The FBI searched the Cleveland offices of Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a group that organizes political and voter engagement activities for left-leaning and progressive causes.
Before Ohio lawmakers left for their summer recess, they made a big push to try to crack down on types of welfare fraud, with new restrictions on both Medicaid and SNAP benefits.
However, their efforts to eliminate tax credits for data centers were hampered by a 40-year, 100% sales tax credit agreed to by then-Gov. John Kasich’s administration during his second term. That tax break to Google, Amazon and Meta and other companies has cost the state an estimated $2.3 billion.
We'll discuss this and more on the Weekly Reporter Roundtable show.
Guests:
- Karen Kasler, bureau chief of the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau
- Andrew Tobias, state government and politics reporter for Signal Ohio
- Megan Henry, reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to the All Sides Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we catch up with the political news of last week and preview the week ahead.
You're listening to All Sides Reporter Roundtable. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. And joining us on the Roundtable we have Karen Kasler, Bureau Chief of the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau.
Welcome back, Karen. Hey, good morning. Andrew Tobias, State Government and Politics Reporter for Signal Ohio. Welcome back Andrew.
Good morning. And Megan Henry, a reporter with the Ohio Capital Journal. Welcome back Megan. Thanks for having me.
So, starting off last Thursday, the FBI raided a Voting Rights Group's office in Cleveland combining and combing through voter records and alleging that they were assisting with voter fraud.
Jo Ingles from the Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau reported on this. Let's listen.
Jo Ingles: And I think what most folks were hearing over the last couple of weeks were the risk of family caregivers losing the ability to be paid as caregivers for their family members.
I think that that's not the right cut. Our Medicaid committee and kudos to my Democratic colleagues because those committees were very emotional.
Okay. I am so grateful for our constituents taking the time, making their way to Columbus to truly share their stories.
And I do believe they were impactful. Okay, well that cut actually.
Juravich: Was about Medicaid so I think we got the cuts flip-flopped but do you have the cut from Jo Ingles?
All right let's play Jo Ingles there.
Ingles: Ohio organizing collaborative board member Prentice Haney says FBI agents have searched premises and in some cases taken laptops and electronic devices as well as interviewed people who work with the organization.
Prentice Haney: This is not normal business. I mean, there's no reason for over 100 agents to be knocking on the doors of everyday Ohioans, demanding and accusing people of voter fraud as if it was a witch hunt and scaring them with their children, following them in their cars to school and to work.
I mean this was a full out assault. I mean they haven't seen anything like this in Selma.
And so this was completely politically motivated.
Juravich: Okay, so the the group is obviously saying this is politically motivated.
Those are some some damning charges. They're saying they were following people. I'm Karen. What is that? What's going on?
What is the deal with this raid?
Karen Kasler: Well, it's really interesting to follow. We don't have a whole lot of details from what Joe reported on Friday and other people obviously reported as well.
This is a group that does organizing and voter engagement.
And the question then is what were they, what's the allegation here?
And I know a lot of Democrats immediately came to the call of this saying they were opposed, that they were frustrated.
This was a kind of a frightening action that this would happen. But we still don't know.
Really from the FBI why this was happening. I think Joe got a statement late on Friday that was really vague and generic from the FBI not indicating anything that could explain why they chose to do this raid.
Juravich: And Andrew, this group is called the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. They organize political and voter engagement activities.
But I wasn't familiar with this group until I heard Jo's story on it.
Had you heard of this group before?
Andrew Tobias: Yeah, they kind of pop up with things that are kind of more public facing for people who follow this stuff really closely like ballot issue campaigns every once in a while they sued the Republican state legislature in 2021 over redistricting state legislative maps specifically.
They in 2024 we're backing a proposed constitutional amendment to expand voting laws in Ohio that we've seen in various forms.
That's been an amendment that's kind of been floating around and never really qualified for the ballot.
So that's an example. Some of the public stuff they've done behind the scenes, they play a pretty large role in being a conduit for national money.
There are, you know, I don't know how many, 10, more or less, big national foundations that direct political spending across the country.
And some of that money in Ohio goes through the Ohio organizing collaborative, and then some of that money.
Gos from the OOC to other organizations. So they don't do a lot of public facing stuff.
Like Karen said, there's voter registration drives that take place.
But they also, like I said, they're kind of like a big hub for this national money that flows to liberal groups in Ohio too.
Kasler: It should be said that there was a paid canvasser for the group who pleaded guilty in 2017 to a voter registration allegation.
And, you know, but that was 2017. I don't know how or if that is in any way connected to what happened on Friday.
Or I guess, was it late Thursday or was it Friday? Thursday. Yeah.
Juravich: Okay. And then, Megan, do we know, I mean, is this a part of a larger plan with the FBI?
Do we know specifically, like, why it happened here in Ohio?
Megan Henry: Or anything like that. I think there still is a lot of uncertainty and questions to be answered as to like why this happened.
And so it could be part of something more broadly nationally, but it's just kind of too soon to tell.
Which I think adds, you know, all this uncertainty kind of adds to this, you know, this mystique and just kind of gets people kind of fired up of like why, why this happened
Juravich: Do we think that Ohio lawmakers are going to, you know, use this raid as a reason to bring up voting rights at any point?
You know, I know they're heading on summer break, so maybe they're not going to do anything specifically related to this.
But Ohio lawmakers talk about voting all the time, right, Andrew?
Tobias: So there was an amendment that the legislature, maybe this is something we'll talk more about in another segment, but that they put on the ballot last week before they break for the summer, or this week, yeah, last week.
Juravich: Oh, what is time? Yes, I know.
Tobias: And it would require, I guess, already Ohioans have to show their IDs to vote in person, but it would add that to the state constitution too.
There's a separate law that they passed that would require male voters to also show their IDs through things like sending a copy of it in the mail and that kind of stuff when they're voting by mail.
So, there is a general conversation among Republicans about voter fraud, election integrity, and that kind of thing.
They haven't commented on this specific thing yet. I guess that will be interesting to see if that is something they run with.
But at this point, it's still too early to say.
Kasler: I've seen some, Marcel Sturbridge, who ran to the right of Robert Sprague for Secretary of State, Spragues won.
He had commented a little bit on this, but he's one of the folks who really raised concerns about mail-in voting and whether there was ID required for that.
But one thing I learned from Andrew's story about this, that the Ohio Organizing collaborative have brought in like $20.9 million in 2024, which is a lot for an organization that we're sitting here talking about hasn't been super visible.
Juravich: Because I hadn't heard of them. I mean, I don't know.
Kasler: I've heard of them. That means anything. I've been to their events.
They're active in kind of like the background, like Andrew's saying. Okay.
So is that a lot of money for them?
Tobias: Yeah, their funding has, so I have been aware of this group for a long time, but I didn't know until I pulled tax filings for the story on Friday about kind of providing more background to who they are when after they got rated, didn't realize how large their funding had gotten.
So that is pretty significant.
Juravich: Okay, so, but we have no idea if the FBI raid relates to money at all.
Tobias: Know very little. I mean, in the clip that you played, Prentice Haney has been telling people, and he's a board member and former leader of the organization, that they had questions about voter fraud and that kind of thing.
But we just, there's so much to live. You don't know. It's hard to say.
Juravich: Yeah, in that clip, he also said that they were following people.
Do you know anything about that? Is that true? That they were like, I mean, I don't know why he would lie.
And but the FBI was following people
Tobias: Yeah, I don't know. But again, like, I think that it is an interesting question to consider because there's both the voter registration work that they do.
So it's like, perhaps this investigation pertains to that. But then there's also the role that the organization plays as a conduit for a lot of money nationally.
And I have no reason to believe that the investigation pertain to that part of what they do, but that does illustrate that how I guess, like this, this organization's very important to the progressive infrastructure in Ohio because of that role.
Kasler: And a lot of the money, again, according to Andrew's story, which I appreciate, comes from organizations that you hear Republicans and conservatives talk about a lot that they're concerned about.
We're connected to George Soros, the liberal billionaire. So those groups like the Tides Foundation, things like that, have been talking points for Republicans for a long time and some of the money that comes into this group is connected to them.
Juravich: Well, I guess we'll just stay tuned and figure out what the FBI was doing once, if they ever tell us.
Do they have to tell us, Andrew? At some point.
Tobias: I've learned not to hold my breath waiting for the FBI to say what they're doing.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News.
This week we're talking with Andrew Tobias from Signal Ohio, Megan Henry from the Ohio Capital Journal, and Karen Kastler from the public radio Statehouse News Bureau.
Speaking of fraud, Ohio lawmakers are making big pushes to crack down on different types of fraud.
New restrictions for both Medicaid and SNAP benefits. Could one of you tell us a little bit about the new restrictions related to Medicaid funding that lawmakers were talking about.
Kasler: Well, there was a bill that was introduced in March that really targeted home health care providers and trying to increase penalties and fraud, but also increase and require electronic visit verification, or EVV, from those home health care providers.
This was a little before there was this story in the conservative outlet, The Daily wire that alleged that there were hundreds of millions of dollars in. Payments made from Ohio Medicaid to fraudulent home health care providers in 2024. Now, the state has not yet fully confirmed that, but that really sparked movement on this particular bill.
And so at one point, this bill went into the Ohio House Medicaid Committee, and there was a ban on Medicaid paying family caregivers that was introduced, which was really concerning to.
The disabled Ohioans and the family members and the advocates who know that about 7,000 people in Ohio are getting paid by Medicaid to care for family members.
There was a lot of emotional testimony on that. It was removed.
And then the bill was, all of it was moved over to another bill that was a little bit further down the line, a bill that would require electronic chips in food stamp cards, supplemental nutrition assistance program cards, which been widely supported.
And so while Republicans or while Democrats were a little concerned about some of these anti-fraud measures and how they would affect disabled Ohioans, the bill on the chips for snap cards had a lot of support.
Juravich: Okay. Are these separate bills though? No, they were rolled in. They're rolled in
Kasler: The Medicaid stuff was rolled into the SNAP cards bill.
Juravich: Okay, and where are we with the bills? Did it pass? Yes. Okay.
Kasler: Waiting for Governor Mike DeWine's signature or veto or whatever.
Juravich: Okay, and so Andrew, now related, I mean, we've talked on this show many times about needing to make the snap cards have chips in them and how it's much more secure than the swipe cards and it's going to really help with dealing with fraud by having the chips.
So now if this passes and Governor DeWine, it passed, if Governor De Wine signs it, we will have chip cards?
Tobias: Yeah, the law doesn't set out a firm timeline for exactly when that's going to happen, but that and another bill that passed separately puts money aside to make it happen.
And so it's something that the bill was bipartisan. It wasn't controversial before this.
Something that was interesting about the Medicaid fraud parts of the bill that got added into it is that Democrats started off being very concerned about the process, you know, like snapping the state like taking a bill and trying to pass it quickly in response to a conservative websites kind of allegations, you know, they felt was questionable.
They were worried about the story focused on members of the Somali community in Columbus and a couple of other immigrant groups.
And so they were concerned about like xenophobia being kind of the motivating driver behind the whole thing.
And then finally, like Karen said, there was also with this element where.
Because the story portrayed home health care services as basically people getting paid to hang out with grandma, there was this real knee-jerk reaction from the legislature to try to ban that completely, drawing the testimony that Karen referenced, which they ultimately took out of the bill completely.
And so you saw this legislative process where they dropped everything, passed this bill, proposed a sweeping ban, backed off of it pretty quickly.
And then through that whole journey, Democrats went from being questionable like kind of questioning the you know, motivation behind the bill, voting for the final product.
It was mostly, I think it passed the House with 80 votes or something like that.
There were some no votes from Democrats, but by and large it had broad bipartisan support.
So it was a pretty weird process to watch play out from start to finish, but it's remarkable that they took a subject like that and came up with something that had bipartisan consensus behind it.
Kasler: This bill, this chips bill, to put the chips in the snap cards, had no opposition, none whatsoever until this was added and then it only had 10 members of the House who voted against it.
So this was a pop, but we see that, that's not unusual to see something that's controversial that's put into something that has a lot of support.
Tobias: I think that Democrats, I mentioned this, I've mentioned on this show before, but I think they drew a political lesson from the scandal in Minnesota with Tim Walz, the governor there.
And it had to do with Medicaid fraud with child care after they passed universal child care there.
And I think their Democrats, their instinct might be to try to defend this kind of thing against attacks, whether it involves an immigrant group or something like that.
But You know, Walz was going to run for re-election. He dropped his campaign.
I think he's really compromised as a national political figure now.
And so I think Democrats, like the lesson is that they need to take fraud seriously.
Like they might, you know, there's a push and pull between making a program accessible and preventing fraud.
I think democrats prefer to make sure, you know I guess I put it, I think they think it's important to make that these services are available.
But part of the services being available to them is making sure they're going to the people that actually the people are supposed to be getting them.
Juravich: Well, earlier in the segment, whenever we accidentally played clips out of order, I think we owe Representative Ashley Brian Bailey her due in playing her cut with the related topic about Medicaid.
So let's listen.
Ingles: I think what most folks were hearing over the last couple of weeks were the risk of family caregivers losing the ability to be paid as caregivers for their family members.
Our Medicaid committee and kudos to my Democratic colleagues because those committees were very emotional.
I am so grateful for our constituents taking the time, making their way to Columbus to truly share their stories.
And I do believe they were impactful.
Juravich: And, Andrew, that's what you and Karen are both talking about, is it ended up being bipartisan.
It ended up that everyone seemed to agree that we should leave this alone and let these family members be paid, right?
Tobias: I think, yeah, what Republicans said is that I think they're interested in seeing if they can figure out how to set guardrails to, like, the phrase they use is making sure grandson isn't just getting paid by Medicaid to cook soup for grandma.
But what we heard in the testimony was that these are families that, well, so there are families, that somebody has a severe disability and the caretakers in the family basically are.
Helping, you know, take them to the medical appointments, helping administer their medications to them, like helping them just go to the bathroom, just very basic care that's required.
And if they couldn't have a family member do it, they wouldn't necessarily, there's a shortage of home health care workers.
And so they're not sure who else they would get to do it.
So we'll see if Republicans end up trying to do something to get rid of, I guess, what they would view as unnecessary home health services, But by and large, what Governor Mike DeWine and others say is that these kinds of services are cheaper than paying to send people into an institutional setting like a nursing home.
And so even though there are some weaknesses with not knowing exactly what's happening because it's not happening in institutional setting, people get to stay in their homes, it's far cheaper and you have the ability to have family members help step in and provide some of this necessary care.
Kasler: And this isn't just random family members.
These family members, there's a waiver process, these family members go through a whole, like I said, process to get the ability to be paid.
And this whole idea of being paid to hang out with a family member, well, sometimes in a care plan, there is a socialization aspect.
But this is not just that money's just being thrown out to just anybody.
I mean, these are people who are. Sometimes working with other paid caregivers who are not members of the family, but it's not just some, you know, willy-nilly whatever.
Juravich: Yeah. And Megan, I mean, you can imagine you've been around the state house long enough to know that if they wanted to, like, send auditors into each of these houses to check on what grandson is doing, like how they are caring for grandma.
I mean can you imagine lawmakers paying for that?
Henry: Right, yeah, it's one of those things where it's like, how can we exactly monitor this?
But as I believe Andrew was saying, folks would rather be in their house.
They'd rather age gracefully at home or family members want to be, their loved ones want to at home with them.
And so I think this just allows a way to do that. Yes, it does.
Tobias: Yeah, so something the bill does is it requires electronic visit verification, which is something the state has been setting up a long time.
And I've come to describe it as like a clock in component with a GPS element.
So they can when somebody starts their shift, they clock in the computer app or whatever verifies their location, they call out when it's done.
And we heard, you know, I've heard about previous iterations of that process, which the state is been trying to set up where the app doesn't work or the device doesn't work or there are areas in Ohio that have bad you know, broadband access or even just like self-service.
And so again, there's this push and pull between fraud protection and accessibility.
And I think this whole issue kind of helps illustrate that.
Juravich: This is the Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News.
Coming up, we're gonna talk about tax credits, data centers, and infrastructure across the state.
But first, there's a lot going on in politics, data centers inflation, high gas prices, all of it may be making voters a little mad, but you know what helps?
Beer and good friendly conversation. And that's what you'll get at WOSU's next Politics in a Pint.
I'll be there, along with WOSU's Mike Thompson and a couple of statehouse insiders.
We're going to talk about the midterms and more. Join us for Politics in a Pint Thursday, June 25th at 6, at 7th Sun Brewing in Columbus.
More details and registration at wosu.org slash events. This is the Reporter Roundtable from all sides on 89.7 NPR News.
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Juravich: You're listening to All Sides Weekly Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we talk about all things Ohio politics.
I'm your host Amy Juravich. Still with us, Megan Henry, a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal, Andrew Tobias, state government and politics reporter for Signal Ohio, and Karen Kassler, bureau chief for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau.
Last Wednesday, Republican lawmakers voted against an effort to eliminate an almost two billion dollars in tax credits to major tech companies building infrastructure here in the state.
So let's talk about these tax credits for these data centers, because I feel like we paused and then we un-paused and now is the pause still paused?
Andrew, where are we at with, can data centers get tax credits on their building materials right now?
Tobias: So that's a really good question because the governor, you know, with the exception of one final large project that got approved after he announced the moratorium, wanted the moratorium on these tax credits to apply while the legislature's special data center committee did its work.
And I think there's an expectation that the house would pass something with that.
You know, that was very clearly the goal. House Speaker Matt Huffman is telling people that's what we're going to vote on today.
And it didn't happen. So I don't know how that changes the plan for this moratorium because it's now kind of open-ended, I know.
Speaker Huffman indicated that the House may reconvene within the next couple of weeks and try again So I don't know.
An, maybe Ohio wasn't planning on issuing any more tax credits this month So maybe just a couple weeks like who's you know?
Juravich: But so the so lawmakers wanted to get rid of like they had in their budget from a while back They had in there budget to eliminate the tax credit for building materials, right and then Dewine vetoed that
Tobias: Yes, that was last summer and at one point the legislature voted to just completely eradicate these things and then Huffman Since the governor vetoed them has been saying repeatedly that he'd like to see The house overturned the veto which requires a pretty large number of votes and basically a large number Republicans they've been unsuccessful doing that this bill that almost got voted out this week or last week that the senate introduced would have reduced the size of the credit, but they There wasn't a consensus.
There are some Republicans who want to get rid of it.
There are others who maybe want to make it smaller.
There are probably some who don't even want to touch it at all. Or maybe they don't want to.
Touch this issue. So.
Juravich: So this is confusing to me though, because lawmakers wanted to get rid of the tax credit.
Governor DeWine said, no, let's keep the tax credit, so then they wanted to override his veto.
And then Governor De Wine said oh, wait, this tax credit is costing us way more money than I thought.
Let's pause it. So who's right here?
Tobias: So it was part of a big budget bill when they tried to vote to eliminate this.
So they voted on lots of things and, you know, maybe they really wanted to go home.
They said yes and.
Juravich: What a difference a day makes, though, because your colleague, Jake Zeckerman, basically reported that the tax credit was costing the state more money than basically the governor's office originally thought, correct?
Tobias: Yeah, when the legislature voted to eliminate this tax credit, they thought that it cost the state around $150 million a year in deferred revenue.
Juravich: That's not that much money when you consider the big budget.
Tobias: Right. It's a lot of money, but not in the context of the state.
But what we learned basically by asking the Ohio Department of Taxation is that the tax credit grew from one hundred and fifty million dollars to about one point four billion dollars.
Last year, we.
Juravich: And that's a lot of money.
Tobias: It is like 10 times larger than what they anticipated it would be.
And the reason, I guess, these projects keep getting bigger than they thought.
They, you know, they award the tax credit at first, the company provides them with an estimate of how much value they think it will have.
And the value is based on how much computer equipment they buy.
And the amount of computer equipment that they buy, you know, is affected by how big is the project, but also how quickly do they start replacing it.
So. There was a hearing last week where a top state development official was taking some skeptical questions from lawmakers.
And they asked her, she was saying that everybody knew that this is how big this was.
We've been very upfront about that. And so they asked, how much is it going to be this year?
And she's like, well, we don't know.
Speaker 10: You
Tobias: So it's kind of, you know, it's kinda some mixed signals, but these tax credits are approved publicly.
You know, maybe people don't keep close tabs in the Ohio Tax Credit Authority, the entity that approves these things, but some of it too is that they're just bigger than they thought after they approve them.
Kasler: And I think one thing that was interesting in watching this select committee on data centers, the first person to testify was somebody from the data center coalition who had said that that tax break allows data centers to replace their equipment and update things, which they also can do without paying the tax on that.
But it should be noted, too, that a lot of the things that have been happening here with this tax break were negotiated a while ago.
Several reporters, including my colleague Sarah Donaldson, got a look at some contracts from Amazon, Meta, and Google with the state that basically holds the situation as it is until like 2055, 2056, 2058. So there's really not a whole lot that can be done about those other than asking 2058?
And these were, according to the co-chairs of the data center commission, they were back during the Kasich administration.
And the only thing that can happen now is they could go back to those companies and say, hey, would you like to start paying the taxes on this?
The case they can minister. We're talking like they negotiated 40 years of tax breaks.
Tobias: Yes, that's exactly what they did.
Juravich: Okay. Well, I'm gonna I need a pause there. We're pausing tax credits. I need to pause.
I mean, Megan Henry, what what do the data center like the data Center Coalition, Google, Amazon, what do they all say about like, will they come to Ohio?
Will they build on our land? If they have to pay taxes? Or are they not going to come here?
Henry: Is that what they're saying? Maybe my colleagues can speak to that question a little bit more so, but I think we saw last week with this kind of like scramble before the lawmakers go on summer break, there was this big push to try to pass something, but there just couldn't, there wasn't enough consensus it seemed from Ohio Republicans.
Some want to eliminate it, some want to just reduce it, as you mentioned, probably just don't know enough or don't want to really touch this quite yet.
And so there was this huge scramble last week, but it's not all enough consensus. And so.
This will make for a very interesting lame duck later this year.
Kasler: Yeah, and I would say, too, that one of the things Andrew just mentioned that the Department of Development director, Lilliam Halleck, testified before this committee on data centers last week.
And she kind of broke from DeWine in saying that the tax break wasn't needed.
He had, again, vetoed the attempt to get rid of it, though he's now done the executive order that puts it back in place.
So it was kind of, it shows that the thoughts on this.
Juravich: Thoughts on this has been moving. What did Lydia Mihalik want?
Kasler: No, she just said that the tax break isn't necessary anymore. She said it's not necessary?
Oh, OK. But again, these agreements that are out there, it really kind of doesn't matter when you're talking about the biggest companies that are involved in data centers, Meta and Google and Amazon, they already have their deals.
Juravich: I think I also heard a story this morning on Morning Edition, which probably came from your bureau, Karen, where she said that people are hearing a lot of negative information about data centers on social media.
And was she basically saying that they're being
Kasler: Well, and I think that's part of the reason, in fact, I know it's part of the reasons, the co-chair said that that's part of reason that the Select Committee on Data Centers was formed, was to, as they viewed it, combat information that's out there that they said is not accurate.
Well, most of the information that we've gotten over the last couple, well, last two or three years has been from opponents of data centers concerned about environmental impacts and tax incentives and the lack of transparency around these things, the jobs they create, that kind of stuff.
And so. This committee was an opportunity for people like the Data Center Coalition for those companies to come forward and explain what they're doing and why they're a good thing.
And so we heard an awful lot of things about why that their data centers are important to the economy, to national security, things like that.
Juravich: Yeah, Andrew, are data centers the good guys or the bad guys here?
You're like, don't make me answer that.
Tobias: So I think it's true objectively that data centers are a required part of modern life.
We all have cell phones, we all have like smart refrigerators, we have Amazon Alexa devices, we have computers, you know, people use these things every single day.
And also, you know, AI products are something that are increasingly something that people use regularly, too.
And so This is just a by-product of the society that we live in. And I think where The questions come are things like, does it make sense when, you know, for us to follow the same tax policy about data centers that got passed in the 2010s back when, it was like the iPhone 4 versus the world that we have today where these AI companies are just spending trillions of dollars on data centers.
And so that's kind of the question that we have to arrive at.
And that's the kinds of stuff that this committee is trying to figure out.
But I think the other thing too about data centers is that any kind of large industrial project is going to create a backlash when it's built in the middle of farmland or what have you, people's backyards and that kind of stuff.
But I kind of think what does supercharge this is that there are these broader concerns about what AI is doing to society, what companies like Google and Meta especially Like, what, you know... Stuff like Instagram and kids being on Instagram and like the effects of social media and society.
So I think there's like distrust about what these companies are doing.
And I think that's kind of supercharged this whole thing.
Juravich: That's another show. We've done that show. We're going to do more shows on that.
I mean, what's the answer to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing that we're walking into?
Depends on which movie you watch, I think. This is All Sides Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News, and we're talking with Andrew Bias with Signal Ohio, Megan Henry from the Ohio Capital Journal, and Karen Kastler for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau.
Karen, you reported on the capital budget, the capital improvements budget.
It is a piece of legislation worth a lot of money, $3.7 billion in infrastructure.
Can you elaborate a little bit more? I mean,$ 3.7 million, what are we spending it on? Well, this is
Kasler: something that happens every other year. We have the budget one year and the capital budget the second year and this is the budget that funds all sorts of infrastructure projects and community projects that the state gets involved in. I mean this is money for Ohio State for two halls actually here at Ohio State, for 60 million dollars.
Also money for K through 12 schools for infrastructure projects that provide some financing for that.
Higher education, psychiatric hospitals, other mental health and Developmental disabilities facilities at the state operates the Ohio Historical Center here in Columbus They state fairgrounds, which if you've been there in the last couple years has been undergoing some major construction So this is there's some money in there for that but I Think one of the biggest parts of it is the 208 million dollars in this one for 815 community projects.
This is where community groups and those folks come to their legislator and say, I would like some money from the capital budget to do this.
And so that's where you get a lot of these local projects that a lot people want to see some updating on.
Juravich: Yeah, and one of the talking points that lawmakers seem excited about, I read in your story, is that this is, they say that this budget balances funding between rural and urban needs more than anyone in the past.
Is that true? I mean, is it just what they say? That's, that's, I, I think.
Kasler: That's always been a question of course is you know the most of the leadership in the legislature, the Republican leadership in, the legislature is not from the urban areas but the urban areas are the ones where most people live.
So you know there's sometimes a back and forth you know, between the two.
Juravich: Depends on who you ask. Megan, you spent a lot of time reporting on education.
I mean, did you hear a lot about this budget?
Are schools, K-12 schools getting the money that they want to build things?
Henry: That, I think, will remain to be seen.
I think there's all, like, public school advocates will always- Want more money.
Exactly, they'll always want more money, so I don't think, you know, it replaces the Fair School Funding Act or, you now, supplements that, necessarily, but I think it just goes towards the improvements and, you, know, day-to-day, like-
Juravich: maintenance and upkeep. Andrew, were there any surprises in the capital budget or it's usually, I mean, a pretty boring bill, right?
Tobias: It was a pretty boring bill. It's really exciting if you run a community center that gets funding for this.
I didn't cover this bill, but I know in the past when I've covered it, it's stuff that people like, but it's also.
Juravich: If your little community center gets a million dollars, I mean, that's pretty exciting. Right.
Tobias: Right. But then it's not the kind of thing that's going to generate controversy.
And in this case, it's not like they stuffed unrelated measures into it or anything like that.
They pretty much stayed on on task.
Henry: Okay, and with the busy week we had last week with the data centers, Medicaid, there was lots of other, I think, big headlines.
Juravich: Okay. So, but the governor still needs to sign the capital budget, right, Karen?
Kasler: Yes, and that was something that we were expecting today, but he had announced that he would and then he changed his mind, I guess.
Juravich: So the governor was going to sign it this morning.
Kasler: I don't see any reason why he wouldn't, but I'm not in his head, so I have no idea.
Juravich: Okay, we won't read into that. We'll just wait for the announcement of the signing.
Kasler: And if you go to LSC, which is the Legislative Service Commission's website, you can see a whole breakdown of all these county projects and all these local projects.
I mean, there were like 1,500 projects that were submitted in the Senate alone for some money to just get some help with community centers and sports complexes, not professional sports complexes, but sports complexes and pools and things like that.
Juravich: Well, again, I'm going to remind you that WOSU is going to have a politics in a pint.
So if you would like to have good friendly conversation about data centers, inflation, high gas prices, and what's making voters mad right now, well, you can join us for a beer.
I'll be there along with WOSC's Mike Thompson. We'll have a couple of state house insiders.
We're gonna talk about the midterms and more. It's Thursday, June 25th at six at Seventh Sun Brewing in Columbus.
Register at wosu.org slash events. Coming up on the reporter roundtable, we're going to look at some education bills and will also take a look at Senate Bill 1 the higher education overhaul one year later.
That is when the reporter roundtable from all sides continues on 89 7 NPR news.
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable. I'm your host, Amy Juravich.
Still with us, Karen Kaslar, Bureau Chief at the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau, Andrew Tobias, State Government and Politics Reporter for Signal Ohio, and Megan Henry, a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal.
Ohio lawmakers recently passed a bill that would require schools to teach students what they are calling the success sequence, which they say is to graduate high school.
Get a job, and then get married, in that order, before having a baby.
Megan, can you tell me more about this bill? Where did it come from and why are we, and did it pass?
Henry: Yeah. So the success sequence, as you just described it originally, we've seen this in other states as well, similar legislation being introduced.
And originally it started off as a standalone bill over in the Senate, that passed in the senate and is now in the house.
But this past week, as we were kind of saying earlier in our, in our conversations, this, this success sequence language was rolled into another bill that had a unanimous support that already passed is making it easier to basically get this bill.
Get the success sequence over the finish line. And so it was rolled into a bill that has to do with school psychologists.
And so, it was just tacked on to that. And it passed, lawmakers passed the bill last week in the marathon, a mini marathon session.
And now it's just waiting for Governor DeWine to either sign it into law or to veto it.
Juravich: Okay, so inside a bill related to school psychologists, right?
They added in the success sequence and so in both the House and Senate passed it.
So this is the thing. So what do they want schools to do?
They want schools to teach a particular way of living life?
Henry: Basically, yeah, it would have, they would have Department of Education Workforce would have to have a requirement in the curriculum for grades six through 12 at some point to just like have, to teach this essentially as a graduation requirement.
So it'd be up to individual schools to end up deciding how to enforce that, but they would to include that in curriculum.
Juravich: Was it debated at all? Or did it have bipartisan support?
Tell me more about getting this passed.
Henry: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a long party lines of the success sequence.
And so Democrats spoke out against it saying that, um, the S that this does, you know, the correlation does not cause is not causation, uh, you know how there's lots of different ways that folks in Ohio can have a successful life.
Um, if you, uh are not married, if, you, you don't graduate high school, if you don't do these things, you can still live a successful life and, uh notably, uh stay rep.
Sean Brennan, uh share the story of his mom who quote unquote, followed the order of the success sequence, but still did not have an easy life.
He said that her path did not follow a fairytale outcome and she ended up unfortunately dying of breast cancer and was a single mom before she passed.
And so that did not, he said, save his mom.
And so he argued that this is not going to, this won't necessarily lead to a successful life.
Juravich: Did this get did the teachers unions come out and talk about this?
Did they have anything to say or did it get added in kind of quickly because you said this was like a late-at-night thing
Henry: Yes, it got added in very quickly kind of last week.
I believe that when it was for the standalone bill, I believe there was testimony from education groups against this bill.
OK, so do we know whether Governor DeWine will sign it? I think it's safe to say that he will.
But, I mean, who knows? But I think its safe to he probably will. But we can't.
Juravich: Well, we can't ask him today, Karen, right?
Because he was going to sign the capital budget today, but now he's not. And then there was another bill.
I'm not sure if lawmakers passed this or not, but this bill was related to intervention from schools if students score lower than desired on elementary standardized tests.
Did this pass?
Henry: Yes, yes, this bill, yeah, it passed, lawmakers passed it, and so it's on its way to Governor Mike DeWine's desk as well, where it's just kind of in this limbo of what will happen to it.
Juravich: Okay, so that bill, what kind of, lawmakers want schools to have more intervention if students are below the standard, is that right?
Henry: Yes, yes. And this bill has more support across party lines.
There are some Democrats and one Republican, notably, who did vote against it.
But yeah, it basically is just what add interventions such as high dosage tutoring, additional instruction time, potentially an extended school calendar.
It's up to each district to decide. But basically, yes, if they identify that students are not performing well in these state standardized tests and they can have these interventions at their to try to catch kids up, and so there is much support for this bill because this is something that most people can agree with, that they want students to succeed and do well in school.
Interestingly, though, a little bit of controversy with this bill was that it was a Senate bill over in the House.
They added this science of reading carve-out where basically schools that teach, like these classical schools, don't have to teach the science of writing curriculum.
Was added to this bill. So that's kind of interesting since Governor McDowine has championed the science of reading and so I am curious if he might not like that portion of the bill.
Juravich: Okay, so there's, I think I read in your story, there are like eight classical schools in the state.
At least, yeah. Yeah, something like that. And so a classical school teaches kind of like, they teach a Latin curriculum and they teach a certain, so they are being exempt from the science of reading, is that right?
Henry: Correct. Yes, they could be, you know, under this caveat, they could be exempt just because from what the bill, from what the bill's language says, basically, since they teach English and reading and writing just a little differently than public schools, they therefore they wouldn't have to fall under the same requirements.
Juravich: Now, if Governor DeWine didn't like that part of the bill, can he veto that part, or is it an all, like, remind me of my civics lessons here.
Can he, if it's just a piece of legislation, he has to just veto.
Kasler: He has to evito the whole thing if there's an appropriation attached to it he can line item, right?
Juravich: Okay, so he would have to be so if he doesn't like that the classical schools are exempt from the science of reading he would Have to veto the whole bill about intervention
Henry: Correct. So, which I...
Juravich: That doesn't seem...
Henry: It doesn't seem like something he would do.
Juravich: Yeah. Okay. Well, so we're school districts in support of extra intervention.
I mean, maybe aside from this classical school carve out, do you know if there was support for this bill?
Henry: Yeah, I'd say overall, like, yes, I mean, there was lots of back and forth and committee and some of the nuts and bolts of, you know, what kind of interventions.
And so some school districts at times didn't love what was being pitched in that sense.
But in the end, it seems like lawmakers were able to craft legislation and interventions that most school districts and public school advocates can get behind.
The Ohio Education Association, they... Said that the bill was well-intentioned and that basically that they're forced getting students caught up, but they think that teachers on their own can see that without needing these tests to determine that.
Does it need a lot? Does it needs more testing? Right. Yeah.
Basically, their whole thing is teachers are already doing so much, this just adds on extra work.
Juravich: Yeah, did they add in some money for extra intervention? I don't know.
I'd have to go back and check. That's a good question. OK. This is the All Sides Weekly Reporter Roundtable.
We're talking with Megan Henry from the Ohio Capital Journal, Andrew Tobias from Signal Ohio, and Karen Kassler with the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau.
Megan, one more thing related to children. I know you had a story that just published this morning related to a bill related to child marriage.
Can you catch us up on? Which I feel very odd saying this, catch us up on child marriage in Ohio.
Henry: Yes. Yeah, this is becoming quite the, quite the hot bun topic this year at the state house.
But basically, a current law in Ohio is that you can be, you can get married at 17 if you meet certain stipulations, such as, you know, you're able to marry someone up to four years older than you, a juvenile court signs off on it and you have to wait a couple of weeks until after filing your, your marriage license.
And so anyway, basically.
Juravich: 17-Year-old can get married without parent permission or okay, can just continue, yeah.
Henry: Um, and so, uh, so yeah, so there's this, there's this bill that would, that would ban that and say that there would raise the requirement to be the age minimum to be 18. So you'd have to be an adult to get married.
And so it seemed on the surface that this bill kind of is a no-brainer, uh but it's, it's been really slow.
It's been slow moving. It was stalled for a long time and committee last week, uh. There was some movement.
It was voted out of the Senate committee that it's been in. And so there was a question of, oh, was it gonna be brought to the floor for a vote later that day before lawmakers go on this long break?
But that did not happen. And so I talked to some folks who are supporting this bill, who were very frustrated that the lawmakers went home without banning child marriage in Ohio.
Okay, so as-
Juravich: As of right now, the thing that you explained with the 17-year-old still stands.
It still stands, correct. Okay, but they were trying to change it and it seems like it might get voted on.
Henry: It seemed like, yeah, it seemed like there was appetite for it might get voted on, but then did not happen.
It's a little unclear. No one is saying publicly why there seems to be hesitation or why there's seems to hold up on this bill.
Democrats have expressed frustration. Ohio Senate President Ron McCauley has said that it will likely receive a vote on the Senate and will likely pass, but that has not happened yet.
Juravich: All right. So, Andrew, just catch us up here on where lawmakers are.
Are they are they gone for the summer now? And when I say summer, though, I that means in this case, because it's an election year, that means all the way through the election, right?
Tobias: That was the plan and the plan may have changed when the data center legislation we were talking about earlier stalled out.
And so we'll see whether the legislature might come back and deal with that issue specifically, but otherwise this could be stuff like child marriage and what have you may have to wait until after November.
Juravich: Okay. So the plan would be that lawmakers were going to stay in their districts, stay away from the state house until after the election in November.
Tobias: Correct? That was the plan. OK.
Juravich: And then something we, Karen, something we just grazed over at the very beginning, and I didn't mean to, and I said we'd come back to it, and now we only have four minutes left.
Are voters in November going to be voting on mail-in ballots? What happened there?
Because I've been on vacation and I don't-
Kasler: know what happened. The mail-in ballot issue, that's a bill that's different than what voters will see on the ballot alongside race for governor, U.S. Senator, all the other ones.
That one is a constitutional amendment that would require in-person voters at this point, essentially, to show photo ID, which is already required in state law.
Republicans had said they wanted to see that codified, enhanced, strengthened by putting it into the Constitution.
Okay, I'm getting-
Juravich: Okay, I'm getting mixed up. I apologize.
Kasler: Okay. So that's, yes, continue. That's a constitutional amendment. Yes.
Then lawmakers also passed a bill because there was this discussion about, well, how will that affect mail-in voters?
Shouldn't they also be required to show photo ID? That started a whole discussion and moved a bill that would require mail- in voters to show a photo ID.
And I think there's a real concern here because I think they were like 900,000 or so people who voted by mail in 2024, and the avenues to prove your identity.
With photo ID in that is either take a photocopy of your driver's license or go to the board of elections when you request your ballot or when you return it.
And that's not an option for some people or some people don't want to do that.
So it's going to be interesting to see how this what happens to this.
DeWine still has to look at that and decide if he wants that or not.
Juravich: Okay, so the House and Senate both passed that.
Kasler: Yes. Okay. And also I should note that we got an update.
DeWine did sign the capital bill, so. Oh. Yeah, he did sign a capital budget.
Juravich: While we were on the air here.
All right, so capital budget has been signed, but now we don't know if you took any questions from reporters.
Kasler: Well no, it was not an open ceremony, so otherwise I think at least one of us might have wanted to go.
Juravich: So we could have asked him about this.
OK, so Andrew, we don't know if DeWine is going to sign this thing related to mail-in voting.
Tobias: Yeah, the governor in 2022, actually like 2021, signed Ohio's current photo ID law that is now going to potentially be enshrined in the constitution.
And when he signed that bill, he said he didn't, he figured, he believed that the issue was settled and he didn't want there to be any more voting restrictions passed during his term as governor.
Since then, he did sign a bill that changed, basically eliminated the post-election day grace period.
By which it used to be that if a mail ballot arrived within four days after the election, but it's postmarked before that it would count, the bill DeWine signed got rid of that.
So he's already gone back on his word that he didn't expect to sign any more of these, but he made clear he didn't love signing the bill.
And so every time one of these goes to his desk, I think that there is a real chance that he at least will consider vetoing it based on his past statements.
Juravich: All right, well, we will wait and see.
We have been talking with Andrew Tobias, state government and politics reporter for Signal Ohio. Thank you, Andrew.
Tobias: Happy to do it.
Juravich: And Karen Kastler, Bureau Chief with the Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau. Thank you, Karen.
Happy Monday. And Megan Henry, reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal. Thank you Megan. Thank you.
And we have been talking about this, the WOSU "Politics in a Pint."
You can join us Thursday, June 25th at 7th Sun Brewing. Visit WOSU.org/events.
We hope to see you there. This has been All Sides Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News.