engineering phase. Council suspended its reading rule and passed the measure as an emergency; a committee report noted a consultant-authorization deadline of Aug. 15 as the reason for the expedited timeline.

Sewer replacement bids authorized for Shawhan and Second avenues

Ordinance 2026-47 authorizes City Administrator Nick Dutro to prepare plans and specifications, advertise for and receive bids, and execute a contract for the Shawhan Avenue and Second Avenue Sewer Replacement Project. Funding for the work is already in place. One council member noted the project involves a $150,000 grant and that prompt passage would help the city meet a grant deadline. Council suspended its reading rule and passed the ordinance as an emergency.

2027 tax budget adopted

Council adopted the city’s Fiscal Year 2027 tax budget (Ordinance 2026-41) and directed the finance director to deliver it to the Seneca County Auditor by July 20. The measure was passed as an emergency to satisfy state law, which requires municipalities to adopt a tax budget on or before July 15. The tax budget is a required annual filing that precedes the county budget commission’s review.

Fire/Rescue residency repeal advances

A proposal to eliminate the Fire/Rescue Division’s residency requirement (Ordinance 2026-46) received a first reading and remains pending. It advanced from the Personnel and Labor Committee, which recommended repeal on a 3–0 vote at its June 22 meeting.

According to the committee report, the city currently uses a modified rule requiring firefighters to live within a 45-mile radius, but Fire Chief Rob Chappell has asked to remove it to widen the applicant pool. The report said the department is fully staffed, that there is currently no requirement for off-duty members to answer emergency recalls — with more than half the department not responding to a recall — and that the division relies heavily on mutual aid. Committee members were also told that many area departments have already eliminated residency rules. A council vote on the repeal is expected at a future meeting.

New stormwater permit ties city to Sandusky River pollutant limits

Dutro briefed council on a new state stormwater permit for the city’s municipal separate storm sewer system, or MS4. The city’s current permit took effect April 1, 2021 and expired March 31, 2026; the city is now in the draft period for the renewal. A draft of the general permit has been circulated to council, and the public-comment period ends Aug. 4, after which the city will apply for a new permit through the Ohio EPA.

Under the new permit, the Sandusky River and Sandusky Bay tributaries have been designated for a total maximum daily load, or TMDL, addressing total phosphorus, nitrate and nitrite, total suspended solids and sediment. Dutro said the city already meets many of the incoming requirements but will need new public-outreach measures — including messaging on proper salt storage — and, at some point, a stormwater project that could require council funding. Ordinance updates tied to the permit are also expected within a year of its approval.

Dutro reported that the City Engineer’s Office completed 251 construction-site inspections in 2025, resulting in four noted violations and 19 verbal corrections that were resolved within a week. He added that a 2024 project eliminated 18 septic systems in the city. The Water Pollution Control Center’s permit is up for renewal on the same timeline, with a possible reclassification from a Category 3 to a Category 4 facility still to be determined.

Finance department reports fifth state audit award

Finance Director Jill Lindhorst delivered the department’s annual report, highlighting its fifth Auditor of State Award, earned in 2024 for clean audits and adherence to generally accepted accounting principles. She reported that 2025 income tax receipts were up 2.75% over 2024, and that the sewer revenue office billed $7,837,635.30 across 8,896 accounts, up 1,009 accounts from the prior year. Lindhorst also outlined efficiency goals for the coming years, including a new credit-card payment processor, expanded electronic payments and records, and steps to reduce postage costs.

Also from the meeting

• Trilogy sewer easement (Ord. 2026-37): Passed 7–0 on third reading, authorizing the mayor to negotiate and enter into a sanitary sewer easement with Trilogy Real Estate Tiffin, LLC.

• License-plate-reader refund (Ord. 2026-48): Passed 7–0, appropriating a $17,382.76 refund into the General Capital Improvement Fund for two license-plate-reader cameras that were not used. Councilmember Kevin Roessner said suspending the reading rule would let the city begin earning interest on the returned funds sooner.

• Committee assignments: A request to issue an RFP for the sale and development of city-owned real estate adjacent to City Lot 6 (Mayor’s Request 26-28) will be taken up at a Committee of the Whole on Monday, July 20 at 6 p.m. A federal grants compliance study (26-29) went to the Finance Committee, and a stormwater easement (26-30) went to the Streets, Sidewalks and Sewers Committee, which meets Monday, July 13 at 5:15 p.m.

• Tiffin East Park sale: Dutro said the National Park Service has agreed to revert the roughly four-acre former Louisa K. Fast Park — recently renamed Tiffin East Park — back to the federal government to be sold, clearing a last hurdle in a multi-year process. The General Services Administration is expected to list the property in an online auction in the coming months.

• Tax office closure: The city tax department will be closed Wednesday, July 8 through Friday, July 10 for annual training in Columbus.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The estimates are of total average electricity costs from June to September. They were done using data from Heatmap News, which collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create the Electricity Price Hub.

“The United States is currently experiencing record energy demand driven by data center growth, domestic manufacturing, and electrification,” the report said. “And we simply aren’t bringing on new energy quickly enough or in large enough quantities to affordably meet rising demand.” 

The estimated increase in Ohioans’ electricity bills comes after a big jump last year. Between May and July 2025, they saw a 108% spike, the report said.

There are other estimates saying that this summer’s increases will be lower — about 7.5% over last year. However, the Third Way report said that Heatmap data show the average Ohioan’s May 2026 bills were 14% higher than in 2025.

“If costs increase at a similar rate as last year, July bills will be around $238,” the report said. “And total electricity bills for summer 2026 could exceed $780.”

That puts Ohioans and other Americans in a financial bind.

“The affordability challenge is growing,” said the National Energy Assistance Directors Association and the Center for Poverty, Energy and Climate. “One in six American households is behind on its utility bills, utilities disconnected electric service approximately 13.5 million times in 2024, and nearly 40 percent of households earning less than $50,000 report difficulty paying energy bills.”  

In Ohio, electricity increases can be particularly galling, given that consumers were forced to pay hundreds of millions in subsidies over the last several years as a result of what was likely the biggest bribery and money-laundering conspiracy in state history.

In addition, Ohio utilities have been allowed to keep more than $1 billion in rate increases the state regulator allowed, but the state Supreme Court later declared to be illegal.

And Ohioans last month learned that former Gov. John Kasich gave corporate giants like Google, Amazon, and Meta 40-year tax breaks worth billions to build electricity-sucking data centers. 

Third Way said more generation is needed. It faulted the Trump administration for blocking obvious solutions to the problem.

“To grow domestic energy generation and mitigate the impact of rising electricity demand, increasing clean energy deployment is a natural next step,” the report said.

“Clean energy sources like wind, solar, and batteries take less time to build and aren’t subject to the same kind of supply chain shortages and price fluctuations that plague natural gas. But the Trump Administration has stymied clean energy deployment by undermining financing for clean energy, imposing administrative roadblocks that delay project reviews, and formally deprioritizing low-cost resources like solar and wind in federal directives.”

At the same time, the Trump administration is putting up federal funds to prop up aging coal-fired plants in Ohio — including one that just lost subsidies that were created by the corrupt 2019 utility bailout.

Francesca Hsie, Deputy Director of Electricity for Third Way, said Trump’s approach is only increasing Ohioans’ electric bills.

“Ohioans are staring down electricity bills that could cost more than $800 this summer,” she said in an email.

“Instead of working to lower those costs, the Trump administration is attacking the very clean energy generation that could help meet the state’s record electricity demand and forcing aging coal plants to stay open long after their scheduled closure.”

She added, “That’s the opposite of an affordability strategy — it will make Ohioan’s energy bills higher long into the future. At a time when families across Ohio and the U.S. are struggling with rising costs, federal, state, and local governments must work together to lower electricity prices by expanding clean energy and modernizing our grid.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Since then, court decisions like Citizens United have chipped away at campaign finance restrictions in the name of free speech.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for a 6-3 majority, placed significant emphasis on political parties’ First Amendment rights.

“The Constitution’s text matters,” he wrote. “Contrary to that text, the political-party coordinated-expenditure limitations directly abridge the freedom of speech of political parties.”

Political parties and affiliated campaign committees could already spend an unlimited amount of money in races, but those expenditures had to be done independently. The decision means they’ll now be able to coordinate messaging with their favored candidates.

Many observers criticized the decision as yet another example of the high court weakening campaign finance laws. But others suggested it might not be that bad. If giving to parties is more effective, more donors might choose that path, which requires more disclosure than the Super PACs and dark money groups which have come to play an increasingly prominent role in politics.

Where the case began

Four days before the 2022 general election, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, J.D. Vance and U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot filed a lawsuit in Ohio challenging the limit on coordinated spending.

Two campaign committees focused on electing Republicans to Congress, National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, signed on, too.

Vance would go on to win his race. Chabot would not.

The plaintiffs are notable, because in both cases their Democratic opponent was able to outraise them — in Vance’s case, dramatically so.

Despite a $15 million boost from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, during the summer of 2022, some Republicans were wringing their hands over Vance’s sluggish fundraising. In the end his opponent, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, raised $56.4 million; Vance brought in just $15.2 million.

In their initial court filing, Vance, Chabot, and the GOP committees, warned limits on parties’ coordinated spending pose substantial harm to “core First Amendment-protected activities.”

“And this harm has only grown starker in recent years,” they wrote, “as the rise of spending by Super PACs and other outside groups — which, unlike party committees, can engage in unlimited fundraising to influence voters — has diminished the parties’ role in the political landscape.”

Notably, Republican-aligned Super PACs poured tens of millions of dollars into Ohio to help Vance across the finish line.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision and reactions

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case out of Colorado in which it upheld the statute limiting coordinated spending between parties and candidates.

When the case involving Vance and Chabot made it before The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges again upheld those limits, citing the 2001 decision.

“But in a series of insightful opinions,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote, “a majority of the judges on the Court of Appeals questioned that precedent in light of more recent First Amendment decisions.”

Kavanaugh reasoned that subsequent campaign finance decisions have hollowed out that earlier decision to the point that it’s “akin to a three-legged stool where all three legs have already been knocked out.”

In years since, he wrote, the court has employed more stringent analysis of first amendment cases and narrowed the scope of permissible restrictions to fighting quid pro quo corruption.

Some parties to the case argued the issue was moot and the court shouldn’t weigh in.

The Trump administration had already decided it wouldn’t defend the coordination limits, and an executive branch agency, the Federal Elections Commission, is charged with enforcing the rules.

Does Vice President Vance really face a threat of enforcement from the administration’s own agency? And after all, he’s no longer a candidate for office, right?

Kavanaugh wrote the court “need not speculate” on Vance’s potential future runs for office.

The Vice President, widely seen as a likely presidential contender in 2028, has maintained his campaign account and statement of candidacy for the U.S. Senate, Kavanaugh insisted.

Defenders of the coordination limits argued they keep donors from circumventing contribution limits by giving to the party with directions to funnel it to a given candidate — a practice known as earmarking. But Kavanaugh dismissed that argument.

Between contribution limits, earmarking rules, and disclosure of donations, the government already has all the tools it needs to keep donors from evading campaign finance limits.

“Courts cannot simply say, ‘what’s the harm in allowing just one more regulation’ when that regulation would limit freedom of speech,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Last year, the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief defending the coordination limits along with the League of Women Voters and Common Cause.

CLC Founder and President Trevor Potter previously served as a Republican appointee and chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

After the decision, he said “Striking down these limits will enable wealthy individuals to give huge sums to party committees with every expectation that the money will be spent directly to benefit their preferred candidates. American voters will be the ones who pay the greatest price.”

League of Women Voters CEO Celina Stewart said the court had “opened the floodgates to unlimited political spending that will drown out the voices of everyday Americans,” and Common Cause President Virginia Kase Solomon said the decision “invited even more corruption into our elections and further tilted the scales against the American people.”

On the other hand, NYU School of Law Professor Samuel Isaacharoff called the decision “a welcome correction.”

The 2001 U.S. Supreme Court case upholding coordination limits placed caps on parties but left outside groups with few restrictions. That didn’t mean donors stopped spending, Isaacharoff wrote, they simply stopped giving to parties. As a result, single-issue or candidate-specific groups have taken on a larger and larger role — to our detriment, Isaacharoff contends.

“Weakening parties relative to unaccountable outside spenders does not reduce the influence of money in politics,” he wrote. “It severs influence from responsibility. A Super PAC owes nothing to a platform, a coalition, or a future election in the way a party does.”

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Last year, Ohio legislators almost unanimously enacted a sweeping law meant to get energy generation online faster and meet surging electricity demand.

The law, Ohio House Bill 15, is meant to be apply evenly to all types of energy when it comes to adding new generation, according to some leading state lawmakers.

“We said we’re going to have a level playing field. Let the free market work,” Republican Sen. Brian Chavez, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, said of HB 15 during a legislative panel at the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners in Columbus last week.

Yet now state lawmakers are advancing a bill that would expand preferences for natural gas and nuclear generation while adding even more hurdles for solar and wind — energy sources that the state has already stymied over the last decade.

On June 10, the Republican-dominated Ohio Senate voted along straight party lines to pass Senate Bill 294, which is based on a model bill from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, and calls for electricity generation to ​“employ affordable, reliable, and clean energy sources.” Louisiana and Utah have passed similar laws, and bills are also under consideration in Arizona, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and West Virginia, according to an April report from ALEC.

But the bill’s current definition of ​“reliable” could cause the Ohio Power Siting Board to block many utility-scale solar and wind projects, even after many groups testified against the original version, introduced in the General Assembly last October.

“We need more supply, not less,” said Democratic Sen. Kent Smith, ranking minority member of the Senate Energy Committee, who also spoke at the conference. He cited calls by both grid operator PJM Interconnection and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce for an all-of-the-above approach to adding new generation. ​“We need to be generation-agnostic. We need to let the market work.”

Chavez said the current version of SB 294 could allow solar and wind to qualify as reliable if they are combined with batteries. And developers wouldn’t need to meet the bill’s criteria for projects that are below the threshold needed for state review: under 50 megawatts for solar and under 5 MW for wind.

“If it goes to the Power Siting Board, we just said you have to have 50% reliability,” said Chavez, who has worked in and has had multiple connections to the oil and gas industry. But, he continued, ​“flat land is at a premium. … So we would say, if you’re going to put your bigger power supplies in Ohio, you shall consider if it is dispatchable more than 50% of the time.”

Still, it’s not clear how many wind or solar projects could qualify. SB 294 mandates that any ​“reliable energy source” have a ​“site-combined minimum capacity factor” of 50%. The capacity factor describes the ratio of a generator’s actual electricity output over the course of a year to the maximum that source could theoretically produce.

The average capacity factor for photovoltaic solar farms in the United States was just 24.4% last year, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. If solar projects are required to install enough battery storage to reach a 50% threshold, project costs would significantly increase.

“Capacity factors are not measures of reliability and the wrong thing to focus on,” said Andrew Linhares, Midwest director of state affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association. ​“Ohio won’t solve its energy challenges by sidelining solar and storage, which are the fastest-growing and most affordable sources of new power on the grid.”

Further, SB 294 demands that power be readily available and dispatchable ​“at all times” of high usage and ​“in times of need.” Facilities often discharge batteries’ energy at high-usage times to take advantage of higher prices, but whether that could qualify as ​“at all times” is also unclear.

The bill’s focus on the reliability of any single resource is misguided because of how the grid functions, according to Democratic Rep. Tristan Rader, the ranking minority member of the House Energy Committee, who spoke at the conference as well. ​“That’s why we have peaker plants.”

While states issue permits for different facilities, and state policies affect what types of generation investments they attract, PJM is responsible for ensuring the reliable operation of the regional grid for Ohio and all or parts of a dozen other states and the District of Columbia.

“PJM is not favoring or disfavoring any resources class during this time when we need every megawatt of power generated to manage our supply/​demand imbalance being driven by data center growth,” said spokesperson Jeffrey Shields.

The grid operator already accounts for variability in power production and the likelihood that resources will be able to supply electricity when needed, noted Evan Vaughan, executive director for MAREC Action, who also attended last week’s conference and heard the Ohio lawmakers’ comments. The tool for that is a metric called the effective load-carrying capacity, which is meant to capture how reliable a given resource is for purposes of PJM’s capacity market.

“Ultimately, the grid is reliable because it is a diverse mix of resources,” Vaughan said. ​“It’s not reliable because of any one particular resource.”

No single facility is immune from problems. PJM tweaked its methodology for calculating effective load-carrying capacity after multiple gas plants failed during Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022. That storm’s high winds also caused water levels to fall near the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio. Numerous gas plants also failed during Winter Storm Fern this January, while wind farms performed above their expected output, according to a Grid Strategies report for the Niskanen Center, which was released in March.

Affordability remains a major issue, too. Prices reflect energy markets, the capacity market, and an ancillary services market, which helps maintain balance on the electric grid and minimize blackouts.

“If you look at the wholesale price in each of those markets, energy is actually the biggest factor in a consumer’s bill, not capacity,” Vaughan said. And while there are roles in the system for different types of generation, ​“energy is provided best by cheap electrons, which is what wind and solar provide.”

Proponents of SB 294 during its Senate hearings included ALEC and the Heartland Institute, which both have multiple links to fossil fuel interests and a history of undermining climate science and lobbying against renewables. The Oil & Gas Workers Association also supported the bill.

Opponents include the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Conservative Energy Forum, American Clean Power, the Utility Scale Solar Energy Coalition, multiple environmental organizations, and dozens of individuals.

The bill is now in the Ohio House, where it was introduced on June 16 and is likely to be taken up when lawmakers return from their summer recess.

While the bill no longer states that its requirements apply ​“in all cases,” as in the original version, it does preserve other siting criteria under Ohio law — including a requirement that projects serve the ​“public interest, convenience, and necessity.”

Serving the public interest broadly is a good thing. However, officials at the Power Siting Board have taken a narrow view in some cases where local townships have objected to solar and wind projects, treating such opposition as ​“controlling” on the public interest question, even over environmental, economic, and other considerations. If SB 294 becomes law, there’s a risk that regulators might similarly rely on it to rule against renewable energy projects — in contrast to the state’s lax stance toward permitting fossil fuel infrastructure.

“If you create a policy, that policy drives investments,” said Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Maureen Willis. And when and if it’s passed by the General Assembly, ​“it’s out there. It is policy.”

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Among other things, S.B. 1 created a mechanism to fire tenured professors who exhibit political bias in the classroom, and it included a list of “controversial subjects” that would need to be taught differently than other topics.

As a professor myself, it was far easier in 2025 to count the committee meetings that didn’t mention SB1, compared to the ones that did.

This summer marks a year since S.B. 1 went into effect. So far no professors have been fired yet. But what casual observers may not realize is that while S.B. 1 was being implemented the legislature continued to brainstorm ideas for new restrictions on higher ed.

During the legislative session this spring we finally got a glimpse of what that might entail.

In February, the “Enact the S.B. 1 Compliance Supplemental Appropriation Act” was introduced as Ohio House Bill 698 (HB 698).

The word to notice in that title is “Appropriation” which of course means money.

After describing many pages of new diversity, equity and inclusion related paperwork for university administrators, the bill outlines a mechanism for public colleges and universities to lose out on funds they would normally receive from the state of Ohio — something called the “state share of instruction”.

These are funds that public colleges and universities receive based on how many students choose to enroll, and how effective the institution is at educating and graduating them.

H.B. 698 proposes an additional process that ties an unspecified percentage of those funds to a to-be-determined anti-DEI evaluation process run by an unspecified member of the Ohio Department of Higher Education.

The outcome of this process could ultimately lead to cuts ranging from millions of dollars per year to tens or potentially over a hundred million dollars per year for larger campuses like Ohio State University and Ohio University at a time when federal research funds are under threat, and when universities are facing other budget issues, including the rising cost of living and healthcare.

In May, the Ohio House committee on Workforce and Higher Education hosted the first opposition hearing for H.B. 698.

For most of the witness testimony it was a natural opportunity to relitigate S.B. 1.

Some academic majors that were underenrolled have been eliminated as a result of the bill. The few public colleges with faculty unions no longer have the right to strike even though many other types of unions can strike in Ohio, including the unions for life-and-death essential workers like nurses.

Other witnesses discussed how OSU and other colleges have “overcomplied” with SB1 by inventing rules that do not appear in the bill, like when then-president Ted Carter overturned decades of precedent and banned students from chalking sidewalks at OSU — a ban that remains in effect.

I ended up being the last witness to testify against H.B. 698 at the hearing.

I used my three minutes to point out that cuts to the state share of instruction will affect payroll — including staff and instructors in every department — which crosses a new line in the sand.

That was my central point: keep your hands off the salaries of tens of thousands of hard working faculty, staff and graduate students in public colleges across our state, many of whom have little to do with the culture war issues the legislature is trying to fight.

I am not the best person to predict — either from the time remaining in the legislative calendar or the number of votes — whether H.B. 698 will end up on the governor’s desk.

But even if H.B. 698 doesn’t make it to the finish line, the bill says a lot about what the future might be for legislative oversight of higher education in Ohio.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Now, as the feds block new permits and dangle billion-dollar buyout offers to convince developers to walk away from their projects, state leaders are hoping some companies share their conviction that the industry can be revived after Trump leaves office.

“Any honest assessment of where we need to be to meet our climate goals depends on a thriving offshore wind sector,” said New York state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat.

New York and many other East Coast states have set aggressive targets for offshore wind power, both to meet rising energy demands and transition to clean energy sources. But Trump’s attacks on the industry threaten to scare off companies from making the massive long-term investments required to pursue offshore wind projects.

“If there’s no business opportunity here, then they’re not going to stay here and invest here,” Gounardes said. “They’re not going to lay around with good intentions doing nothing, and we’re going to lose out because of that.”

Federal opposition

Last week, Trump’s Department of the Interior announced a $129 million deal with Duke Energy to relinquish its lease to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of North Carolina. The company pledged to reinvest the money into other forms of energy.

Since March, Trump officials have struck four such agreements totaling more than $2.5 billion to get developers to give up on their offshore wind plans. Some analysts say the federal government’s ability to blockade pending projects has caused some companies to reconsider their investments.

“If you have a lease that appears to be going nowhere for at least the next three years, you want to pivot to other options,” said Timothy Fox, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, an independent research firm. “There’s still a lot of leases out there, but the Trump administration has made this aggressive push, and we think there could be future similar announcements.”

According to Fox, developers hold leases for roughly two dozen other offshore wind areas, agreements that could be targeted for similar buyout deals.

While developers consider buyout offers from the federal government, state leaders say such deals are illegal. Seven states filed a lawsuit earlier this month saying the administration lacks the authority to cancel the leases and pay out funds, focused on a March deal with TotalEnergies to block a project off of New York.

The lawsuit challenges the administration’s use of a federal fund set aside to pay court judgments and settlements of lawsuits against the government. The deal, state attorneys general argue, “is not the result of a compromise settlement between adverse parties, but rather an agreement resulting from [federal officials’] pretextual national security concerns and TotalEnergies’ desire to receive unauthorized compensation for an expensive offshore wind lease.”

The state of California has also announced that it intends to file a lawsuit over another buyout targeting a lease area off the state’s Pacific coast.

Since taking office, Trump has halted permits and leases for other planned offshore wind projects, canceled hundreds of millions in funding to support manufacturing and ports and ended clean energy tax credits. His administration also issued stop-work orders for five offshore wind projects that were already under construction, but courts have overturned those orders and allowed work to resume.

Aside from the five wind farms currently being built, progress on dozens of other pending projects has ground to a halt.

“There’s little to be done if the federal government still controls the permits, leases and pace of development,” said Fox, the researcher.

State goals

The clash comes as many East Coast states have been counting heavily on the maturation of the offshore wind industry to meet their energy needs. Eight Atlantic states have committed to building more than 45 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2040 — enough to power more than 30 million homes. They’ve made major investments in ports, manufacturing facilities, transmission infrastructure and workforce training.

In addition to their climate goals, many states are facing surging energy demands, largely driven by data centers and artificial intelligence.

State leaders say that offshore wind farms can harness massive amounts of electricity, especially during nighttime and winter periods when solar power is in short supply. For heavily populated East Coast states, with limited areas to put sprawling energy projects on land, tapping into strong winds over the ocean has become a major part of their strategy.

“Offshore wind is key to a future that allows us to move off of fossil fuels,” said Maryland state Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat who has been a strong backer of offshore wind. “Every time the (Trump administration) makes these moves, it reminds me that their numbers show how much offshore (wind) would allow us to retire fossil fuel plants.”

Trump has long opposed offshore wind, falsely asserting that it harms whales, is unreliable and drives up energy costs. While offshore wind generation is intermittent, it has a much higher capacity factor than onshore renewables, meaning that it operates for longer periods at its maximum output level. New offshore wind projects have capacity factors that match some gas and coal-fired power plants, according to the International Energy Agency.

While still more expensive than onshore renewables, offshore wind projects globally produce electricity at a rate cheaper than natural gas and coal plants, according to Energy Solutions Intelligence, a digital consulting platform.

Backers and energy analysts say offshore wind in the U.S. should become cheaper over time as supply chains mature and investments in ports and other infrastructure pay off.

The Department of the Interior did not grant a Stateline interview request about its buyout deals for offshore wind projects, but the agency has claimed in statements that the deals will lower energy prices.

Changing plans

Many state leaders acknowledge that the delays caused by Trump’s opposition will cause them to miss their targets for building new projects over the next 5 to 10 years. But they say the industry is still essential for meeting their long-term climate goals and energy needs.

“I don’t think anyone is at the point of saying no offshore wind ever again,” said Gounardes, the New York lawmaker. “It might not be part of the alchemy in the near future, but it certainly must be part of the alchemy to meet our overall goals.”

For now, state leaders are hoping their ongoing commitments to offshore wind will convince developers to wait out the remainder of Trump’s term and stay in the U.S. market.

“[The buyouts] are a blow to the industry, but it’s not a death knell but there are other projects out there that are still in some stage of development,” said Sam Schacht, project director for offshore wind with the Clean Energy States Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of state energy agencies.

“There’s this bad news story happening about the attempts to erode these future projects, while at the same time there’s a very positive story about the projects that are under construction and producing power now and their ability to capably meet states’ power demands.”

While states play the waiting game with offshore wind, they’re making new plans to meet their energy needs in the near term. Lawmakers in Maryland have invested in battery storage, which Charkoudian described as a “no-regrets” option that can help meet energy needs today while complementing offshore wind once it comes online.

Other states, including New York and New Jersey, have looked at increasing subsidies for nuclear power.

“I wouldn’t say that they’re giving up on offshore wind, but states are pivoting to other carbon-free resources that  are favored by this administration, namely nuclear power,” said Fox, the energy researcher.

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

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

And their numbers are growing — another 80 proposed projects cataloged by the Data Center Proposal Tracker would more than double the current 71 active sites in the commonwealth. 

An increasing number of Pennsylvanians are concerned about the resource-hungry facilities’ impact on energy prices and water consumption, but there is very little research about potential impacts to physical or public health. 

“There are still, relatively, very few studies that directly examine the health impacts of data centers themselves. Much of the evidence comes from related fields,” said Neha Gour, a PhD candidate at George Mason University. “Rapid data center expansion is happening now while the research is still emerging.” 

Gour and two other climate and health colleagues published an analysis in February, narrowing in on Virginia’s so-called Data Center Alley, the largest concentration of data centers in the world.

They concluded that while there are “significant health and environmental challenges that demand urgent action,” there are ways to design and operate the facilities safely. 

“By prioritizing sustainability, data centers can achieve responsible growth without compromising public health,” the paper read. 

One focus was to identify ways to take health into consideration “from the very start” of projects. It listed several, specific recommendations related to site selection and energy production that could minimize any potential impacts.

“Data centers themselves are not new,” said Gour. “What has changed today is a rapid growth in both the number of data centers and the scale or size of data centers.” 

Dan Diorio, the vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, called the facilities “essential digital infrastructure” that power online purchases, telehealth appointments and virtual learning. 

“At a time when the average American household has 21 connected devices, data centers enable the essential services and cutting-edge technologies that drive our economy and enhance our quality of life,” he said in a statement. 

“The data center industry will continue to work with residents, communities, and policymakers across Pennsylvania to ensure the sustainable use of water, energy, and other natural resources, while promoting the continued responsible development of this important 21st-century industry,” Diorio continued.

From noise pollution to climate change

The most immediate and direct health impact of data centers that Gour and her colleagues identified is noise pollution. Facilities operate 24/7 at a constant hum, at decibels levels that are near or even exceed federal recommendations.

In the short term, noise disrupts sleep and annoys neighbors. Long-term risks include heart disease, permanent hearing loss and chronic stress. But Gour differentiated between solutions for existing buildings and proposals, the latter of which can simply be built further from dense populations. 

“If we’re smart about where we put new data centers, we can reduce the problem of noise pollution instead of trying to fix it later,” she said. 

Buffer zones or adding greenery between facilities and residential areas can dampen the noise, but “the most effective fix” is reducing it — for example, re-engineering fan mounts to be quieter. 

The larger health concerns are not unique to data centers, but rather a reflection of the continued reliance on fossil fuels to meet electricity demand — thereby adding to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that often have negative health consequences, the paper added. 

“One of the most important points we make in our paper is that data centers should be understood within the broader energy and environmental systems in which they operate,” said Gour. “The issue is not data centers in isolation, but how their expansion interacts with existing infrastructure and energy systems.”

Factors include location, power sources, cooling factors (such as water use) and surrounding communities. Facilities located in states with a higher mix of renewable energy would have less of an impact than states that use a lot of coal or natural gas, such as Pennsylvania. 

Some data centers use air-polluting diesel generators as a backstop, a source many likely used during this weekend’s heatwave when the nation’s largest electricity grid — which includes the commonwealth — pushed large customers to use them to prevent blackouts. 

Diorio noted that prior legislative analysis from Virginia found that the use of these backup generators is “minimal,” and “rarely run for prolonged periods,” making up 7% of permitted emissions. 

To keep cool, the buildings use a lot of water — some more than the entire country of Denmark. Authors urged operators to reduce their consumption through targeted cooling methods and recycle water to ease pressure on drinking water supplies. 

The report from Virginia also noted  that “most (data centers) use similar or less (water) than other large commercial and industrial water users,” roughly 6.7 million gallons a year. The average home uses less than 500,000 gallons annually. 

“Collectively, the data center industry used significantly less water than other essential industries in 2025, including the agriculture, power, food and beverage, and semiconductor sectors,” said Diorio, using numbers from the Virginia analysis. 

However, the need is likely to grow as more facilities come into operation.

Local governments and state officials could make following such recommendations a requirement, even cutting off data centers during droughts. But the Pennsylvania legislature has taken a largely piecemeal approach, rather than adopting comprehensive change. Additionally, a plan to incentivize “responsible” data center operations is voluntary. 

More transparency and community engagement

Gour, who said her next project would focus on public perceptions surrounding data centers, named community engagement and transparency as crucial components for future construction.

“One of the things we realized while writing the paper is that many of the concerns, particularly community concerns surrounding data centers, are not purely technical, they’re also about trust,” said Gour. “We felt it was important to acknowledge that many of these projects are being built in places where people live, where people work and where people are raising their families. 

“Communities often have legitimate questions about issues like noise, water use, electricity demand and land use. They’re looking for clear information about how those concerns are being addressed during the construction phase,” she continued. 

A bill that advanced through the state House last week would require public meetings to gain certain certifications, though it met opposition from some Republicans. Currently, many of these discussions occur in tense, often combative zoning meetings — where municipalities are only approving if an application meets the criteria and not ruling the project itself.

“Data centers strive to be good neighbors in the Pennsylvania communities where they operate. Data center companies take compliance and accountability seriously, and only build where they are authorized to do so under local, state, regional, and federal ordinances, rules, and regulations,” added Diorio. 

He noted that the industry supported nearly 130,000 jobs across the commonwealth in 2024, generating $1.9 billion in state and local taxes. Gour and others pointed out, however, that those dollars don’t always reach the neediest.

Moving forward, Gour pushed for environmental monitoring around data centers to better understand their impacts on communities, alongside long-term studies to monitor neighborhood health.

“Ultimately, our message is that technological development and community well-being should not be viewed as competing priorities. They can be advanced together through evidence-based planning,” Gour said. 

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Highway Patrol said the crash happened July 6, 2026, at 2:15 p.m. on SR 163 at Elliston Trowbridge Road in Ottawa County.

Investigators said Joseph Hartford, 19, of Genoa was driving a 2011 Chevrolet Malibu south on Elliston Trowbridge Road when he failed to yield at a stop sign and struck a 2017 Jeep Compass traveling east on SR 163. The Jeep was driven by Danny Avery, 60, of Perrysburg.

According to the patrol, both vehicles left the right side of SR 163 after the collision. Avery’s vehicle overturned, and he was ejected. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Hartford was not injured. Neither driver was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, the patrol said.

The crash remains under investigation, and no charges have been filed.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Clay Township Police Department, the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office, the Ohio Department of Transportation, the Ottawa County Coroner’s Office, Benton Carroll Fire and EMS, and Greer’s Towing.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

No public call for Creech to step down from gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy, his legislative ally Gary Click, or the Ohio Republican Party appears in the endorsement materials, campaign statements, or public reporting reviewed by TiffinOhio.net. Creech, who was never criminally charged, has denied the allegations and called them “demonstrably false.”

Instead of pressure to leave office, Creech has received the opposite. The Ohio Republican Party endorsed him for re-election in February, Huffman restored him to four committee seats — though not to the House Agriculture Committee chairmanship he had lost — and Creech went on to win his May 5 primary. He now stands as the party’s nominee for a fourth term in House District 40.

What the allegations say

A minor female relative accused Creech in 2023 of climbing into bed and under the covers with her while erect and wearing only his underwear, according to Bureau of Criminal Investigation documents obtained by the Statehouse News Bureau. Text messages showed the minor complaining that Creech had been rubbing her legs and grabbing her waist, according to NBC4.

Creech told BCI investigators he had gotten into bed with the minor in his underwear but denied the sexual nature of the allegations, including that he touched her more than once.

Clark County Prosecutor Daniel Driscoll, appointed as a special prosecutor after local officials recused themselves because of personal ties to Creech, declined to file charges. He wrote that Creech’s “behavior during the time of the investigation was concerning and suspicious,” but that “the evidence falls short of the threshold needed for prosecution.” The case was closed in October 2024.

From ‘consider resigning’ to a party endorsement

When the allegations became public in May 2025, Huffman removed Creech from all four of his committee assignments, including the chairmanship of the House Agriculture Committee, and asked him to consider resigning. “I did ask him to consider resigning,” the Lima Republican said at the time, adding that the matter was “very serious” and that he did not believe Creech could serve effectively “with this in the public sphere.”

Creech did not resign. By February 2026, Huffman had reversed course — restoring Creech’s committee seats and signing a letter requesting that the Ohio Republican Party endorse his re-election. The party did.

Huffman explained the reversal by pointing to the absence of any criminal action. Ten months on, he said, the allegations “either weren’t true” or it “wasn’t clear if they were true,” and “there are no authorities taking any action.”

Ramaswamy touted the endorsement, then went quiet

Creech was an early backer of Ramaswamy, attending his gubernatorial campaign launch and endorsing him more than a year before the primary. Ramaswamy’s campaign promoted Creech’s support in an April 2025 press release touting endorsements from 38 Ohio House Republicans.

After TiffinOhio.net reported in April 2026 that the endorsement remained live months after the allegations surfaced, Ramaswamy’s campaign quietly removed both Creech and Click from its endorsements page, a change captured in Web Archive snapshots. Click’s name was restored within hours; Creech’s was not. Ramaswamy has not publicly addressed the allegations or called for Creech to step down.

Click, an ally, shares Creech’s ‘parental alienation’ framing

Creech responded to the allegations on his official Facebook page by describing his accuser’s account as “textbook parental alienation” — a disputed concept that a 2023 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women described as “unfounded and unscientific” and often used in custody disputes to undermine abuse allegations.

Weeks later, Click introduced House Bill 693, the “Affirming Families First Act,” which he is sponsoring with Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania Twp.). The bill would write a statutory definition of “parental alienation” into Ohio law. Click, who like Creech survived a contested May 5 primary, has not called on Creech to resign.

What comes next

Creech, a fourth-generation farmer and former Preble County commissioner, represents House District 40, covering Preble County and parts of Butler and Montgomery counties. He advances to the November 3 general election against Democrat Timothy Hornbacker and Libertarian Joshua A. Umbaugh.

In May 2025, House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) called the allegations, “if true, … very serious and concerning,” and said elected officials “are expected to uphold higher standards,” while noting that any sanction rested with the House’s Republican majority. No prominent Ohio Republican has since publicly called for Creech to leave office.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Husted testified remotely on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, as a defense witness in the case against two former FirstEnergy executives accused of bribing Ohio’s top utility regulator to help pass House Bill 6 — the 2019 law Husted championed as lieutenant governor. He told jurors he recalled little of a pivotal 2018 dinner with the executives, describing it as an occasion for the company to “say ‘hi’ and congratulate us on winning,” according to reporting by WOSU and The Associated Press. Neither Husted nor Gov. Mike DeWine has been charged or accused of wrongdoing in the scheme.

But the scandal that grew out of House Bill 6 has shadowed Husted for years — and it is still costing the Ohioans he now represents in Washington.

A bailout that keeps taking from ratepayers

House Bill 6, signed by DeWine on July 23, 2019, forced Ohio utility customers to subsidize a set of failing power plants. It provided a roughly $1 billion bailout for two nuclear plants tied to FirstEnergy, extended subsidies to two aging coal plants owned in part by Ohio utilities, and gutted the state’s renewable-energy and energy-efficiency standards.

The nuclear subsidies were partially repealed in 2021 after the scandal broke. The coal subsidies, however, stayed on the books far longer. According to the Common Cause Ohio scandal timeline, Ohioans propped up those coal plants at a cost of more than $445,000 a day until the last remnant of HB 6 finally ended when House Bill 15 took effect on Aug. 14, 2025. The total tab for the coal subsidies alone exceeded $500 million, paid by ratepayers.

The costs have not stopped there. In November 2025, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio found that FirstEnergy violated state law and commission orders, and ordered the company to pay a combined $250.70 million in customer restitution and civil forfeitures. Ohio households, meanwhile, have paid more for electricity in the years since HB 6 took effect, as TiffinOhio.net has previously reported.

How the scheme worked, and who paid for it

Federal prosecutors described what happened as likely the largest bribery and money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of Ohio. FirstEnergy funneled roughly $60 million through Generation Now, a dark-money nonprofit tied to then-House Speaker Larry Householder, to help elect friendly lawmakers, install Householder as speaker, pass HB 6, and then defeat a citizen referendum that sought to repeal it.

The consequences have reached the top of Ohio’s Republican political class. Householder is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence after being convicted of racketeering in 2023; the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up his appeal in April 2026. Former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Borges was convicted in the same case. FirstEnergy admitted to the scheme, entering a $230 million deferred-prosecution agreement in 2021 and later paying $100 million to settle securities-fraud charges. American Electric Power, which benefited from the coal subsidies, paid $19 million to settle related charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

At the regulatory center of the case was Sam Randazzo, the DeWine-appointed PUCO chair who prosecutors say accepted $4.3 million from FirstEnergy. Randazzo was charged in state and federal court and died by suicide in April 2024. The two executives accused of arranging his payment — former CEO Chuck Jones and former lobbyist Michael Dowling — are the defendants in the trial in which Husted testified. That trial ended in a mistrial in the spring of 2026; a Summit County grand jury reindicted the pair in June, and a retrial is scheduled for September 2026.

Husted’s proximity to the scheme

Husted was lieutenant governor-elect and then lieutenant governor during the period when the scheme unfolded. Prosecutors say the bribery was aimed in part at securing the very bailout he championed. His name has surfaced repeatedly in the case: he was among the defense witnesses the executives listed, and he was present at the December 2018 dinner with DeWine, Jones and Dowling that prosecutors have treated as pivotal.

Public records reported by cleveland.com in 2024 also showed that FirstEnergy made a secret $1 million payment to a group supporting Husted’s campaign, before the scandal became public. Husted declined at the time to say whether he had known about the contribution. TiffinOhio.net has separately reported on his official calendar entries tied to key figures in the scandal.

Husted has consistently denied knowledge of the corruption. In his March 2026 testimony, he said he did not recall the substance of the 2018 dinner and maintained that Randazzo was not FirstEnergy’s preferred candidate to lead the PUCO. He has not been charged with any crime, and no court has found that he broke the law. What the record establishes is proximity: to the company, to the money, and to the bailout at the heart of the case.

The scandal reaches the 88th District

The HB 6 story is not only a Columbus story. It runs through Seneca and Sandusky counties, too.

Before he was elected, state Rep. Gary Click — the Vickery Republican who represents Ohio’s 88th House District — used his campaign committee to publicly defend HB 6 during the 2019 fight over the referendum to repeal it. As TiffinOhio.net previously documented, a sponsored Facebook ad paid for by The Committee to Elect Gary Click ran Sept. 20–22, 2019, during the closing stretch of the signature drive. In it, Click endorsed the law, added the hashtag “#YestoHB6,” and tagged then-Speaker Householder, Gov. DeWine and then-Senate President Larry Obhof. The ad ran while a FirstEnergy-linked dark-money group spent roughly $16.5 million on advertising — including messaging that falsely suggested Chinese interests were behind the repeal effort — to keep HB 6 on the books.

Click’s defense of the law did not end there. As of this reporting, the issues page on his campaign website, garyclick.com, still describes the bailout in favorable terms. “House Bill 6 was a necessary investment, providing stability by preserving nuclear energy in Ohio,” the page reads. “Wind turbines, on the other hand, tend to drain our resources, add nothing to the stability of the grid and disrupt our rural neighborhoods.” The Internet Archive shows the same language on the page in May 2026, during Click’s re-election year — nearly three years after Householder was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and months into the bribery trial of the two former FirstEnergy executives.

What it means for Ohioans now

Five years on, the machinery of the scandal is still grinding through Ohio’s courts and regulators — and Ohioans are still paying for it, through past subsidies, restitution proceedings and the rate cases now moving before the PUCO. Attorney General Dave Yost has called it the corruption case of the century.

The pattern the case laid bare — a speaker in prison, a former party chair convicted, a DeWine-appointed regulator dead before trial, a utility admitting it bribed public officials — sits squarely within the Republican leadership that has controlled Ohio’s statehouse throughout. Years after the arrests, the bailout still has defenders in that leadership: Click’s campaign continues to call it a necessary investment, and Husted, who rose through the same ranks and championed the law at its center, now asks Ohio voters to return him to the Senate in the Nov. 3, 2026, special election against Democrat Sherrod Brown.

Husted has said his role in HB 6 is a matter he is willing to discuss, and he has denied any wrongdoing; he has not been charged. The retrial of the FirstEnergy executives — the case that put a sitting senator on the witness stand — is set to begin in the fall, in the middle of his campaign.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Some major events were canceled. Organizers for the annual National Independence Day Parade in Washington, D.C., called off the event due to the extreme heat, as did organizers for the Salute to Independence Semiquincentennial Parade in Philadelphia.

On Saturday night, the Great American State Fair and National Mall were ordered evacauated as a storm threatened, throwing into doubt the rest of the night’s programming. “Freedom 250 will share updates on programming and doors reopening — please stay close to our official channels for updates,” Freedom 250 spokesperson Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.

Alvarez released a statement later saying the event would resume at 9:30 Eastern time.

Forecasters predicted temperatures would reach around 100 degrees, with the possibility of an all-time record of 101 degrees in the nation’s capital, according to AccuWeather. Heat indexes were expected to reach 110 to 115 degrees.

The neighborhood Capitol Hill Fourth of July Parade however, went on, though shortened to one hour, instead of the usual two-hour event. 

Some high school marching bands that traveled across the country to perform in the national parade, including those from Minnesota and Nebraska, switched last minute to march in the community Capitol Hill event.

“We flew in on Wednesday and were able to go sightseeing, and then last night we heard that the parade was canceled,” said Cassidy Moody, 28, the color guard coach for Grand Island Senior High School in Grand Island, Nebraska. 

“When they found out this parade was happening, they were super pumped they could play their instruments in Washington,” Moody said, adding their tour guide connected them to parade organizers.

“This is so fun. I’m trying not to cry.”

Time capsule, concerts, block parties, ceremonies

Other events up and down the sweltering East Coast carried on, including the burial in Philadelphia of a congressionally mandated time capsule to be unearthed, and opened, in 2276. 

The capsule, organized by the bipartisan America250 commission, contains contributions from each state and territory; sports memorabilia, including an Olympic gold medal; a 1GB digital archive from the Library of Congress; and a pocket Constitution signed by each Supreme Court justice, among hundreds of other items.

Congress commissioned America250 in 2016 to plan ways to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The commission is hosting events across the country Saturday, including block parties in Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Milwaukee and Philadelphia.

The famous Times Square New Year’s Eve ball dropped eight times on Friday to ring in the Fourth of July, representing the eight time zones in the territories and continental United States. The first occurred at 10 a.m. Eastern Friday when midnight struck in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The America250 commission also scheduled an Independence Day benefit concert in Los Angeles, featuring Chris Stapleton, the Smashing Pumpkins, Chaka Khan and other artists. Tickets cost $17.76.

Other events included the Virginia 250 commission’s naturalization ceremony for immigrants from 36 nations. The ceremony took place at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home in Charlottesville, Virginia, where there was also a live reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Not all were celebrating the ideals of the United States Saturday. 

Hundreds of members of the neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front marched through the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Washington, D.C., holding upside-down American flags. States Newsroom also witnessed the masked men boarding the city’s Metro while National Guard members looked on.

Military flyovers and another Trump speech

Trump promised his administration’s Freedom 250 Salute to America events would go forward on the National Mall despite the heat, though organizers revised the schedule and publicized the presence of cooling tents and hydration stations. America250 and Freedom 250 diverged over the past year and each created dueling program offerings and merchandise to mark the semiquincentennial.

The Freedom 250 Great American State Fair on the mall shut down at 5 p.m. on Friday due to the heat and its Fourth of July opening was postponed from 10 a.m. to noon. 

Military flyovers were scheduled to begin at 1:15 p.m. Eastern and occur several times an hour until nearly 8 p.m. Visitors and residents in D.C. can expect to see multiple different aircraft, including F-22 Raptors, a B-1 bomber and a MV-22 Osprey, an aircraft that takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter but flies like a plane.

The administration promised a world record-breaking fireworks display, set to begin at 10:30 p.m. Eastern, later than in other years. The Western Pennsylvania-based Pyrotechino is expected to shoot off more than 850,000 fireworks, according to local news reports. Some people already were in line at 3:15 p.m.

Air quality forecasters predict “unhealthy” levels of air pollution, including small particulate matter that can enter the bloodstream, until at least July 5.

Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks at 9:45 p.m. Eastern, one of numerous appearances the president scheduled tied to the holiday. 

On July 1 in Medora, North Dakota for the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library during his Freedom 250 tour, Trump said he planned a lengthy speech on Independence Day despite heat warnings.

“July 4, it’s going to be approximately 107 degrees out, and I’m gonna go and I’m gonna make a really long speech just to show that I can do anything,” he said.

Trump also spoke at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota Friday, on the eve of the semiquincentennial. Prior to a celebratory fireworks display, Trump focused his comments on labeling communism as a “mortal threat to American liberty.” 

Trump kicked off the state fair on June 24 on the National Mall with a another 25-minute speech that refashioned much of his 2024 presidential campaign rhetoric.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Monthly emergency department visits for tick bites in April spiked to their highest level since 2017 and continued to remain high throughout May and June, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tick bite tracker.

Though it’s hard to predict what the rest of the season will look like, given that tick activity depends on a number of different factors, there has definitely been a recent geographic expansion of the area ticks inhabit, said Pilar Fernandez, a disease ecologist and assistant professor at Washington State University. 

The tiny blood-suckers, which tend to thrive in warmer climates, are spreading to places that used to be too cold for their existence, she said during a July 1 SciLine media briefing, as temperatures rise in the United States and around the world.

With more ticks comes a greater risk of individuals developing tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease, Alpha-gal syndrome and anaplasmosis. That’s why researchers are encouraging people to know their facts and learn how to protect themselves from bites as they venture outdoors. 

What’s going on this year?

According to the CDC, an estimated 31 million people are bitten by ticks each year, with most encounters taking place between April and October. But in 2026, ER visits began rising as early as March. 

Weekly ER trips for tick bites are also up in every U.S. region except for South Central as of June 28, the online tick tracker shows. 

Global warming is certainly one reason behind this recent surge in tick activity, though Fernandez said the whole picture is much more complicated.

Because ticks can live for up to two to three years, it’s difficult to understand the delayed seasonal effects of increased temperatures or precipitation on their population, she said.

Other factors including local environmental conditions and how much time people spend outside can have an impact on annual tick encounters, she added. 

Every spring and summer, she said, people ask her if it’s going to be a “big year” for ticks, which is “a really hard question to answer, because it’s not equal across all locations.” 

Most tick cases are recorded in the Northeast and Midwest, but different species of ticks are found in every region of the country. And as the population expands into areas where people are unaware of how to protect themselves and unaccustomed to checking for bites, the threat of contracting a tick-borne infection grows, Fernandez said. 

Tick-borne diseases

Ticks carry pathogens that they then pass on to humans by biting into their skin and feeding on their blood. An untreated tick bite can lead to the development of one of nearly 20 different human diseases in the U.S., the most common of which is Lyme disease — about 476,000 patients are treated annually, according to the CDC. 

Another tick-borne infection that has been on the rise is Alpha-gal syndrome, which causes people to experience a serious allergic reaction after they eat red meat or other animal products that contain the sugar molecule alpha-gal. It is most commonly associated with the lone star species of tick distributed throughout the Northeastern, Southern and Midwestern United States. 

Initial symptoms of tick-borne illnesses are unspecific and often the same as those that come with regular sickness, such as a fever, headache, muscle aches and joint pain, according to Alvaro Toledo, an associate professor in the Department of Entomology at Rutgers who also spoke at the July 1 media briefing. 

“Physicians need to be vigilant and aware if they receive a patient with symptoms that are compatible with a tick-borne disease,” he said.

What if you find a tick?

If one discovers a tick on the skin, Toledo said the proper response is to first quickly remove the tick with tweezers by pinching and pulling it up in a vertical motion, then disinfecting the area and monitoring for signs of sickness. 

People should not, on the other hand, deal with a tick by burning it off or applying petroleum jelly to the bite, said University of Wisconsin-Madison Assistant Professor Adela Oliva Chavez, a tick researcher, at the briefing. 

“Those are myths,” she warned. 

Ticks typically do not transmit infection until after they have been attached to the skin for 24 hours, which is why the CDC recommends people aim to remove the pests as soon as possible within the first day.   

However, experts say the most effective way to prevent tickborne disease in humans is by limiting exposure to ticks in the first place.  

Toledo said people should use chemical sprays such as permethrin on their clothing and classic bug repellents on their skin to keep ticks away. It’s also a good idea to wear long, light-colored clothing when spending time in forests and other highly vegetated areas where ticks are abundant. 

But, he added as a reminder to the public, there is “no zero-risk zone anywhere when you go out … even in your backyard, risk is not zero.” 

Individuals can further reduce their chance of acquiring a tick bite by checking their pets just as often themselves, according to Oliva Chavez. Dogs and cats can easily bring ticks into the house from outside, and if they aren’t yet attached to the animal’s flesh, they can make their way onto humans, she said. 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Senate Bill 315 is awaiting Gov. Mike DeWine’s signature. Among other ways it seeks to reduce fraud it:

• Requires the Ohio Department of Medicaid to suspend payments if the state attorney general or auditor submit a credible allegation of fraud

• Enhances criminal penalties for fraud

• Requires electronic verification of home-care visits if the provider doesn’t live in the home

• Provides whistleblower protections

When Scioto Analysis surveyed 13 economists on whether the reforms would be beneficial, they mostly seemed to say that it’s hard to tell.

They were first asked whether they agreed that “Medicaid fraud prevention programs that increase penalties and require additional verification and inspections will create fiscal savings that outweigh the administrative costs of running them.”

Five agreed, four disagreed, two were uncertain and one had no opinion.

Michael Jones of the University of Cincinnati said he believed the savings would outweigh the costs.

“A low-cost verification system that confirms identity and eligibility at the moment that services are provided should produce a positive (return on investment) for Ohio,” he wrote in the comment section of the survey. “Ohio should be implementing electronic visit verification for nearly every service that is reimbursed.”

But Curtis Reynolds of Kent State University said it was hard to see how the increased administrative cost would pay for itself.

“This is always the challenge: more verification/inspections are costly and I do not think that there will be much fiscal savings,” he wrote. “Medicaid fraud does exist but the estimates are that it is not a large percentage of total spending.”

The economists were also asked whether they agreed that “Medicaid fraud prevention programs that increase penalties and require additional verification and inspections will reduce access for vulnerable populations like people with disabilities.”

This time they divided evenly. Four agreed, four disagreed and five were uncertain.

“Vulnerable people are likely to get snared by the fraud prevention program which may penalize people who Medicaid is supposed to help,” wrote Charles Kroncke of Mount St. Joseph University, who agreed the new regs would cut some access for the disabled.

But Jonathan Andreas of Bluffton University said the new rules could benefit the disabled in the long run.

“It will undoubtedly reduce access in the short run because of inevitable false positives which reduce necessary care,” he wrote. “But in the long run, IF it increases the efficiency of Medicaid, it could increase care because of helping channel scarce dollars to the patients who really need them rather than to fraudsters.”

The panelists were also divided on the overall economic effect of the new rules, should they become law.

They were asked if they agreed that “Medicaid fraud prevention programs that increase penalties and require additional verification and inspections will generate a greater economic return than expanding benefits for recipients.”

Two agreed, three disagreed, five said they were uncertain and one had no opinion.

Andy Welki of John Carroll University said the new rules could create better public sentiment about Medicaid, which itself could produce a benefit.

“Confidence in a well run system promotes greater support,” he wrote.

But David Brasington of the University of Cincinnati said it’s too early to tell whether the benefits will outweigh the costs.

“We won’t know the extent of fraud currently committed or prevented until such measures are enacted,” he wrote. “Expanding benefits for current recipients would increase costs, fraud, and access to care.”

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 press release Kroger CEO Greg Foran praised Giant Eagle as a “high-quality regional grocer” and touted its “fresh products, pharmacy, private label and customer loyalty.”

“We evaluated the opportunity carefully, and the strategic fit is clear,” he went on. “Giant Eagle expands our reach into attractive adjacent markets, allowing us to do what we do best: Run outstanding stores, deliver fresh foods and convenient meal solutions at affordable prices, and take care of our customers and associates every single day.”

Despite emphasizing adjacent markets, much of Giant Eagle’s territory overlaps with Kroger — already the largest traditional grocery chain in the country. With previously competitive stores operating under the same shingle, some Giant Eagle locations are certain to close or get sold off. The press release notes the companies “expect to make limited Giant Eagle store divestitures.”

In 2024, federal regulators shot down a similar deal in which Kroger attempted to purchase Albertsons. But with a very different administration in the White House, it’s possible the Federal Trade Commission will view the latest deal differently.

The deal’s implications

Giant Eagle CEO Bill Artman offered a rose-tinted view of the agreement, calling it “an exciting next chapter for our Team Members, customers, vendors and community partners.”

“Together with Kroger,” he added, “we will be well-positioned to advance our strategy and deliver better quality and service, better everyday value, and a better shopping experience for our customers, while providing greater growth opportunities for our dedicated Team Members.”

Rob Moore, a public policy researcher and principal of Scioto Analysis, said there’s some credence for a positive outlook.

“Our instinct is to be worried about consolidations because of reductions in competition in the market, but the deal is not necessarily bad for consumers,” he said. “Larger grocery stores can sometimes lead to more efficiencies in purchasing, logistics, and technology deployment.”

But Moore stressed, “these efficiencies only matter to consumers if they lead to lower prices, better service, or better access to food.”

American Economic Liberties Project Director of Policy and Advocacy Morgan Harper warned the deal could be a lose, lose, lose.

“What we usually see with these large grocery store mergers is that they have detrimental impacts for both workers, and consumers, and other small businesses, suppliers, that try to provide products to a Kroger.”

If the deal means some stores are redundant, Harper said, it’s safe to assume some workers will get pink slips. With less competition, she added, the grocery giant gains even greater pricing power. That could mean higher prices in the aisle, as well as a harder bargain for the companies making the products that end up there.

“A combined Kroger could become the only game in town,” she said. “Especially right now with so many people struggling to keep up with how costs are increasing across the board, this is the type of transaction that could exacerbate that in the form of higher food costs.”

The most recent Consumer Price Index report showed the cost of groceries climbed 2.7% over the past year.

Harper doesn’t expect the Trump administration FTC to pursue the merger as aggressively as it did during President Biden’s tenure, but that’s not the only enforcement mechanism available. State attorneys general have the authority to investigate, and if they determine the deal is anti-competitive, they could sue to block it.

And Harper noted there’s some positive, recent precedent for state AGs going it alone.

“That’s what we’re seeing with Live Nation-TicketMaster,” she said, “the feds settled and the state AGs continued that case.”

Although the Live Nation case is far from over, in April, a jury determined the company was acting as a monopoly.

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Athens-based university is set to receive $10 million from a fund through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, meant to offset cuts made by to Medicaid made by Congress.

Ohio was awarded a total of $202 million through the fund, and Ohio University’s portion is the first specific award to be announced.

“We are excited to see the first of the funds going out to begin the important work of improving the health and well-being of Ohioans in our rural communities,” DeWine said in a statement announcing the award.

According to the announcement, the university plans to address healthcare workforce needs with the money, by funding expanded “healthcare exploration” for grade school and high school students through summer camps and career fairs, along with programs for college students. The university also plans to expand apprenticeships for high school students and graduate.

“This investment recognizes Ohio University’s longstanding commitment to rural communities and also puts that experience to work in collaboration statewide to expand innovative workforce development programs, strengthen partnerships, and improve access to quality care for Ohioans who need it most,” said Ken Johnson, OU VP of Health Affairs and senior strategist for health partnerships, in a statement.

With administration by the Ohio Department of Health, the rural health program will be used to “build on existing state investments to expand access to care in rural communities, strengthen the rural health workforce, modernize rural facilities and technology, and support innovative models that bring high-quality dependable care closer to home,” governor’s office stated.

The office said more contracts would be announced in the over the next few months.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Flight-tracking data cited by the newsletter shows a Bombardier Global 5500 departed John Glenn Columbus International Airport at about 10:20 p.m. Saturday and landed at Paris’s Le Bourget Airport — a hub for private aviation on the northern edge of the city — at 11:16 a.m. local time Sunday, a flight of roughly 6 hours and 56 minutes.

The transatlantic leg burned an estimated 3,511 gallons of jet fuel at an estimated fuel cost of about $21,065 and produced an estimated 34 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the flight-tracking data. The Rooster put the combined cost of the trip — including a short repositioning flight the day before, from the Ohio State University Airport to John Glenn Columbus International — at roughly $21,700, with about 35 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

The Rooster has connected the Bombardier Global 5500 to Ramaswamy through an aviation source it granted anonymity and through flight records it says match his publicly known appearances. The newsletter has previously reported that the jet, operated by MDO Capital, flies out of the Ohio State University Airport. TiffinOhio.net has not independently confirmed the identity of the aircraft’s passengers.

The Paris flight is the latest in a series of trips the newsletter has documented this year. In June, The Rooster published flight records for the Bombardier jet, reporting that it had flown 54 times in 2026 at an estimated $200,000 in costs, including trips to Portugal, Greece, the Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos and Puerto Rico. The newsletter described the Paris flight as Ramaswamy’s fifth international trip of the year.

In March, TiffinOhio.net reported that Ramaswamy’s campaign paid nearly $12,000 to an exclusive Puerto Rico resort, an expenditure listed as travel in filings with the Ohio Secretary of State.

The trip coincided with extreme heat on both sides of the Atlantic. Much of Ohio was under an Excessive Heat Warning through the evening of Friday, July 3, as a heat dome pushed heat-index values into the triple digits, according to the National Weather Service and state forecasters; highs on July 4 eased slightly into the upper 80s and low 90s. In France, Meteo-France recorded the country’s hottest day on record on June 24 during a heat wave that the country’s public health agency linked to roughly 1,000 excess deaths over three days at its late-June peak, an estimate the agency said was likely to rise. France 24 later reported 2,025 excess deaths in France for the month. The Rooster juxtaposed the flight’s carbon emissions with the heat waves.

Ramaswamy has previously defended his private air travel. His campaign told Heartland Signal that he covers the costs with his own money rather than donor funds, and that flying allows him to reach voters across Ohio’s 88 counties. Those statements concerned campaign travel within the United States; the Paris flight appears to be personal. Ramaswamy and his campaign have also disputed some of The Rooster’s past reporting and criticized its author.

Energy and climate policy are central to the governor’s race. Ramaswamy has campaigned on expanding Ohio’s fossil-fuel and nuclear energy production and on accelerating data center development across the state.

Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati-area businessman, won the Republican nomination for governor in May and faces Democrat Amy Acton in the Nov. 3 general election. His running mate is state Senate President Rob McColley; Acton’s is former Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Click, a Vickery Republican serving his third term in the Ohio House, published the roughly 12-minute video to his official Facebook page early Saturday, July 4. In it, an AI-rendered figure resembling Click appears among the Founding Fathers in a candlelit colonial chamber; a companion frame shows a modern, blazer-clad likeness of Click holding up a smartphone to take a selfie with several bewigged figures. On-screen text during the clip reads “ABUSES AND USURPATIONS.”

“Have you ever dreamed of visiting the Founding Fathers during the most notable times of American history? I have. Now, thanks to AI, I’ve done it,” Click wrote in the caption. He described the piece as a decade-and-a-half-old audio dramatization to which he added “video enhanced by my imagination,” and urged followers to “take time to learn about the founding of our great nation.”

The post drew a mix of reactions. As of Sunday it showed 31 likes and other positive reactions alongside 28 comments and nine shares. Several commenters were sharply critical.

“Does your arrogance and ego ever stop? For you to insert your likeness into such a noble event is more than I can take. So inappropriate. So distasteful,” one commenter wrote.

Another objected to the historical framing, noting that Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration contained a passage condemning slavery that the Continental Congress struck. “If we are going to tell our story, honestly, we should do so with the truth and not what makes us feel comfortable,” the commenter wrote, adding that the United States still needs to “strive for the ‘more perfect’ part.”

A third comment was blunter: “I’m glad that the beloved pet pig of George Washington finally got to be represented in this biopic. Oh my bad, it’s just Gary.”

A lawmaker aligned with the AI buildout

The Fourth of July video is a lighthearted turn for a legislator whose recent policy work has placed him squarely on the side of the industry that AI depends on. Generative AI tools like the one Click used run on data centers — the large, power- and water-hungry computing facilities spreading across Ohio.

Click is a joint sponsor, with Rep. Kellie Deeter (R-Norwalk), of House Bill 646, legislation he introduced in January to respond to that expansion. As the bill passed the House, it would have created a Data Center Study Commission charged with examining data centers’ effects on the environment, the electrical grid, water supplies, farmland and the local economy — and, in a clause with no parallel elsewhere in the bill, “reports of foreign propaganda intended to create opposition to data centers.”

That wording appears verbatim in the Ohio Legislative Service Commission’s official analysis of the bill, which lists Click and Deeter as primary sponsors. The commission’s mandatory study topics also include data centers’ “value to national security and artificial intelligence development.”

The provision would place community opposition to data centers on the same footing as environmental or infrastructure concerns while framing it as a potential foreign-influence problem rather than ordinary civic dissent. The libertarian Reason Foundation submitted testimony recommending the language be deleted, cautioning that the commission’s work should avoid the appearance of bias.

The issue is not abstract in Click’s district, which covers all of Sandusky and Seneca counties. Kara Hetrick, who lives outside Gibsonburg near a proposed data center site, told lawmakers at a hearing she objected to the state spending money to study the question at all. “Now we’re going to have more wasteful tax dollars to study a so-called foreign propaganda,” she said, “when really all it is, (is) we the people voicing our concerns with opposition.”

Click has defended the measure as a response to those same constituents. “We have heard the concerns of our communities and taken time to speak with those in the industry,” he said when the bill was introduced. “We feel that this is the best approach to ensure that every voice is heard.”

Where the bill stands

HB 646 passed the Ohio House unanimously, 97-0, on March 19, 2026. In the Senate, lawmakers scrapped the study-commission framework and rewrote the measure into a broader regulatory package addressing data-center electricity rates, water use, tax breaks and public-records access to nondisclosure agreements. That substitute version — which no longer contains the study commission or its “foreign propaganda” clause — remains in the Senate Energy Committee, with lawmakers signaling further action when the General Assembly returns to Columbus in November.

The Fourth of July post is not Click’s first brush with AI-generated content. TiffinOhio.net reported in February that Click drew criticism from fellow Republicans after weighing into a dispute over an AI-generated video during his primary campaign.

Click narrowly won the May 5 Republican primary over challenger Eric Watson, of Tiffin. He faces Democrat Aaron Jones, a U.S. Army veteran and Tiffin City Councilman, in the November general election.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Lewis Hurst, 60, of Republic, pleaded guilty to one count of theft as a first-degree misdemeanor, reduced from the fifth-degree felony originally filed, according to Sandusky Municipal Court records.

The court sentenced Hurst to 30 days in jail and suspended the entire term. It imposed a $500 fine, suspended $250 of it, and assessed $140 in court costs. Hurst was also ordered to pay $857.99 in restitution; court records show a check for that amount was issued to Best Buy. The remaining balance is due within 60 days under the terms of the disposition.

Hurst posted a $5,000 bond after his arrest. Court records show a portion of that bond was applied to his fines, costs and restitution, with the remainder refunded.

The charge stemmed from a January 24 incident. According to a Perkins Township Police Department investigation report obtained by TiffinOhio.net, a store manager reported inventory discrepancies on a specific computer model, and the store identified a credit card transaction tied to Hurst. Perkins Township Police Officer Michael Todhunter wrote that surveillance footage showed a man placing a price sticker from a $499 computer onto the box of a $1,299 HP Omen R5 8500F computer before buying it at the lower price. Investigators used license-plate camera data and a Bureau of Motor Vehicles photo to identify Hurst, the report states.

A warrant was issued February 9, and the Erie County Sheriff’s Office served Hurst on March 19, when he posted bond. Attorney Dean Henry entered an appearance and filed a not-guilty plea on Hurst’s behalf in March. The case was continued several times before the July 2 hearing, at which Hurst changed his plea.

The Seneca County Board of Developmental Disabilities placed Hurst on paid administrative leave following a special meeting Saturday, March 28. The board described the action as a “private personnel issue” that is “not otherwise related to Mr. Hurst’s leadership,” according to a statement reported by the Advertiser-Tribune, and named Natasha Nichols, its director of service and support administration, interim superintendent. In late April, the board confirmed to WTOL 11 that Hurst remained on paid leave.

Hurst continued to appear publicly as superintendent after the case was filed. On March 10 — more than a month after the warrant issued — he told the Seneca County Commissioners the district was in “good financial shape,” according to the Advertiser-Tribune.

The Seneca County Opportunity Center, which operates under the county Board of Developmental Disabilities, provides services and supports for people with developmental disabilities and is funded in part by local taxpayers.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Job gains were also revised down from 172,000 to 129,000 for May, and from 179,000 to 148,000 for April. 

The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% — the lowest since June 2025, when it was 4.1%. 

The jobs increases were especially weak considering that the men’s World Cup soccer tournament likely added 40,000 jobs in June, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, in a statement. Gould said the unemployment rate drop was “for the wrong reasons” as 720,000 people left the labor market.

The industries adding the most jobs in June were business and professional services (36,000 jobs), social assistance (up 25,000 jobs) and healthcare (22,000 jobs). 

There was a drop of 61,000 jobs in leisure and hospitality jobs, reflecting weaker-than-usual seasonal hiring for the summer, the BLS said. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The incident was reported around 9:59 a.m. July 2 near 265 N. Washington St. Dispatch notes said a truck at Pit Stop doing an inspection could hear gas hissing, and Columbia Gas was contacted shortly after crews arrived.

Tiffin Fire/Rescue, police, the city street department and Columbia Gas responded to the area. Crews began setting up barricades near North Sandusky Street, Apple Street, Second Avenue, West Davis Street and other nearby streets as officials worked to secure the area.

By about 10:15 a.m., dispatch notes indicated crews were “closing this whole area,” including access near Circle K. The street department later placed road-closed signs and cones at West Davis and Short streets, while officers stood by near North Sandusky Street and Apple Street until additional barricades were in place.

Dollar General was evacuated around 10:54 a.m., according to the media summary. Officials also contacted ODOT for truck-route signs, and the Seneca County Sheriff’s Office was advised of the closure.

The city’s CERT team was called to assist with traffic control near Hudson and North Sandusky streets and was on scene by about 12:38 p.m.

Dispatch notes listed several barricade locations, including Sandusky Street at First, Second, Apple and Hudson; Davis Street at Minerva and Jackson; and other points around the affected area. A truck detour was later routed from Second Avenue to Wall Street to Miami Street and back to Sandusky Street.

The leak was contained by about 2:19 p.m., though fire officials and Columbia Gas remained on scene. Around 2:29 p.m., fire officials advised that crews could begin reopening State Route 53, and the street department was contacted to collect the barriers.

By 4 p.m., city officials announced that crews had secured the gas line and the road was reopened.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The progressive advocacy group ranked Ohio 13th among states for added household costs, estimating the average Ohio household has paid $2,175 more through June 30 and could pay $3,300 more by the end of 2026.

For a family of four buying health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, the report estimates the added cost in Ohio rises to $3,688 through June and $6,325 by year’s end.

The report attributes the increases to four policy areas: tariffs, higher residential electricity costs, higher gasoline prices tied to the war in Iran, and the expiration of enhanced ACA premium tax credits for families buying marketplace coverage.

CAP Action’s analysis is not a government estimate. It is an advocacy-group analysis that assigns costs to members of Congress based on recorded votes the group describes as “cost-up” votes — votes that, in its methodology, raised or sustained one of the four added-cost categories.

That matters because the report does not simply measure price increases. It also ties those costs to congressional votes on tariffs, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ACA premium tax credits and war-powers resolutions related to Iran.

How the report says Ohio was affected

Ohio’s $2,175 average-household figure includes gas, utility and tariff costs. The higher $3,688 figure applies to a family of four purchasing ACA marketplace coverage because it adds the estimated premium increase after the enhanced tax credits expired.

Nationally, CAP Action estimates that the average household has paid $2,072 more through June 30 for gas, utilities and tariff-affected goods. For a family buying ACA marketplace coverage, the report puts the added cost at $3,569 through June and projects it could reach $6,162 by the end of 2026.

The group’s methodology treats tariffs as a national cost spread evenly across households. Gas, utility and ACA marketplace costs are calculated with state-level inputs, including Brown University’s Iran War Energy Cost Tracker, U.S. Energy Information Administration electricity data, Yale Budget Lab tariff estimates, Keep Americans Covered state impact analyses and federal marketplace enrollment data.

Ohio’s delegation in the report

CAP Action’s searchable table lists members of Congress, their “cost-up” vote counts and the household costs the group attributes to those votes in each state. Searching the table for “Ohio” or “OH-” shows the state’s delegation.

Among the Ohio House members shown in the report’s table, Republican Reps. David Taylor, Jim Jordan, Bob Latta, Michael Rulli, Mike Turner and Troy Balderson each recorded 12 “cost-up” votes out of 12 tracked House votes. Rep. Dave Joyce and Rep. Mike Carey were listed at 11 of 12, Rep. Max Miller at 10 of 12 and Rep. Warren Davidson at 9 of 11.

The same table lists Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman at 1 of 12 and Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty at 0 of 12. The full interactive table should be searched directly for the rest of Ohio’s delegation, including additional House members and senators.

Under CAP Action’s scoring system, a member is charged with the full cost of a category if they cast at least one “cost-up” vote in that category. The report says one opposing vote within the same category does not reduce that attribution.

Energy costs connect to Ohio’s data-center debate

The utility-cost portion of the report lands as Ohio is already debating how much new electricity demand should be paid by data centers and how much risk should fall on ratepayers.

In February, AEP Ohio said its new data-center tariff had reduced projected demand from 30,000 megawatts to 5,700 megawatts, but manufacturers and other critics continued warning that ratepayers could face higher costs if utilities overbuild for speculative projects.

Ohio lawmakers have also been weighing new data-center legislation touching on tax breaks, utility billing, water use and local government impacts. The state has already committed at least $2.3 billion in sales-tax exemptions for data centers, according to reporting by Signal Statewide republished by TiffinOhio.net.

Those debates overlap with CAP Action’s argument that energy policy choices can show up directly in household utility bills. They also connect with Rep. Landsman’s No Harm Data Center Act, which would require data-center operators to pay for the grid infrastructure needed to serve them.

Tariffs and household affordability

CAP Action’s report estimates tariffs have added $1,574 in costs for the average U.S. household through June 30, using a national estimate rather than a state-by-state tariff figure.

That finding fits into a broader affordability debate in Ohio. A Cleveland Fed model previously showed elevated recession risks as tariffs, debt, weak hiring and falling consumer sentiment weighed on the economic outlook. TiffinOhio.net has also reported on analyses finding that the affordability crisis is getting worse for households in Ohio and across the country.

Tariffs are paid by importers at the border, but economists have long warned that much of the cost can be passed through to consumers through higher prices. CAP Action’s methodology uses a 70 percent consumer pass-through assumption, citing the Congressional Budget Office.

Health care and other federal cost shifts

The report’s largest additional cost for marketplace families comes from health care. CAP Action estimates an Ohio family of four buying ACA marketplace coverage would face $3,688 in added costs through June and $6,325 through 2026 once the premium increase is included.

The enhanced ACA premium tax credits expired at the end of 2025. The report says the health care estimate applies only to households buying ACA marketplace coverage, not every Ohio household.

The finding adds to other federal-policy cost shifts affecting Ohio families. In May, TiffinOhio.net reported that a Trump administration child care rule could cost some Ohio families up to $15,000 more annually after rescinding a Biden-era cost cap.

Ohio among the 20 highest-cost states

CAP Action ranked Ohio 13th among the 20 states with the highest total added household costs. The only neighboring states ranked higher were Indiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

How CAP Action calculated the costs

CAP Action’s methodology separates the costs into two totals. The “average household” figure includes gas, utilities and tariffs. The “marketplace family of four” figure adds the ACA premium increase for a family buying marketplace health insurance.

The report says gas costs are based on Brown University’s Iran War Energy Cost Tracker. Utility costs are based on U.S. Energy Information Administration residential electricity data. Tariff costs are based on CAP Action and Yale Budget Lab estimates. Health care costs are based on Keep Americans Covered state fact sheets and federal marketplace enrollment data.

The report’s vote scoring is broader than a simple roll-call summary. It includes final-passage votes, disapproval resolutions, war-powers resolutions and procedural votes that determined whether measures could reach the floor. CAP Action says it did not include messaging votes with no bearing on whether a cost took effect.

Because of that methodology, the report should be read as CAP Action’s attribution of policy responsibility, not as a direct household bill or official government accounting. But the Ohio numbers place the state clearly in the upper tier of the group’s national cost estimates.

For Ohioans already facing rising utility bills, health care premiums, tariffs and other cost pressures, the report adds another data point to the 2026 affordability fight: according to CAP Action, the price tag is already more than $2,000 for the average Ohio household, and still rising.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

On June 25, the Supreme Court paved the way for the Trump administration to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from 350,000 migrants from Haiti and over 6,000 from Syria.

TPS is a legal status given to migrants from countries the U.S. government agrees are too dangerous to return to. Haiti and Syria certainly fit the description. The State Department warns Americans against traveling to Syria and Haiti “for any reason” due to the risk of crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, hostage taking, and armed conflict.

Yet the court’s conservative majority ruled that courts are prohibited from reviewing whether the administration followed the law in revoking TPS. The “decision that country conditions in Syria and Haiti justified termination of their TPS designations” is exempt from any form of judicial review, the justices claimed.

Interestingly, the Supreme Court did not rule that the administration followed the law, or that conditions in these countries were safe. It simply ruled that these decisions couldn’t be challenged.

The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that terminating TPS for Haitians was racially motivated. For the court’s conservatives, none of President Trump’s past remarks — which include the lie Haitians are “eating the dogs,” “probably have AIDS,” and that Haiti is a “s—hole country” — were “overtly racial.”

Effectively, the Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration the power to unilaterally end TPS for any group at any time for any reason, no matter how prejudiced or flawed.

While this immediately impacts Haitians and Syrians, it puts the lives of everyone with TPS at risk. This includes people from active warzones like Ukraine, Sudan, and Lebanon.

The only hope for these people is that Congress will intervene on their behalf.

Fortunately, even some Republicans understand the gravity of this situation. Governor Mike DeWine has called the ruling a “mistake.” DeWine warned, “If [Haitians] lose temporary protected status and they no longer can work and the companies can’t employ them, that’s a blow to the economy, that’s a blow to the state.” Ohio is home to a large Haitian migrant population. 

Representative Mike Lawler (R-NY) claimed that the decision will “create a crisis in our hospitals, nursing, and in the I/DD [intellectual and developmental disabilities] community” where roughly one-third of Haitian TPS holders work. He called on the Senate to pass his bipartisan bill to extend TPS for Haitians “to address these issues.” That bill passed the House earlier this year.

For all of Trump’s bigotry, migrants remain an indispensable part of the U.S. economy. But beyond these economic considerations, the U.S. has a moral duty to these people — because the dire conditions in many of these countries are the direct result of America’s foreign policy.

Decades of U.S. sanctions and military intervention in Syria helped foment the political and economic instability in the region. Haiti endured years of U.S. colonial occupation and continues to face repeated attempts by our government to undermine their elections and democracy.

TPS is not simply humanitarian aid. It is a form of reparations for those who’ve suffered the consequences of U.S. foreign policy.

Deliberately sending vulnerable, law-abiding people — many of whom have spent decades here — to countries this administration knows are unsafe is nothing less than issuing their death sentences. These people should not be made to suffer and die to satisfy this administration’s xenophobia and racism.

The sheer indifference towards life displayed by the Supreme Court and the Trump administration betray every principle upon which this nation was founded. While there is still time, Congress must enact extensions to protect TPS recipients.

This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

A summer cooling outlook from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association projects the typical Ohio household will spend about $745 on electricity from June through September, up from $691 a year ago — an increase of 7.8 percent. Nationally, the group projects summer electric bills will rise 10.5 percent to roughly $792, and it estimates that summer cooling costs have climbed nearly 40 percent since 2020.

Tiffin is served by AEP Ohio, the utility whose distribution rates and data-center policies have been reshaped by a series of decisions at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio over the past year. Other parts of Seneca County are served by different providers, including North Central Electric Cooperative and, in some areas, FirstEnergy utilities.

On Wednesday, April 1, the PUCO approved a settlement in AEP Ohio’s distribution rate case. The commission and the utility described the outcome as a net reduction: base distribution revenue would rise by $11 million — far below the $97 million AEP originally sought — while about $105 million in federal tax savings is returned to customers over 18 months, producing an overall revenue decrease of $58.7 million. AEP Ohio said the change would lower a typical residential bill by roughly $1 a month, and PUCO staff had earlier recommended a small decrease.

“The settlement we’re approving today focuses on utility affordability and ensuring that new data centers are responsible for the costs they impose on the grid, while providing the utility with the tools it needs to focus on system reliability,” PUCO Chair Jenifer French said.

Consumer and environmental groups that intervened in the case say the reduction is temporary. The Ohio Environmental Council, Columbus Stand Up, Save Ohio Parks and the Buckeye Environmental Network argue that once the tax credit expires, and if AEP moves to collect the full amount the settlement allows, residential rates would rise — by as much as $4.38 a month by the end of 2026 and toward $10.28 a month by 2028.

“While AEP Ohio is going to claim this rate change could result in a bill decrease for customers, that reduction is temporary,” said Columbus City Councilmember Christopher Wyche, who chairs the council’s Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee. “Number games may work for talking points, but they won’t do much for consumers who are balancing their budgets at the kitchen table.”

Maureen Willis, who heads the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, said consumers “deserve a direct answer” to whether their bills are going up, adding that “every approved dollar comes directly from consumers’ pockets.”

The case was resolved through a settlement, and AEP Ohio has not been accused of wrongdoing; the dispute centers on how the settlement’s temporary credits and future spending caps will net out on customer bills. PUCO staff, for their part, disputed the framing of an affordability crisis, calling the Consumers’ Counsel’s arguments on that point “misleading” because household costs are rising across many categories of spending.

A separate driver sits on a different line of the bill. On March 18, two weeks before the distribution order, the PUCO approved AEP Ohio’s Basic Transmission Cost Rider, the charge that covers the high-voltage lines moving bulk power across the state. AEP Ohio said the update would raise the transmission portion of a typical 1,000-kWh residential bill by about $7.90 a month, but that the increase would be largely offset by a roughly $7.16 decrease in generation costs and a $0.52 decrease in distribution — a net increase of about $0.22 a month for the average customer on its standard service offer.

That offset applies to customers on AEP Ohio’s standard service offer. Customers who buy generation through a competitive retail electric supplier or governmental aggregation may not see the same generation-cost offset, meaning their net bill impact could differ. The Ohio Manufacturers’ Association Energy Group has challenged AEP’s underlying load forecasts, arguing in filings that the utility overstated future demand, including an increase of more than 3 gigawatts in what it reported to the regional grid operator.

Much of that projected demand traces to data centers. In July 2025, the PUCO ordered AEP Ohio to create a tariff specific to large data centers, requiring new or expanded facilities of 25 megawatts or more to pay for at least 85 percent of the capacity they reserve — even if they use less — for up to 12 years. The commission said the structure is meant to keep the cost of new infrastructure from shifting onto residential and small-business customers. The same order lifted a moratorium AEP had placed on new data-center connections in central Ohio. In its summer outlook, NEADA listed data-center demand among the factors pushing retail electricity prices up faster than inflation.

Ohio customers are also paying to keep older plants running. On April 29, the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously upheld charges AEP Ohio bills to customers for its share of the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, which operates two 1950s-era coal plants, rejecting a challenge that consumers had overpaid $74.5 million for the plants’ money-losing years in 2018 and 2019.

The rising costs arrive as Ohio offers comparatively limited summer relief. According to NEADA, the state has no broad summer shut-off protection, even as it maintains protections against winter disconnections. Ohio does operate a Home Energy Assistance Summer Crisis Program for eligible households, but the program is income-limited and does not amount to a statewide summer moratorium on disconnections. Heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, the NEADA report notes, citing federal data.

Ohioans can compare generation suppliers through the PUCO’s Energy Choice tool, though the delivery charges driven by the rate and transmission decisions above do not change when a customer switches supplier.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

A year later, with that section of the “big, beautiful” law set to expire July 4, GOP lawmakers are trying to find a way to keep the nationwide prohibition in place, though they won’t be able to accomplish that before the deadline. 

That means states will now determine whether people enrolled in the program for lower-income individuals can, once again, get routine healthcare services from the Planned Parenthood clinics that remain open.  

Nora Walsh-DeVries, vice president of political and legislative affairs at Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the law forced the organization to close nearly 30 of its healthcare centers.

“The impact is really horrible for us and some of it is unfortunately irreversible,” she said. “And it’s tough to try to deal with what’s happened in this past year, kind of also knowing that there is an intention from Republicans to permanently defund us.”

Some Planned Parenthood clinics, she said, tried to find ways to keep treating Medicaid enrollees, but ultimately that was “unsustainable” and not something every affiliate could manage. 

The result meant “tens of thousands of patients have been denied access to basic care services like cancer screenings, which I think we can all agree is something we should want people to get when they need it, where they need it, how they need it,” Walsh-DeVries said. 

The impact was ultimately less widespread than Planned Parenthood originally predicted, when its president said in a statement just days before the law took effect that “nearly 200 Planned Parenthood health centers in 24 states across the country are at risk of closure.”

The expiration won’t have an impact on abortion access for Medicaid enrollees, since a decades-old rider on government spending bills, which blocks taxpayer dollars from going to abortion with limited exceptions, remains in place. 

Republicans view the closures as a victory and are trying to renew the provision in an attempt to shutter more Planned Parenthood clinics. They believe any healthcare organization that provides abortions, even if those largely aren’t covered by taxpayer dollars, shouldn’t be included in any federal health programs. 

Pressure from conservatives

The House Freedom Caucus, a collection of far-right Republicans, wrote to Speaker Mike Johnson in late June, pressing him to include a similar prohibition in another party-line bill. 

“The American people rightfully expect a Republican-led Congress to deliver real results, not excuses or half-measures,” they wrote. “After years of broken promises, voters have entrusted us with majorities in both the House and Senate. This is our last and best chance to prove they were right to send us here to fight for them.”

They added that another reconciliation bill must prohibit “federal funding for abortion providers to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being used to subsidize the radical abortion industry.”

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser and other anti-abortion organizations are lobbying Republicans to again block Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood.

“Defunding Big Abortion is now the default expectation of the pro-life movement,” Dannenfelser wrote in a statement. “When they return to D.C., Republicans must do all they can through reconciliation to once again block taxpayer dollars from Planned Parenthood and abortion businesses.”

Republicans used the complex budget reconciliation process to enact their “big, beautiful” law and the $70 billion package to fund immigration enforcement. The special process allowed GOP leaders to get around procedural votes in the Senate that would otherwise require bipartisanship as long as each provision has an impact on federal revenues or spending that is not deemed “merely incidental” by that chamber’s parliamentarian.

Strained system

Subasri Narasimhan, research director at the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy at UCLA Law School, said there often aren’t other health centers to cover the gaps left when a Planned Parenthood closes or is no longer reimbursed for treating a Medicaid enrollee. 

“We have a pretty strained healthcare system in so many different respects, but we’re looking at an extremely strained system when it comes to reproductive healthcare,” Narasimhan said. 

Some state governments, she said, tried to cover the budget holes created during the last year, though ultimately weren’t able to fully replace the loss of federal funding. 

Republicans reinstituting the same prohibition on Medicaid payments for non-abortion healthcare services, she said, would likely lead more people on the program to delay or skip preventative care altogether. 

“We’re looking at folks who are quite vulnerable and often use Planned Parenthood as their primary source of care,” she said. “And so there’s no option to look for another health center.”

Kathleen Adams, professor in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, said that if a program can vary state to state, it will, and this was no exception. 

“What I’m seeing is the states are finding emergency funds, other ways to channel funds to Planned Parenthood to sort of keep that part of their system active,” she said. 

There are also other programs and clinics, like federally qualified health centers and safety-net providers, that Adams said could play a part in filling some of the gaps.

“I don’t lose heart so much as we might otherwise about these provisions to Planned Parenthood because states are aware of these issues,” she said. “And if they don’t provide access to contraceptives, they’re more likely to get unintended pregnancies, or pregnancies amongst uninsured women.”

State action

Laurie Sobel, associate director for Women’s Health Policy at KFF, wrote in a post that after the nationwide moratorium expires, a Supreme Court ruling from late June 2025 will allow state governments to block certain healthcare providers, like Planned Parenthood, from participating in their Medicaid programs. 

“This ruling marked a significant departure from longstanding interpretations of the Medicaid ‘free choice of provider’ provision, which guarantees enrollees the right to obtain care from any qualified and willing Medicaid provider,” Sobel wrote.

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have either blocked or tried to block Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood, according to Sobel’s analysis.

Other states, she wrote, “may follow suit” once the nationwide Medicaid prohibition expires July 4.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The National Weather Service has issued an extreme heat warning for parts of about 20 states, including for the entirety of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. In a warning issued early Wednesday, the weather service advised that temperatures will be in the upper 90s through the weekend, with many locations reaching highs of well over 100 degrees. 

It estimated that the peak heat index will reach up to 115 degrees in some areas across the Mississippi Valley and Northeast. 

The weather service warned that these temperatures, and the lack of relief even at night, will pose a serious risk of heat-related illness. Those with pre-existing conditions or who do not have immediate access to air conditioning will be especially vulnerable.

According to Jessica Lee, services coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center, more than 200 million people live in an area that is currently under an extreme heat warning, an extreme heat watch or a heat advisory. 

“For many areas, this heat wave brings the hottest temperatures so far this season, which can be particularly dangerous because people have not yet acclimated to this intense heat,” Lee said in a statement to States Newsroom. 

Lee added that the extreme heat will begin to decrease later this weekend and early next week, with temperatures expected to return to more seasonable levels.

States issue warnings

Many states have issued their own warnings to residents, including locations of cooling centers and other resources to help residents avoid heat-related illness. 

This week’s extreme temperatures are only adding to other serious weather conditions. 

In Kentucky, the heat wave is complicating repair and recovery efforts after the state was rocked by serious floods over the weekend. 

Gov. Andy Beshear has declared a state of emergency, and warned residents on Tuesday to take precautions, including finding cooling centers, hydrating and wearing light clothing. 

A sweltering 250th birthday

The heat wave comes amid some of the largest outdoor celebrations of the year. 

Large-scale festivities are planned to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, including a multi-week state fair in Washington, D.C. and scores of fireworks displays across the country. Also bringing out crowds is the World Cup, which is hosting matches in 11 U.S. cities.  

Amanda Reinhart, a meteorologist in NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center, said that the heat wave’s threat is amplified with many travelers from across the country and world who are not acclimated to the current levels of heat

Joel Myers, the founder and executive chair of the forecasting service AccuWeather, released a public statement Wednesday, warning that the risks of exposure to prolonged extreme heat can be deadly. It is especially worrisome for those without air conditioning or other ways to cool down, he said.

“The real danger we are concerned about is what occurs when you string together several days in a row of extreme heat,” Myers said in the statement. “The more days the heat wave goes on, between the high temperatures and extremely warm nights, the more harmful it is to the body. It puts more stress on the body.”

How to stay safe

While the high heat this week poses a public health risk, officials shared steps to take to stay safe. 

Reinhart said in a statement Wednesday that though everyone can be impacted by heat, the most at-risk groups include young children, adults 65 and older, pregnant women, people with disabilities and individuals with chronic health conditions. 

To stay safe, Reinhart recommended drinking plenty of fluids throughout the day, and not to wait until you feel thirsty. She said to avoid alcohol, caffeine and sugary drinks, which accelerate dehydration.  

She also said to wear lightweight, loose-fitting and light-colored clothing, and to use hats and sunscreen to protect your skin. 

To cool down, she recommended using misting fans, ice towels or cool damp cloths on the neck, underarms and forehead, which can help lower core body temperature. 

Finally, Reinhart advised those outdoors to avoid sitting directly on metal or plastic seats for extended periods, find shade whenever possible and to monitor yourself and those around you for signs of heat stroke. 

“While extreme heat is dangerous, heat-related illnesses are preventable,” she said in the statement.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The chairman, Josh Rubin, is also CEO of CJR Group, which counts American Electric Power among its clients. In his role with JobsOhio, the complaint says, he could be in a position to steer millions in what used to be public dollars to the massive utility.

“This calls into question whether Mr. Rubin has used his position as the board director of JobsOhio to create a fund for the benefit of his firm’s lobbying client, AEP,” the complaint filed last week by Democratic Ohio attorney general candidate John Kulewicz says. “This is a serious apparent conflict of interest.”

He was referring to a $100 million fund that would aid the creation of small-modular nuclear reactors. AEP is already exploring construction of such plants in Indiana and Virginia.

JobsOhio spokesman Matt Englehart said that his agency had not yet signed any agreements to disburse the funds. 

Rubin didn’t respond to a call requesting comment.

A spokeswoman for AEP said that its regulated business is prohibited by state law from owning generation assets, but a bill in the legislature would change that, allowing it to build nuclear generation and charge customers for for the cost.

JobsOhio has stirred controversy since former Ohio Gov. John Kasich helped lead its creation in 2011. AEP has stirred it more recently.

JobsOhio describes itself as a “a private nonprofit corporation wholly funded by an independent private source.”

However, it was created by the legislature and was given the sole opportunity to lease the state liquor franchise for much less than it was worth. It has since provided more than $1 billion in what at least used to be public money as incentives to businesses, but it has struggled to show that it’s produced significant results.

Even so, Gov. Mike DeWine last year extended JobsOhio’s lease of the liquor franchise to 2053, without making it return any more money to taxpayers.

And almost since its beginning, the agency has been accused of conflicts of interest and other cozy arrangements.

In 2014, the Ohio Ethics Commission notified two Marathon Petroleum Corp. executives who also sat on the JobsOhio board that they had potential conflicts because Marathon was receiving benefits from JobsOhio.

Other board members’ ties to corporations enjoying JobsOhio largesse have included Sherwin-Williams, Bob Evans, Procter & Gamble, and Manta Media.

Then in 2024 came news that JobsOhio granted more than $2 million in economic incentives to a company run by a man who also heads up a regional entity created by JobsOhio. 

Most recently, the public learned in March that JobsOhio gave $60,000 to a woman with whom then-Ohio State President Ted Carter had an “inappropriate relationship.”

She was paid to produce four podcasts, but only one was made.

Exempt from open-records law, JobsOhio refused to say whether it had underwritten any podcasts other than one by a special friend of the president of Ohio’s flagship university. Carter resigned over the relationship.

Kulewicz, the Democratic AG candidate, told Ohio Inspector General Randall Meyer that Rubin’s dual status as chairman of the JobsOhio board and lobbyist for AEP might raise the appearance of a conflict.

“In effect, JobsOhio, using Ohio liquor profits, is paying AEP to develop mini-nuclear reactors that will have little to no local oversight and be owned by the utility company itself,” Kulewicz said in a written statement. “And the CEO of the firm that lobbies for AEP is the chairman of the state agency that is granting the $100 million to develop the technology.”

Englehart, the JobsOhio press secretary, said no money for reactors has been released. He added that his agency has rules to avoid ethical conflicts.

“JobsOhio and its board of directors conduct themselves to the highest ethical standards,” Englehart said in an email. “We don’t discuss the companies we are in conversations with. Any board member with an actual or possible conflict of interest on specific grant or loan proposals for a company must disclose it and it and will recuse themselves from discussions and voting on such proposal.”

Ohio Auditor Keith Faber, the Republican candidate for attorney general, said that JobsOhio should be more transparent. 

“I’ve been a consistent proponent of sunshine in government throughout my career,” Faber said in an email. “I’ve called for more transparency at JobsOhio specifically, but that must be tempered by its structure and purpose. The General Assembly created JobsOhio as a public/private partnership, and that comes with limitations.”

And while AEP said that state law doesn’t allow its regulated business from owning generating capacity, President and CEO Bill Fehrman in May told shareholders it was interested in doing so in some capacity.

“… we continue to evaluate nuclear solutions, aiming to position AEP at the forefront of next generation baseload technologies,” he said. “As we have previously mentioned, we are actively reviewing several potential sites and interconnection locations as we assess how nuclear can play a meaningful role in the future to support load growth.”

With a bill in the legislature to change ownership rules and with JobsOhio creating a $100 million fund to subsidize the business, AEP might be interested in getting some of that money.

Asked if Rubin has a conflict in his roles as chairman of the JobsOhio board and CEO of a lobbying firm that works for American Electric Power, AEP spokeswoman Tammy Ridout said Rubin didn’t work directly on her company’s account.

“Two members of CJR Group, not Josh Rubin, work with that regulated side of the business,” Ridout said in an email.

As CEO and founder of CJR Group, Rubin is likely to share in any profits the firm receives from its business with AEP.

The utility has stirred controversy of its own.

It paid more than $900,000 through a 501(c)(4) dark-money group to support a ratepayer-financed bailout that has been called one of the the biggest bribery scandals in Ohio history. AEP wasn’t accused of criminality, but it received well over $200 million from the bailout.

In addition, the politician at the center of the scandal, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for his involvement.

Just after the bailout passed in 2019, AEP funneled another $500,000 through the same dark-money group to fund a plan that could have kept Householder in the speaker’s chair well into the 2030s, witnesses testified at his trial.

Earlier this year, with Ohioans’ electricity bills spiking, AEP generated more controversy when the Energy and Policy Institute reported that CEO Fehrman will receive $37 million this year — making him by far the highest-paid utility executive in the United States.

Ridout said her company objects to the notion that AEP might put the interests of its executives and shareholders ahead of those of its customers.

“Any suggestion that we would pursue actions contrary to the best interests of our customers is categorically false,” she said. “Putting our customers first and operating with integrity are our top priorities, and we take issue with any implication to the contrary.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Two groups challenged a fee, established by H.B. 6 and tacked onto Ohioans’ utility bills, to bailout two coal plants.

That rider allowed the plants’ owners — AEP Ohio, Duke Energy, and Dayton Power and Light — to earn a profit despite operating at a loss.

After the bribery scheme that advanced H.B. 6 came to light, the challengers insisted it would be improper to allow the companies to charge ratepayers for prop up the coal plants.

In the intervening years, state lawmakers came around to that idea. In 2025, they repealed the bailout as part of a major utilities overhaul, Ohio House Bill 15.

The Ohio Supreme Court acknowledged the change in circumstances but kept its focus on the 2021 audit.

Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Megan Shanahan said the PUCO’s determinations were justified.

Even where she acknowledges state regulators gave too much credence to the utilities, Shanahan determined the “the record does not support a finding of reversible error.”

The H.B. 6 rider and the audit

Ohio House Bill 6 set up the Legacy Generation Rider to keep the Ohio Valley Economic Cooperative coal plants running.

But following a legally mandated audit in 2021, several groups challenged the utilities’ use of that rider, claiming the companies were collecting more than they should.

If you incur expenses at work, you usually have to turn in receipts and file an expense report to get reimbursed. Utility cost recovery is similar, just on a much larger scale.

Utilities can only recover costs if their expenses are “reasonable and prudent.”

An audit of the Legacy Generation Rider indicated the OVEC plants spent much of 2020 running in the red.

The review also found the plants had inked long-term supply contracts at above-market rates and kept more coal on hand than necessary.

“At this time,” the audit for AEP Ohio states, “the OVEC plants cost customers more than the cost of energy and capacity that could be bought on the PJM wholesale markets.”

But the auditor noted lawmakers may have had other considerations when they approved the rider, like maintaining jobs or fuel diversity, “that outweigh the impact on ratepayers.”

In a 2023 filing with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, attorney Kim Bojko from the Ohio Manufacturers Association criticized the audit for turning a blind eye to the largest bribery case in state history.

She noted the utilities themselves and one of the companies supplying that above-market coal had a hand in the H.B. 6 scandal.

“These companies now directly benefit from the customer-funded bailout legislatively enacted by H.B. 6,” she wrote.

“None of the audit reports even mention the bribery issues, or the fact that they may be indicative of a conflict of interest between customers on one side, and subsidized OVEC plants and coal companies on the other.”

But in 2024, the PUCO signed off on the audit — blessing the companies’ charges for the 2020 calendar year.

The Ohio Manufacturer’s Association and the Ohio Environmental Commission challenged that decision all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The Ohio Supreme Court decision

To the Ohio Manufacturers Association and the Ohio Environmental Coalition it clearly wasn’t reasonable or prudent to allow utilities to recoup expenses for running unprofitable plants.

They raised several arguments — the PUCO didn’t consider important evidence, the utilities didn’t meet the burden of proof to justify expenses, and regulators got the standard for reasonable and prudent wrong.

The court brushed aside each argument in turn.

At several points Justice Shanahan determined the challengers had not met their own burden of proof, while finding the PUCO had provided enough in the record to justify their decisions.

In one example, the Ohio Manufacturer’s Association pointed to a report from the regional grid operator PJM indicating one plant might retire early.

That would make the utilities’ claims for advance debt payments imprudent, OMA claimed, but the PUCO excluded the report.

The court, however, rejected the argument because OMA didn’t include a specific citation, and although the report was “proffered” during PUCO proceedings it was never entered into the record.

“In short,” Shanahan wrote, “(OMA) has failed to create a record sufficient for this court to decide whether the commission erred.”

In another example, the Ohio Environmental Council argued the PUCO’s own test of ‘reasonableness’ includes a question of whether a utility’s actions benefit ratepayers and the public interest.

The court rejected that point, determining that the test applied to a different kind of case and has no foundation in state law anyway.

As for operating the plants at a loss, the PUCO accepted the companies’ explanation that they need to keep running even in unfavorable market conditions because “there are significant costs associated with starting up and shutting down.”

Plant operators eventually shifting their strategy as energy prices fell during the COVID-19 pandemic was taken as evidence that the utilities were responding prudently to a changing market.

That was good enough for the Supreme Court, too.

“The commission did not sidestep the analysis,” Shanahan wrote. “Rather, the commission reviewed the combined commitment strategies that OVEC employed during the audit period on behalf of the companies, found that OVEC’s decisions were prudent when they were made, and determined that no costs related to the commitment strategies should be disallowed.”

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Ohio Senate Bill 461 would give academic centers the “rights and privileges of an independent college of the university,” according to the bill’s language. 

Ohio state Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, introduced the bill which would give the centers’ directors the sole authority to hire faculty and staff, as well as determine their rank, salary, and tenure. 

Cirino was the lawmaker behind S.B. 1 which bans diversity efforts, regulates classroom discussion, prohibits faculty strikes, creates post-tenure reviews, puts diversity scholarships at risk, and creates a retrenchment provision that blocks unions from negotiating on tenure.

Cirino’s latest proposal would give the new centers “unlimited authority” on their curriculum, he said.

“It clarifies that the center directors have the sole exclusive and unlimited authority to oversee, develop, and approve the center’s curriculum,” Cirino said. 

The centers would also receive all tuition and revenue from the courses it offers. 

Ohio State University and the University of Toledo’s civic centers would become schools and their directors would become deans of the school starting Jan. 1, 2027, according to the bill. 

Miami University, Cleveland State University, and Wright State University also have civic centers. The bill would require a student at a university with a center to take a course through their center. 

“I think over time we will likely see that the other three centers will also qualify as they build up their student body and their curriculum, but it’s important that we recognize and put in law the complete independence of these centers, lest in the future there be some question about what authorities they do have,” Cirino said.

Ohio’s five civic centers were created through the state’s two-year budget in 2023 for $24 million. 

The civics centers have hired more than 60 faculty members, and have either developed or secured approval for more than 60 new courses, Cirino said. 

“They are not conservative centers,” he claimed, “they are centers to foster open debate and inquiry on major topics.”

Miami anticipates 3,000 students will enroll in their civic center courses, Ohio State expects more than 800 students, Toledo anticipates 250, and Wright State expects 600 students, Cirino said. 

Cleveland State’s center is projected to grow from 28 students to 1,400 students, he said. 

Toledo’s center has taught 15 courses since Fall 2024, university spokesperson Nicki Gorny said. 

Ohio State’s center will offer 10 courses for the fall semester including American Creeds and Conflicts, Law and Economics, and How Politics Breaks Your Brain, said Executive Director Lee Strang. 

Strang is a conservative scholar who had worked with Republican lawmakers on drafting the bill creating the centers.

Ohio State’s center had 18 faculty members and 159 students enrolled last academic year, Strang said. 

Cleveland State’s center will offer two general education courses next school year — The American Republic and Great American Debates, said university spokesperson Kristin Broka. 

Cleveland State’s center has hired seven faculty members and 28 students enrolled last academic year, Broka said. 

Miami’s center will have 11 faculty members next academic year and 350 students took courses through the center last academic year, said university spokesperson Seth Bauguess. 

Wright State’s civic center helps supports the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the center will offer a 90-credit-hour bachelor’s program for base personnel starting in Fall 2027, university spokesperson Deena John said.

Wright State’s center will also oversee up to 20 class sections of the U.S. Civic Literacy course this upcoming academic year, she said.

The Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors opposes S.B. 461. 

“SB 461 requires Ohio’s universities to fund the five new civic centers before anything else — even if they aren’t offering courses that help students graduate or don’t have students enrolled in their programs or courses,” OCAAUP Executive Director Jennifer Tisone Price said in a statement. 

“This absolutely drives up tuition costs for every other student at that university.”

Ohio lawmakers are on break and will come back after the November election. Any bill that does not pass before the end of the year must be reintroduced in the new General Assembly to be considered. 

Senate Bill 1

The Ohio Senate Bill 1 higher education overhaul became law a little over a year ago. 

Cirino said the bill was to counter what he viewed as left-wing ideology on college campuses.

“I think the left wokeness had taken over for a long time in our universities and community colleges, and a lot of it was just out of control,” Cirino said.

Ohio colleges and universities are also required to cut any undergraduate degree programs that produce on average less than five degrees annually over a three-year period. 

“I think we’ve eliminated close to over 530 programs today so far, and more of those are coming, and what that’s going to do is free up assets, the deployment of assets and resources for programs that really matter to us here,” Cirino said.  

The Ohio Capital Journal did a story earlier this year about nearly 90 degree programs that had been cut since Senate Bill 1. 

“These were very low in demand majors and, quite frankly, if you’re supporting three students in a program, it doesn’t pass the smell test,” Cirino said. 

“We can take that tenured professor position that we’re maintaining for that low number of students and put it over someplace else … that’s in more demand.”

Dylan Repertorio transferred from Cleveland State University to University at Albany in New York after S.B. 1 was signed into law. 

“I’ve gotten to take coursework that does include diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it’s actually opened up my eyes,” he said. “Moving away gave me a more open academic environment.” 

Repertorio, who is originally from New York, said he has felt affirmed in moving back to his home state. 

“I should just be (in college) to focus on my degree … I don’t really want to have to worry about these more bureaucratic things,” he said. 

Cirino said he has not yet talked to Ohio Republican governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy about higher education. 

Earlier this year, Ramaswamy said he wants to consolidate Ohio colleges and universities. 

“I don’t know how much he knows about how higher ed works in the state of Ohio,” Cirino said when asked about Ramaswamy’s comments. 

“I would look forward to that discussion with him.” 

Ohio House Bill 698 would tie a portion of college and university funding to S.B. 1 compliance.

Ohio state Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Twp., introduced the bill earlier this year, but Cirino said the bill “was not necessary and premature.” 

“I don’t think it would be a good thing right now to double-down on punitive actions for non-compliance,” Cirino said. 

“Let’s see how the compliance goes. … I’m not against holding people to compliance, but I think it would be too early.” 

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 6-3 ruling, the court’s right-wing majority essentially sanctioned the immediate deportation of the 350,000 Haitian immigrants Pipoly represented in Miot v. Trump.

The 43-year-old lawyer, who grew up in a suburb of Toledo, has litigated on behalf of foreign nationals from Haiti since the first Trump administration.

These were people “with a ton of courage and a ton of resilience” who fled for their lives from a violent, imploding country and found humanitarian protection in America.

Some Haitian families have been in the country for a decade or more.

Under Temporary Protected Status, they were legally allowed to live and work and contribute economically to many American communities, including Springfield, Ohio, while Haiti spiraled out of control and return was unthinkable.

Haitians in the United States have received multiple extensions on their temporary protected status to stay alive.

Conditions in the small Caribbean nation, convulsing in a state of de facto anarchy, are even worse today.

The U.S. State Department issued its highest Do Not Travel advisory for Haiti due to rampant gang violence, kidnapping, civil unrest, limited healthcare.

But the Supreme Court just green-lit the Trump regime’s merciless immigration policy to end TPS for Haitian families and deport them home to widespread famine, cholera outbreaks, closed medical facilities and schools, and roving armed gangs who use child soldiers, sexual violence, and bloody massacres to terrorize the population.

Pipoly said the inevitable outcome of the court’s decision is brutal.

“Thousands of people are now going to die violent deaths,” he predicted.

The dejected attorney from Sylvania, Ohio — who had spent years fighting to retain the temporary protection status of powerless people whose lives depended on it—was crushed.

The court gave the Trump regime free reign to ignore statutory mandates (created by Congress) to impose racially motivated deportations of people the president doesn’t like.

Lawless inhumanity given an indefensible pass. 

“It didn’t have to happen,” Pipoly lamented. “It was preventable. It is a choice that we as a society made. That reality is going to weigh on me for a long time.”

His core arguments were waived off by six Republican-appointed justices.

Pipoly asserted that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security skipped the required process to adequately assess country conditions before TPS designations could be given, extended, or taken away.

“Congress was very clear about the circumstances under which a TPS designation could be terminated, and it is after a fact-based assessment that the foreign country is safe to return. There was no such finding made here,” he said.

Moreover, Pipoly added, the court was alerted that new documents revealed even more proof that “these political appointees were coming at the very last minute and doing exactly what the president wanted them to do — which was find a reason for ending TPS.” 

Even if expert analysis of current Haiti, drawn from facts on the ground and other sources reports compiled by government agencies, recommended otherwise.

“Haiti was designated [for TPS] based on violence, based on housing insecurity, based on food insecurity, based on poverty, etc,” said Pipoly.

Those crises have exploded.

The real reason for termination of humanitarian protections for Haitians was not the one set forth in the official government notice, he argued.

“The real reason is because the president doesn’t like Haitians and it is unlawful to terminate on that basis.”

DHS’s rush to cancel TPS for singled out Haitians was driven, in part, by Trump’s racial animus of Black immigrants, in Pipoly’s view, and that violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The lead counsel in the Haitian TPS lawsuit noted how the president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric “gets much stronger and more aggressive and more derogatory the darker one’s skin gets.”

According to Trump’s own statements, the attorney recounted, “Somalis are ‘garbage’ and low IQ. Haitians are ‘eating the dogs and cats’ and ‘all have AIDS’ but white people from Denmark and Norway are ‘nice.’”

In a blistering dissent to the majority opinion that Trump’s cited remarks were not “overtly racial,” Justice Elena Kagan put those remarks on the record and said, “they fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country.”

Pipoly contended the DHS termination of TPS for Haiti was preordained and pretextual.

“The preordained nature is the statutory violation,” he said.

“That’s kind of the what. That’s the failure to follow obligatory procedure. That’s what happened. The racial animus or bare dislike for Haitians is the why it happened. Just the what was in and of itself enough to set aside the TPS termination and start over,” explained Pipoly.

“The why it happened was a constitutional violation.”

A group of lawful immigrants, at the mercy of the U.S. government, was targeted for who they are, said the attorney.

Trump’s ugly disparagement of Haitians, in particular, “reflect a TPS policy outcome that was unconstitutionally discriminatory.”  

Recently the DHS chief told panicked Haitians in Springfield, Miami, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and elsewhere he would buy them a ticket out of the country and throw in some spending cash for good measure.

The cruel indifference to the fate hundreds of thousands who sought legal refuge in America left their lawyer broken.

“These folks didn’t do anything wrong. They don’t deserve this.” 

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Firefighters, police officers and emergency medical workers routinely witness fatal crashes, violent crimes and other traumatic events that can leave lasting psychological scars. 

“When you are in the fire service, or any first responder industry, or especially in the military, stuff builds up over time, and what happens is you see so many things that the crazy stuff starts to at least seem normal,” said Jason Cerrano, a retired firefighter and paramedic with more than 20 years of experience in Missouri. Cerrano is now the director of commercial research and development at IDEX Fire & Safety.

In Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine earlier this month signed into law a measure that will create a Post-Traumatic Stress Injury Commission to review applications from eligible first responders for assistance to help cover treatment costs. 

Maryland took a different approach this year, enacting a law that protects firefighters, emergency medical technicians, paramedics and other rescue workers from employment discrimination over the lawful off-duty use of medical marijuana. 

The new law, which goes into effect in October, applies to registered medical cannabis patients who test positive for cannabis metabolites but are not impaired while on duty.

Several other states are exploring emerging therapies. 

A new Connecticut law expands a pilot program at Yale University studying psilocybin-assisted therapy by allowing any state resident age 18 or older to participate, provided they meet the clinical eligibility criteria established by Yale University’s institutional review board. The pilot program was previously limited to veterans, retired first responders and frontline health care workers.

Missouri lawmakers advanced a bill allowing veterans and first responders in approved research studies to receive the psychedelics psilocybin and ibogaine under medical supervision for PTSD and other mental health conditions. The legislature adjourned in May before lawmakers could send the bill to the governor.

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

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The order, signed by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, allows PJM Interconnection to tap into diesel back-up generators, battery arrays and more as a “last resort” to prevent power shut-offs as temperatures climb to dangerous heights in the latter half of the week.

“Currently, there are tens of gigawatts of readily available backup generation that have remained largely untapped,” Wright wrote in his order. “Deployment of backup generation resources … can prevent avoidable blackouts, thereby saving lives and reducing costs to the American people.”

Wright’s emergency order will last through July 3. It does not apply to certain facilities serving a critical need, including hospitals, 911 call centers, water treatment plants, air traffic control towers and defense facilities.

But it does include AI data centers, which have wreaked havoc on PJM’s markets because of their immense energy demands.

PJM also received approval from the U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday to require power generating facilities to operate to fuel the grid — even if they would surpass pollution limits by doing so.

“Because the additional generation may result in conflict with environmental standards and requirements, I am authorizing only the necessary additional generation on the conditions contained in this Order,” Wright wrote.

It is up to PJM to call upon the power plants to operate and set the parameters, and it must notify the Department of Energy when additional power generation resources are tapped to go beyond its pollution allowances.

Power generators are to comply with environmental regulations, including recordkeeping requirements, to the “maximum extent practicable” during the emergency. According to PJM officials, the order could result in exceedances of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and wastewater releases. The order expires at 11:59 p.m. on July 3.

PJM is predicting high demand through the weekend, peaking on Thursday, when demand is projected to set a new record for the grid at 166,304 megawatts, surpassing the previous record of 165,563 megawatts, set in 2006.

Throughout Central Maryland, the National Weather Service is predicting high temperatures just below 100 on Wednesday, followed by high temperatures between 102 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit from Thursday through Saturday. 

PJM is operating under a hot weather alert through July 3. For July 1, the grid operator has also issued a “maximum generation alert,” which calls on transmission and generation owners to defer any possible equipment maintenance or testing activities until the heatwave passes

The grid operator has also issued a “load management alert,” advance warning that it could use demand response programs on July 1, programs that pay customers who sign up to allow for energy reduction during emergencies.

In anticipation of the heat wave, Maryland utilities have been offering customers tips to conserve power whenever possible in order to lower their bills. 

The lists include setting thermostats at higher temperatures such as 78 degrees, using appliances later in the day, cooking outdoors when possible and using fans for cooling, but turning them off when no one is present in a room.

This story was originally produced by Maryland Matters, 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.

Ohioans cast more Republican ballots during the primary election in May. But Democrats still came surprisingly close.  

Newly updated state voter data helps illustrate the underlying reasons why.

In the May 5 primary election, 907,273 Ohioans requested Republican ballots while 815,922 requested Democratic ballots, according to the official count from the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office. 

This was a dramatic change from the 2022 primary election, when Ohioans cast roughly 1.1 million Republican ballots, double the roughly 540,000 ballots that Democrats cast that year. 

A Signal Statewide analysis found the shift was driven by two main forces: Republican-affiliated voters turning out at lower rates than their Democratic counterparts, and previously unaffiliated voters choosing Democratic ballots far more often than Republican ones.

Democratic turnout surged despite there being no competitive races at the top of the ticket, a sign of high enthusiasm among these voters. Governor candidate Dr. Amy Acton had no primary opponent while Senate candidate Sherrod Brown only had a nominal one. There were similarly no competitive races at the top of the Republican ticket, which was a sharp contrast from 2022, when GOP voters decided a hotly contested U.S. Senate primary and a crowded governor’s race. 

Political analysts traditionally caution against reading too much into primary election turnout. But there are other signs Democrats are highly engaged in what could be a good political year for their party, if for no other reason than the traditional backlash that occurs against the party that controls the White House. 

“It’s one signal in part of a greater trend that we’re seeing,” said Alex Lisner, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party. “And it’s something that I hope we can carry over into November.”

Bryan Gray, a Republican strategist who ran Jay Edwards’ successful primary campaign for Ohio treasurer, said he doesn’t “garner a lot” from the turnout numbers. 

“Democrats have proportionally more super voters in their base than Republicans do, and Republicans didn’t have any exciting primaries to drive turnout in May,” Gray said.

How we did this analysis

We used Claude, the AI tool, to help with this analysis. The software helped us analyze records for all 7.9 million registered state voters to form our conclusions. State records don’t show which candidates voters support, but they do note if they have a partisan affiliation – as defined by whether they chose to request a Republican, Democratic or nonpartisan ballot within the past two years.

The AI tool helped us tally how many Democratic, Republican and unaffiliated voters there were heading into the election, including breaking them down by county. Then, we used it to see how many voted in May, and how many changed their affiliation – such as a previously unaffiliated voter choosing to request a ballot for one of the major parties. A reporter reviewed the outputs and checked the findings against official results from the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

Drop in Republican turnout

First, on the Republican side: the main reason for the drop in turnout compared to the 2022 primary is the larger share of registered Republicans who opted to stay home. 

Republicans are the largest official political party in Ohio, with 1.4 million voters registered with the party heading into the May election. 

But only 54% of them voted in May, compared to 64% of the state’s roughly 780,000 registered Democrats. 

This is the simple explanation why Republican ballots fell from 1.1 million in the 2022 primary election to 907,273 in 2026.

On a percentage basis, the lowest Republican turnout occurred in several rural counties – Mercer, Darke, Noble, Harrison and Perry were the bottom-ranking five. 

Republican turnout also was soft in Ohio’s largest counties, which are home to many GOP voters even though Democrats regularly win them comfortably overall. Cuyahoga, Summit and Franklin all fell in the bottom half of Republican turnout rates.

Democrats attract more unaffiliated voters

Meanwhile, voters cast 815,922 Democratic ballots in May – which is nearly 36,000 more ballots than there were registered Democrats heading into the election. 

The reason? The support Democrats got from the pool of 5.7 million unaffiliated voters. These voters are a mix of people who’d previously voted in a partisan primary but not recently, and those who have never voted in a partisan primary election at all. A small percentage vote in primary elections, but only have requested nonpartisan ballots.

Of these unaffiliated voters, about 288,500 requested Democratic ballots in May. 

These new – or at least previously unengaged – Democrats were especially concentrated in some key areas for the party: the Cleveland/Akron area (Cuyahoga, Lorain, Lake, Portage and Summit counties), Cincinnati (Hamilton County) and Columbus (Franklin and Fairfield counties). 

As a result, the number of Democratic votes cast exceeded the number of previously registered Democrats in 49 of Ohio’s 88 counties. Republican votes didn’t exceed the number of previously registered Republicans in any county.  

Republicans also saw previously unaffiliated voters pull GOP ballots. But the roughly 180,400 who did so weren’t enough to make up for the number of registered Republican voters who stayed home.

A small part of the Democratic turnout boost was thanks to Republican voters. About 43,500 registered Republicans cast Democratic ballots last month, while about 13,200 registered Democrats requested Republican ballots.

Cuyahoga Dems see their biggest primary gain in years

Cuyahoga County, a Democratic Party stronghold that has seen a long-term trend of falling voter turnout, shows how the statewide pattern played out on a community level.

Democratic turnout was up in 56 of 59 of the county’s communities compared to the 2022 primary election. The three where it fell were eastern suburbs: Highland Hills (down four votes), University Heights (down 50 votes) and Beachwood (down 231 votes).

Republican turnout fell in all but three Cuyahoga County communities – Independence voters cast 601 more Republican ballots than four years before, and voters in Newburgh Heights cast four additional votes while GOP voting in Linndale was unchanged.

Overall, 40,262 more Democratic ballots were cast in Cuyahoga County compared to four years earlier, while voters cast 17,729 fewer Republican ones.

All told, the county saw the number of registered Democrats rise from 137,865 to 182,112. The 44,003-voter registration increase was the largest Cuyahoga County Democrats have seen for a primary midterm election since at least 2014.

Here’s a chart showing Cuyahoga County Democratic registration changes during primary elections.

David Brock, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, said this was the first time that the party saw increased registration for years. He also said more Democrats voted in the May primary in Cuyahoga County than in the primary elections in 2018, 2022 or 2024. (Records show Democratic turnout in May was about 300 votes higher than in 2018, and well above those other years.)

The increase in turnout came as the local party emphasized getting out the vote, Brock said, which included following up with voters who requested mail-in ballots to make sure they submitted them.

“I think this bodes well for November in this county,” Brock said.

How party affiliation works in Ohio

Ohio has what’s called an “open primary” system – meaning voters are allowed to request any party ballot they want during primary elections, when the political parties nominate their candidates.

Someone is considered a partisan voter only if they’ve requested a Republican or Democratic ballot within the past two years. The vast majority of Ohioans – about 5.7 million – are unaffiliated. In many cases, that’s because they only vote in November elections, but someone also can be unaffiliated if they request an issues-only ballot during primary elections, allowing them to vote on local tax levies and other ballot issues.  

But once someone requests a partisan ballot, they’re listed in state records as either a Republican, a Democrat or a Libertarian, the three officially recognized political parties in Ohio.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

But one analysis of his plan to eliminate Ohio’s income tax reaches a stark conclusion for homeowners: replacing the lost school funding locally could require property taxes to rise by about 20% statewide.

The finding comes from Innovation Ohio, a progressive policy group that analyzed Ramaswamy’s proposal to eliminate the state income tax. The group argues the plan would create a roughly $10 billion annual budget gap and shift pressure onto public schools, Medicaid, local governments and taxpayers.

Ramaswamy is not campaigning on raising property taxes. He is campaigning on the opposite. His campaign platform says he would “slash property taxes immediately” and “phase out the state income tax — starting with eliminating capital gains taxes.” A separate property-tax plan says he would roll back property taxes to where they were before the end of the COVID pandemic, which his campaign calls “the largest property tax rollback in Ohio history.”

The conflict is not over whether lower taxes are politically popular. It is over whether the math works.

Ohio’s personal income tax is one of the state’s largest revenue sources. The nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission estimated that the tax is expected to raise nearly $10.34 billion in fiscal year 2027, the first full year Ohio’s new 2.75% flat tax on nonbusiness income will be in effect.

That money helps fund the General Revenue Fund, which pays for core state services including K-12 education, Medicaid, public universities, prisons and other state programs.

K-12 education alone represents one of the largest claims on the state budget. The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce says state funding for primary and secondary education is estimated at $14.09 billion in fiscal year 2027, including $11.65 billion from the General Revenue Fund.

Ohio’s school-funding system is built as a state-local partnership. Public school districts rely on a mix of state aid, local property taxes, some school district income taxes and federal funds. If state aid falls, districts typically face three choices: cut services, ask voters for new local levies or find another way to raise revenue.

Innovation Ohio’s analysis says that if the lost income-tax revenue led to proportional cuts in K-12 education, schools would face a multibillion-dollar hit. To replace that money through local property taxes alone, the group says property taxes would need to rise by about 20% statewide.

That does not mean every homeowner’s bill would automatically increase by exactly 20%. Ohio property taxes are local, vary by school district and are often tied to voter-approved levies. But the estimate captures the pressure that could move from the state budget to local tax bills if the income tax is eliminated without an equivalent replacement.

TiffinOhio.net previously reported that Innovation Ohio estimated Ramaswamy’s income-tax repeal would create a $9.8 billion annual budget shortfall, threatening public school funding, Medicaid and local government services. The same report said replacing the lost revenue through property taxes would require an increase of approximately 20% statewide.

A tax cut with an unanswered funding question

Ramaswamy has argued that eliminating the income tax would make Ohio more competitive, attract residents and investment, and allow Ohioans to keep more of what they earn.

“We need to bring down the income tax eventually down to zero, because you deserve to keep what you earn,” Ramaswamy said at his campaign launch, according to the Statehouse News Bureau. “It is your money, not the government’s. We need to bring down property taxes in this state immediately, eventually down to zero.”

The Statehouse News Bureau reported in February that both Ramaswamy and Democratic candidate Amy Acton were talking about tax cuts but had offered few details on how they would pay for them. The bureau noted that Ramaswamy had been more direct than Acton in saying he wanted to bring income taxes down to zero.

Ramaswamy’s current campaign materials say local governments would continue operating “with greater discipline” under his property-tax rollback plan. The campaign says new construction would not be affected and existing debt obligations would be honored.

But his published plans do not identify a dollar-for-dollar replacement for the income-tax revenue he wants to phase out.

That omission is central because Ohio’s income tax is not a marginal revenue source. Eliminating it would require either historic economic growth, deep cuts, replacement taxes or some combination of all three.

TiffinOhio.net previously examined Ramaswamy’s broader tax agenda, including the combined effect of eliminating the income tax, repealing taxes on capital gains and rolling back property taxes. The pattern in outside analyses was consistent: the benefits would flow most heavily to wealthy Ohioans and corporations, while the cost of replacing revenue would fall more heavily on working and low-income families.

Why schools are at the center of the debate

For most Ohio communities, schools are the largest local public expense and property taxes are the primary local funding tool.

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce says school funding is distributed through a formula that considers student needs, district costs, assessed property values and income. The formula is designed to equalize funding by sending more state money to districts with less capacity to raise revenue locally.

That structure means state cuts do not land evenly.

Wealthier districts may be able to ask local voters for more money, though even there higher property-tax bills can strain homeowners. Poorer and rural districts may have less property wealth to tax in the first place, making state aid more important.

If state funding falls and districts try to replace it locally, the result can be repeated levy campaigns, higher bills for homeowners, or cuts to staff, transportation, special education support, career programs, arts, music and other services.

Innovation Ohio’s analysis warns that schools would not be able to absorb cuts of that size without visible consequences. The group said districts could face larger class sizes, fewer teachers and support staff, fewer bus routes, reduced meal programs and less support for students with disabilities.

The Ramaswamy campaign has framed the issue differently, arguing that taxpayers are paying more while schools are not delivering better results. His property-tax plan says property taxes on homes and farmland have jumped nearly 45% since 2020, while local governments and schools received federal pandemic aid and academic outcomes declined.

That message is likely to resonate with homeowners who have seen sharp increases in tax bills after property reappraisals. But the policy question remains: if the state cuts income taxes and local property taxes at the same time, what fills the gap?

Property-tax relief, or property-tax pressure?

Ramaswamy’s tax pitch rests on two promises that are difficult to reconcile: cut the state income tax to zero and also cut property taxes.

If economic growth is large enough, the campaign’s argument is that Ohio can grow its way out of the revenue loss. If spending cuts are large enough, the state can reduce the need for replacement revenue. If neither happens at the scale required, the pressure moves elsewhere.

One option would be the sales tax. Innovation Ohio has argued that replacing the full income-tax loss through sales taxes would require a major increase, a shift that would generally hit lower-income households harder because they spend a larger share of their income on taxable goods.

Another option would be deeper cuts to state services. That could affect schools, Medicaid, higher education, prisons, local government support and services for seniors, veterans and people with disabilities.

A third option would be local property taxes. That is the path behind the 20% figure.

The Legislative Service Commission’s revenue estimate shows the scale of the income tax in the state budget. The state education department’s funding overview shows how deeply schools depend on state aid and local property taxes. Innovation Ohio’s analysis connects those two facts and argues that eliminating the income tax would eventually push costs onto local taxpayers.

Ramaswamy’s campaign would likely reject that conclusion, arguing that it assumes government spending should stay on its current path and does not account for future growth, efficiency or budget cuts.

But unless the campaign identifies specific cuts or replacement revenue, voters are left with competing claims: Ramaswamy’s promise that Ohio can eliminate income taxes and cut property taxes, and analysts’ warning that the plan could force schools and local governments to make up the difference.

The bottom line for Ohio homeowners

The 20% figure is not a property-tax increase Ramaswamy has endorsed. It is an estimate of what could be required if local taxpayers had to replace school funding lost under his income-tax repeal plan.

That distinction matters. So does the underlying budget math.

Ramaswamy is promising one of the most aggressive tax-cut agendas Ohio has seen in decades. His campaign says the plan would make the state more affordable and more competitive. Critics say it would hollow out the state budget, threaten schools and Medicaid, and shift costs onto homeowners and consumers.

For Ohio voters, the question is not whether lower taxes sound appealing. It is whether Ramaswamy can eliminate a tax that raises about $10 billion a year, reduce property taxes at the same time, and avoid forcing schools or local governments to come back to taxpayers for the money.

So far, his campaign has not shown how that equation balances.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Speaking in a June 25 interview on “The Guy Benson Show,” Husted said he shared the goal of shoring up Social Security but rejected the mechanism Moreno laid out with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

“We need to secure Social Security, need to protect it, we need to make it stronger,” Husted said, adding that any fix “will require a bipartisan solution.”

He drew the line at the tax change at the heart of the proposal. “But I’m not on board with the approach that they’ve outlined in terms of the process that they’re outlining with the tax increase, the targeted tax increase that they have,” Husted said. He called Moreno a friend and colleague, then added: “This rifle approach with the giant tax increases, not the way that I would, not the way I’d go about it.”

Moreno and Warren outlined their plan in a New York Times op-ed published Tuesday, June 23. The two say they are drafting legislation to remove the cap on wages subject to the 12.4% Social Security payroll tax. For 2026, that tax applies only to the first $184,500 of a worker’s earnings; income above that threshold is not taxed for Social Security. Workers and employers each pay 6.2%, while self-employed workers pay the full 12.4%.

“Instead of cutting benefits for the retirees who count on Social Security, we need to take bipartisan action to protect those benefits, reward work and restore fairness,” the senators wrote. “That starts with a common-sense solution: lifting the Social Security payroll tax cap.” They argued the current structure is unfair, asking why a middle-class nurse should pay a larger share of her paycheck than a wealthy corporate lawyer. TiffinOhio.net has previously reported on the proposal.

The debate carries direct stakes for Ohio. Federal trustees this month projected the trust fund that pays retirement benefits will be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032, at which point scheduled benefits would drop to about 78% without congressional action. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that would cost the average Ohio beneficiary about $487 a month.

Independent analysts have said lifting the cap would meaningfully improve solvency but would not close the gap on its own. Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called the Moreno-Warren idea a reasonable one that could erase roughly half the shortfall and delay insolvency by about 22 years, while cautioning it is not a complete fix. The conservative Tax Foundation, meanwhile, has argued that removing the cap would amount to one of the largest tax increases in decades and warned it would carry economic costs.

Husted’s opposition puts him at odds with Moreno at a moment when Social Security has become a flashpoint in Ohio politics. It also follows Husted’s own push, late last year, for a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget — a proposal that budget analysts warned could force deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare, as TiffinOhio.net previously reported.

Husted is running in the November 3 special election to keep the Senate seat he was appointed to after JD Vance became vice president. His opponent, former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, has made protecting Social Security a centerpiece of his campaign; Brown sponsored the 2024 Social Security Fairness Act, which restored full benefits for many public retirees. Moreno defeated Brown in the 2024 Senate race.

Moreno and Warren say their legislation is still being written and that details have not been released. Any change to Social Security would require approval by Congress.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Spencer Linke, 30, of the 100 block of West Madison Street, entered the pleas to 10 second-degree felonies before Sandusky County Common Pleas Judge Jon M. Ickes on Wednesday, June 24, according to court records. The court accepted the pleas, entered a finding of guilt and continued Linke’s bond.

The counts to which Linke pleaded guilty include charges of pandering obscenity involving a minor or impaired person and pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor or impaired person. He pleaded guilty to the 10 counts in exchange for the dismissal of 15 additional felony charges, according to court records.

Ickes scheduled sentencing for Monday, Aug. 17, at 1:30 p.m.

A Sandusky County grand jury indicted Linke on March 20 on 25 second-degree felonies — 14 counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor or impaired person and 11 counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor or impaired person, court records show. The indictment alleged that between December 2024 and April 2025, Linke possessed or downloaded multiple videos depicting minors engaged in sexual activity, as TiffinOhio.net reported in April.

Linke pleaded not guilty on March 27 and was released on a $75,000 surety bond with no 10 percent option, posted through a bail bond company. A jury trial had been scheduled for June 30 before he changed his plea. He is represented by attorney Samuel Gold of Northwood.

Each second-degree felony count carries a maximum of 12 years in prison, according to court records. Under Ohio’s indefinite sentencing law, a judge selects a minimum term from a range of two to eight years, with a maximum equal to the minimum plus 50 percent; an eight-year minimum yields the 12-year maximum. When a defendant is sentenced on more than one felony, the counts may run concurrently or consecutively at the judge’s discretion.

A conviction under either statute also classifies Linke as a Tier II sex offender, requiring him to verify his home and work addresses every six months for 25 years, court records state.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

That earlier funding, he said, is intended to help the agency keep track of fraud throughout the federal government and to oversee a substantial increase to the annual defense budget should Congress agree to provide the $1.5 trillion requested. 

“That would be one of those portfolios that we feel like we have nowhere near the number of (full-time employees) to be able to provide accountability for,” Vought said of the proposed defense budget. “And we are trying to invest in tools that would allow us to use technology to do OMB’s work better.”

The Office of Management and Budget, the agency’s official title, would then use the increase in its annual funding level to update a computer system, provide security and pay rent in two locations while it moves office space.

OMB asked Congress to approve $146.1 million in its annual spending bill, which is supposed to become law before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1. That would represent a 13.3% increase compared to its current funding level if both chambers agree to match the request. 

The $100 million that Republicans provided OMB in their “big, beautiful” law last year is in addition to the agency’s annual budget. 

Vought testified during a hearing before the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee the agency hopes to increase the number of full-time employees from about 500 to 675.

Whether other agencies will be able to bolster their funding levels and staffing will be up to their directors, Vought said. 

Proposed cuts across departments

The Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request asked Congress to cut domestic spending by 10% and increase defense spending to $1.5 trillion, a $445 billion increase.

The proposal envisions cuts to spending across several departments, including Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Interior, Labor and State. 

Lawmakers from both political parties pressed Vought about staff reductions and funding cuts throughout the federal government, some of which were carried out by the U.S. Doge Service. 

New York Republican Rep. Nick LaLota asked why OMB allowed staffing at the World Trade Center Health Program to drop from 93 to 84 employees, despite it being approved for 120 people. 

“There were delays reported in claims of processing, treatment authorizations and enrollment appeals,” LaLota said. “For a program serving 9/11 first responders and survivors, what should have OMB’s early warning indications have been that those staffing levels were dropping to dangerously low levels that would impede their ability to deliver on this important mission?”

Vought testified OMB was unaware of the issues at the program. 

“OMB does not have this all-encompassing view of what is happening across the entire federal government,” he said. “We are a nerve center, I would agree with that, but we do not have the ability to know everything that is happening in the agencies.”

Screwworm and foreign aid

Georgia Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop asked Vought a series of questions about whether cuts to staff at the USDA had an impact on the New World screwworm, which had resurfaced in the United States after six decades without a case.  

“We don’t believe that this issue is under-resourced,” Vought said. “We believe that USDA has everything it needs to both create a long-term capability here and also find as many shots on goal to be able to deal with this in real time for farmers.”

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan pressed Vought repeatedly during a tense exchange about whether cuts to foreign aid programs, including those at the U.S. Agency for International Development, led to deaths.

Vought said “there is nothing about those studies that has caused us to think differently about” the Trump administration’s approach to foreign aid spending.  

Pocan asked Vought whether he believes it’s morally or ethically wrong “to facilitate the death of children.”

Vought responded he doesn’t believe the Trump administration’s actions have led to that and that the United States provides “adequate foreign aid.”

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

But on Tuesday, just days before the nation’s 250th anniversary, one thing was, for the most part, notably absent. The crowds. 

Early in the afternoon, few of the exhibits representing every state had lines to enter. Most were small rooms with a few tables showcasing artwork or cultural items, with a trickle of guests politely making their way through. Concessions areas were plenty and unfilled. 

Some attendees said the heat might have hurt attendance. The Washington, D.C. area saw temperatures in the high 80s to low 90s most of the day Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. 

It’s only going to get hotter. Temperatures through the rest of the week are expected to reach highs of up to 105 degrees, with a heat index of more than 110 degrees. 

‘Every state has something to contribute’

Pamela Lathrop, 56, of Florida, said more people will likely attend as it gets closer to the Fourth of July. 

“It’s getting busier as the day lets on, and so I hope everybody comes today, because I hear tomorrow’s gonna be really hot,” she said. “But I don’t really pay attention to crowd size. I’m just here enjoying myself, and I’m glad that D.C. put this on, and I think it’s a good thing to celebrate our 250 years.” 

Lathrop, who traveled from The Sunshine State for the 250th, added that she’s staying through the weekend to attend Independence Day celebrations and President Donald Trump’s speech on Saturday. What’s billed as an extraordinary fireworks display is scheduled to finish out the Fourth in the nation’s capital.

Despite the rising temperatures, more guests continued to arrive throughout the day, and the state exhibits started to fill up. 

Doug Woody, 66, of Fairfax, said the event felt different from a classic state fair, but that it was well put together. 

“I think this is really more to promote the U.S.A. and give the individual states a chance to show what they bring to the table,” he said. “Every state has something to contribute, you know? Maybe some states have put a little bit more time and energy into it than others, but overall, I mean, they’re here, so they’re representing, so that’s good.” 

Trump’s Freedom250

The Great American State Fair is part of Freedom250, the Trump administration’s marquee celebration of the nation’s semiquincentennial. It is separate from America 250, the nonpartisan commission created by Congress tasked with organizing its own celebration of the anniversary. 

Not all states are staffing booths at the fair. A spokesperson for Washington state’s lieutenant governor’s office told States Newsroom the administration declined to join because of “the costs to the state associated with participating.”

According to news reports, Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont did not contribute exhibits, though many are still represented by flags outside the individual booths. 

Pennsylvania did not initially take part but on June 27, Pennsylvania’s two U.S. senators, Dave McCormick and John Fetterman, announced that a coalition of Pennsylvania organizations would represent the state in its booth. 

Oregon resident Michael Lowe Mackenzie said he was surprised there weren’t more people in attendance Tuesday. He added that the celebration should not be partisan toward any one side or political figure, but rather “disconnected from all of that.” 

“I want to celebrate our nation’s history, warts and all, unobfuscated,” 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.

Nearly 13,000 of those acres are in Egypt Valley Wildlife Area in Belmont and Guernsey counties. The commission is required to pick the “highest and best bid” per Ohio law. 

There was no discussion for most of the bids or nominations. Commission Chair Theresa White did not take questions from the media after the meeting. 

These bids in Egypt Valley Wildlife Area were approved for fracking during Monday’s meeting: 

• Oklahoma-based Gulfport Appalachia, LLC had the winning bid for 4,360 acres for $76,306,755 ($17,500/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 7.5% of production. 

• Oklahoma-based Ascent Resources – Utica, LLC had the winning bid for 366.495 acres for $4,583,752.97 ($12,507/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 5.5% of production. 

• Texas-based Grenadier Energy III, LLC had the winning bid for 3846.934 acres for $61,577,872.54 ($16,007/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 7.5% of production. 

• Grenadier Energy III, LLC had the winning bid for 2792.67745 acres for $44,702,387.94 ($16,007/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 7.5% of production. 

• Grenadier Energy III, LLC had the winning bid for 849.881 acres for $13,604,045.17 ($16,007/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 7.5% of production. 

• Grenadier Energy III, LLC had the winning bid for 746.85 acres for $11,954,827.95 ($16,007/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 7.5% of production.

Fracking is the process of injecting liquid into the ground at a high pressure to extract oil or gas.

There were approximately 2,000 incidents associated with oil and gas wells in Ohio from 2015-2023, according to FracTracker Alliance — a nonprofit that collects data on fracking pipelines. 

There’s evidence that shows increased exposure to fracking impacts health, in particular children’s health, including low birth weight, preterm births, congenital anomalies, and asthma, according to Yale School of Medicine. 

Bids for about 1,840 acres in Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area in Harrison County were approved for fracking during Monday’s meeting: 

• Gulfport Appalachia, LLC had the winning bid for 382.810 acres for $6,699,175 ($17,500/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 7.5% of production. 

• Ascent Resources had the winning bid for 1,460.559 acres for  $18,267,211.41 ($12,507/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 5.5% of production.

West Virginia-based Infinity Natural Resources was awarded the bid to frack 513 acres in Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County for $3,848,325 ($7,500/acre). There is an additional financial incentive of 7.5% of production. 

Texas-based EOG Resources Incorporated was awarded the bid to frack 6.8 acres at Noble Correctional Institution in Noble County. 

Gulfport Appalachia, LLC was approved to frack four bids, EOG Resources was approved to frack seven bids, Ascent Resources was approved to frack four bids, and Grenadier Energy III was approved to frack four bids. 

Each lease agreement includes a 12.5% royalty paid to the state based on production of oil and gas at that site, per state law, with an additional financial incentive paid by the winning bidder to the state, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. 

The lease bonuses for this round of nominations totals more than $241.2 million, according to ODNR. 

All but one bid was approved during Monday’s meeting. About six acres in Tuscarawas County along State Route 800 was the only bid that was not approved because the nominator withdrew the bid, so no valid bids were submitted, according to ODNR. 

The bidders now go through the regulatory and permitting process through the ODNR Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management, as required by law. 

Four different bid selections totaling more than 8,360 acres of land in Egypt Valley were denied to be frack — 5,439 acres, 1,285 acres, 777 acres, and 863 acres. 

“Those nominations included parcels that have already been bid out,” said ODNR spokesperson Andy Chow.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law last week that would speed up the process to frack Ohio state parks and public lands. 

Ohio Senate Bill 219 was introduced by Ohio state Sen. Al Landis, R-Dover and it will give the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission 90 days to decide on a nomination to frack public land — half the amount of time they previously had.  

It will also require the commission to pick the “highest and best bid” within 60 days; currently there is no deadline. 

Advocates for protecting Ohio’s public lands from fracking booed and shouted their disapproval during the meeting: 

“No fracking our parks.” 

“Sounds like a rubber-stamping broken record to me.” 

“Hands off our land.” 

About a dozen people gathered outside the Ohio Department of Public Safety building before Monday’s meeting to protest fracking Ohio’s land. 

“Wake up, commissioners. We cannot give any more of our land to gas and oil,” said Judy Smucker, with Third Act Ohio.

“We care for the future of our children, and we will not give up. We have to follow the science, and unless someone like you, all of us cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.” 

Randi Pokladnik lives about 20 minutes from Jockey Hollow and had a well pad less than a mile from her home during the fracking phase. 

“It was like living on an airport runway,” she said. “We couldn’t even talk to ourselves. My husband and I had to yell in the driveway when we were outside.” 

Terri Sabo lives outside the Salt Fork State Park. 

“Our lands are being destroyed by the oil and gas industry,” she said. “Our parks are being sold off to out-of-state companies from Texas, Oklahoma or West Virginia for the ‘best and highest bid,’ even if there is only one bid.” 

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.

Until Thursday, Temporary Protected Status gave about 330,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians nationwide  a shield from deportation and access to work permits.

About 30,000 Haitians with temporary status live in central Ohio and an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 Haitians call Springfield home, with a mixture of temporary protected status, citizenship and other legal statuses.

Springfield became a flashpoint in the 2024 Election when Donald Trump and JD Vance spread racist lies about Haitian immigrants there.

The TPS program was created in 1990 to help people fleeing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other conditions that make it too dangerous to return to their home countries, with regular reviews meant to ensure those conditions still exist.

Haitians had been covered by the program since 2011 after the earthquake there, and Syrians had been since 2012.

But in a 6-3 ruling last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that federal courts can not judge whether the Department of Homeland Security followed the correct legal process to end a country’s TPS designation, unless it violated the Constitution. It also allowed TPS terminations to take effect for Haiti and Syria.

Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement following the ruling that changing Haitians’ immigration status “is not in the best interest of the United States nor Ohio.”

Haitian TPS holders in Ohio contribute $160 million to the economy and $39 million in taxes every year.

Community leaders and immigration lawyers also warn that rampant violence makes returning to Haiti extremely dangerous.

Armed gangs control an estimated 90% of Haiti’s capital city and drive violence, displacement, and hunger across the country, according to the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid organization.

“All they’re trying to do is build a better life for their family and their children,” said Marc Fequière, founder of the Columbus-based Haitian Community Network.

“If you take these people, that many thousands, and you send them back, it’s a suicide mission.”

Work authorization and Ohio driver’s licenses for TPS holders are set to expire Wednesday, July 1.

Immigration lawyers who work with companies advise employers to address the ruling, including finding potential employment-based pathways to legal status, before workers lose their permits.

Here is what immigrant advocates in central Ohio advise for TPS holders and concerned community members after the ruling:

For TPS holders: Find reliable legal aid, prepare an exit plan, and know your rights

Attorneys who are licensed to practice law and regularly practice immigration law can help TPS holders explore other paths to legal status, said Stephanie Corcoran, the managing attorney for Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio’s immigration team, in a statement.

She emphasized that TPS holders should avoid people who simply fill out immigration paperwork.

TPS holders in Ohio can consult low-cost legal aid organizations like LASCO, nonprofit law firms like northwest Ohio-based Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, or community organizations like Columbus-based Community Refugee and Immigration Services for legal aid.

Community Refugee and Immigration Services does not provide legal assistance for court cases, but it can refer people to trusted immigration attorneys, staff attorney Jesse Vogel said.

TPS holders can also find licensed immigration lawyers in their area through the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s website.

Even when consulting a licensed immigration attorney, Vogel added that TPS holders should ask questions to clearly understand their options.

“I just encourage folks to understand the terms of the service so that they don’t get into something that is not what they’re after,” he said.

Fequière said TPS holders should create an exit plan in case they need to leave the country.

TPS holders should identify trusted community members who can manage any property they hold in the U.S., he said.

People who are deported in violation of immigration law do not automatically lose their property in the U.S., Fequière added.

Haitian Community Network is connecting TPS holders to financial advisers to help them manage their property, he said.

TPS holders should also plan for their children’s future if they cannot leave with them, he said.

Fifty thousand U.S. citizen children have at least one parent who is a Haitian TPS holder; many of them have never been to Haiti and do not speak Haitian Creole, Fequière said.

Advocates nationwide also urge people to know their rights during encounters with immigration enforcement officers, regardless of immigration status.

The American Civil Liberties Union provides printable “Know Your Rights” cards in English, French, Creole, Arabic, and several other languages.

For community members: Support local aid organizations and other political avenues for restoring TPS

Fequière advised TPS holders to take every precaution necessary to avoid breaking any laws.

When their driver’s licenses and work permits expire, that effort will become significantly more difficult, he said.

That’s why Fequière and other central Ohio organizations are preparing to help migrants with their daily errands, whether that’s driving to childcare or the grocery store.

He is also coordinating with community organizations to deliver basic necessities such as food and baby products.

Central Ohio organizations that serve the local Haitian community include religious groups like the African & Haitian Ministry of the Diocese of Columbus and Jewish Family Services, as well as housing advocacy groups like Rentful 614. Springfield-area organizations include Haitian Support Center, Haitian Community Alliance, and G92.

A bill that would extend Haiti’s TPS designation through 2029 passed the U.S. House and now sits in the U.S. Senate. The White House said President Donald Trump would veto the bill, though, meaning that it would likely need support from two-thirds of the House and Senate to pass.

Fequière encourages people to call their representatives and senators in support of the bill. The help from people around Ohio and across the country gives him hope, he added.

“Even in the harshest situations, we always find a way to come out of it … and we know that the community is not alone,” he said.

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

Pou li nouvèl sa a an kreyòl Ayisyen klike la a.

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

The Urban Institute released data from the 2024-2025 Reproductive Health Experiences and Access survey, a study looking to determine the impact of the overturning of nationwide abortion legalization on reproductive healthcare.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade with the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, returning the decision of abortion legality to individual states.

“Understanding whether and how people are facing challenges to accessing reproductive healthcare in the context of these changes will be key to mitigating health inequities and ensuring people get the care they want and need,” researchers Dulce Gonzalez and Emily M. Johnson wrote.

In 2023, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment to legalize abortion and other reproductive care with 57% approval.

Researchers found that, despite the constitutional amendment, 30% of Ohio residents participating in the survey “reported needing but not getting one or more types of care” between 2024 and 2025.

Reproductive healthcare noted in the study were services like pelvic exams, cervical cancer screenings, care for irregular or painful periods, birth control, fertility assistance, gender-affirming care, and menopause care.

“Factors like cost, insurance barriers, and difficulty securing an appointment can prevent people from accessing the care they want and need,” according to the institute analysis.

Of those Ohioans reporting a lack of needed care, 16% said they didn’t receive “preventive gynecologic care,” and 11% did not receive care for irregular or painful periods.

Another of the issues survey participants said they had trouble with was access to birth control, with 6% telling researchers they “delayed or had trouble getting the birth control method they wanted in the past year.”

The data from Ohio aligned with the Urban Institute’s national data, showing 16% of participants across the country lacking needed preventive gynecologic care, and 10% reporting a lack of menstrual period care.

Nationwide, 7% of survey-takers reported delays or struggles with access to birth control.

“Barriers to reproductive healthcare were not spread evenly across the population,” Gonzalez and Johnson wrote. “Young people, people with disabilities, and those who identify as LGBTQIA+ were more likely to report challenges to accessing reproductive healthcare.”

Individuals age 18 to 24 represented the biggest Ohio group to have delays or struggle obtaining birth control between 2024 and 2025, amounting to 9% of all Ohioans reporting access issues.

Members of the LGBTQIA+ community made up 12% of those having trouble getting birth control, according to researchers.

U.S. Census data showed that as of 2023, 2.4 million women were “of reproductive age” in Ohio.

Of those, 13.1% were low income, 27.2% were in minority groups, and 7.6% were uninsured, researchers noted.

While the study acknowledged Medicaid expansions in Ohio that provided health coverage to adults up to 138% of the federal poverty level, and pregnant women up to 205% of the level, it also pointed out a lack of expansion in state Medicaid coverage for family planning services.

Medicaid funding in Ohio can’t be used for abortion care.

Also mentioned as part of the research were ongoing court cases related to reproductive rights in Ohio.

Open cases in Ohio challenge the 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, telehealth regulations on medication abortion, and transfer agreements between hospitals and clinics who provide abortions.

Courts have put temporary blocks on enforcement of the 24-hour waiting period and telehealth abortion bans as lawsuits continue.

Ohio lawmakers are also trying to enact a second measure with a 24-hour waiting period for abortion in the current General Assembly.

With the legislature on break until after the November election, it’s unclear whether the measure will make it out before the term ends in December.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

In the short term, that means electricity is more expensive, and those costs eventually show up on residential power bills, it shows.

Perhaps more important, though, the report says, policies that keep aging plants running blunt the economic signals meant to drive investment toward newer, more efficient power plants.

“Without change,” Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Tom Bullock said, “we are operating the market with one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake. Consumers should not be forced to subsidize inefficiency.”

Downward spiral

The report complicates coal’s reputation as a as a reliable backstop when energy demand is high. Instead, it depicts coal as power source from an earlier era caught in a vicious cycle.

As old plants age out, there’s less demand for coal. With that demand declining, mining operations lose the economies of scale that allowed them to produce and deliver coal cheaply. Remaining coal plants face higher input costs, and the cost of maintenance increases as they get older as well.

Meanwhile, the grid has modernized, and favors power sources that can respond rapidly to changing conditions. The report states, “decades-old coal units, which were designed for steady, inflexible operation, are poorly suited to these conditions.” Repeated cycling to meet that demand only “accelerates mechanical wear, raises maintenance costs, and reduces efficiency.”

Ohio has seven coal power plants, according to the utility tracker Cleanview. The youngest began operation in 1990. The oldest started running 1955.

The report points to three cost recovery tools that keep “uneconomic” plants running when there might be cheaper alternatives.

The first is controlled at the state level, providing financial support through fees and riders on customers’ bills.

This was the arrangement under Ohio House Bill 6 that subsidized the Ohio Valley Electric Cooperative coal plants. Lawmakers eliminated those riders with Ohio House Bill 15 last year.

The other tools are controlled by the 13-state grid operator PJM Interconnection. The first, known as an uplift payment, covers the gap if the current market price is less than what it costs to run a power plant. The second, is a reliability must run contract, which keeps a plant headed for retirement running until other power sources can come online to replace it.

Why it matters

While the report stressed there are legitimate reasons to use any one of those tools in the short term, over time, they distort the market.

Paying power plants to run when they otherwise wouldn’t be profitable keeps the market price for energy artificially low. But because those payments eventually land with consumers, it’s not like they’re seeing a benefit from that lower price point.

Instead, the report argues, they could be missing out on the longer-term benefit of the actual, higher price point attracting power plant operators to invest in new facilities.

Bullock drew an allusion to the steroid era in major league baseball.

“The old players are being allowed to juice their performance. And what that does is it displaces the younger players that might come in on the roster and rejuvenate the team,” he said.

Bullock said Ohio “got its affairs in order” by eliminating OVEC subsidies through H.B. 15, “but it belongs to a league with 12 other teams, and the commissioner of the league, in this case is PJM.”

Reactions and recommendations

For its part, PJM defended its use of uplift payments and reliability must run contracts. In a statement, spokesman Jeffrey Sheilds stressed “PJM needs to operate the fleet of resources that is currently available.”

“At times,” he went on, “that means that uplift occurs when resources are needed for reliability; we work to minimize the amount of uplift while accounting for the uncertainties we must manage to maintain reliability. “

Shields added that reliability must run agreements “are necessary to preserve system reliability for those local consumers until transmission can be built to safely retire those resources,” and that federal regulators have oversight on those agreements.

The grid operator isn’t favoring or disfavoring any source of power, Shields said, “when we need every megawatt of power generated to manage our supply/demand imbalance being driven by data center growth.”

The Citizens Utility Board report made several recommendations. There should be greater transparency about cost recovery, they said, including the amount paid, the reasons it was necessary, and the beneficiaries.

The group called for “clearer cost allocation principles” to determine who pays when economic support is needed, as well as greater scrutiny for prolonged use of those tools “to distinguish more clearly between temporary reliability interventions and sustained support for aging, under-performing assets.”

The group also reiterated a longstanding complaint about how long it takes to get new power plants up and running.

“Improving the speed and predictability of these processes would reduce the perceived need for short-term reliability support and enable more cost-effective solutions to emerge,” the report stated.

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Independence Day is more than a celebration, it is a way to remember what was declared in Philadelphia in 1776: that our government should not rest on the will of a king, a faction, or a distant power, but on the consent of the governed.

That idea was revolutionary then. It remains our responsibility now.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is worth reflecting not only on what the Founders rejected, but on what they tried to build.

They objected to arbitrary power, to laws imposed without meaningful representation, and to courts dependent on political authority rather than justice.

In the Declaration, they accused King George III of undermining colonial legislatures and making judges dependent on his will alone.

Those grievances were not historical footnotes. They were warnings.

The Founders understood that liberty requires more than inspiring words. It requires institutions, laws, checks and balances, and citizens willing to defend them.

Building all of those into our constitution is what the Founders did to protect our future against the past abuses they soundly rejected. 

Our system has never been perfect. The promise of equality and self-government announced in 1776 was denied to many Americans for far too long.

But the genius of the American experiment is that each generation has been called upon to make the country more faithful to its founding principles. In large measure, we as a nation have heeded those calls. 

That work continues today.

Here in Ohio, the institutions of self-government are not abstractions. They are made up of people in our own communities: local officials who administer elections, judges who apply the law, clerks who maintain public records, lawyers who help resolve disputes, jurors who weigh evidence, and citizens who participate in civic life.

From county boards of elections to local courthouses, from jurors to public servants, these institutions may not always make headlines, but they are the backbone of our republic.

Our republic depends on trust — not blind trust, but earned trust.

Citizens have every right to ask questions, demand transparency, challenge decisions through lawful means, and expect accountability from those who serve the public. But our republic cannot endure if every institution is presumed illegitimate simply because it produces an outcome we dislike.

As a former federal judge who served on both the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, I have seen this up close.

During my years on the bench, I saw firsthand how much our constitutional system depends on the steady, often quiet work of people who serve their communities.

Our republic is sustained not only by founding ideals or public speeches, but by citizens and public servants who take their responsibilities seriously: following the law, respecting established procedures, weighing evidence, correcting mistakes when they occur, and accepting lawful outcomes even when they are disappointing or politically inconvenient.

The rule of law is what separates self-government from raw power.

Courts do not exist to favor one party, one candidate, or one public official. Judges do not serve a political cause.

Election administrators do not serve a political cause. Public servants, judges, and local officials swear oaths not to personalities, but to constitutions, laws, and the people they serve.

They and the work they do deserve thanks and respect, not derision. 

This is especially important in moments of political tension. When our preferred candidate wins, it is easy to praise the system.

The real test comes when our side loses. Peaceful transitions of power, respect for lawful outcomes, and reliance on evidence rather than rumor are not partisan values. They are American values.

This is also why civic education matters and why I am a member of Keep Our Republic’s Article III Coalition.

The Coalition brings together a bipartisan group of retired federal district and circuit court judges appointed by presidents from both parties.

This bipartisan coalition is committed to the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the importance of an independent judiciary.

Through this work, Keep Our Republic helps citizens better understand the systems that protect self-government: how courts review evidence, how disputes are resolved, how elections are administered, and how constitutional safeguards preserve peaceful transitions of power.

It is our civic duty to help citizens understand how the process works, who runs it, and where lawful remedies exist when disputes arise.

In a healthy republic, disagreement is expected. But disagreement must be channeled through evidence, law, courts, elections, and constitutional order — not threats, rumors, or contempt for every institution that stands in the way of our preferred result.

On our nation’s 250th Independence Day, let us recommit ourselves to that work — here in Ohio, in our communities, and across the republic we have inherited and must keep.

Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley is formerly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She is a member of Keep Our Republic’s Article III Coalition.

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

Lawmakers in Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia passed laws between January and May of this year restricting access to voting, according to an analysis of publicly available data by the Brennan Center and the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

Champions of such laws say they protect election integrity and ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in elections.

“Safeguarding the electoral process to improve oversight and prevent unlawful influence has been a top priority for my administration since my first days in office,” said Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis  in an April statement announcing his signature on a sweeping new elections bill.

“This legislation strengthens the security, transparency and reliability of Florida’s election system.”

But the new laws have alarmed voting rights advocates, who say they will disenfranchise eligible voters and add extra burdens for older people, people with disabilities and those, such as married women, whose last names don’t match their birth certificates due to a name change.

“In Mississippi, rural voters may have to drive hours roundtrip to reach the office where they can obtain official records,” said Sonya Williams Barnes, Mississippi policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, in a March statement condemning a new state law  that beefs up citizen verification requirements for voters.

“For people living on fixed incomes, cost matters.”

Even some Republicans have noted that noncitizen voting is extremely rare. A yearlong review of Utah’s voter rolls completed in May found just 27 confirmed noncitizens out of more than 2 million registered voters.

“This demonstrates that there is not a widespread problem (with noncitizens voting), and that states and our county clerks, for the most part, do a very good job of making sure that our voter rolls are clean, and that only eligible voters are registering,” Utah’s Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, said at a news conference in May announcing the results, as reported by the Utah News Dispatch.

The new raft of laws only applies to state and local elections; voters who don’t provide proof of citizenship as outlined in the state laws are still able to vote in federal races. Federal law doesn’t require proof of citizenship to vote, though only U.S. citizens can legally cast a ballot.

Many of the new laws focus on the identification documents required to be able to vote. Florida, Mississippi,  South Dakota and Utah now require proof of citizenship before a person can register to vote in state and local elections. Some, such as Florida, New Hampshire and Utah, have narrowed the types of identifying documents that will be accepted.

Florida’s sweeping new elections law has been dubbed the Florida SAVE Act. It won’t go into effect until next year, but it’s similar to the federal SAVE Act backed by President Donald Trump. He’s currently trying to push Congress to approve it by refusing to sign a bipartisan housing bill.

Florida’s new law requires proof of U.S. citizenship for anyone registering to vote, and requires the state to cross-check registration applications against government databases. Much like the proposed federal SAVE America Act, Florida’s version stipulates that if someone’s name on their citizenship document is different from the name on their current ID, they must provide proof of a legal name change. Experts believe this will particularly burden married women and others who have changed their surnames.

Other states have granted federal authorities the right to check voter lists for people they  believe aren’t citizens.

Kentucky’s omnibus elections law, passed in April, includes a provision granting federal authorities the right to check voter lists for people they believe aren’t citizens. Mississippi’s law requires the state to check prospective voters against a federal citizenship database.

And some new laws that aren’t explicitly about election integrity have the potential to impact who votes in the midterms.

In Kansas, a new law that requires Kansans to use the bathroom of their biological sex at birth in government buildings also says Kansans must use the gender of their biological sex at birth on their driver’s licenses. This could invalidate one major type of accepted identification that Kansas voters must show to be able to cast a vote in person. It particularly affects transgender voters because it invalidates documents such as  birth certificates and drivers licenses that were previously issued to them.

Many of the states that have passed new voting laws, such as Kentucky and Utah, are being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for not providing voter registration data to the feds.

Republican officials in these states have resisted sharing state voter rolls, which include personal information like birth dates and Social Security numbers, without court order.

“Neither state nor federal law entitles the Department of Justice to collect private information on law-abiding American citizens,” Henderson, the Republican lieutenant governor of Utah, said in a post on X in February.

Many state Democratic leaders also have criticized the laws.

“We already have a system in place to verify people’s citizenship and it is working,” South Dakota Democratic Party Chair Shane Merrill said in a statement after the state’s new proof of citizenship law passed in March. “There have been no instances of noncitizens voting in our elections. Instead, this law creates a two-tiered system in our state, telling some South Dakotans that they aren’t good enough to vote.”

Some state voting laws are now facing legal challenges. In Florida, voting rights advocates filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state’s SAVE Act, hoping to block it before it goes into effect in 2027. The plaintiffs claim the new law throws up barriers to voting and will disenfranchise people who are otherwise eligible to vote.

In New Hampshire, a federal judge struck down a 2024 Republican-backed law that required hard proof of citizenship to register to vote; the state has just appealed the ruling with a few months to go before the September state primary.

Some states are still considering new voting restrictions. Next week, the North Carolina House is expected to vote on an election bill that passed from committee without unanimous Republican support. The legislation would require voter identification from military and overseas voters, among other restrictions.

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.

At issue is a “medically frail” designation that the states say is too narrow and will make it too difficult for ill and disabled people to remain on Medicaid.

They’re challenging the administration’s guidance on who can be exempt from the work requirements included in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the broad tax and spending measure President Donald Trump signed a year ago.

Medicaid is the publicly-funded health insurance for people with low incomes. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, states that have expanded Medicaid eligibility to more adults under the Affordable Care Act — 40 states plus the District of Columbia — must require those adults to prove they’re working, going to school or serving their communities for at least 80 hours a month to receive Medicaid. Georgia, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, which have used federal waivers to expand their Medicaid programs, are also subject to the new work rules.

The new lawsuit specifically targets new federal guidance that narrows the definition of who can qualify as “medically frail,” a key exemption used to excuse Medicaid recipients from work requirements if they have serious disabilities or illnesses. The guidance came in the form of an interim final rule published this month by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The Democratic attorneys general and governors who are plaintiffs in the suit claim the feds surprised them with this new rule months after they’d already been working with CMS on how to implement the work requirements.

“This eleventh-hour attempt to further narrow protections for medically frail Medicaid recipients seeks to punish those who cannot fend for themselves,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, a Democrat, in a statement.

“Further, this Administration is once again attempting to sidestep Congress by unlawfully reinterpreting the law, and coercing the states to rush to implement their last-minute changes or face penalties,” he said.

To qualify as “medically frail” and therefore exempt from work requirements, the new guidance says, a Medicaid recipient must have a significant health condition and be significantly impaired in their ability to work. It’s a distinction the states say Congress did not make in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The states also claim the new guidance violates federal law by ignoring evidence that work requirements cause people to lose coverage due to red tape.

For example, Arkansas tried instituting work requirements for Medicaid recipients in 2018, during Trump’s first term. A federal judge halted the policy less than a year later, after 18,000 adults had lost coverage. Studies later found that Arkansas’ work requirements didn’t increase employment. A recent analysis from the Urban Institute projects that 3-7 million people could lose coverage because of the new work requirements.

Supporters of the new work rules say they are sufficiently flexible and that the category of who qualifies as “medically frail” remains broad.

“This rule helps Americans build skills and independence through work, education, job training, or community service, creating new opportunities for themselves and their families,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, director for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in a statement earlier this month announcing the new guidance.

The lawsuit says states have already invested significant resources into implementing the new work requirements based on the original law’s language and prior federal guidance. They’re staring down an August 31, 2026, deadline for notifying Medicaid recipients about changes to the “medically frail” designation, a timeline the states say is not workable. They face financial penalties for not meeting the deadline.

States are expected to put the new work requirements into place by January 1, 2027, though the feds could choose to grant them temporary extensions through 2028.

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

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.

Cases like that of Pacheco, who has applied for legal status through three U.S. citizen children, are what the Supreme Court has to consider when it rules next year on the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy. 

Justices are expected to hear the case as soon as October after the U.S. solicitor general requested the court to resolve conflicting rulings on the matter from appeals courts. 

The Trump administration’s policy requires detention without bond for anyone who crossed a border illegally, and has been used to pressure immigrants into voluntary departure to escape sometimes squalid conditions.

For now, plenty of U.S. district judges are questioning the idea that immigrants should be incarcerated indefinitely at the whim of the executive branch. 

Stateline reviewed every immigrant habeas petition case decided in a single day — June 16 — across the country, in order to sample judicial opinion. A habeas case is a request from an immigration prisoner for a judge to review the legality of his imprisonment and order a bond hearing or release. 

Of the cases that were decided that day, judges released detainees immediately or ordered bond hearings 142 times, and denied them only 36 times. Many of the judges, even Republican appointees, argued that unlimited detention was unconstitutional.

One of those judges was U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison, who heard Pacheco’s case.

After being picked up in California, Pacheco was held in Houston, and filed a habeas case in Texas.  Ellison ruled that it was a violation of Pacheco’s civil rights to detain him for months. He ordered Pacheco to be freed immediately.

“Given the severity of this ongoing unconstitutional deprivation of liberty, the Court concludes that immediate release from custody is required,” Ellison wrote. 

He wrote that he recognized that the Trump policy applied to Pacheco, and that it was upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs Texas, but said that he was releasing the man anyway. 

“The Due Process clause does not permit the government to ‘detain any noncitizen, no matter how long they have actually lived in the United States, for any length of time, without any individualized justification [merely because] that person initially entered the country without lawful admission,’” Ellison wrote, partially quoting a 2003 Supreme Court ruling. 

Ellison is a Democratic appointee from the Bill Clinton administration, but judges from both parties, including Trump nominees, ordered bond hearings for immigrants and found the Trump policy unconstitutional. They included judges in states where appeals courts had already upheld the policy. 

Many judges are going beyond bond hearings and ordering release directly, as Ellison did. In some situations the judges are holding the legal cases open to make sure releases are made or bond hearings are fair. 

Few immigrants get bond hearings because of the policy, making court challenges their only recourse, said Xin Tian, an attorney representing an immigrant who was released June 16 in a California case. His client’s case was among those reviewed by Stateline.

“The individual’s only recourse for release is to seek a writ of habeas corpus,” Tian wrote in an email to Stateline. “Fortunately, federal judges uphold the Constitution and will grant such a writ, leading to direct release. Aside from this, there are virtually no other ways to obtain release.”

A Trump appointee in Texas, U.S. District Judge Jason K. Pulliam, ordered five releases in one day, calling the detentions “unlawful” and ordering immediate release during court proceedings. In each case, he wrote that the detainee “has no known criminal history, had been complying with the terms of a prior release, and there is no indication of flight risk or danger to the community.”  

He acknowledged in court papers that he made the rulings despite the fact that an appeals court ruling for the Fifth Circuit — affecting Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — had concluded mandatory detention was legal in those cases.

A President Joe Biden appointee in Utah, U.S. District Judge Ann Marie McIff Allen, was one of the rare judges to agree with the Trump administration’s policy, according to Stateline’s review. 

McIff Allen denied a petition for a bond hearing by a man from Venezuela who had arrived in Texas in 2024 to seek asylum. He had scheduled an appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection through an official mobile app, then settled in Florida. 

His immigration case was still pending when the Trump administration revoked his parole and arrested him in May. The man was “not entitled to immediate release or a bond hearing,” McIff Allen ruled, acknowledging that “some district courts have determined the issue differently.” 

The detention was legal under a Trump administration policy that interprets immigration law to mean all immigrants who arrived illegally can be treated as if they’re at the border “seeking admission” to the country. 

Stateline found only seven cases where judges favorably cited the administration’s policy of mandatory detention when denying a habeas case. Besides the ruling from a Biden appointee in Utah, there were six involving Trump judicial appointees: four in New York and one each in Puerto Rico and Texas. 

U.S. District Judge Raúl M. Arias-Marxuach, a Trump appointee, denied release to Marcelo Jerez, a Dominican Republic native living in Puerto Rico with a U.S. citizen wife and sick 1-year-old child who required his help with monitoring and care.  

“The crux of this case has been the subject of myriad lawsuits throughout the nation and dutiful judges have reached divergent answers,” Arias-Marxuach wrote. 

But relatively few judges in the Stateline review considered the mandatory detention policy valid: Four of the other six cases for the day that did so, other than the Utah case, were denied by a single judge, Trump appointee Judge John L. Sinatra in New York’s Western District court.

Sinatra wrote in one of the cases, for a Venezuelan man who had been allowed into the country in 2024 on parole, that such people should be treated as if they were still at the border “seeking admission,” and face mandatory detention, and should not get the constitutional rights of someone already in the United States with legal status.

“How could it be otherwise? If he were not seeking admission he would have given up and departed already,” Sinatra wrote in his decision. 

David Wilson, a Minnesota immigration attorney who serves on an immigration court committee for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that criminal records among immigration detainees are a bone of contention among judges. There’s widespread disagreement over whether they should be detained indefinitely without bond, he said, even if a U.S. citizen in the same circumstance would be freed on bond in a criminal court. 

“This kind of lingering question is, how long is too long for people with criminal records? Some circuits have come along and said, ‘There is not too long because your criminal activity is what it is, you’re just stuck, if you want to end this stop fighting your case,’” Wilson said. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

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

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

Originally published on TiffinOhio.net.

HUD is currently finalizing a rule that would allow public housing authorities and property owners who participate in federal housing voucher programs to impose work requirements and time limits on work-ready adults, or working-age adults (younger than 62) who are not disabled.

The federal agency says members of the coalition support the idea of giving housing authorities and providers discretion to require work of up to 40 hours per week for nonelderly, nondisabled adults, supplementing those rules with job training and other supportive services.

HUD argues that current housing policies discourage work and self-sufficiency, and extend the amount of time that people remain on housing assistance. In a social media post, Public and Indian Housing Assistant Secretary Ben Hobbs said the new requirements could generate over $500 million in new resident income.

In 2023, 31% of the people receiving federal housing assistance were nonelderly, nondisabled adults. Of that group, 44% were working and 56% were not, according to a 2025 report by the Congressional Research Service.

More than a hundred public housing authorities, tribes, property owners and community groups have joined the Work & Dignity Coalition, according to HUD. The National Housing Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for more low-income housing, produced a list of 58 entities, including the public housing authorities in Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Tampa.

Less than 1% of public housing authorities, known as Moving-to-Work agencies, are currently allowed to impose time limits or work requirements on people receiving housing assistance. HUD cites Champaign County, Illinois — which requires each able-bodied adult to work or be in school for at least 15 hours per week, and each household to generate 30 hours of work income at the minimum wage.

“I think that the important thing to note is that this is all about self-sufficiency, even if there might be some fear over what is required and how that would affect their housing,” said Peyton Pannell-Johnson, a spokesperson for the Housing Authority of Champaign County. “There is a team that needs to connect people to work, and then a team that follows up with each client.”

But housing advocates argue that the proposed requirements will make it more difficult for people to keep their housing assistance. The Congressional Research Service also warned in its 2025 report that imposing work requirements on federal aid recipients often trips up people who are working already.

“Work requirements can increase the burden for working recipients to prove that they remain eligible for benefits by requiring that they produce additional or more frequent information about their wages and hours,” the research agency stated. “There is an inherent tension between helping families meet their basic needs and promoting work in low-income assistance programs.”

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.