After repeatedly postponing executions for the past seven years, Gov. Mike DeWine officially confirmed his change of heart on the death penalty.
It’s a policy he helped to write 45 years ago as a state lawmaker, but last week he said Ohio should abolish the death penalty and if lawmakers won’t do it, then the voters should decide.
We will talk about the issue on this week's reporter roundtable.
Guests:
- Marty Schladen, reporter, Ohio Capital Journal
- Sarah Donaldson, reporter, Ohio Statehouse News Bureau
- Morgan Trau, political reporter, News 5 Cleveland
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 on the political news of last week and preview the week ahead.
You're listening to All Sides Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we catch up on the political news of last week and preview the week ahead. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Joining me for the roundtable this week, we have Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. Welcome back, Sarah. Hello. Happy Monday. Marty Schladen, reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal. Welcome back, Marty.
Marty Schladen: Good morning, Amy.
Amy Juravich: And Morgan Trau, Columbus Bureau reporter for Cleveland News 5. Welcome back Morgan.
Morgan Trau: Good morning.
Amy Juravich: So after repeatedly postponing executions for the past seven plus years that he's been in office, Governor Mike DeWine last week officially confirmed his change of heart.
Gov. Mike DeWine: I no longer believe that death penalty is a deterrent to murder. The moral justification I had for voting for the death penalty simply no longer exists.
Amy Juravich: Sarah, let's start with you. This is an about face for DeWine decades ago. He was one of the architects of Ohio's death penalty law. I mean, we're talking more than 40 years ago, but it's a change that he's been signaling a little bit here and there for quite some time, right?
Sarah Donaldson: Yeah, it's maybe an about face for his career in a hole, but as governor it's not terribly surprising because he has been delaying executions. And of course, he's blamed that and the state has blamed that on the struggle to secure the drug concoction that goes into a lethal injection.
But more recently, he had been hinting that he was going to say something like this. I asked him I think in 2024. If he was gonna take a stronger stance on the death penalty. And he told me, well, I'll have more to say about that after the budget. The budget passed a whole year ago almost and he finally came out and made this statement last week.
So it's been a long time coming. He told us that he just wasn't ready to make this statement before he made it. But of course, he may be reading the political headwinds as well. I don't know that this legislature has the support to actually repeal the death of penalty.
Amy Juravich: Yeah, Morgan, tell me a little bit more about that, because he's been hinting at making a death penalty announcement. But why now? He has six months left in office. A new governor will be sworn in in January. The new governor may hold different views. Why did DeWine feel like last week was the time to make this announcement?
Morgan Trau: I think that's exactly why. I think the fact is that he is a lame dog governor. He has six months left. This is something that's clearly been weighing on him for years and years and years. And I think when you have a new leader coming in, regardless of who it is, maybe he's trying to influence their policy.
We already know that Vivek Ramaswami is a supporter of the death penalty. Amy Acton is a little more loose on where she stands on it, but I think that You know, it's finally time we've been pestering him for years, like Sarah has said. And I think that this with the postponement of additional executions that he's been making lately, I think this sort of just aligns with, you know, my last six months, I'm going to say what I want to say.
Amy Juravich: And Marty, what about his comments in that cut we played where he said it's not a deterrent? Is that backed up by data?
Schladen: Oh yeah, that's been true for a really long time, to the extent that this can either be proven or disproven. The thing that really interested me is that he didn't bring up exonerations. There have been over 200 people walked off of death row in the United States and a dozen in Ohio, and I've met one of them.
And it really interested that he wasn't going to bring up the fact that we have impose the ultimate penalty on people who were We almost surely have imposed it on people who were innocent since we found people who are awaiting the ultimate penalty who were shown to be innocent. And I just am, I don't know why the governor didn't bring that up.
Amy Juravich: Well, on the flip side of that, in his remarks, Dewine also mentioned the weight and the suffering that victims' families endure because it's such a lengthy process. Supporters of the death penalty say victims' family will suffer even more, ultimately, if the death is taken away. I want to play some audio from an interview you did, Morgan, with Rhonda Whitelock. She doesn't want lawmakers to abolish the death penalty and her reason is personal. Her best friend was murdered in 2017 along with her two daughters. And here she is speaking about the convicted killer, George Brinkman.
Rhonda Whitelock: Why does this man still breathe on this earth after what he did? He gets to live, he gets to breathe. My friend's not here, she doesn't get to breathe, her children aren't here anymore.
Amy Juravich: So Morgan, I mean, tell me a little bit more about this case. I mean obviously Rhonda Whitelock is an advocate for keeping the death penalty and wants to see this happen.
Trau: Oh, yeah. So we've been talking to Rhonda for nine years now. This case is kind of unique in the death penalty cases. George Brinkman pleaded guilty to the murder of the Taylor family, as well as he pleaded to right after that, killing an elderly couple that he knew from a nearby county.
So altogether, he was a spree killer, five people. He committed guilt to this. And he... What city was this in? So it was in North Royalton, the first, and then it was Starrt County, the other couple. So when this happened, obviously there was so much outrage. And Rhonda was best, best, best friends with Suzanne and considered her daughters her nieces.
And has said, you know, he gets medical care in prison. Like it's a struggle for regular Ohioans to get medical care. Like he has a roof over his head. Even though it's prison, you know, a lot of people are struggling right now. It's not fair. She also says that she has had repeated nightmares and that she feels like, well, people can sometimes get out on appeal.
People can escape. And of course, the likelihood of that happening is low. But she says it's not fare that she's been waiting for justice. And her justice is him not being alive because why should five people be dead? And she feels he doesn't actually have any recourse for it. Marty, you wanna weigh in here?
Schladen: Yeah, I do, and just give a sort of a counterpoint to that. I can't speak to this woman's suffering. I'm sure it's unimaginable. But the thinking is, it takes decades to get somebody through the execution process. So this is a wound that gets reopened for the victims of families over and over.
And I was at the last execution that occurred at Ohio. And um It was a horrible murder and the victim's family had looked forward to this day for a long time. They were going to speak to the press after it was over. And the execution itself was very traumatic.
And when we got back to the visitor center where they held us, where we were going to talk to the victim family, half hour later we were told they don't want to talk. I can't say why that was, but I wonder whether this wasn't. The healing experience they thought it was gonna be.
Sarah Donaldson: I think that's a point that Governor DeWine talked to on both sides because victims' families have both, like the victim's friend who Morgan spoke to, have said that they want this to happen. But there are some families and friends of victims who have spoken out against the death penalty for whatever reason.
I talked to some nuns a couple of years ago who, they had a case where one of their sisters was murdered. This man was supposed to get the death penalty. They begged the court not to go forward with the death and penalty. It ended up being kind of a clerical error that he got life without eligibility for parole.
But, you know, they've continued to speak out against the death, penalty, because this man ultimately sent them a letter of asking for their forgiveness from prison. But you know everyone kind of has a case that they cite when they talk about why they're for or against the Death Penalty.
You know House Speaker Matt Huffman talks about a drug robbery gone wrong in Lima, and then there's a person serving on death row for that crime that Huffmann points to that. So these cases, regardless, are gruesome, but the question is, of course, you know, that how long it takes and also whether that is true justice. I think that's what a lot of people.
Trau: With. I think that there's also people on each side of this debate can agree that the system does not work how it is right now. It either keeps these families in a limbo on appeals year after year after year it is costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars despite us not executing people and you know if a family wants justice and the only way they want justice is by that person no longer breathing they're also not getting that.
And then, you know, there's also the dozen exonerees. There are so many things, there's the racial bias, there are so many things that go into this. Everyone can agree, and Davios came out a couple years ago, former Attorney General Davios said that, you know, this system's not working. Everyone can agree that it doesn't work.
So that's why Rhonda, her solution is, you know what, like, then let's get it working and let's have, you know, the families that don't want the death penalty because she understands that not every family wants it, not every religion supports it. So when it comes to this, she said, let people pick and choose.
Let the families have a say when it comes to the death penalty. Obviously that's a bit of a controversial thought, but also it isn't when it come to people who feel very, very strongly about this. Either way, she has said that she wishes that some laws could be changed that way that the system could either work or it doesn't exist.
Amy Juravich: I think a lot of prosecutors would have an issue with letting families weigh in on something like that. Sarah, increasingly more Republicans are siding with DeWine's position, though. You spoke with U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno. You asked him about DeWin's changing position, and here's what he said.
Sen. Bernie Moreno: So I support his moral point of view. Obviously, it's very difficult for families who suffer homicides from just absolutely gruesomely horrific people. But I believe it's only up to God to end life, not humans.
Amy Juravich: Okay, so Bernie Moreno is basically saying he's against the death penalty in that cut. Yes. Yeah.
Donaldson: Yeah, you've heard more and more, I would note, especially Catholic lawmakers come out against the death penalty in recent years saying that they're pro-life from the womb to the tomb, that you can't be against abortion and also for the death Penalty. But I don't know that it's in any way shape or form a majority of Republicans.
It does kind of fall along faith-based lines. In a way, I saw Republican Representative Gary Klick who's a former pastor posting his biblical justification for the death penalty. But for Moreno to come out and say that, I thought was a little bit surprising simply because I don't know that he'd weighed in on it.
And of course Moreno doesn't really have a vote in the state, but he is one of the Ohio's top ranking Republicans. So yeah, it was a bit of a surprise for me. New paragraph. Faith-based argument that he believes that only God gets to decide. And their are just I don't think a majority of Republicans at this state house who want to end the death penalty right now.
Amy Juravich: Well, and someone I mean, you mentioned former Attorney General Dave Yost, Morgan, but the current Attorney General Andy Wilson, a recent appointee of DeWine, supports the death penalty. This is what he had to say. This is a story from your colleague, Sarah, Karen Kasler.
Attorney General Andy Wilson: You can argue one way or the other on whether or not the death only has a deterrent effect, but it certainly has an incapacitating effect, or it certainly serves a retribution goal for families.
Amy Juravich: So Marty, where where would the attorney general come into play here? Because I mean, DeWine's basically asking lawmakers to act on the death penalty. Does the attorney General get a say here?
Schladen: Yeah, the attorney general is in the loop. It's ultimately the governor's power, within the governor power to commute the imposition of the death penalty. But the attorney General has a say in the process.
And something that's interesting to me, and I don't want to speak too broadly here, but attorneys general generally are former prosecutors. And I think that, you know, they... They just come from a tough-on-crime culture, and it's difficult for them to say, yeah, maybe some of these penalties, and they also want tools in their kit. They want, they call it LWOP, life without parole, and for years, seen the threat of imposing the death penalty as a chit to use to bargain people.
Amy Juravich: Get more information or...
Schladen: And then get them to plead guilty, you know, in exchange for dropping the death penalty, they, you know, they settle for LWOP.
Amy Juravich: It's a no trial, yeah, yeah. And Ohio isn't the only state to have a change of heart when it comes to the death penalty. Does anyone have a sense of the national movement on this issue? Yeah, Marty?
Schladen: Yeah, so public opinion has been shifting against the death penalty now for over a decade. There are fewer and fewer executions. And one of the things we've learned is that as a practical matter, it's just hard to do.
The process takes a long time for a reason. We've put people to death who shouldn't have been, but we don't want to do that. So you have to ensure that. And then these protocols are, you're having non-doctors. Do this. And I have an anesthesiologist friend who's like, you know, the easiest thing in the world for me would be to let somebody die, you know, but these are, these are prison workers, they're not doctors. And that's a big problem why these protocols turn out to be so unwieldy.
Amy Juravich: But the doctor may not want to be working for the prison, right? That's why it ends up being a prison worker because the doctor doesn't want to do it.
Schladen: They've taken an oath not to, you know, do no harm, you know, they can't walk in and go, Oh, I'm just going to kill this person who's, you know, otherwise healthy.
Amy Juravich: Yeah, I mean, there's obviously a lot to unpack with this issue. We're going to do a whole hour talking about the death penalty from both sides and coming up in a week or so. So stay with us.
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable. We are talking today with Marty Shladen from the Ohio Capital Journal, Morgan Trow from News 5 Cleveland and Sarah Donaldson with the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. Before we take a break, I wanted to get an update on the FBI raid that happened in Cleveland. Marty. We talked last week on the roundtable about this FBI raid on the Cleveland office of a voting rights group.
The group is called the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. And we learned that this group is engaging in voter registration work, but they also are a conduit for millions of dollars from national progressive contributors like liberal mega donor George Soros. Do we have any updates? Anything more known about why the FBI raided them or anything from the Ohio organizing collaborative perspective?
Schladen: Well, so the organizing collaborative put out a statement today that, and really the news I gleaned from that was that this was a really sweeping thing. It was statewide. They searched offices in Cleveland, but they also went after people across the state and they're saying that this is a blatant attempt to intimidate them.
The thing that I'm most disturbed by is. We have heard nothing from the Justice Department or the FBI about why they did this. You know, and you think about this, this is not, they're not just searching somebody who sells floor tile or something like that. This is a group that registers people to vote and we're in the middle of an election year and they undertook all this law enforcement action across the state of Ohio.
And they've not said word one about what the organizing collaborative is supposed to have done to justify these violations. Well, you know, these are erstwhile violations of the group's Fourth Amendment rights and First Amendment rights.
Amy Juravich: Okay, but the FBI hasn't said, I mean, you would assume the FBI has a reason that they raided and assumingly took stuff from the office to investigate, right?
Schladen: Yeah, and in an open society, we deserve to hear at least something about that reason. You know, they may say we don't want to, like, you know, compromise our investigation, but I mean, everybody in the country knows about this now. They need to give us some idea of why they did this, what their justification was.
Amy Juravich: And Sarah or Morgan, have you talked with any state lawmakers, the governor, for Secretary of State, Franklin Rose, any other state leaders, has anyone weighed in on this?
Donaldson: I asked Bernie Moreno about this, and he really didn't have much to say. You know, he was tweeting about it, and I also followed up with, you know, this is a group that generally leans more liberal. It's not like Democrats are winning statewide, so is there a real concern of Democratic voter fraud in Ohio? And he said that all voter fraud is concerning, but that the investigation kind of needs to play out that he really didn't have.
Amy Juravich: He didn't seem to have any of any details. Okay, and then that
Trau: than that he was willing to share, at least. I want to be so abundantly clear right now that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Ohio or in the country. But especially in Ohio, thousands of audits done by Republican Secretary of State Franklin Rose has shown that there is absolutely no evidence a widespread voter fraud.
If there is widespread voter for in the Cleveland area, journalists, the public, should know about it. Obviously. They are a more liberal organization. Cleveland is a liberal city. If there is shenanigans going on in the city of Cleveland or the city, that kind of government, we should know about it.
However, time and time again, there is no evidence. I mean, if we look back about what happened in Georgia, they had a raid like last year. So I think that the fact that we don't really know why this happened, what's going on. Is one of the most concerning parts about this. I've personally never heard anything bad about that organization from election officials.
So I clearly wanna know what's going on, but we have to be very clear, on the Democratic side and on the Republican side, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Ohio.
Donaldson: In the least, there's human error in voter registration, right? When these groups are going out and helping to register voters, there is gonna be human error and oftentimes a board of elections or the secretary of state's going to catch that. And that does not mean there is widespread voter fraud going on. It doesn't mean there's whites.
Amy Juravich: It doesn't mean there's widespread fraud, they just put an O instead of an A on their name or something.
Donaldson: And groups on both sides are registering voters and participating in voter outreach. So I've seen some sentiment from the right that what this group is doing is bad and they're just trying to register more voters on their side. But groups have been doing this for how long?
And again, there is sometimes human error when someone fails out of form and misspells their name or doesn't realize that they're registering in the wrong county. I mean, it's... So, I don't know, just to put that out there as well.
Schladen: And it can go a little bit beyond that, too, like when you're using paid canvassers, you know, they're getting paid to, you know, get some of the...
Amy Juravich: Per person they get signed up. Yeah.
Schladen: Right, and people cheat, and they do stuff, but that, to Morgan's point, that stuff gets caught, you know, and it's not even like any, they're just signing up more people to make more money. They don't really care about people going to the polls and voting. They're just worried about their personal paycheck. So Morgan, you just cannot say that enough. It's like 0.0001% is the number I remember from one of LaRosa's audits.
Amy Juravich: All right, we'll leave it there. Coming up, we're going to talk about some key bills that landed on Governor DeWine's desk. What will he sign and will there be any vetoes? And before we take the break, I want to say that WOSU is having a politics in a pint.
I'm going to be there along with WOSUs Mike Thompson and a couple of state house reporters and we're gonna talk about the midterms and more. It is Thursday, June 25th at six at Seventh Sun Brewing in Columbus. So that's this week. Sarah, you're gonna be there, right?
Yeah, I was just I just I would just realized you're sitting in front of me. You're gonna be there. Yes So register to get a spot details and registration are at WOSU org slash events The reporter roundtable continues in just a moment. This is all sides on 89 7 NPR news
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we talk about all things Ohio politics. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Still with us, we have Ohio Capital Journal reporter Marty Shladen and Morgan Trau, Columbus Bureau reporter for News 5 Cleveland, and Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau.
So a number of bills await Governor DeWine's signature following a flurry of activity from state lawmakers before their summer recess. The Senate has said they're not coming back until after the November election. But I did see something about the House might come back this week. Is that still the case? No? That sounded like a-
Donaldson: a night of, you know, high flutin' thinkin' from House Speaker Matt Hudman that quickly got canceled because he said that to reporters right after they failed to come to an agreement on data centers. But then by the next morning, both Senate and House lawmakers said it'll probably be after the election. Once they're in their districts, they don't wanna come back.
Amy Juravich: Okay, so but related to our whole big long conversation we had about the death penalty, if he wants lawmakers to take action on the death penalty, they wouldn't even talk about it until after the election then in that case.
Donaldson: Exactly. I mean, again, lawmakers are at this point in their districts. It's an election year, so every single member of the Ohio House is up for reelection unless they're term limited, and members of the ohio senate are running for ree election as well. So they want to take summer recess and then campaign. I mean, we have a full year legislature, but they definitely take a long recess in second year of the legislature.
Amy Juravich: They consider summer all the way until November then?
Donaldson: Yeah, pretty much. But they'll be back after the election and then they'll be, you know, working long days. Hopefully. We'll see.
Amy Juravich: Okay. Well, Governor DeWine has several bills on his desk. He did sign the $3.7 billion capital budget bill last week that covers everything from park improvements to construction, renovation projects for school upgrades.
There's a lot in the capital budget. It is $3,7 billion. Is there anything the three of you want to note from the capital budgets? I mean, we talked about it a little bit last week, but I have three new reporters here. Is anyone? Okay, sometimes people say to me the capital budgets just boring so
Morgan Trau: No, so personally, I love the capital budget. I think the capital is so fun because of that nearly $4 billion, they also this year gave about $208 million to community projects. So what this is are local projects that tend to benefit the community.
Like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame got money for a new education center they're building within it. And I talked with... A really great Akron battered women's shelter who is now getting money so that they can fix their air conditioning and their HVAC and that way that they're able to keep people in beds.
So I think that the capital budget is less interesting than the full budget, has less policy in it, but there are a lot of really great community projects, money in it that helps a lot of different municipalities. So I think that's really cool, but we had so much going on during what I like to call lame duckling, which is basically the last week before the summer vacation where they want to get everything done, that it kind of fell to the wayside and all of us were covering kind of, I guess, bigger issues. And on the flip side, the center.
Donaldson: Side I will say that the capital budget is also fun on the politics side of it because all of these lawmakers Republican and Democrat can go back to their districts and say I secured this much funding for this project which is true in part I mean these lawmakers are going to bat for community projects in their districts but we always after the capital budget passes we'll get how many press releases about Representative XYZ secured XYZ for this local park. So it's definitely funny when it's in an election.
Trau: If they're using good policy for their campaigns, why not? It's important to that local park.
Amy Juravich: Yeah, absolutely. Congrats to all the local parks out there that got money. Okay, but the things that were distracting you away from the capital budget, one of them is mail-in voter photo ID. Okay, so let's talk about this mail-on voting.
And the bill seemed to pass very quickly. I think it was late in the night. And this is one to watch. So voter ID language was added late in process to a different bill called House Bill 472, which I hate bill numbers, butt. It sped through quickly. Morgan, remind us, what did they add in about mail-in voting?
Trau: Sure, so we first should start a little bit about Senate Joint Resolution 10. So Senate Joint resolution 10 is going to be sent to the November ballot. Basically what that means is that voters will be deciding whether or not people should have to show photo ID in order to vote, and that would be enshrined into the Constitution if it's approved. That was already in state law.
Amy Juravich: That is already state law. Yes, we have to show photo ID. They just want to put it in the Constitution.
Trau: Exactly. So it's a repetitive kind of motion. However, with that, there were not enough votes from further right Republicans because they said it only enshrines into the Constitution photo ID for in-person voting. So by adding in at the last minute this provision into 472, This would require absentee ballots when you're applying for an absentees ballot, when you try to vote by mail, this means that you're going to have to show your ID.
There's a couple different ways that they kind of think that this could be possible such as mailing a photocopy of your ID to your board of elections, which has also raised some concerns, or by creating a portal online similar to what Kentucky has. Either way, this was a very last-minute idea that was put in at the last minute to try to secure those votes to get the Senate joint resolution onto the November ballot.
Amy Juravich: Okay, Marty, yeah, you want to end? Yeah, I do. What do you have to add?
Schladen: A bit, actually. So back to what Morgan said earlier, you know, voting fraud on a scale that would affect an election is vanishingly rare in Ohio. But proponents of these things also know that the polling behind voter ID is actually pretty strong.
People think it's just common sense. I have to have a driver's license to drive. Why not to vote? But what that forgets is there are a lot of people who don't have photo ID, and they tend to be poor and more disempowered, you know, this whole business about not having documents. So this is just another way of keeping the issue of this idea of voter fraud front and center in the public mind at the same time that you're making it harder for certain populations to vote.
Amy Juravich: Do you know if other states, I mean, you mentioned Kentucky. Do other states require a photo ID to be attached to an absentee ballot? Do you, does anyone know? I don't know.
Donaldson: I don't know. I mean, voter ID laws vary widely across the country, which was some of the push on the right at the federal level to get the SAVE Act through because that had more stringent photo ID regulations. Federally, of course, elections are run at the state local levels, which is why there are varying laws.
Amy Juravich: Well, I was I was trying to think about like how I would if if I was voting absentee how I would get a copy of my driver's license to the Board of Elections. And so like I happen to work in an office building that has a copy machine. So I guess I could do that. But not a lot of people have access to that.
Donaldson: You know, and I should note that lawmakers who were supportive of this would tell you that they added exemptions for a lot of people who are not able to get, who are disabled or don't have, in some ways, or don t have access. In addition to that, there was a last-last-minute amendment added that libraries and other would be required to make free photocopies of photo IDs.
So, you know, that was something. Now, of course, that's a new thing that is being added on libraries' plates, so there was debate over that. But there were provisions in the bill that were added, again, literally the morning that it passed, that provide Ohioans with opportunities to make photocopies if they don't have a photocopy or to just plug in at home, which I certainly don't.
So Is Governor DeWine going to sign this? Well, I think it's really up in the air. I asked one Republican lawmaker about this because here's the thing. This is a lot of politicking in an election year, I will remind people again. This was obviously passed to placate the people who, the Republicans who did not want to vote for that SJR 10. Which was a priority for Republicans to get on the ballot because Vivek Ramaswamy wrote an op-ed that said we need constitutionally required photo ID.
And that same day, lawmakers pushed really hard for the next month to get this constitutional amendment on the ballots. So this mail-in thing, a lot of it had to do with placating Republicans who would not have voted for that ballot amendment otherwise, just to put the note on the politics of it all. But of course, it was all past, knowing that... This mail-in piece, DeWine could certainly veto.
And if you look at DeWin's history, he has said before, and he hasn't really stuck to it, but when he signed the photo ID law that went into effect in 2023, I want to say, and my wonderful colleagues can fact-check me, he said that he really saw election integrity as a settled issue and that he was signing this, but he really didn't think Ohio needed further election changes.
Now he's gone back on his since then. And he has signed several election related bills, but the most recent election related bill that had to do with the cure period on mail-in ballots, he expressed to reporters that he did want to veto it, but ultimately the way federal law was potentially going to be changing, he just decided it wasn't in his best interest.
Amy Juravich: To veto it. So he yeah he he signed what ended the four-day grace period for mail-in ballots. It used to be you could the the ballot could arrive four days after the election and it would still count. Now it has to be in election officials hands on the day of the election for it to count. And but Dewine said as you just said that he didn't want to he didn't want to sign any law related to voting.
Trau: And that when he signed and kind of wagged. He does that all the time. Yeah, he signed. He does it all the times. He does with gun laws. He does, he does it. All the time!
Donaldson: So I think it's a big question when he's, a lot of his vetoes have had to do less with elections. But again, he's in his last six months. He just came out and said this about the death penalty. He is retiring from public office to all of our knowledge.
I don't think he's planning on running for anything again in the near future. So it's just really tough to say. And DeWine is not one who will throw any hints out there until he's decided to sign a review.
Amy Juravich: This law that this was tacked on to, whatever House Bill 472 does, I don't know what that does, but it's not like he can line item veto it, it's just either up or down on the whole bill.
Trau: So this bill was originally meant, and please correct me if I'm wrong, because this was at the late hours. Sarah and I are always, I feel like, holding down the fort when it comes to being there late. This was tacked onto a bill that would have provided individuals experiencing homelessness, it would have provide them free, accessible IDs.
So altogether it was a very, very bipartisan bill, I think it passed unanimously through the House the first time. And so it's on a bill like that. And so I think with the governor, if you look at what he's previously said, as Sarah's mentioned, but you also look at the fact that it's not entirely thought out.
The policy in it is not entirely clean cut. And they did put a barrier where they were like, oh, well, this will give us time. This won't go into effect until 2027. So we will have time to figure out the best way to make this work. So if DeWine signs it, the Boards of Elections can get together with the Secretary of State, who is skeptical of this, let's just say, and we can come up with a formula that works.
So whether DeWin is going to go with that logic of, okay, well we have until 2027 to work out a formula, or whether he's gonna be like, this is pointless, we shouldn't be adding more barriers. It depends. It depends on how, I guess, you can look at what his personal beliefs may be, but sometimes he doesn't always go with his personal belief.
Donaldson: And it's a good point that Morgan noted that it's not just, I mean, Democrats are the ones who are really leading the charge, urging him to veto it, which we've seen before. And sometimes he has vetoed things that he's been urged by Democrats to veto.
Looking back to the ban on gender affirming care for minors, and that was of course overridden. I'm not going to get into that, but on the flip side, there are election officials on Republicans who have voiced some skepticism with. This proposal because although dry and cut, it adds photo ID requirements for mail-in ballots. There's a lot baked into that language that passed very, very hastily.
Amy Juravich: Okay, well, we'll just we'll end it there. But when does he have to sign it by? I mean, they passed it. So doesn't he have a deadline? He has 14 days.
Donaldson: Or 10 days, my apologies, 14 days, 10 days. 10 days from when it gets to him, but that when it get to him part is kind of up in the air, which is why sometimes it more so looks like 14 days. But I imagine at some point this week he's gonna have to make a decision because it passed more than a week ago.
Trau: He's allowed to ask them to delay sending things to him and he has done that previously to extend that 10 business day deadline. So when it got to him, I need to double check on that. I was actually talking with my bosses this morning about double checking on when it got to them or if it has got to, I assume it's gotten to him at this point. So 10 business days, working business days he has. Okay
Amy Juravich: Well, coming up, we're going to talk about data centers and just where we are at on the pause and if the pause is still paused regarding data centers and tax breaks. And I also wanna add there's a lot going on in politics from data centers to inflation to high gas prices. Voters are a little bit mad, but you know what helps? Beer and good friendly conversation. We want you to join us for WOSU's Next Politics in a pint. It is Thursday, June 25th at six, that's Seventh Sun Brewing. You can get details and register at wosu.org slash events. This is the Reporter Roundtable from all sides on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to all sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable. I'm your host, Amy Juravich, and still with us this hour, Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. Morgan Trowell, statehouse reporter for News 5 Cleveland and Ohio Capitol Journal reporter Marty Sladen. I wanted to talk about data centers for a little bit because we can't let a week go by without talking about data center's.
I wanted you to try to give an update on where we stand with the whole discussion regarding tax breaks. Eh Is, are the tax breaks paused? Governor DeWine paused the tax breaks, but then they they let through the ones that were already in the works. Sarah, is the pause paused? The pause is paused and
Donaldson: pausing. Governor DeWine has not really weighed in on whether he's going to lift that pause and when he's gonna lift that cause. But I should note that the director of the department of development told lawmakers that they don't really have anyone like in the pipeline right now who's asking for a tax break.
And there's a huge asterisk on the paused idea because it's just a pause on new data center sales and use tax breaks. There are tons of companies, namely the big three, Metta and Google and Amazon, who are benefiting from these tax breaks and will be benefiting from this tax breaks as reporters and the public have learned in recent weeks through the mid 2050s.
Amy Juravich: Yes, okay. The mid 2050s is a long time. Marty, so let's talk about this idea of the tax breaks because what basically the reason Governor DeWine paused this is because Jake Zuckerman from Signal Ohio had a story that basically he asked the taxing department how much money Ohio lost and it was way more than any estimate said. I mean it was 10 to 12 times more, right? So this is a lot of money that the state is losing, but on flip side they're saying that they're gaining this construction and all these data centers, so that there's the economic development aspect. Talk to me about the tax breaks.
Schladen: Well, they're giant. And it is telling that they didn't have any idea how much of our money they were letting out the door this way. It went from, I want to say, $300 and some million a year is what they thought. And I think what Jake came back with was $1.6 billion a year.
And this is for once the construction is complete, data centers that operate with a skeleton staff. Policy Matters Ohio has looked at particular tax breaks, and I think Meta or Google was one of them, where we're effectively paying a million dollars per permanent job being created.
And I just want to point out, just as a general matter in economic development, these incentives are very highly questionable. An economist in Michigan did a study of study several years ago. And he came back with the conclusion that somewhere between 98% of the time and 75% of the time we're giving incentives for companies to do what they were gonna do anyway.
And that's in my mind where these tax breaks for these data centers are particularly questionable. They're desperate to build these centers. It's a small group of people who are trying to have as much data capacity as possible as this AI boom sets in. They want to do this, so that raises the obvious question, why are we subsidizing them?
Amy Juravich: But I was told when I interviewed the spokesperson or someone from the Ohio Data Center Coalition, is that the right name? There's a Data Center coalition. It's just like advocates. It's a federal data center coalition. Okay. So they are dealing with not just Ohio, but all the states. And basically he was saying that if Ohio wants a part of this, then they need to do something to attract the data centers to come here. Sure, and maybe that
Donaldson: That was the argument 10 to 15 years ago when data centers were first trying to figure out where to locate. But there's also been reporting to suggest that data centers, like Marni said, are making these decisions based on a lot of factors. Ohio has cheap farmland and these data centers want, I shouldn't say data centers like they're human beings. Companies that are building data centers. It's easier and cheaper to build on clean land, on farmland than it is to build on a brownfield.
So, I mean, it's not to say the tax break is not a factor in decision making, but some of these companies, namely the big three, are already benefiting on any facility they build in Ohio through the mid 2050s. So there's nothing the state can do to change that.
And these arguments are playing out in every other state because most states offer some sort of tax break to these data centers. And some states. Have put them on pause because you're hearing the same argument in every state. And it's pretty easy to go around to every state and say, well, you're gonna lose out to Michigan or Pennsylvania or these other states, but they're saying that about Ohio when they go over to Pennsylvania.
Like Marty said, they're being built everywhere. There are a lot of factors that go into the decision-making, not just the farmland, also the water, also the electric. So, you know, it's. It's tough to take that argument and face value because of course companies are going to make use of the tax breaks and tax incentives that are made available to them.
But they're not just making a decision because Ohio offers this sales and use tax break that really, even though it's a lot of money to us and it sounds like a lot of money, to us, to the taxpayers, it's drop in the bucket for what these companies are spending on data centers. Oh boy. Okay.
Schladen: I just want to make the point very quickly that the argument you posited sounds an awful lot like these big sports teams, the arguments they make. If you want us to stay in town, you need to build us a new stadium.
Amy Juravich: Yeah. Well, if we don't talk about data centers on this show, we talk about the Cleveland Brown Stadium. So it's like it's, like a weekly topic. Okay. Well before we run out of time, Marty, I wanted to talk a little bit about a story you did related to corruption. There's certainly been a lot of talk about corruption, but What do people of different political parties think about it? Because you found that there's quite a bit of agreement. You used some polling done by the Brennan Center for Justice. Can you tell me more about this? It's basically just a survey of what people think of corruption, right?
Schladen: Yes, and it was, I thought, very interesting because, you know, people like us who've been covering corruption for years, the concept of corruption never really seems to take hold as a subject in and of itself. And, you, when we're here in Ohio, you know, home of Ecott and House Bill 6 and these just giant scandals.
Amy Juravich: Yeah, I should add, I didn't pivot away from data centers to corruption on purpose. That's just how it was listed in my... Okay, continue. Well, it's a natural segue. I think if you ask...
Schladen: If you ask these same people about data centers and do you think that like these tax breaks are a form of corruption, they would say yes, because they're defining it very broadly. They're not just saying that there's got to be some specific part of the criminal code that has to be violated in order to be corruption.
They feel like democracy is failing them. They're being listened to. It's the billionaires who own data centers who are making the decisions for us. And there's very strong agreement across partisan lines about this. There are partisan divides. You know, you ask, do you think Donald Trump is corrupt? Well, a lot fewer Democrats than Republicans answer that question. Yes.
But there's just this, what it shows me is that there's this very broad disaffection among the electorate right now because they feel like decisions are, they don't have a voice and decisions aren't being made in their interest.
Amy Juravich: Well, and a big issue is campaign finance reform. That's an area of concern. And did respondents on both sides agree that there's just too much dark money going around?
Schladen: Definitely. And of course the name dark money just is nefarious.
Amy Juravich: Yeah.
Schladen: Both parties use it, but...
Amy Juravich: What do other people call it if they don't want it to sound bad? Well, we just money.
Schladen: Well, you wrap it up in jargon, you call it 501C4 money, but it's unaccountable money and it was created, it's a byproduct of the Citizens United decision. It shouldn't be, I could get into the arcana, the legal arcana behind that.
The IRS could regulate it, but when people start, when politicians start going after the IRS and. Bringing staffing even lower. This is exactly the sort of enforcement the IRS cannot do. But yeah, people know that, you know the billionaires are flooding the system with the political system with money. And you know nobody at this table has that kind of money. So, you our voices are by definition quieter than theirs.
Amy Juravich: Well, you can read more about corruption Marty's story is at the Ohio Capital Journal website. Before we run out of time, I didn't get to ask you because we got we got to talking about the mail-in ballot photo ID bill that's on Governor DeWine's desk. But there are there other bills on Governor deWine desk that we're waiting for him to sign?
Donaldson: Plenty of them. Lawmakers passed a lot of stuff. House lawmakers had two sessions two weeks ago, which is pretty busy for them. So there's some non-controversial stuff. There are also bills that are controversial. There's a bill on submetering that some folks ... I'm not even going to get into it because that would take a while, but there's a Bill on submetering that some folks have expressed. Concerns with. So there are some other bills that DeWine's gonna have to be making decisions on. He likened it to Christmas morning. He gets to open a bunch of presents and he's not sure what's inside all of them. So he's got some decision making to work through.
Amy Juravich: Okay. Well, Morgan, we have about a minute left. Are there any other bills besides the mail-in ballot voting and maybe submetering that you're going to follow and wait for him to sign? Medicaid.
Trau: I would say Medicaid is a big one. So this would have been a bigger bill, but it got changed. Senate Bill 315, it's a bipartisan bill actually passed out a bipartisan way that makes changes to the Medicaid system in order to better catch and prosecute fraud.
It also requires Ohio's SNAP program to begin using chip enabled EBT cards. So that is to stop EBT fraud. So with this legislation, originally it was supposed have something in it that would have took away. All of like home health care, having family members be home health care providers.
That was unbelievably controversial, I think way more controversial than House Republican leaders expected it to be. And after a couple days of them being slammed and tested, like by the public coming, they took that out. So now it's a it's pretty, you know, bipartisan Medicaid reform bill that just
Amy Juravich: And we're gonna get rid of the swipes and get chips in the cards, right? That's been talked about for such a long time. I'm like, I want chips in cards. All right. We have been talking about Morgan. We've been talking with Morgan Trowell, state house reporter for News 5 Cleveland. Thank you, Morgan. Of course, thanks for having me. And Ohio Capital Journal reporter, Marty Schladen. Thanks, Marty.
Schladen: Thank you Amy.
Amy Juravich: And Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau. Thanks, Sarah. Always good to be here. And see you Thursday for the Reporter Roundtable for the Politics in a Pint. This has been the Reporter Roundtable from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich.