From political attack ads to unexpected policy positions, we look at how the two candidates, Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, for Ohio's next governor are trying to woo voters.
Stark differences emerge in the U.S. Senate race between Senator Jon Husted and former Senator Sherrod Brown and a grief-stricken family asks Husted's campaign to remove a political ad.
We'll also look at Flock cameras and how misusing the technology would be a felony under a proposed Ohio bill. Plus, an Ohio judge kicked off the bench and suspended is on the November ballot.
Finally, did you know, Ohio children received more free books from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library than any other state. We'll discuss all this and more on our Weekly Reporter Roundtable.
Guests:
- Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter for Cleveland.com
- Haley BeMiller, state government and politics reporter for the Columbus Dispatch
- Jake Zuckerman, reporter for 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. And joining us for the Roundtable this week, we have Jeremy Pelser, Chief Politics Reporter at Cleveland.com. Welcome back, Jeremy.
Jeremy Pelzer: Good morning.
Juravich: Haley BeMiller, State Government and Politics reporter at the Columbus Dispatch. Welcome back, Haley. Happy Monday. And Jake Zuckerman, reporter at Signal Ohio. Welcome back Jake.
Jake Zuckerman: Thanks for having me on.
Juravich: And the political attack ads in the governor's race are intensifying. We are just one day shy of September, and September is the traditional time when campaigns really start to heat up. In the governor race, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy has been airing ads for months. Democrat Amy Acton recently started her ad campaign. What approach are the candidates taking? What is the strategy here? How accurate are they? I wanted to start by playing a new ad from the Ramasawamy camp. And then we'll discuss it because there's been some backlash about inaccuracies. So speaking in this ad is Linda Caudill.
Linda Caudill: I had to put my mother in a nursing home because she had fallen. A few weeks after that is when Amy Acton shut down the state. My mother didn't understand it. It traumatized her. She didn't know why her family couldn't come visit her. Two months later, she died. Amy Acton is to blame for this.
Juravich: So the ad goes on for about 10 more seconds or so, but you get the gist. Haley, what did you learn about the accuracy of this ad?
Haley BeMiller: So Linda Caudill, she is on the Ohio Republican Party State Central Committee. She's been involved in GOP politics for a while. Based on an obituary and some other public records, we found that her mother had been living in Kentucky and died at a hospice facility in Kentucky. And this happened weeks after Acton actually stepped down as health director in Ohio and also couple of months after Ohio had lifted its stay at home order. But she was in Kentucky.
Juravich: Keen on Ohio.
BeMiller: Okay, continue. So the broader contention, of course, is that, you know, they were not able to visit the mother because of Amy Acton's stay at home policies, things like that. Worth noting also that Governor Mike DeWine has said a lot of these decisions, you know, the buck were his decisions, the bucks stops with him. So that's, that's what we will learn about that particular
Juravich: Alright, and Jeremy, do you have anything you wanted to add about that ad about that ad? I mean, those sound like inaccuracies or like, am I, what am I allowed to call them, what Haley's saying?
Pelzer: Uh, you can call him whatever you feel is appropriate, at the very least it's odd.
Zuckerman: Discrepancy is that mean?
Juravich: Discrepancies, yes.
Zuckerman: There is one, just please, a plain discord in the ad. There's text that's shown in the add that's in the context of this woman complaining that I was not allowed to visit my grandmother to nursing home. And the text says more Ohioans died in nursing homes than any other Midwest state, which we looked at and is true or at least close enough to true, but it's not population adjusted. So it's kind of, it's like saying they're more Republicans in California than any state. It's true, but there's no context around it. Which, so that means the ad is both saying it's unfit, these COVID protocols were too strict and there were too many deaths. So it's just, the argument doesn't really follow. It's kind of an, there's a logical break there.
Juravich: And Haley, like with your story, I mean, did you determine, are you allowed to say whatever you want in an ad? Like do ads have to be accurate?
BeMiller: Oh, no, people can distort information and outright lie and ads. We've seen this time and time again in politics. Certainly not anything new, and that is perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the law.
Pelzer: So Ohio used to have a law banning lies and campaign ads, and it was overturned. It was challenged in federal court by the Susan B. Anthony List, which is a anti-abortion rights group, and they won. And so on free speech grounds, they overturned Ohio's law banming lies and inaccuracies in campaign ads on free-speech grounds.
Juravich: Wow, okay, so it used to say you can't lie in these ads and then, but because of free speech, you're free, I mean, in this country, you have free speech so you're to lie.
Pelzer: In 2014. Okay. So pretty recently. Interesting.
Juravich: Alright, well the Acton campaign released a new ad last week and this one is titled Grounded and it seems to be a dig at Ramaswamy's travel by private plane. I take it to set and to set the scene Acton is driving in her Jeep while she speaks let's listen.
Amy Acton: If you're a billionaire, Ohio looks picture perfect, but I see it on the ground. And down here, Ohioans are getting buried by a system that's rigged against them. The cost of gas, healthcare, utilities, there's no more breathing room.
Juravich: So Jeremy, this ad goes on for a few more seconds. Acton never mentions her opponent, but we're missing the visuals because we're on the radio, but it does show a plane, right? And she's not in a plane. She's in her Jeep. Can you tell us more about the strategy of this ad?
Pelzer: So first of all, we're gonna see a lot of negative ads. And it's reflective of two things. One is that this is a surprisingly competitive governor's race that, at least when the cycle started at the beginning of last year, Rameswamy was considered to be the overwhelming favorite. And now Amy Acton has proven in poll after poll to be surprisingly competitive. So now people are pouring money in and they are going after each other. Like cats and dogs and that's only going to accelerate as we get past Labor Day into the traditional campaign season and there are tens of millions of dollars of ad reservations. We're going to be begging for a non-political ad by the time we get to the election in early November. Second of all, it reflects that neither of these candidates have held elected office before and one truism in politics is you want to define your opponent before they can define themselves. So we are seeing both candidates because they don't have a record to run on or to be criticized. They are trying to define in the public's mind who their opponent is before they can define themselves.
Juravich: Haley or Jake, do you think it's odd that she doesn't mention Ramaswami? Because there's plenty of ads that mention Acton's name. So she's, I mean, she's basically saying that she drives around on her Jeep while Ramasvami has a private plane. But she doesn' actually say those words. Is that surprising or is that probably an ad to come?
Zuckerman: Remember the ad I think there's like an image of an airplane early in the ad so you can I mean I think it's to the true like political sickos who can see that image of the airplane
Juravich: playing and understand that that means she's implying that's Ramaswami's playing.
Zuckerman: Yes, and I think so that I mean, I think that that means to the hardcore politicos There's this like kind of a wink out there of like hey, you know Vivek is I think earlier She had made some shtick out of Vivek was flying to France So she said he's going to first say or Versailles and she was going to Versaille's, Ohio Or however, we butcher the the French pronunciation here and and riffing on that a bit But also, you you know, it's a like Jeremy said these are two Candidates almost a first impression for Ohio voters. So you don't want to just give them free name ID. You don't wanna ask who, if you don't know who her opponent is, she has not now told you, I think there will come a point where both, where the voters are assumed to understand who the candidates are, and that's the point where you start not being so shy about attacking by name and you know, the fake this and Amy act in that.
Juravich: And I, Jeremy, I didn't mean to be so shocked by the 2014 federal judge ruling that says you can legally lie in campaign ads. I probably knew that somewhere in the back of my head. I just probably chose to forget it or something like that.
Pelzer: It's a little shocking. I think a lot of people would be that same reaction to hear that.
Juravich: Yeah, so in the past, so how do candidates deal with ads that lie? They just bring out a second, I've seen this, I guess. I can't think of an example right now, obviously. But like, so they come up with a second ad that says, this ad is lying. Here's the truth. Like, is that how they deal with the lies?
Pelzer: The main way they deal with it is they go on offense. The best defense is a good offense. So instead of replying in kind and giving more air to their allegation that they're just gonna go on air with their own attack ad and try to change the narrative. Because another truism is if you're explaining, you're losing. That is another big line in politics. And so instead of talking about their attacks, launch your own attacks and put them on the defensive instead of you. Mm-hmm.
Juravich: So what can everyone say about the tone of the ads to date? Jeremy, you had a story that looked at the attack ads from Rama Swamy's campaign, but also it's called VPAC, victors not victims, is that the name of the super PAC? That is correct.
Pelzer: That is correct. That's the main program of Swami's SuperPath.
Juravich: Okay, and what's the tone of their ads? Mostly negative. All negative.
Pelzer: Mostly negative. Yes, I think and it's getting just in general increasingly nasty these ads are getting as as time goes on
Juravich: One of the ads involves a 2019 police call to Acton's Bexley home over a domestic dispute. This police report came to light earlier. It came to life a few months ago, but the ad alleges that Acton has a drinking problem and a pill problem. So first off, like from what the reporting has found, there was no physical altercation, no criminal charges. But Jeremy, can you walk us through what the ad is trying to say?
Pelzer: Sure. As you said, this is based on a 2019 police report. Acton's daughter, then teenage daughter, called police because Amy Acton and her husband were having an argument about her long work hours because she had been state health director for a few months at that point. And police came, and as you said, if you go on this, look at the actual police report, it says there was no physical altercation. They decided, hey, you know, nothing wrong here. However, they. There's some stuff in the report that's suggestive, but then the police report doesn't really go on to say. So it says both stated that they had been drinking, both Amy Acton and her husband stated they had be drinking and that she had taken, you know, amounts of prescription drugs. Why is that in the police reports? Don't know. I mean, it certainly was in there for a reason, but at the same time, the prescription drugs Amy Acton's campaign, so she was on. Were Imitrex, there's a high blood pressure medicine and a migraine medicine. So it's not like she was popping Oxycontin or anything. But then why is it in there? And so there's a limited amount of information in this police report and the Republicans, not just VPAC, but like the Ohio Republican Party and Vivek's own campaign ran with it. And calling her basically a drunk and a pill popper. And that's just simply not in the police report of the police records that she has like, that she's a drunk or anything like this. But they're taking what's in the suggestive police report and just running with it as far as they can go.
Juravich: Oh, Haley, did you want to add something or?
BeMiller: No, I mean, Jeremy's summary of it is spot on, you know, it's just going back to what he and others have alluded to. It's been very interesting and not surprising to see just the complete lack of policy debate happening in this campaign or even, you know, when you go to Ramaswamy or Acton's campaign events, they talk about XYZ, why they feel like they should be the next governor of Ohio. Ramaswami, for example, always talks about how he is like a businessman and entrepreneur is gonna bring a fresh take to politics and that could be an ad, but it hasn't been. It's really just been focused on these negative attacks on each other and on the flip side, Acton has her own pitch for why voters should support her. That's not really manifesting in ads yet either, so it's just interesting.
Juravich: On the Democratic side, the Democratic Governors Association backed Ohioans for lower costs, is the name of it. And they launched an ad calling Ramaswami, quote, a con man and a husker. And they're accusing him of peddling Alzheimer's drugs that didn't work. Do we know how accurate that ad is? Has anyone dug into that one?
Pelzer: So, what happened is, Favek Ramaswamy first made his money starting a biotech firm called Royvant. And I apologize if I got that name wrong, but basically the whole idea of the company was buy up these, these. Proposed treatments, these proposed drugs that big pharma companies were exploring and gave up on for one reason or another, and then buy them for bargain prices and try to develop them to see if they actually have promise. And they do this by creating a whole bunch of subsidiaries that, in this case, they bought an Alzheimer's drug that I believe it was GlaxoSmithKline rejected and created the company around it. And it was a publicly traded company, and shortly before a clinical trial came out saying, hey, this drug failed this clinical trial, the Vake, as part of the parent company, sold, I think, $37 million worth of stock in it. Now, it ended, you know, so it's not as cut and dry as that he, you just pumped, created this company, put all of his eggs in one basket. And then just sold it right before the company went belly up. It's more complicated than that. At the same time, Democrats are, again, taking this, where it goes so far, and they're just running with it to say that. And they're dragging out all these Alzheimer's folks saying, you know, how dare of a vaque. And these things are complicated and take time to look through. And voters, you now, they have day jobs. They're not gonna look through all this stuff. And sub. By the time, you know, people look in, again, if you're explaining you're losing, and actually see the context of this, it's already too late.
Juravich: Jake, do you think we'll see any of the policy-related ads that Hailey was mentioning that are lacking in the campaign? Or do you just think it's going to be all of September and October, attack ad after attack ad, no policy mentioned.
Zuckerman: Honestly, no. No, I have a pretty bleak outlook on that point. I think, God, I always come back to something Jeff Longstreet, a Republican operative of yesteryear once said, which is that everybody hates attack ads, but we use them because they work. They work. There's money. It doesn't totally make sense, either, to think maybe right before the election you want a nice little sweet moment of uplift. I think you kind of tend to see that just before election day, but no, I think these two are just gonna keep punching each other in the mouth.
Juravich: Do enough people watch TV? Like, you said we use attack ads because they work, but do they work in an age of streaming services and very disjointed media attention?
BeMiller: They're on streaming yeah well i know but yeah yeah my youtube my youtube account has something
Juravich: Something to say about that. I know, but everyone double screens. So when the ad pops up on the Hulu TV show, don't you look down at your phone and not pay attention to the ad, right?
Zuckerman: I don't know. The Havag people have said that they want opening weekend football games. I think they're referring to Ohio State. And I mean, I feel like this gets understated in America. Everyone knows football's popular, but if you look at like how many of the top 100 broadcasts last year were NFL games, it's kind of shocking. And you can see why candidates are just dumping so much money. I mean you get so many tens of millions of people watching NFL games and it's just NFL game, NFL game NFL game Oscars. Maybe you get a presidential debate in there every four years, it's just kind of staggering. So you can just see where all the money goes.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. This is the Reporter Roundtable. We're talking this week with Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio, Haley B. Miller with the Columbus Dispatch, and Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter at cleveland.com. Before we take the break, I wanted to pivot to one last ad that I wanted bring up, because this one takes us to the US Senate race, so it is a pivot away from the governor's race. We have plenty of time to talk about more governor's-race ads. In the coming weeks. But the ad I wanted to bring up in the US Senate race is the US senate race between Republican incumbent Senator John Husted and former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. What's unusual in this case is that a grieving family has asked the Husted campaign to stop airing the ad. Haley, can you tell us more about what's behind this request?
BeMiller: Yeah, so this ad was actually put out by the NRSC, the Senate GOP campaign arm, not the Houston campaign, but it attacks Brown's immigration policies and links his votes to the deaths of a husband and wife and their one year old child back in April. A man is accused of causing this multi-wreck car accident or multi-car. Multi-car accident in Delaware County that killed the family. And this ad highlights their deaths and politicizes them. And the tie here is that the defendant in this case is an immigrant. He obtained citizenship back in 2015, I think, but there are some questions about that process. And so. Republicans see this as an example of immigration policy gone wrong, but the family is really frustrated. They said that they didn't give anyone permission to use photos of their loved ones or things like that.
Juravich: Yeah, we actually have a soundbite. This is Jesse Mullen, brother of Linnea. Is it Soposky? And Jesse told Sarah Donaldson from the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau this.
Andrew Tobias: I think if it were their family members on the screen and the flaming wreckage that contained their remains there on the TV screen for people to see multiple ad breaks per multiple programs on multiple channels, they would be similarly upset.
Juravich: So you did an update on this story, Haley. Did you hear from Senator Husted's campaign or the Senator himself about this?
BeMiller: Yeah, I talked to Senator Houston at an event over the weekend. He said that, you know, once the campaign learned about the family's concerns, they asked the NRSC to take it down. He said he empathizes with the family and doesn't think that they should have to suffer anymore. I talked with Jesse after that and, you know, he, you, know, I think the family is still frustrated because while the NRS ad has been replaced on air it's still on the group's YouTube page and you can watch it online. And so, you know, Jesse told me he feels like a lot of these comments from Houston and the NRSC, you know are a little disingenuous when the ad is still out there in some form.
Juravich: Yeah. So Jeremy, you're allowed to lie in an ad. We've established that. But do you have to get permission to use things in an add? Like this, this kind of all started because the photographer who took the pictures of the family, it was like a professional photographer and the photographer contacted the family and said, they didn't ask my permission to these photos. And right. And then the family said, what ad? So, um, Is there a standard in campaign ads to get permission to use something?
Pelzer: Well, it's like anything where you have to get permission, like all of us as reporters, we have to permission. We can't just take someone's photo and run it with our story. We have to give permission. Otherwise, they can come to us and say, hey, you're making money off of my photo and you're benefiting it. You know, you can send out a cease and desist letter and if it comes down to it, you can even file a lawsuit saying, you're profiting off of my photo and my intellectual property. A lot of times it doesn't come down to that because do you really wanna launch a lawsuit to get this money and a cease and desist letter will work but it's an attitude of better to ask forgiveness than permission and by the time that they take it down they're already moving on to the next ad anyway.
Juravich: Haley, did that come up at all in your reporting? Like, did someone mess up here and not ask for permission to use the photograph or something like that?
BeMiller: It's unclear to me. I mean, the NRSC really isn't apologizing for this. You know, I got a statement from them saying that basically doubling down on the claim in the ad that Sherrod Brown's border policies hurt and even killed Americans. So, you know, we'll see, I guess, if the family or the person who took the photograph continue to push back on this more as long as it lives online but definitely still a lot of frustration from the family.
Pelzer: One thing to add to is about the goal of these ads. And I think a lot of people might think, oh, the goal is to make me think that one candidate or the other is terrible, and therefore I'm gonna vote for the other person. A lot of it is just aimed at soft people who might think yeah, I'm a Democrat or Republican, and I'll probably end up voting for the top of the ticket candidates. And a lot this is just aim at making people so kind of fed up with this person that they're like, I am just not gonna vote at all. You know, I'll just not leave that part of the ballot blank because I don't know, I'm just kind of fed up with the whole thing. And for that other side, just not voting for your opponent is almost as good as a vote for you.
Zuckerman: Hmm. I think it's worth looking at some of the jingoism going on with the ad to the
Juravich: What's that word? I don't know what that is.
Zuckerman: There's an insinuation being made if you look like I'm going off reporting here from the Columbus dispatch on the actual crash itself But like Haley said this was caused by a naturalized someone who has been given permit like permanent citizenship status by the US government He came here from Mauritania. It is a failed state on the west side of Africa The State Department tells their employees not to go out at night You aren't supposed to venture past the borders of the capital city because there is no cell reception and open warfare so that that is where someone left 20 years ago through legal channels, although there's now, there's some accusations being thrown out about use of a fake name. I couldn't really speak to that, but he was granted legal citizenship and has been working for 20 years. And there was a tragic car crash that killed three people. But so why make this an immigrant? There's no illegal immigration. There at least has been no proof that anyone broke our immigration laws. And yet this is popping up in a political ad. I think it is worth, you know, taking a hard ask yourself of why. Why is this? West African man being injected into US politics.
BeMiller: Yeah, and just a quick note on the allegations that Jake was referring to, state officials did refer this investigation to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, but at this point, he's not facing any immigration related charges.
Juravich: Just charges related to the car accident, probably, okay. Coming up, we are going to talk about where some of the candidates stand on some timely issues and we'll talk about some policy that the answers may surprise you. That's when the Reporter Roundtable from all sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to the All Sides Weekly Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we talk all things Ohio politics. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Still with us, Haley BeMiller, state government and politics reporter at the Columbus Dispatch, Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio, and Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter for Cleveland.com. So we were just talking about political ads and how the governor's race is shaping up when it comes to ads. But I wanted to turn to some policy news. Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton has been carving out some positions that put her at odds with some of her party's base. Jake, last week she picked up an endorsement from the Ohio Patrolman's Benevolent Association, the state's second largest union, and in the process she announced that she opposes a citizen effort to eliminate qualified immunity. She also said that she would not block local police from helping federal agencies and force immigration laws. Did she talk about how she arrived at those positions or did she just basically talk about the positions?
Zuckerman: I wasn't actually at that event. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I'd prefer to thank you and my colleagues if they were.
Pelzer: So what she said is she was directly So she was asked about a whole bunch of things about police issues and so she actually took a number of Multiple positions that were odds at odds with some
Juravich: I guess let's start with the the qualified immunity thing. Is this on the ballot or is it just working its way? Is it working its?
Pelzer: It's working its way through, so there's been an effort for a while stemming out of the Black Lives Matter protest and a series of high profile shootings.
Juravich: It makes it easier to sue the police, right?
Pelzer: Well, right now, generally, qualified immunity shields government officials, including police officers, from being sued for damages for things that happen as part of their job. Okay. That includes an on-duty police officer shooting someone. And so this group wants to lift that shield to allow lawsuits to be filed against police officers who shoot people on the line of duty. So it doesn't shield them. It's more about a civil lawsuit, allowing families of victims to go after in court police officers. And so Amy Acton, when she was asked about it, she actually deferred to a member of the union who said that, yeah, Amy Actin, when she talked to us is totally in favor of keeping quality of qualified immunity. I'm paraphrasing And that's one issue. She also, in response to a question, said that she wants state and local police to work with federal immigration authorities on immigration cases. And that has gotten some blowback as well. There's been a series of instances where she has bucked many in her party, including on issue three. The voter ID amendment that is on the ballot this year, transgender athletes. She says she supports a ban on transgender athletes playing women and girls sports. And I get the idea that Amy Acton has this core group, a core cluster of values like being pro-abortion rights and other. But then other than that, these other social issues that Democrats have kind of self-flagellated themselves about for bringing up a foreign losing. On that she is saying, well, and our staff is gonna say, well, we're not gonna get negate that. We're gonna make sure that we don't lose because of transgender issues. So we're just gonna co-opt Republican attacks on it by saying this isn't a big deal for us and just focus on what we wanna focus on.
Juravich: Haley, do you feel that Amy Acton is trying to woo some conservative voters or is she trying to appeal to more moderate Democrats? Like what's her game plan here with some of with coming out against some typical Democratic party stances.
BeMiller: Yeah, I think the goal is to appeal to more moderate voters, whether moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans, or independents. I think she's trying to present herself as a candidate that can appeal to a wide variety of political views. And, you know, as Jeremy noted, the social issues in particular, Democrats really haven't figured out how to deal with, and I think particularly on transgender rights a lot of Democrats, including Sherrod Brown, were attacked over that during the 2024 election cycle. So I think there's perhaps some anxiety within the party that those issues could hamstring them again. Now, there's a lot debate about about whether there's any merit to that. But I do think that's a belief that's out there. And, you know, Ohio is a red state. Democrats have not been. Successful here at a long time, with the exception of Sherrod Brown, who lost two years ago. So I think some strategists perhaps see this as a way to win and be successful in a state like Ohio if you're a Democrat.
Juravich: Jake, we ran through a lot of policy issues. I mean, we talked about the qualified immunity. We talked about saying that she would not block local police from helping federal agencies enforce immigration laws. We mentioned issue three that is codifying the already existing photo ID law into the state constitution. She said she was in support of that, but there are Democrats not in favor of that. And then there's also flock cameras. Which one would you like to discuss?
Zuckerman: Yeah, well, I mean, let me let me put a bow and all that I would just about flock cameras I think I going off memory here, but she made a supportive comment about their abilities, but said about need to study the issue
Juravich: Yes, and she said that basically that she wants police to be able to use them to you know solve crimes, right? So I think she um little bit of a dance there. Yeah
Zuckerman: But there's something worth considering here, which is that all these issues tend to be 80-20 or they're about issues and that 80% of people support the side that she has taken going off public opinion polling. So you're asking a lot to ask a politician to take the 20. You can only have so many issues and with all these, when you look through them, a lot of them have been recently litigated by the legislature. So Medicaid work requirements is a good one. The generic democrat has always opposed Medicaid work requirements I would have guessed a year ago that Amy Acton would have opposed Medicaid work requirements, but she came out and said she's in support of them. But if you imagine a world where Amy Acten becomes governor, no one can predict the future, but the likelihood is that it's going to be a Republican controlled legislature. The Republican controlled legislator just passed a budget that said, we want our Department of Medicaid to get a waiver to allow Medicaid work requirement. So it's probably a power that Amy act and does not have to get rid of these work requirements, so. In for her to take the I oppose work requirement side and the same argument goes for the you know the transports thing you're kind of asking her to tape of their a popular a position that does not pull well and probably won't come up
Juravich: and said things she can't control. Yes, it's strange.
Zuckerman: Yes, it's strange the imagination to say that for some reason Republicans will just reverse themselves on this issue in two years and send her the bill to sign. So the incentives point her in this direction, you know, voters can decide how they feel about that.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable. With us this week, we have Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio, Jeremy Pelzer with Cleveland.com, and Haley B. Miller with the Columbus Dispatch. Before we take the break, I feel like flock cameras are the new data centers because data centers was something that was like a hot topic cropping up everywhere. We couldn't go a week on the Roundtable without talking about them. Now it's flock cameras everywhere we turn. Everyone's talking about. They are license plate reading cameras that police say. Really help in solving crimes and private citizens say are an invasion of privacy. I mean, has Amy Acton or Vivek Ramaswamy really made a position on these yet? I know there was like one little question about it, but I don't think there's a policy position, right?
Pelzer: No, no, neither candidate has brought it up on their own. And as you said, this is an issue that has fairly recently popped up, especially, and it's still entering the public's minds. I think a lot of this is gonna be informed by polling and focus groups, I think, as both sides, if they see that this is a big issue that can move people. Move voters to vote one way or the other, you might see them take up the mantle one way or the another. In the meantime, though, I think they have their existing game plans and the issues they want to focus on. And it's only if they decide like, hey, this is a big issue and we can make big political gains out of it. That's the only time they'll bring it up on their own.
Zuckerman: I actually, I noticed this, I think this was from Friday, this was a tweet from Vivek Rameswamy quoting himself at a fair, but he said, I have zero tolerance for an expansive surveillance state in Ohio and I'll ensure that flock cameras aren't ever used to spy on individuals inside their vehicles. We're not going to beat China by acting like China. We win by being the best version of ourselves.
Juravich: Well, there you have it. Okay, but he said he said I will I don't want people spying on I don't want a spying-on people in vehicles, but you didn't say necessarily we can't spy on the license plates, right?
Zuckerman: Well, you can parse words, but he is calling for some kind of a crackdown, some kind of a change in using words like surveillance state. Amy Acton, when she's asked about flock cameras, is talking about their benefits and solving, so I think that tells you at least the mind state.
Juravich: Yeah, the initial state of mind regarding it.
Pelzer: But then the question becomes, what does that mean in practice if Vivek Ramaswami is governor? That's why I was just, can the governor do it? Does he support a ban?
Juravich: I know. Can the governor do anything? Because these are, I mean, these are owned by cities, right?
Pelzer: Right, well, the state could pass a law with through the state legislature in Vivek Ramaswamy or Amy Acton if governor could use their bully pulpit to call for such a ban. They could, you know, prohibit the state from being involved with using this. They could do anything. They could push for a law to limit accessibility. Who can access data from these flock cameras? So there's things they could do. But the question is just say, well, I'm not in favor of these. Well, what does that mean in practice? And that's kind of our job as reporters to figure that out.
BeMiller: Yeah there is some legislation that's been proposed to deal with this as Jeremy alluded to things like restricting how the data can be shared ensuring that it's deleted after a certain amount of time and not just sitting on servers. You know I don't know how much of a priority this is going to be when the legislature comes back after the election. I think it depends how much lawmakers continue to hear from folks on this, so. You know, I think more than likely that this is gonna be something the legislature looks at under the next governor, but there is a bill, so we'll see.
Juravich: There is a
Juravich: There is a bill, but there is not a law. All right, well, coming up, we are going to talk about Dolly Parton and her strong connection to the Buckeye State. That's when the Reporter Roundtable continues 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. Still with us, we have Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio, Haley B. Miller, state government and politics reporter at the Columbus Dispatch, and Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter at cleveland.com. Dolly Parton tributes are everywhere, including right here on the All Sides Reporter Roundtable right now. Jeremy, I didn't realize until I read your story that Ohio leads all other states in the number of children who receive free imagination library books. I mean, what is that participation level? That's amazing.
Pelzer: It's very notable and it's not by accident. Ohio has more than 400,000 enrollees, kids under five getting spoke to remote. I guess we should say what it is.
Juravich: I guess we should say what it is. So when your kid is born, you could sign up for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and she would send your kid, is it one book? A book a month? Yeah.
Pelzer: Every month until they turn five, no strings attached, no gimmicks, no catch, they just one book every month. And this stems from Dolly Parton talking about how her father saying that he wished he knew he was more literate and just, you know, she grew up poor and wants to make sure that this is an investment to make sure that kids grow, having books in their lives and developing a love of reading. And The reason I'm saying it's not an accident in Ohio is fairly early on, Ohio glommed onto this. And especially Governor Mike DeWine and First Lady Fran DeWyne saw this and moved fairly early to put state and local resources behind this, like matching money. In the past few budgets, there's been a significant amount of state money put behind this. And as a result, that's why we have more Ohioans enrolled. In this program than in any other state.
Juravich: Yeah, so the Dewines became close with Dolly Parton. Do you know any more about their relationship? Or like, it was a, you know, governor-philanthropist kind of relationship, right? Yeah.
Pelzer: I mean, it's not like they go back. Dolly Parton came here in 2022 to OSU to the Ohio Union and talked about how growing up, she had family in Northeast Ohio and would come to visit them. But in terms of the Dewines, it is really through the Imagination Library and the work that Fran Dewine and the Governor have done. And she was joking about their names, like I love the wines because please pass the wine.
Juravich: Yeah.
Pelzer: So it's a relationship that they built, I don't want to say a business relationship, but one where she appreciated the work they put in and saw how they could help each other to a goal that across the political spectrum is seen as something very, very worthwhile.
Juravich: And I also read that Ohio has a Dolly Parton license plate option, so I guess we should check in and see if there are any increased sales in that.
Pelzer: Well, and the money from that goes to the Imagination Library, too. It's not just a pocket the money and use it to buy whatever. So that was passed with bipartisan majorities. I believe it was sponsored by the minority leader, Nikki Antonio of Lakewood. So across the political spectrum, there's been support not only for Dolly Parton, but also for the Imagination Library.
Juravich: Yeah, Dolly Parton was not overtly political. She was one of those like rare figures that in the partisan times she could, you know, bridge divides no matter your politics or your taste in music, you now, she was. Does anyone wanna add anything? Cause if we don't talk about Dolly part more, we have to go back to politics and policy. Do you wanna add, do you wanna stall?
Zuckerman: I saw a side-by-side of the Democratic Socialists of America's statement about her death and Donald Trump's and the similarities between the two Made me think like oh my god. This is a watershed moment in US politics
Juravich: That's amazing. Okay, so she is she does break the political divide. All right.
Juravich: Anything else to add? I'm trying to avoid politics. No.
BeMiller: No, she is beloved by all. I was also very sad about Tim Curry's passing. I know, it was a hard week.
Juravich: I know, it was a hard 24 hours. Yes, I saw a meme this morning. Celine Dion posted a picture of herself sitting on a really high fence, and everyone went, no, get down, Celine, be careful. Go back inside, we have to protect you, you know. All right, this is All Sides and the Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News. We are talking with Jeremy Pelzer, Chief Politics Reporter at Cleveland.com, Haley B. Miller, State Government and Politics Reporter with the Columbus Dispatch, and Jake Zuckerman, Reporter for Signal Ohio. Are you, oh, you're waving to me? I'm waving to the camera. You're waving, okay. Jake is here. He's waving. Thank you. Um. Jeremy, you wrote a story about fracking, and you wrote about how the candidates for governor are sharply different when it comes to fracking. But you also wrote that Vivek Ramaswamy has not really responded to questions about it. Can you tell us more about the two, the positions of and Ramaswamy when it comes to fracking.
Pelzer: Yeah, for the past few months, I've been trying to ask the campaigns, as well as Libertarian Don Kisick's campaign, about where they stand on a range of policy issues, like not anything more complicated than that, like where do you stand on fracking or abortion or any number of policy issue that actually are on top of mind for many voters around the state. And there are a few issues that there are more, there's a bigger difference. Among the candidates than fracking. So for more than a decade, Ohio has allowed fracking underneath state parks, so the well pad is adjacent to the state park and then they dig under, drill under the ground to access this oil and gas underneath it. But it's only in the last few years when Republican lawmakers kind of force the issue and force DeWine, Governor DeWin, to kind of the administration to stop dragging their and actually allow this. And Amy Acton says that if elected, she would move to band fracking underneath state parks and state wildlife preserves, and that she would do a quote, thorough review of existing leases. I think it's something like 26,000 acres or something that's already been leased out for oil and gas drilling. Vivek Ramaswami's campaign did not get back to me as they have, as has been the case for most of these. Articles that I've done on various issues. However, he's made no bones on social media, I mean, about saying that he is all for drilling underneath state land. I mean in one social media post, he is at a well pad near Salt Fork State Park, talking about how this money, a lot of the money that raised from this that goes to the state goes to help improve state parks. Now, the context is that increasingly state lawmakers have been using fracking revenue to not just supplement it, but take the place and make Ohio Department of Natural Resources more dependent on fracking revenues. But he said this is pro-environmental because the money is actually going to help state parks, and we need a lot more energy to help our economy, and this is nothing but good. Don Kissick, the libertarian, meanwhile, has taken sort of a middle ground. He would favor a moratorium on new drilling while they conduct a review. Interesting for a libertarian. Not just the review would be not just on whether this is good for the environment, but also how does this affect nearby citizens in nearby communities in the long term.
Juravich: Jake, you've done a lot of writing about fracking. I mean, could if Amy Acton became governor, can she like have an executive order that stops it or could she just prevent it from continuing in the future?
Zuckerman: So you could definitely stop new leases. I'm trying to think, I think that these leases are signed on three and five year basis. So maybe on a rolling basis, you could get out of them. I'd really, I'd have to look at the agreements more closely, you can definitely stop the new ones. One thing to consider here, I mean, I only learned about that video from Vivek through Jeremy's story, so thank you, Jeremy. But he, you couldn't film the ad that he filmed at any well pad. They are all over Southeast Ohio. So he really made a choice to go to the one that was outside the biggest state park and the biggest State fracking project. There's no constraint in law that says you can't put a well pad in a state park. That is a really a rule that Mike DeWine laid down just by force of, you know, his word in his pen, it is not in state code. So the next governor could come in and say, to heck with that stupid law, we are gonna put a Well Pad in Salt Fork. So I think, you know. It speaks volumes that he, and by the way, fracking, I guess, is broadly popular. It's hard to know. Fracking state parks is really unpopular. Anytime there has been some kind of venue for public input, it gets panned. I don't know, what does your average Joe think about it? It's not really polled, it's hard say, but generally I think people don't want it in a place of recreation and of conservation. So I guess I'd take the signal. I take the signal from Vic pretty clearly here.
Juravich: And you mentioned Don Kisick, the Libertarian candidate. He hadn't come up this hour so far. Is he the type where if you send out the questions and ask like your position from Acton, Ramaswamy and Kisic's campaign, does his campaign always answer?
Pelzer: Yes, and fairly quickly too. Part of that too is just reflective of that Kissick is running an uphill campaign. Has there been any-
Juravich: Has there been any polling on him? Like, does he pop up in polls enough?
Pelzer: Most of the polls that I've seen do not include him. His chances of winning are not likely. Now there's other reasons for him to run. If he gets more than 3% of the vote, the Libertarian Party of Ohio maintains their state recognition as a political party for the next four years. So, you know, he's saying he's in it to win it, but there's others reasons to run for governor than just to win.
Juravich: What percentage was that again? 3%. 3%. OK.
Pelzer: But to your point though, he's getting back to me on these issues a lot because if you're not the likely person to win, then you're playing with house money. You can come and just say, hey, here are my positions. I would say, on the other hand, that his positions are obviously very well thought through and they're not just kind of hot tape. Like, oh, here's what I think about it. I haven't really researched it. He's definitely thought through his positions. Okay. Haley.
BeMiller: Um, the only other thing I was going to add on him is that especially if the race between Acton and Ramoswami stays as close at it as it is, depending, you know, how much of the vote kiss it gets in November, it could tip the scales and affect the race one way or the other. You know, especially cause I think we're hearing on both sides of the aisle that, you now, there are voters who are not thrilled with Acton or Ramosawmi. So I think he. Could end up playing an interesting role in that respect.
Juravich: So if he does get that 3% and it's as close as the polls say, which is within the margin of error of 3%, that could impact it. Yeah. Sure could. All right. Ask Marcy Kaptur. Yeah. She lost by just a... No, no, no. She won her race and the Republican... She won by just this much. The margin...
Zuckerman: The margin was within the vote share of the Libertarian in the district.
Juravich: We are out of time and I want to say thank you to Jake Zuckerman reporter at signal, Ohio Thank you, Jake and Haley B. Miller state government and politics reporter Columbus dispatch. Thanks Haley Yeah, and Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter at Cleveland.com. Thank you. Jeremy. Thanks Amy. This has been All Sides on the Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich.
