Cleanup efforts continue after violent storms blew across Ohio last week prompting Gov. Mike DeWine to declare a state of emergency and to deploy the Ohio National Guard.
The weather is said to have caused at least one person's death.
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down on Columbus' south side on Tuesday, yet no sirens or warnings alerted residents. Why?
DeWine delays executions set for January of 2027 after he leaves office.
We're also talking about sports betting in Ohio. Why is prop betting still going strong despite a push to end it?
What could a federal change mean for Head Start?
It's all coming up on this week's Reporter Roundtable.
Guests:
- Sarah Donaldson, reporter, Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau
- Susan Tebben, reporter, Ohio Capital Journal
- Jake Zuckerman, reporter, Signal Ohio
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. This is the 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 on the Roundtable this week, we have Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio, Statehouse News Bureau. Welcome back, Sarah. Hey, Amy. And Susan Tebben, reporter for The Ohio Capital Journal. Welcome back Susan. Hi, happy to be here. And Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio. Welcome back Jake.
Jake Zuckerman: Alright, thanks for having me on.
Juravich: So I wanted to start the roundtable. We don't often talk about weather on the round table, but it's just been a lot of weather. Last week's storms were a doozy, prompting action by state and local officials. The first round of storms did leave one person dead in Roseville, which is a town south of Zanesville. An EF1 tornado was confirmed to touch down in South Columbus. But no sirens or warning alerts for residents to take cover. Why was that? Well, here is meteorologist Christine. Aina, Christine Aina. She was interviewed by WOSU's George Shilcock explaining that speed was a factor in the no warnings going out.
Christine Aina: This is a very quick spin up tornado and so by the time we were able to see it on radar it was already doing damage and then it spun down almost just as fast.
Juravich: Sarah, what did Governor DeWine have to say about the fact that there were no tornado warnings, the sirens didn't go off?
Sarah Donaldson: When I asked him on Tuesday, he really had not heard initial reports of those tornado sirens not going off. But obviously the governor was monitoring the situation across the state because these storms were really strange in the fact that they really impacted the southern half of the state, stretching from Cincinnati all the way into southeastern Ohio. So I know his focus was especially in Perry and Muskingum counties. Where there was really extensive flooding. But of course, those of us in Columbus were probably woken up from our beds over the weekend because we did get some tornado sirens.
Juravich: Yes, that time. So that was Saturday night. We got tornado sirens, but no tornado. So, you know, go figure. So when there was a tornado, there were no sirens. I guess that's the world we live in. Susan or Jake, did you hear anything from any state officials or anything about the response to the storms, cleanup efforts, anything? Not something you covered.
Zuckerman: Not a bit, I've been walking, no. No, nothing new, I only just watched the weather while it was happening.
Juravich: Well, and there was some serious flooding in the Cincinnati area and some areas of Fayette and Union County is estimated 10 inches of rain in a 48 hour period. So we've had some flood warnings. But also at the Grafton Correctional Institution, 16 state prisoners were injured by a lightning strike last week. Sarah, do you know how 16 people got injured by lightning strike? Do you know what happened there?
Donaldson: I haven't been covering that one as much but certainly just you know a general observation that this weather has been very strange and out of season and even the state you know really doesn't have an answer for why of course because typically when you think about severe weather and the kind of severe weather that we're getting with thunder and lightning and tornadoes you're thinking more late spring into early summer April to June so you know This is a strange. Set of circumstances in August for Ohio.
Juravich: Did the governor speak at all or when you talked to him on Tuesday, he probably he didn't know about the prisoners at the at the correctional institution being struck by lightning yet.
Donaldson: No, he did not. But, you know, it's the governor warned that the conditions were going to be continuously not so great for several days. It wasn't one isolated thunderstorm. And so, of course, all of Ohio has seen ongoing, you know, severe instances.
Juravich: Anyone else have anything to add about weather?
Susan Tebben: I mean, it does seem anecdotally. I mean I was traveling yesterday and the lightning just, you could see it one, two, three, four, five, six, like constant.
Juravich: Lots of light.
Tebben: So it seemed, just from having lived in Ohio most of my life, it seemed like a lot of historically lightning and in places you could see it instead of like far off into fields and stuff. So it's, it does definitely seem like it's been a very odd weather pattern so far.
Juravich: Yeah, alright, well we will continue to monitor this odd August and for now we'll move on.
You're listening to All Sides Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News and with us we have Susan Tebin from the Ohio Capital Journal, Jake Zuckerman from Signal Ohio and Sarah Donaldson from the public radio Statehouse News Bureau. I wanted to move on to talk about executions. Eight inmates are scheduled to be executed in 2027 and last week Governor DeWine delayed three of them for three years. Well after he will be out of office. Sarah, here's some audio from Governor Wine from your story on this.
Gov. Mike DeWine: Look, I intend to be governor until the day I walk out of the office. And so I don't intend to come in here and kick things to the next administration, if I can avoid it.
Juravich: Sarah, what did the governor say about this move? I mean, he's been strong. He came out strong, anti-death penalty. Talk to me about what he said about why he's delaying these executions that weren't even scheduled till he is basically done being in office.
Donaldson: Well, it's exactly what listeners just heard, that he feels he's governor until the day he's not and the next governor can do their job, but he feels that this is still within his purview. And, you know, one of the inmates who was scheduled to be executed, Keith Lamar, he was scheduled to be execute just two days after DeWine left office. So, you now, on one end, of course, the governor has overseen, as well as other state executives, they've been the ones overseeing. The death penalty program for the last eight years. I think it would be a very quick turnaround for the state to come and execute someone two days after DeWine Leap's office when the state has had this de facto moratorium for eight, nine years at this point.
But, you know, it's certainly interesting because there are some things at this point in the governor's term that he is, is kicking to the next governor, you know, when he was asked about that data center tax break that he put on pause. He said that's for the next governor to decide what to do with it, but then in this instance, you know He is he has delayed several executions and this is of course Not new. We've watched the governor Delay executions before he's delayed every single execution in his eight years as governor But for Dewine to let delay these three that are after when he leaves office. It certainly ruffled some feathers with people who are frustrated with how Governor DeWine has overseen the death penalty program. Prosecutors and other folks who are pro-death penalty who say, just leave it to the next governor.
Juravich: Yeah, there's three men on death row will get a temporary reprieve. So it's Keith Lamar, as Sarah said, Scott group and Deval chin, whose executions were scheduled between January and March. Susan, what do you make of the governor leaving some decisions for the next governor to do but a decision like this? He's basically deciding for the Next Governor.
Tebben: Yeah, I mean, it's not surprising we do see this. It's part of the process. We're starting the lame duck situation, which is where when we're at the end of a general assembly term and we're end of certain people's terms for political office. So there are going to be decisions made, but he has taken a stance when it comes to the death penalty. He has stood with people who want to abolish it. He's been pushing off, as Sarah said, he's been pushing off. These executions, since he's been governor and partly because of that controversy with the chemical makeup of the stuff that they use for these executions he's pushing things off. So it's not entirely surprising that he's picking this issue as opposed to others and it's also not surprising to see him pick certain issues and not other issues to push forward.
Juravich: Yeah, Jake, do you think, I mean, do you think that the two candidates, Amy Acton and Vivek Ramaswamy, would want to be able to make this decision? Or could you predict if they're like, OK, well, the decision was made for us, so now we don't have to worry about it in our first month in office.
Zuckerman: Well, for the one you identified, that's a tough decision to have to make on, what, day two of a new job of a person's life. I guess the thing that sticks out to me here is that the governor has the power to essentially, like, he can commute these people, he can pardon these people. He has broad powers. He has announced this opposition to the death penalty, but he's not exercising the power he has to effectuate that position, and he's just punting. This down the road on behalf of the next governor. I don't quite know how to characterize it. And I'll add here that when he announced his opposition to the death penalty, I believe it was Laura Bischoff at the Columbus Dispatch who reported that three weeks prior to that announcement, without any sort of public-facing announcement, he had, was that a, boy, did he glant clemency to someone who was on death row?
Juravich: Yes. Sarah, do you remember that story? It was three weeks before he made his announcement putting a moratorium on the death penalty. He did grant clemency to an inmate on compassionate grounds, I believe. Is that right?
Donaldson: Yes. And I don't remember all the details of the case, but I believe the inmate had some sort of severe mental. Like a developmental disability. Or developmental disability that DeWine cited. And you know, even looking at Keith Lamar's case, who was the individual who was set to be executed just two days after DeWyne left office. And I know the Columbus dispatch connected with Lamar, but Lamar is one of those inmates who's sitting on death row. Who maintains that he's innocent. Lamar was convicted. He was already in prison and was convicted on additional charges related to the 1993 prison riots in Lucasville. And he's maintained his innocence in that case that got him the death penalty. So these cases are all very complicated. At least some of them are very complicated and certainly it'll be interesting to continue to watch DeWine's actions on this. Because, like Jake said, I think that there are more actions a governor can take beyond just granting reprieves, more, I would say, cemented actions that a governor can take. And thus far, Duane really hasn't. And- Beyond that one case of clemency.
Juravich: Yeah, so he commuted Gregory Lott's death sentence to life in prison in May, a few weeks before making his announcement. Lott had intellectual disabilities and it was, and Doug Livingston from the Marshall Project broke that story. So DeWine did not say anything about it when he made his announcement about the moratorium and the death penalty. He didn't mention the three weeks earlier he had commuted his sentence.
Zuckerman: My apologies to Doug Lip extent. That's a great story. It was a great
Juravich: It was a great story. Yes. So, Sarah, just to end on with this topic, the General Assembly is on break until after the November election, basically. Do you think there's any political will to look at this issue the way Governor DeWine wants them to.
Donaldson: Short answer, no, because I'm told by Republicans in the caucus who are pro-death penalty, that I just don't think the Republicans have the votes yet. And quite frankly, House Speaker Matt Huffman does not bring legislation to the floor if it does not have just support, just majority support, but it has to have majority within the Republican caucus. And I just, there are Republicans. Who have come out against the death penalty. It is a slow growing contingent. Some of them at this point have left office. Like there are bipartisan efforts to get rid of the death penalties, but there are a very similar number of Republicans who are for maintaining the death penality. And I just don't think there is that political will to do so because executions have been at a standstill for years and years and year. And folks at least who say they want to maintain the death penalty say it probably would have swung the other way at this point.
Juravich: Anything else to add, Susan, Jake, on the death penalty before?
Tebben: Sarah covered it for me.
Juravich: Alright, coming up we are going to talk about school transportation as we head into a new school year. And we're going to talk about sports betting with an update on prop bets and why they haven't been banned. That's when the reporter roundtable from All Sides continues 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 Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau, Jake Zuckerman, reporter at Signal Ohio, and Susan Tebben, reporter of the Ohio Capital Journal. Parents and students are gearing up for another school year. It's coming quickly. And bussing is an issue that has grown more and more complicated and contentious over the last few years. Susan, you wrote about the ongoing bus driver shortage and pushbacks from some districts like Columbus City Schools on the number of non-public students that they're required to bus. So you wrote some recommendations that, it's called the Ohio Pupil Transportation Work Group. Do I have that name right? Okay, so talk to me, not all members of this group are in agreement. I mean, catch us up on what this group is supposed to do and who they serve.
Tebben: Ongoing is the great word for it. So this, yeah, this transportation work group was put together, tasked with trying to figure out how to work this transportation, bussing situation all over the state because we've had issues with not having enough busses and now we have private school Ed Choice vouchers that have become nearly universal. So we have to figure how to bus those kids and the law is not necessarily clear on whether it's charter schools. Non-public schools, those kinds of schools, how we're bussing those people. Are we tasked with that as a state? Should we be funding that? So the work group was looking at that, and we had some legislators on it, some superintendents from schools, a number of people. And yeah, what they came to was, yes, we have all agreed that something needs to happen. We just don't know what that is, and we can't agree on how that works. Okay, so we have and we have so we agree there's a problem right, but we don't agree on the solution Yeah, there is a bus driver shortage. We have a lot of between 10 and 14 15 percent of shortages throughout the state with bus drivers Because there there's not a lot appeal according to education associations and people they're saying There's not lot of appeal because the pay isn't great the benefits aren't great and we can't recruit these people because we don't have the money and we're not getting more money from the fair school funding plan or any other sort of legislative measure to try to get these people to want to come and bust the kids plus there's we're also talking about having to fund kids who it's deemed that they are it's impractical that's what is listed in the law it's in practical to bust them because they're either like a half hour away from the school that they need, there's different ways in which the state decides if you're impractical to bus. So the people that are impracticable to bus, the students that are in practical, they get a certain amount of money compensation for transportation needs.
Juravich: Is that the district or the state? The state, yeah.
Tebben: So, through the district, I'm sure. So, the work group was also deciding, well, is that, that's not a perfect system. What do we do with that? Especially if we're talking about putting more private school kids in. School choice was a big thing that was talked about in the workgroup. School choice is a term used by supporters of the private school vouchers that want to see more eligibility for that, wanna see more students included in that, and state funding go to those things, so. So that's a big discussion that's going on. Yeah, but at the end of the day We we had a report that literally said we couldn't agree on this So we're putting this report out just know that we don't all agree on what we should do And then the Education Associations are saying we need more money Whatever you're doing all of these plans look good, but whatever you're going we need for more funding to do so So is the work
Juravich: done? Like what they they did a report without a real solution and now they're going to be disbanded? Does the new governor do a new work group or something?
Tebben: Yeah, he can, absolutely, or they can, absolutely, Governor DeWine put this one together. So yeah, they put out recommendations of what to do, so that would include putting more funding in, where the funding will go, we don't know, but putting more into transportation, making the eligibility expanded and stuff like that. So there's recommendations in the report, so it's a final report. It's just not a final in that. This is exactly what you should do and it'll fix everything. Okay.
Juravich: So does it say to pay bus drivers more like the this whole bus driver shortage has persisted for quite some time There is a discrepancy. I think in your story, you know, the pay in Cleveland is One amount the pain Toledo is a different amount. Yeah, yeah
Tebben: Yeah, right. Yeah, when I looked at open listings like Columbus was like $23 an hour for a bus driver And you had to have certain obviously eligible requirements prerequisites and then in a Toledo was $18 and some change an hour So yeah looking at that, you know deciding how you can you know fund a family on that? But yes, so they said yes, you need to pay bus drivers more. Yes. You need to you know make sure that these busses are safe and there's enough of them and stuff like that. So that's where we're getting into. Yes, you need to have this stuff. Yes, it requires money. It's up to the legislature and the state to decide how that works. And we don't exactly know where that would come from unless we shift around some things.
Juravich: Jake, do you have anything to add about a bus driver shortage or what lawmakers should be doing regarding bussing for schools? No, no, no. I know Susan got into the story very clearly. Sarah, did you want to add anything with the bus driver's shortage? No, I'm gonna leave this one to Susan. All right, Susan's got it covered. So Susan, lawmakers aren't back until November. I mean, that's months after bussing, like school districts are gonna have to figure it out between this week and November. So would there be legislative steps for the lawmakers to do?
Tebben: Certainly they could talk about more funding, talk about how we do this, percentages, things like that. My guess would be, and I would not be surprised to say that because, again, it's a lame duck, we have a lot of priorities that legislators are trying to get into the law before the end of their terms, before the end of the General Assembly, because anything that doesn't get passed, any bills that are up right now that don't get passed by December have to be reintroduced, and the whole process starts over in January. So to start up something new right now would be sort of a very, very steep uphill climb for any legislator. So I wouldn't, unless there's something, you know, already in the pike that they might have.
Juravich: That was my next question. Is there bus driver related legislation in the pike? I don't know.
Tebben: Not that I've seen or not that's been making any headway that I know of
Juravich: I know of but maybe something that hasn't gotten a committee right there's I mean, I know there's hundreds of bills all the time. So
Tebben: Right. So yeah, I mean, it's very well that they could push something through, but I know there's a lot of other things they're talking about right now.
Juravich: And if the working group didn't give hard and fast recommendations, it's going to be hard to push a law through when it's clear that
Tebben: There's already legislators on the working group that don't agree with what the recommendations might be. It's gonna be difficult. It sounds like we're.
Juravich: Some sort of endless loop. Yeah, almost. Almost.
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News and we are talking with Susan Tebin from the Ohio Capital Journal, Jake Zuckerman from Signal Ohio, and Sarah Donaldson from the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. It is football season. The preseason of the NFL football has started. College games are about to begin and as games get into full swing, so does sports betting. Governor DeWine has said that he regrets signing the 2021 law legalizing sports betting. And a year ago, he called for the banning of all prop bets. Those are the wagers on an individual player or a specific event in a game, the smaller bets on smaller instances rather than the whole game. Jake, you had a story out this morning. Where do things stand when it comes to prop bets in Ohio?
Zuckerman: With a minor exception from the Major League Baseball, exactly where they did a year ago. There has been all but no movement on this issue. Governor DeWine has said he wanted to ban all prop bets, all being in quotes. Eventually he narrowed that to, so the context that this happened was there are two pitchers on the Cleveland Guardians, Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clauzet. Both of them at first there was just an MLB suspension around when this action started at later turned into a federal indictment But basically they're accused of at very specific pitches I want to like think the first pitch of the six inning thereabouts They threw balls some of these balls were so dramatic just so far away from the strike zone That they triggered suspicion and there was an investigation by the leagues and the sportsbooks into the nature of these bets And what is alleged to have happened here is they told? Friends, family, allies, conspirators, whatever you want to call them, this pitch is going to be a ball bet accordingly and there are what the MLB calls pitch level wagers where you can bet that I'm gonna say that the first pitch of the sixth inning is a ball. And so they have both been indicted to the best of my knowledge.
Juravich: So people connected to those two pitchers won some money and yeah.
Zuckerman: Yes, and it's a lot of my I have the figures in my story, but it's it's over it's A couple hundred thousand dollars total in alleged ill-gotten gains and So I think that these these prop bets especially prop bets to get really into the jargon here micro prop as in they refer to A single play a single player and sort of negative outcome Like if you are a pitcher in baseball and you're playing an honest game you want to throw a strike You don't want to through a ball in most con most situations, so it's these negative outcomes that are seen as especially prone to manipulation. So in that context where there's this real threat to integrity of the game, this is happening in Cleveland, in Ohio, under Ohio laws, under Ohio's regulated license system that Mike DeWine says he wants to ban all bets, then he, through a spokesman, later sort of narrowed that down to these micro-prop bets. And in the years since then, there's been a significant criminal investigation into sports betting misconduct in the NBA. There have been league investigations at the NCAA in any number of pro leagues about these same kinds of things. And in all that time, nothing has happened in Ohio. These bets are still available. The one, the caveat I mentioned earlier is that the MLB has capped at $200, the amount you can bet on any quote pitch level wager. So there's been some movement from the MLP.
Juravich: But but that wasn't a state of the Ohio action. That was a actual major league baseball
Zuckerman: Correct, and the state has taken this position, so there are two ways that a change could happen here. Either the league can come in and say to the Casino Control Commission, we think these bets are bad business, we're asking you to ban them. The Casino control commission can then ban them, and that is not subject to legislative review. Or the casino commission can act of its own regard, and is subject to a legislative review, and it's uncertain, I'd say probably unlikely, that the legislature is willing to start cutting in to the sports betting market further. So the leagues have not come in and the Casino Control Commission and statements to me, they're taking a position that we sort of, we want the industry to solve this problem. They said they want a quote national nationwide solution. They want basically the sports books and the leagues to work it out among themselves without the state. That's not happening. So according to the governor's office, the NFL is just far in a way, I think it gets forgotten sometimes of just how dominant it is in TV markets and it's media exposure that really I think sports betting activity follows that. But the NFL season starts September 9th. There's no agreement. There's not restriction on prop bets whatsoever, at least with any force of law. And the Casino Control Commission is saying we're hoping the NFL and the sports books deal with this. The sports books are saying we actually think the regulated markets are better than the unregulated markets because the same arguments we've been hearing for years that you know what's happening, the system can work, you can investigate it. The DeWine administration is saying that talks continue and they believe their arguments are being heard in good faith. A source familiar with the negotiations told me that this is all stalled out. They just, they cannot reach an agreement on what kind of bets would be banned. So.
Juravich: And lawmakers want to, I mean, it would be in their interest to keep the sports betting because of the tax dollars. Is that why? Or what's the reasoning for not wanting to like rein this in?
Zuckerman: I'd say there are tax dollars here. This is also, I mean, you gotta think, how God, I wish I remembered this number off the top of my head, but there was a super PAC funded by FanDuel and DraftKings, the two biggest players in the space, that was hugely influential in Republican primaries at the State House just this year. I mean who, you are now poking a very large bear if you go after these markets. And these markets, there are a lot of reports that say these kinds of prop bets are where most of the money is coming from. They, you know, gamblers would call them sucker bets in a lot occasions. You know these are just They can turn into total money pits, which make them very lucrative for the bets. I was shocked to learn that Ohioans actually lost a billion dollars last year, sports betting. Doing some research for the story, for men aged 18 to 50, give or take a little bit. I'm fudging the numbers here. More than 52% of men have an active sports betting account. I mean, there's just so much money flying around. And now these sports book have these financial arrangements with the leagues that. You can see why it's not really in anyone's interest to do anything. And Governor DeWine, the one who holds a lot of the keys here, who appoints the members of the Casino Control Commission, has said, we're gonna leave it to the industry. So I think that brings us to our current standstill.
Juravich: Yeah. Sarah, you spend a lot of time covering the governor and listening to him talk. I mean, he has said more than one time that he regrets signing that 2021 law legalizing sports betting, but what do you make of the fact that he hasn't been able to do anything to undo it as he leaves office here?
Donaldson: Well, I think it's exactly what Jake said. And quite frankly, most of the lawmakers who voted for the sports betting law are still in office. It's not like there's waning support for sports betting. There's a small group of, I would say, social conservatives who have introduced bills to severely limit sports betting in Ohio, but the cat's kind of already out of the bag. And I think, you know, certain restrictions on the sports betting to the folks who are in the legislature look like they're going back on what they passed a couple years ago. And like Jake said, these are just incredibly well funded companies because of the amount of money involved. And so certainly that it's not to say that it like a pay to play type situation, but they're spending money where they know they can be effective. The end, I just think there's going to continue to be a standstill.
Juravich: And Jake, is it that you can do these micro bets, these prop bets in states where the state has legalized it? I mean, do we even have a national system for this to be regulated nationally?
Zuckerman: No, no, sports betting is legalized at the state level. So unless the books come to some national solution, it'd be on every, you know, we have the Ohio Casino Control Commission, the Kentucky Casino, you whatever they name their overseeing body, it would be on them to ban these bets. But something I'd add here is right after Ohio operational made sports betting live, there were reports of threats coming to NCAA athletes. The state, the governor and the NCAA all acted in concert very quickly. Charlie Baker is I think his name but filed at the OCCC and said we're very concerned about threats to our athletes This was in the context of March Madness You know you have 19 year old kids getting death threats because they missed the free throw that someone bet $500 on them to hit
Juravich: to hit. Yeah, I've heard of also kickers who missed a field goal.
Zuckerman: Sure. And so for that reason, very quickly, those bets are pulled and are not available. And I looked, so I didn't find the NFL to its credit has distributed a memo to league owners. It's what they call their advocacy position. So they're not necessarily using all the power at their disposal to follow these laws, but they're kind of giving this off as suggestion. But their suggestion, the most eye-opening one to me, was that want to ban. These micro prop bets that come down to one player, one play. So it's a kicker kick and a field goal being a good example. I looked on DraftKings and FanDuel this weekend. I didn't quite find those, but I did see, you know, this is preseason football, so we're in some real degenerate gambling territory. I know, are we gonna?
Juravich: I know are we gonna really bet on a preseason football game cuz like
Zuckerman: The answer to the question is yes. The answer is unequivocally yes, and some of these bets that we're offering were, will, oh god, I wish I had some.
Juravich: Will the third string quarterback stay in for more than three plays?
Zuckerman: There were, will these quarterbacks throw more than 10 yards on the first drive? Which, yeah, I mean, in some ways you're betting on, is he even going to be in the game on the focal length?
Juravich: Yeah, or is he any good? We've never seen him play before, yeah.
Zuckerman: Yeah, it's and you know, this was eye-opening to me because I didn't know anyone even watches preseason football let alone gambles on it
Juravich: Preseason football makes me nervous because I'm always afraid that someone's gonna get hurt. So anyway. All right, we're gonna leave it there, but that is, you can read more in Jake's story at Signal Ohio regarding the prop bets. And before we take a break, Sarah, there was one more story I wanted to cover that you covered. There's a concern that there's not enough regulation of addiction recovery houses as the number has skyrocketed in recent years. And Governor DeWine made a move last week to address this. Sarah, tell us about this issue here. What is Dewine looking to change when it comes to addiction recovery houses?
Donaldson: Yeah, so right now these recovery houses, also sometimes referred to as halfway houses, but recovery houses have really just expanded in the number of them in the state of Ohio. Several years ago, there were a couple hundred. Now the state believes that there's more than 1,700. And they're not really regulated by the state. The state has a list of them. It maintains a list of the ones that are accredited, but the groups that accredite those are third party groups. And the state, Governor DeWine says, has become increasingly concerned with the conditions at some of these recovery houses, and also that some of theses places are, you know, potentially taking advantage of the system and taking advantage of folks who are seeking out addiction recovery, whether that be for. Drug abuse or for alcoholism, specifically because, you know, some of these places, Governor DeWine says, are potentially saying they're recovery houses and they don't actually offer the services that a recovery house should offer. So what Governor DeWyne, the action that Governor Dewine has taken is that the state will begin accrediting these recovery houses. It's a 90 day, I'm sorry, it's 120 day emergency rule. Which means that the state now has more oversight of these recovery houses for the next 120 days. But Governor DeWine is also seeking a permanent rule and there is a bill with even more regulations of recovery housing moving through the Ohio legislature. It's already passed the Ohio House and it's been kind of sitting in the Ohio Senate, but of course there's a chance that that passes during lame duck two and that. Bill got bipartisan support. I think it literally had a unanimous vote in the House, so lawmakers are paying attention to this issue too. And the last thing I'll say is that the state seems especially concerned about recovery housing down in southern Ohio. Scioto County specifically has just under the number of recovery houses that Hamilton and Cuyahoga Counties have. So you think about two counties with major metropolitan areas compared to a very rural Ohio County with a large number of recovery housing. And Jake's colleague, Andrew Tobias, did a great story several months ago about really the industry that has sprung up with recovery housing in Scioto County.
Juravich: Yeah, Sarah, your story quoted Republican Representative Justin Pizzulli for of Scioto County and saying, bad actors have discovered something very disturbing. You can profit from addiction. So that means that these are these houses popping up and getting money, but they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And they're just like a basically like providing a bed in a house and maybe it's not the best conditions.
Donaldson: Well, and that's the concern. And it's, you know, it's a little complicated because the state doesn't really directly fund these recovery houses. The state sends money to local ADAMH boards or addiction drug and mental health resource boards. So those are typically county boards that will then disperse the money. But you know the concern like in somewhere like Scioto County is. A, a lot of folks are maybe, it's a court mandate or whatever, they're coming from other counties and going to Sciota County for these recovery houses. And again, the state is concerned, there's only supposed to be four to five people living in these recovery house. As Governor DeWine said, in some houses, there's a concern that there might be as many as 10 people living in them, just possibly pointed to just bad conditions. And when you're talking about someone who is know, on the road to recovery. They need all the support they can get and that lack thereof is a real concern for the state.
Juravich: And all right, we're going to take a break. Coming up, we are going to talk about more concerns being raised about flock cameras, and we'll get some election updates as we get closer and closer. We're inching closer to the November election. That's 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, we have Susan Tevin, reporter at the Ohio Capital Journal, Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio, and Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. The City of Columbus City Council had a hearing on flock cameras last week that went on for more than six hours. Residents raised concerns about transparency, privacy, and all the ways the cameras are being used, or could be used. Among those speaking out, here is Jamie Miracle, Deputy Director of Abortion Forward.
Jamie Miracle: The concern is that a person leaving a state where abortion is illegal and coming to Columbus to get the abortion care they deserve should not be followed into our city by this dragnet surveillance system we have.
Juravich: Sarah, your colleague Joe Ingalls reported on this. Basically, flock cameras are popping up as a concern all over the country right now, but including here in Ohio. Can you give us an update of what Joe reported on what's happening here in Ohio when it comes to flock cameras?
Donaldson: Yeah, there is just a concern generally about these flock cameras. Like you said, a lot of citizens are concerned about the scope of which they're being used, the potential First Amendment violations. You know, it's kind of in some ways falling along party lines, but of course, you know, the city of Columbus has been slow to cut its contract with flock to my understanding. But like I said, you Governor DeWine and Attorney General Andy Wilson were asked about flock at a press conference I was at last week and Wilson was especially supportive of it saying, you know, this is just another tool for law enforcement to fight crime.
Juravich: Yeah, Susan, basically, you know, the attorney general, the police union, the police departments have spoken up to say that this is helping them to solve crimes. I mean, they're they're literally catching murderers because they find them on the cameras or they find their license plate. So but then there's other people who are saying that having surveillance everywhere 24 seven is too much. So where what are you hearing about this?
Tebben: Yeah I mean it's the discussion that you have with a lot of new things where there can be unintended consequences for anything. So surveillance could also mean an invasion of privacy, which is what we're hearing as we've seen from the abortion rights advocates and just sort of trying to get ahead of things and make sure that we're using these things for the right things, which you know the attorney general is saying we want to use these things for specific reasons. But yeah, it there is an element of looking into making sure privacy rights are also being Adhered to along with trying to do you know catch criminals and things like that
Juravich: Jake, do you have any idea if this is like, does each, is this another situation where each individual state is going to have to regulate flock cameras? Or like, is this, it's becoming a nationwide issue. I, there was the city council hearing here in Columbus that lasted forever, but it's like every individual municipality is having to make decisions about these cameras.
Zuckerman: Yeah, I imagine there's got to be a constitutional issue that comes up eventually under the Fourth Amendment of do you have a right to privacy against, you know, I mean, I think about this as a journalist, if I go to meet someone and that person isn't supposed to be seen meeting with me, effectively, I am being, you now, I am being tracked by these flock cameras and I think they're just, I just think about there are sort of two elements to this. There's the broader question of should there be a right at all to track just track ordinary citizens going out their business, which is what these cameras do by design. And then there's also the abuse problem. You know, this pops up in the news every fourth day, it seems, where there's an officer who's fired for allegations of following an ex-wife or that sort of thing. So there's a lot of potential for misuse, but even if used exactly as intended, I think there's still some pretty real privacy questions that need to be settled here. I think one of the things, besides the fact that- Dayton's answer to Flock has been to put garbage bags over all its Flock cameras, which is just a genuinely hilarious visual and solution to the Flock problem. But a lot of the origin of the conflict there comes from a city who said, we will use this data to keep the public safe. We will not use this to enforce the federal immigration, the federal government's immigration prerogatives. Then it turns out that ICE was accessing Dayton's data. And according to the city... This was a clerical error. This was just someone really not tending to the back doors. I don't know how technology works. And I know what the city is saying here.
Juravich: It's like someone gave the wrong person the wrong code, the right code, I guess.
Zuckerman: Which happens which anyone who's ever dealt with like privacy questions on social media There are a ton of confusing settings and it's not always clear where your data is going so to me that one really stuck out of a city who had a pretty explicit goal of Not assisting federal immigration authorities and at least taken the city officials of the word here Did so by accident. I think it raises some fair questions about who who can access this data. How can they access it? By the way, we're talking about warrantless surveillance. So no one's going to a judge and saying, this is my reason for wanting to track this person. This can be as simple as a hunch.
Tebben: And that's, I was gonna, this is a much bigger issue than that, but we've seen all the debates over traffic cameras and talking about being able to confront your accuser of a crime. And we have seen court cases where traffic cameras have been shot, that the argument has been shot down, the traffic cameras can do what they're supposed to do. So I mean, you're seeing sort of a similar argument here in a much wider, broader thing of are we. Just allowing cameras to do police work? Are we actually allowing the rights of humans to be also part of it?
Juravich: Yeah, go ahead, Sarah.
Donaldson: It's not, I mean, we were talking about this last week, but it's not even just traffic cameras. I mean how many people have ring doorbell cameras and there's obviously been a lot of controversy over how ring door bell footage is used. People are driving with dash cameras to catch and it's always that argument of potentially catching a crime versus assuming every time you leave your house you are on camera.
Juravich: We're gonna be doing a full show about flock cameras next week. And one thing that I was thinking about is I mean I I watch enough British crime dramas to know that there's CCTV everywhere in in the UK But and I feel like maybe that's more regulated. I don't know I mean, I'm not expecting anyone here on this panel to know and that's why we're gonna talk to a New York Times reporter about it, but but it just it makes me think of like The British crime drama solve a lot of crimes with those cameras and they're everywhere
Zuckerman: Well, here's something I kick around with this. So in the last state budget, there was money for this new use of AI to monitor inmate phone calls. And that's monitor. So right now, if you are at a state prison in Ohio, you have no real right to privacy in your phone calls, they can all be listened to. But there was this natural friction point where the only way you can analyze those phone calls is to just have someone strap on a pair of headphones and listen to what's said. So it's very limited by human ability and manpower. But now you have AI that can come. And listen to every word of every phone call and supposedly find these patterns and detect crimes before they happen, yada, yata, yatta. So what the AI is doing is not any different per se than what a human is already doing and the access a human has, but you're unleashing this power that's just so far beyond human brain power that it's, I guess it raises the question of is it really the same? Is it the same thing to have one person listen to one phone call versus one AI listening to, What do we have? 60,000 people in the prison system.
Juravich: Probably not the same thing. All right, you're listening to all sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News, and we are talking this week with Jake Zuckerman from Signal Ohio, Susan Tebben from the Ohio Capital Journal, and Sarah Donaldson from the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. Jake, I wanted to ask you about the Ohio Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a lawsuit over the state's efforts to crack down on the sale of vapes and e-cigarettes. What is the question before justice is? What are they trying to figure out here about vapes and e-cigarettes?
Zuckerman: Yeah, so there was a creative bit of lawyering coming out of the Ohio Attorney General's office. So right now, flavored vapes until just earlier this year, virtually none of them were approved by the FDA. You have, as a tobacco product, you have to get your marketing approved by the F.D.A. So it's, the government gets to act as a gatekeeper. But the FDA and the federal government have looked into this and they have no real enforcement capabilities here. So they can send letters, they've gotten some fines, but- just go out to any gas station, head shop, etc. You can find any number of increasingly sketchy vape products. And some of these have formulas that I think you could, one would argue are marketed to children or appealing to children. Public health experts say, you know, like blueberry, just to give one example, or straw melon, they mask the harshness of a hit. Now adult smoking rates are going down, but teen vape, it's something like one in five high schoolers are vaping. So it's this really prevalent, and it's setting up an addiction. It is how you get onto the ride that you never get off of. So what the state is saying is it's a consumer protection lawsuit. They're saying that by selling these products, these stores are suggesting that these are legal, when in fact they are not legal. So that would give the state kind of a hook. To really act as an enforcer for the federal government, although they say they are not acting as an enforcement for the government, they are enforcing Ohio's consumer sales laws. There are two different appellate courts that have taken up the question and they've split on the issue of, you know, generally the states can't be dragged into enforcement schemes for the feds. The state says that's not what they're doing, it'll come to the Ohio Supreme Court. That is one of two flavored vape cases that, you, know, there are different legal questions at issue, but ultimately it is different. Different actors, none of which are the state legislature, that want to get rid of these flavored fapes.
Juravich: Was there any sense of how the justices might rule just based on the way they asked the questions or anything like that?
Zuckerman: No, every time I try to play that game, I get it wrong. There was a lot, interestingly, one of the most aggressive questioners, I think, of both sides was Justice Pat DeWine, whose father is Governor Mike DeWyne, and Mike Dewine has been, probably more than anyone in Ohio politics, the biggest anti-tobacco force in the system. What does that mean? I don't know. It's just interesting. Yeah, yeah. All right.
Juravich: Well, and then speaking of things like this, I wanted to say speaking of drugs, but I didn't wanna call it vices. Yeah, I was like, because I'm like tobacco is not considered a drug. But anyway, speaking of vices, a Franklin County judge last week weighed in on state regulars efforts to rein in kratom products. And Jake, you also reported on this. First of all, you're gonna have to tell us what kratam is, it's different than hemp. Tell me what krateom is.
Zuckerman: Kratom is an East Asian plant. I honestly don't know much about the plant, but it's effects. So in low doses, it can be a stimulant, but in the doses that people are realistically using it in, it is a... I don't want to say an opioid because that point is in contention. The drug binds to the opioid receptors in the brain. It produces an opiate-like effect and... Doctors and nurses who I talk to who are treating people who are go who are detoxing from this we're going to rehab from this We're manifesting very serious addictions from this say it is an opioid. So I will leave the readers to to weigh that point but the There are the State Board of Pharmacy passed a rule Basically deeming all forms of processed kratom is schedule one drug So you could still have the raw leaf, and that would still be legal in Ohio, but any adulterations of that leaf, including importantly, Feel Free Tonic, which is a massively, massively scaled product that you could find, it's like a two ounce, almost a shot, but it's derided as gas station heroin. And I mean, I talked to...
Juravich: Is that what it's being called? Oh, I had not heard that. Okay, wow.
Zuckerman: And it's, I mean, these people, people who are getting hooked on the drug, I talked to one who said his marriage fell apart, he lost his job, he spent 10 grand on this stuff in a year. You know, it just has all these patterns. People go through withdrawal from it, they become violently sick and they shake and they sweat.
Juravich: You know, the state wants to regulate it or wants to get rid of it completely.
Zuckerman: The state wants to ban it altogether. The industry has fought back, and Franklin County Judge Mark Surratt upheld the rule, but it looks like it's going to be appealed, so this is on its way up. All right.
Juravich: We will update on Kratom another time, as I'm gonna learn a little more. I'm going to search it up, as my son would say. I'm a search up Kraton. All right, I want to say thank you. We are out of time. Thank you, Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio. Thanks for your time today. Thanks for having me on. And Susan Tebin, reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal. Thanks, Susan. Thanks. And Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. Thanks, Sarah. Thanks much. And this has been the Reporter Roundtable from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.