Constitutional maneuvering at the Ohio Statehouse

Constitutional maneuvering at the Statehouse.

Welcome to Columbus.

On the Record.

Larry Householder case showed us that hardball politics that was hidden from view until he was indicted and tried.

This week, the hardball politics was there out in the open for all to see.

Republicans held a hearing to try to change the Ohio Constitution so it would require a 60% vote to change the Ohio Constitution.

Supporters openly admit it's a move to thwart a possible November vote to guarantee abortion rights.

And this week Senate President, Matt Huffman said he wants an August election for the 60% threshold question, even though lawmakers made such elections illegal a couple of months ago.

House Speaker Jason Stevens says he does not support the August election.

Jo Ingles Senate President Huffman Was this a a trial balloon floated out there?

See what kind of response it gets or is this really a possibility that could happen?

I think it's really a possibility that could happen.

I mean, this is something that that he's talking about.

Now, here's the thing.

I mean, it may be that there's a there are Republicans who don't like this idea.

Okay.

So they might not have the numbers to actually bring it forward.

But I think Senator Huffman, Senate President Huffman was dead serious when he said he wanted an August election.

And the funny thing about that is that the Ohio legislature just passed a law at the end of last year that outlawed August elections.

And it goes into effect or goes into effect April 7th.

And before it's even in effect, they're already wanting an August election.

Aside from the question of the abortion issue aside, Mark, is this a way to change Ohio's most important governing document?

Well, in order to change the America's most important document need a supermajority.

Two thirds of the Congress, both houses, three quarters of the states.

It ought to be difficult to change a constitution, because that ought to require more than just one party.

Right now, everyone's focused on the Republicans are in charge and they're going to do this for this reason.

Another party could be in charge in the future, and they could very easily put something on the ballot and with a simple majority, get a change to our Constitution.

We've seen special interest hijack our Constitution.

If you read our Constitution, you'll learn about gambling and all sorts of other stuff that really ought not be in there.

So the notion of getting everybody together on the same page and getting at least 60% consistent with the US Constitution ought to be for the Ohio Constitution.

But for this one, for this change, the 60% change, they want to rush it through and they want to do it in August when turnout is very low.

Should this at least wait until the November election?

I think it's.

Completely up to them.

Everybody can vote in every election.

Not everybody does want to wait.

Everybody should know.

And so those who don't vote in August have no reason to complain because they can show up just like I do, just like the rest of us do.

Morgan, at least some of the supporters of this are being open as to why they're doing this.

Senate President, Huffman for once saying This is an important issue.

We should put it on the ballot and try to stop it.

Do they have a point that it should be harder to change the Constitution?

Shouldn't just take a simple majority and 400,000 signatures?

Well, the fact that 400,000 signatures is an easy thing to come by in Ohio is is laughable.

That is a huge effort.

I also think that the supermajority point that Mark is making somewhat disregards just how Republicans have arrived at this supermajority in our Statehouse.

There have been a lot of tricks, a lot of disregard to the law to be able to secure this much power and stranglehold over our legislature.

And so we need to be very, very, very concerned about any additional barriers to actually ensuring that we have a real democracy here in Ohio.

Jo, you mentioned the votes might not be there because, yes, you need 60.

If this passes, you'd need 60% to change the Constitution that possibly could prevent the abortion rights issue from passage.

But ten years down the road, when there is another issue that perhaps Republicans want to change, then they would have to cross that 60% threshold.

Exactly.

And the other thing to remember here in this kind of tacked on to what Morgan was saying is, you know, the Republicans who are in the legislature say, we are duly elected and they don't really say we're here because of gerrymandering.

In fact, they fought against that, but the courts have said otherwise.

The Ohio Supreme Court has said multiple times it's gerrymandered and even the federal courts of that.

So the thing is that they are there because of a system that put them there.

This is a constitutional amendment that voters vote on.

And, you know, the thing that was brought up this week in the committee was that if you aren't afraid of your voters, you would let this go through and quit trying to bring this up.

But ultimately, the voters will decide.

So some of our viewers might oppose the death penalty.

Imagine a constitutional amendment to make the death penalty guaranteed.

And the lawmakers can't change it under the current rules.

Just in a slight majority of Ohio voters could put that in the Constitution.

It could not be changed.

Under the new rules that are being proposed.

It would require a supermajority, which would be much harder to get to guarantee that the death penalty would be available for murder cases.

Now, if this goes to the vote in August, this campaign against it is very simple.

Lawmakers want to take away your vote.

How do you how does that not pass?

How does that not get defeated?

Actually, because you still have your vote.

And like any tough issue, America would be less divided if we all got together and agreed on what we wanted.

And if we could get to a supermajority, then it's a small, distinct minority whos sore its when things passed just by a slight amount.

Look what's happening in the House of Representatives, just barely to the Republicans.

Have the Democrats in the Senate just barely.

Supermajorities require the parties to come together.

Well, yeah.

So I think I think it's very important to note that the reason why we're so divided is because we have lost faith.

Many people have lost faith in the system.

The idea that if an election is in August, that people are just going to show up because it's their patriotic duty to suggest that, one, people have the time to know what's going on two that, you know, God bless WOSU to all you're doing to inform the public.

But a lot of media is not using their platform to inform people of what's happening.

And this will not result in more people participating in the electoral process.

This will not result in ensuring that we have the rule of law in Ohio.

And I, I just cannot emphasize enough how problematic it is to continue to move the goalpost and ensuring that the people's voice is heard.

Jason Stevens, the House speaker, says he has no interest in an August election.

He points out this law that was passed because of low turnout in August and the expense of an August election.

I remember in 2009, the city of Columbus passed a 25% income tax increase in the August election during a recession.

That was not an accident that it happened during that time.

Jason Stevens, is it dead if he doesn't want this?

Well, it's difficult.

If he doesn't want this, I guess it's not dead.

Nothing's ever dead at the statehouse.

So I've learned that a long time ago.

But the thing is that if you think about this, this whole proposal, you're letting 41% of the electorate determine what happens on any one particular constitutional amendment because they you're setting that bar at 60%.

So you've got a minority that would actually have the will over the majority.

55% mark the constitutional modernization Commission, I think looked at that.

I think Mike Curtain, the former publisher of The Dispatch, former lawmaker, said they had looked at 55% and they said that might be the number.

It should be more than a simple majority.

And once again, our U.S. Constitution requires two thirds of both houses.

Who thinks that's going to happen nowadays?

And then three quarters of all the blue and red states, it's supposed to be hard to change your governing document.

Let's get to our next topic.

While all this is happening at the statehouse.

Supporters of abortion rights are out collecting signatures to get their amendment on the ballot.

They need to gather more than 400,000 valid signatures by early July.

They say they are relying on trained volunteers over paid signatures, gatherers to gather those signatures.

Abortion rights opponents are running TV ads saying the amendment will hurt parental rights.

Opponents of the amendment have also gone to court to appeal the ballot board's unanimous approval to allow the process to move forward.

They argue the amendment violates Ohio's one issue rule.

Jo Ingles on that last point.

First, what is the two issues these folks say is in this amendment that violates that rule?

It is abortion according to them and everything else.

Those are the two issues that they see, that it should be divided that way.

But let's talk about that lawsuit.

It's two individuals.

It's not a group.

And these individuals, you don't see any of the major groups out there coming to back them.

And the ballot board that approved it as one issue has a majority of Republicans sitting on it who really don't like it.

In fact, one of them said she was horrified by the thought of it.

So it's not like the people on the ballot board are in favor of this issue.

They're very adamant that they're not.

But they have come to this conclusion.

And you've got two individuals in Cincinnati who are bringing this lawsuit.

And they're they're the ones trying to make the case.

Mark is this two issues?

Are it one, it's reproductive rights is the one issue they say is on the amendment.

But is it more than one?

It's a fair question.

The single subject concept is constantly coming up in Ohio, and the Ohio Supreme Court is the one that typically resolves whether or not something is a single subject that's going to end up with the Ohio Supreme Court.

And they'll decide.

What do you think?

I think it's two, I think it's any time you have to have a lot of words to explain a single concept.

Arguably, it's two concepts.

I'm not an expert in single subject, but I do think it's a legal question.

And the folks on the ballot board may not have appreciated it as much as the justices will.

So I think it's going to end up in the state Supreme Court.

You think it's one issue?

Oh, yeah, I think it's one issue.

I think we need to just do what we can to continue to preserve our ability to manage our health care in this ballot initiative as a way to do that.

And just so my way here, actually, I was I was presented with the signature by a volunteer.

Why are they relying on highly trained, they say, volunteers versus paid signature gatherers?

Is it because of what happened in the HB 6 repeal?

The funny business that was going on with those signature gatherers.

You know, not not involved in any of those decisions.

But I do think that there is a way to maybe avoid some of that undue influence.

But then also this is going to take a real grassroots effort, and you have to build that kind of momentum.

And people who are committed enough to volunteer are also probably going to be able to activate their communities to pay attention to this.

And you can really spread the word very quickly that way.

Well, that's true.

But Mike, you raised an interesting point.

This is the first major petition gathering effort since House Bill 6 when we saw the craziest antics.

Not just paid versus volunteer, but also counter petitions and blockers and lawsuits.

And Paying folks to leave town.

All sorts of stuff which I had never seen before.

I've done, I think, 12 statewide ballot issues in my career, and I've never seen anything like what happened.

House Bill 6.

This is the first big effort where we will see whether any of those tactics will leak into the process.

You've worked on these, can you get something on the ballot with only trained volunteers?

It's really hard and I did not work on House Bill 6.

I'm not working on this one, but it's very hard and remember what the next step is.

Assuming you get the signatures.

Here comes the lawyers from both sides arguing over whether signatures are valid and whether that person really lives there, and whether you can cross out an entire petition because of the mistake on the petitions.

And that'll be the next battle in this war.

But I have not heard specifically that they are going to use only volunteers.

They said majority.

Yeah, they're going to rely on them.

But they I have heard they are also going to consider using some paid volunteers, but they want to basically depend on the volunteers.

One of the criticisms is this is out-of-state interest trying to force this on Ohioans by using or saying you're using volunteers.

Do the abortion rights supporters counter that they're using out-of-state collection firms signature collection firms.

Yeah, I think I think that makes it seem like a more authentic and again grassroots experience and initiative.

And I will also say just having had experience with campaigning and trying to gather signatures that oftentimes volunteers accomplish one that era of authenticity and that they do feel more familiar.

Like you're you're saying, Mark, it doesn't sometimes the paid the paid signature gatherers can seem a little bit unclear on what they're gathering signatures for.

But if you've signed up to be a volunteer, you pretty much understand the message and also have experience probably in this exercise.

So yeah, we'll see.

But this there's no doubt that there are so many people throughout Ohio who are very concerned about the stripping away of rights that have occurred.

And that is where this effort is coming from.

Any attempt to suggest that this is a special interest effort is really just trying to distract the public from the core issue here.

All right.

While we wait to learn how much prison time former House Speaker Larry Householder and lobbyist Matt Borgest get the bill, the law that got them convicted remains on the books.

House Bill 6.

Of course, the bailout of the nuclear power plants was stripped away from that bill soon after the indictments.

But other provisions of House Bill 6 remain in place.

Ohio ratepayers still pay subsidies for two coal fired plants.

One of them is in Indiana.

The bill also turned back requirements that Ohio move to using more renewable energy sources.

A couple of House Democrats want to fully repeal that law and refund the subsidies.

Ratepayers have already made.

Morgan Harper, this is a free market issue.

You have on one side government through forcing ratepayers to pay a subsidizing two poorly performing coal plants.

On the other hand, you have government helping the renewable energy side.

Which is better?

Which is worse?

Well, you know, and this is where I'm going to come back to.

One of the broader themes that we've been talking about is we have some serious issues ahead of us as a state, and we need to make sure that we are doing what we can to manage the climate crisis that is ahead and also recognize that we have immediate energy needs to support us as consumers, as businesses, and we have to have a government and a state legislature that is positioned to focus and solve those problems.

And so, yes, there are multiple considerations at hand here, but that's that's the main thing.

That's what I hear from Ohioans every day is can we just have clear information that is accurate and have our legislators be ready to solve these problems?

Jo, is there any appetite, any momentum?

These are a couple of Democrats obviously don't have much power at the Statehouse.

Any desire to repeal what's left of H bill H.. H.. House bill six.

I'm not hearing a lot of it.

I'm not hearing a lot of pushback.

And I think the things, the big ticket things, in addition to you were talking about the rate payers, but the really big things and Bill B 6 that we saw was number one, a lot of the checks and balances that should have been there were not.

We saw the PUCO being influenced.

We saw all kinds of different things happening that shouldn't have happened if the system would have worked right.

So that's something that needs to be addressed.

And also they've got to look at the dark money and how that's used in these campaigns.

And I'm not hearing a whole lot of talk about that, at least among the people who can make it happen.

Mark, will these convictions just fade away and House Bill 6 is a black mark but doesn't seem to gain any traction.

Certainly didn't.

Certainly didn't gain any traction in last November's election.

Yeah, I don't know that it's going to fade away when it comes to people thinking about how you ought to do business at the statehouse.

Just this really shook the statehouse as a partizan issue.

I don't think it's a big deal.

You know, people look at the parties and they see Democrats in Cincinnati going away for corruption in Columbus and Dayton.

And then they see now two primary prominent Republicans who are going to probably go away because of corruption.

So most voters in Ohio recognize that this is not a Republican or a Democrat issue.

It's systemic to people who are greedy and people who want to step over the line.

I do think people are paying more attention to the lines now, the statehouse.

So when do these anti-corruption bills pass?

Well, I also just want to distinguish a little bit of the types of corruption that we are talking about.

HB 6, the scandal that Larry Householder, others are responsible for millions and millions of dollars and really completely corrupting the legislative process of an entire state versus what I believe that Mark is referencing.

And, you know, a real one real estate transaction, neither good, but in terms of scale and scope, very, very, very different.

Ironically, it was that investigation that led to HB 6.

And there was another one, the other Democrat city council member down in Cincinnati and of course, in Dayton.

We saw it in Columbus.

We've seen it.

We've seen corrupt one party problems.

But the Householder was much.

Bigger than it was.

But there but it's not unique to a party.

It's unique to people who want to break the rules.

And by the way, we have anti-corruption laws because Matt Borgest and Larry Householder were convicted under those anti-corruption laws.

But in terms of when we actually see a statehouse free of corruption, I am very, very enthusiastic about some of the new legislators that we have coming up.

People that we saw this week calling out some of the hypocrisy of you care about the August special election, the risk of low voter turnout one year, but then you're going to flip the next to get your particular ideological outcome.

We need to have strong leadership.

We need to have more of the public engaged, and that is the fight of our lives, to be honest, right here in the state of Ohio.

On the HB 6 repeal, Jo, where are the other utilities like I'm talking about natural gas and oil drillers.

They were kind of opposed to the help for the for the nuclear power plants that got repealed.

But then there's the subsidies for the coal plants.

Where are they in all this?

Well, they're still there.

They're still there.

Not... there hasn't been much that's happened.

They're not getting a lot of attention as far as the renewable energies.

They're still in the same situation they they were after HB 6 passed.

Not much has changed.

All right.

Let's go to a last topic.

Free speech in the classroom and free speech on college campuses continues to be a source of conflict.

Legislatures from Ohio to Florida are trying to regulate what can be taught in classrooms from kindergarten all the way up to college.

A conservative federal judge was shouted down as he tried to speak to law school students at Stanford University in California.

Here in Ohio, Xavier University has drawn criticism for naming newly appointed state Supreme Court Justice Joe Deter's to volunteer in residents position.

Justice in residence position.

And this week at Ohio State, two conservatives spoke at a student event.

Progressive protesters said the conservatives should not be allowed to speak.

They demonstrated outside the event, briefly disrupted the program, but it continued pretty much as planned from there.

Mark Weaver, where should government stand on all this?

Where should policymakers stand in trying to litigate, regulate, free speech in the classroom, on college campuses and in the public square?

The line is pretty clear in this.

I had a great discussion this week right here on campus at Ohio State.

Professor Nicole Kraft invited me to speak to her class, and we had a great discussion on this exact topic.

The First Amendment Free speech jurisprudence is rather well-settled.

You'll hear sometimes people falsely say that hate speech, whatever that means, is not protected.

Supreme Court 9 - 0.

All of your favorite justices ruled the same way.

That, of course it is.

And Ohio State, for example, is a state institution.

So it must follow the First Amendment or it will pay a lot of money out of damages.

Xavier is a private school that's a little different.

Stanford's private, but California law requires them to follow the public university rule.

So the bright line here is what is legal speech?

If it's legal, allow it to be said.

Students of all stripes politically need to be able to hear the other side of the argument, and they will be better intellectually if they can debate civilly the other side of the argument.

Morgan, should progressives now, the folks who are spoke on Ohio State's campus this week, they are opposed to transgender rights.

And that's what drew a lot of the protesters saying that because of that, they're transphobic, they were labeled as they shouldn't be given a platform.

Is that not hypocritical, saying it's free speech?

They should be allowed to say what they what they want?

Well, students, similar point students can have whatever views that they want to have based on what their beliefs that is, and they are able to protest.

As you said, that event went on, undisrupted.

And that is perfectly aligned with all of the principles that I think we hold true as Americans.

I would distinguish, you know, in terms of the Stanford situation and having attended that school and encountered people of all different viewpoints while at Stanford Law School.

You know, I actually was happy to see that the dean came out and said, we care about free speech.

We are going to have our student groups.

And the the judge that came was invited by a student group to speak on his views.

And he is a sitting judge of the US Federal System.

And we, those students that are in attendance I think need to be able to engage in that forum in that way.

So that is a little bit of a different situation because there was a direct disruption of the event.

Yes, but overall, we do have a situation right now where there are a lot of very hateful things that are being said in the public sphere, that are making a lot of young people in particular, but really folks of all different generations un... unsafe and unsure of where we're headed, whether we can agree on what America stands for, whether these rights will be upheld for everyone.

And so we need to be cognizant of that and again, leadership that's going to chart out that direction for us in the future.

Jo, in the political world right now, it's the called the culture wars.

And sometimes it's just rhetoric to, you know, stoke the flames of your base, whether it be on the right or whether it be on the left.

Right, exactly.

We see it on both sides right now.

And it is, as Morgan said, sometimes it is hurtful.

And I think the thing that we that you have going on here is not as much free speech sometimes as it is lack of respect.

I mean, it's it's the whole idea.

And you can't legislate that.

I mean, there's nothing you can do to other than teach your kids to respect other people with other points of view.

But we're seeing a lot of of disrespect these days on both sides.

So how do you how do you combat that truly hateful, possibly harmful speech that would either incite someone to violence, you know, perhaps cause a young person to take their own life?

How do you how do you balance that with the first.

Incitement is not First Amendment protected is a very narrow core part of speech of that happens that's illegal but lawful speech might hurt feelings, but it can't be acted against legally.

What's better is for parents and to a lesser extent, schools, to model civility, to teach students, to argue about ideas, not about personalities.

Name calling and straw manning are bad ways to argue, and these are things we should all be talking about.

Yeah.

And and I, I do think that it's important to point out it's also a question of prioritization.

So to hear from some of our state legislatures that they think it is the most pressing issue in the state of Ohio to consider about how they can legislate or legislate away diversity inclusion efforts in public institutions in our state versus climate, just the things that we discussed today, you know, climate, housing, because they.

Didn't say it's the most important thing.

They didn't do anything else.

But what but what you just said, that's a struggle.

If I may finish on the on the note of civility.

But once you introduce bills, you are communicating what your priorities are.

And so when we look at our education system in Ohio, the fact that we have children who are graduating high school that don't really have strong math skills, they don't really have the ability to read at a level that's going to be necessary to continue to ascend in whatever professional decision or path they decide to to take.

That is a top priority.

This type of legislation is not considered a priority by almost any Ohioan that I speak to.

Mark, real quick.

Should this be should teach reading math first, but it's not their top priority.

It is a concern that there's stuff being taught in the schools that is racially divisive and it should not be in the schools.

Okay, let's get to our final off the record Parting Shots and Mark, we'll start with you.

Ohio is back in the spotlight in Washington because at least four of our Congress now have gavels that can help.

Ohio, we have Jim Jordan, who's the chair of the Judiciary Committee.

We have Mike Turner, who's the chair of the Intelligence Committee, Brad Wenstrup, chairing the Committee on the Origin of COVID and Bill Johnson chairing efforts on domestic energy.

So Ohio, once again, back in the spotlight.

Morgan, Well, similar point and I would say on the Jim Jordan and some conversations in Washington connected to censorship.

And there's this this talk of banning TikTok.

And I think that's something that we all need to be paying attention to.

On the issue of, you know, what kind of data are we giving away to certain companies who has influence over those companies, governmental entities, and what legislative tactics can we take at the federal level to do something about that?

It's going to be something to watch, Jo.

I think voters need to get engaged ... Morgan is right about that.

Voters need to pay attention to issues and quit worrying about political labels, start looking at the issues themselves.

There's going to be a barrage of things happening in the political sphere in the next five, six months.

And if voters don't take the time to get informed about it, they're going to be the big losers.

All right.

This weekend, March Madness men, of course, from OSU are not in the tournament, but the OSU women are in the Sweet 16.

They face UConn.

Tough task on Saturday in Seattle.

We saw them this week at the Shott.

They had a ferocious defense and a great win to advance to the Sweet 16.

So we wish them the best.

I won't predict because if I predict, they won't end well.

That is Columbus on the Record for this week.

Thanks for joining us.

Continue the conversation on Facebook, not on Tik Tok and watch us any time at WOSU.org.

For our crew and for our panel, I'm Mike Thompson.

Have a good week.