In Washington, Republican Sen. Jon Husted breaks with President Donald Trump and calls for a quick end to the Iran War, citing high gas prices.
State lawmakers return to Columbus this week to vote on pausing Ohio’s gas tax.
Republicans want to hurry up legislation, but will Democrats go along? And where will the $700 million dollars come from to pay for it?
As the November election nears, both Republican and Democratic candidates zero in on voters’ economic concerns.
A court rules that Ohio can require proof of citizenship when registering to vote at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
We're discussing all of these topics on this week's Reporter Roundtable.
Guests:
- Andrew Tobias, state government and politics reporter, Signal Ohio
- Laura Hancock, politics and policy reporter, Cleveland.com
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to the All Sides Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we catch up on political news of last week and preview of the week ahead. I'm your host Amy Juravich. Joining us on the Roundtable this week, Andrew Tobias, a state government and politics reporter for Signal Ohio. Welcome back, Andrew.
Andrew Tobias: Happy Monday.
Juravich: And Laura Hancock, politics and policy reporter for cleveland.com. Welcome back, Laura.
Laura Hancock: Good to be here.
Juravich: I wanted to start with some audio. This is GOP candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy, who announced last week that he wanted lawmakers to return to Columbus to vote on a gas tax holiday.
Vivek Ramaswamy: Revenue receipts are $1.6 billion ahead of projections. That's a privileged position to be in. But being in that privileged position, we also have a responsibility, not just a privilege, but a duty and a responsibility to use that to deliver relief and help when Ohioans need it the most.
Juravich: So Andrew, how did this all come about? A candidate for governor rallying lawmakers, calling for them to return to the state house from a months long recess because of the election. They're gonna come back on Wednesday. Now granted, his running mate is the Senate president, Rob McCauley, but still, is this pretty unusual?
Tobias: I mean, I've been covering state politics for a while, and I don't remember anything like this happening before. It is kind of like a house advantage basically that Republicans have that if they are they run the state legislature, they can also kind of get on the same page with the governor's candidate and help try to win an election. So the way it came about, you know, we asked Rama Swami about it. Gas prices were actually higher in May, but they've been spiking this month. But he said that especially diesel prices, which this month reached an all-time high in the Midwest specifically. And I guess it's higher in the midwest than other places. It has to do with like refinery locations and stuff like that. But it's a real problem, both for the economy and also for this election.
Because if you look at polling that coincides with the spike in gas prices, you see Democrats, like on the generic congressional ballot, Democrats have gone up from. Nationally about seven and a half percent to nine percent just in the last couple of weeks And this is a time period when in Ohio at least Republicans expect to actually start consolidating their voters. We've seen a pattern of Democrats kind of running ahead in the summer and then Republicans surging around now And so the fact that they're seeing this emerging issue, that's perhaps the top issue for people the cost of living and gas They have to be worried about it. So It's, you know, it's hard to really pull apart the politics of it versus how much of this is something they'd be doing anyways If it was an election year, but I have a hard time imagining them like
Juravich: doing this in a non-election year.
Tobias: And getting everybody together in a week, you know, just happens to be, you know, days before early voting begins.
Juravich: Yeah. House Speaker Matt Huffman said in a statement that he would work to enact Ramaswami's plan immediately. Laura, what do you make of Huffmann being on board with a gubernatorial candidate's plan instead of his own plan?
Hancock: I don't know. I'm curious about how they're gonna pay for it. At first they said they were gonna pay for it with like cash balance. Like basically a lot of agencies get more money than they spend and so that at the end of the two years they the money goes back to the state government, you know. And so first they were like well we're gonna play for it with cash balance but then Governor DeWine's administration, his budget office, came out with a statement saying oh no no no that money has all been spoken for. So now it's like, are they gonna put off construction projects, like roads, bridges, things like that, to do this gas tax relief, or are they going to take money from the rainy day fund and keep construction as it normally is?
Juravich: Because the gas tax goes to ODOT, so basically, by eliminating the gas tax for however long, it takes money away from ODOT.
Hancock: Ohio Contractors Association came out with a statement saying, please do not delay projects, you know, that's jobs for them. So it'll be interesting to see how it's paid for. I mean, they could, it, Matt Hoffman said it could cost up to $700 million if you were going to do a 90 day freeze of the time.
Juravich: Democratic challenger for governor Amy Acton then said at some at one point last week, she was she said, wait a minute I had this idea first Here is audio from Acton. This is a story from Statehouse Reporter Morgan Trau.
Amy Acton: We come out on something and then he throws something together. But we've been thinking about this issue deeply and the holistic impact it has on families.
Juravich: So, Andrew, was this Acton's idea first? Did Ramaswamy hear the idea and then scramble to get lawmakers all together?
Tobias: It's hard to really. I mean, yes, she announced it first, but I just looked it up now. Nan Waley, the Democratic governor candidate in 2022 proposed a gas tax holiday that year. That's actually the last time gas prices were this high because of the Ukraine War. This is an idea that floats around. So perhaps they got the idea from Acton's campaign, but also seeing the gas prices. I got the sense that bad Republican polling was coming out last week internally. And so I see it just as easy that they would, and again, I'm kind of speculating, but they would see those polls and jump into action. And maybe I can give them the idea, maybe not, but yeah, that is the sequence that she did announce at first. And they came out with their own more detailed plan that night.
Juravich: So just for our listeners sake, in case you've never paid attention to the sticker that's on, there's a sticker on all gas pumps that says how much the tax is. The state tax on gas is 38.5 cents if the sticker I was looking at is accurate. Does that sound right? All right, 38.50 cents. So if they vote on Wednesday and it goes into effect immediately, does gas go down by 38.05 cents right away? As soon as the governor signs.
Hancock: The thing about it is, I mean, you're talking what, 422, 450 a gallon for gas. So it'll still be at four. So it's not, that's not even 10%. So you're financially for people really, you know, on the edge, this is going to help. But I don't know how much it's going to help. I mean yesterday I filled up and I have to do the medium grade and it was like 48 bucks. And so you have a small tank. All right. Thank you. Bye.
Tobias: I don't want to step on a possible next question on this, but so taking effect immediately, like Laura said, that's actually not a given. And that's a relevant question for this whole thing. Okay. Yeah. Why? Republicans hold 65 seats in the House and they need 67 seats to pass something what's called an emergency clause. So a normal law takes effect in 90 days after the governor signs it, but something with an emergency class takes effect immediately. And so, essentially... Republicans need two house Democrats to vote for this in order for it to take effect immediately and it's actually it might be more than that because there is a vacant house Republican seat a Representative from Medina County recently resigned to take I think another Government job, but so Republican leadership have scheduled an appointment to fill that seat on Wednesday the same day They're scheduled to vote this gas tax holiday bill really that shut that says to me that they are They're worried about every vote scraping and clawing. Okay, they don't have a vote
Hancock: Also, they have indicated that there's going to be some people who are just not going to be able to make the Wednesday vote because of prior commitments. So yeah, they're going to need... So Danny Isaacson, he's the leader of the Democrats in the Ohio House. He says that nobody has reached out to him to make overtures, to ask for the Democrats to do them a solid and get an emergency clause passed. So we'll see.
Juravich: Well, actually here, so I have some interview, um, Morgan Trau, uh, interviewed democratic minority leader, Dani Isaacsohn. And here is his reaction.
Dani Isaacsohn: Does anyone still believe anything this guy says? He has not called me, he has not included Democrats in this process at all.
Juravich: So he's referring to Rama Swami in that cut, just for everyone's understanding. Um, so I, I mean, is Rama Swami supposed to reach out to people? Like he's, he's a candidate for governor. He's not an elected official. Does he, can he, does he have influence on whether this passes?
Hancock: I mean, he's kind of driving it. You know what I mean? And it's kind of strange because he's not governor at this point, you know, so. And Dwine seems kind of open to it, or, you know, he isn't embracing all right. He's just kind of saying, you know, He is open to it. So
Juravich: feel like Governor DeWine is an afterthought in this whole process. You know, like, Andrew, do you think, is Governor De Wine an after thought here? Like they're, they need him to sign it, but did they, did they talk to him?
Tobias: So taking a step back, Ramaswamy, when this was announced on Wednesday, did say that he talked to the governor and he described their conversations as being positive. It was kind of vague, you know? But DeWine was asked about this on Friday and I wasn't there, so I'm not exactly sure about the context. He described some aspect of this as being a very bad idea, but I don't know if that was specifically referring to is this gonna be funded or not. You know, like maybe the bad idea was pulling money from roads and bridges or something so I'm I don't have enough clarity about the context of it, but The governor does have to sign the legislation Because if again like the whole idea is that I guess they're not saying we have to pass this before voting starts I kind of feel like that's what there's their actions say that that's but they're trying to do they Huffman said they want to wine to sign this bill in early October in early voting starts I think on October 6 or October 7th, we should check that date to make sure since I just did it.
Juravich: Yeah, I think October 5th is the last day to register and my producer Aaron will check on that. It's it's right around those days
Tobias: But the governor could sign this. He could wait for a while. It would take effect without a signature or he could veto it. And so the governor has been somebody who I don't know that he's explicitly called for an increase in the gas tax. But in past budget cycles, the state highway patrol, which gets some of its funding from the gas tax, has argued they need, you know, they don't have enough money. They need to find more revenue sources. I mean, I was at a press conference a couple of years ago where DeWine was talking about the section of 23 between Columbus and Toledo. And really what ODOT wants to do is build. A new highway that goes from Columbus to Toledo, which would cost billions of dollars. And so he said that there's just not adequate road funding to get everything that Ohio needs in addition to maintaining its network. So is this a really interesting question for Democrats? They want to throw Republicans up on? Are they going to be comfortable alternatively voting against something that might put them in the crosshairs in their own elections? You know, does Mike DeWine want to help out his party or does, you know, if he has concerns about the implications for road financing? I mean, you know, just a lot of interesting decisions that people are going to have to make over the next few days.
Juravich: Well, the way the whole thing came together didn't sit right with Senate Democratic leader Nikki Antonio. This is some audio from an interview she gave to Morgan Trowell. Morgan was unable to join us on the roundtable today. Let's listen. In a way that I've never seen before, bringing a political campaign actually into the chamber of the Ohio legislature. Is that appropriate? I don't think it is. So what about that idea that this is being spearheaded by a candidate who has never held an elective office? He's just he's a candidate Um, does that matter?
Hancock: I mean, it depends what side you're on, right? Yeah.
Juravich: Yeah.
Hancock: So the lawmakers would say, well, in the end, the buck stops with us. We have to pass it. But yeah, it is kind of strange. I also saw today, Vivek on social media was saying Ohioans need to pass voter ID and state constitution. So I think he's looking for all these periphery issues to help turn out to help himself.
Juravich: And early voting does begin on October 6th. So the last day to register to vote is October 5th. We were correct there. All right. And I also read that a contributing columnist for the Columbus Dispatch, a longtime journalist, Ray Marcano, went so far as to calling this whole idea a coup. He didn't mean like a violent overthrow, but he meant like an administrative coup. I mean, what do you make of that characterization, Andrew, that like the candidate for governor is kind of being like, let's do this.
Tobias: Yeah, that's I think like Laura said, it's kind of in the eye of the beholder. So what Ramaswami's message on this was that my opponent is kind of just like floating a gas tax holiday, but here I'm helping make it happen. And so that shows how my opponent's all just words and I'm a man of action. And of course, the fact that they're the same party means that they can just all get together and, you know, like the the Republican legislature is not going to do Amy Act in any favors. And so some of its politics, maybe, you there's an argument to be made that if Amy Acton's elected governor, she's going to have similarly challenging time getting the Republican control legislature to do what she wants, whereas Rama Swami would step in and have probably more of a working relationship. So I think it does speak to the dynamics that are, you know, relevant to the actual whoever gets the job of how are they going to work with the legislature kind of thing. But sure, like the fix is in for sure that they want to help out.
Juravich: The sound that I played from Ramaswamy at the very top where he was saying revenue receipts are $1.8 billion ahead of projection. So he's basically saying we have enough money to do this. Is that what he was
Hancock: Yeah, from the general revenue fund.
Juravich: So, okay, so he's not worried about taking money away from ODOT. He's basically saying that we can, we have the money and we can do this. And we can do this.
Tobias: Ohio has like three or four billion dollars in the rainy day fund too. So the money is there, but is like, you know, it's a fiscal question. It costs about $700 million to do this if they want to fund the roads. And do we want to potentially drain 25% of the rainy-day fund or, you know. I've not, I'm not done like the check all the funds. I mean it's amazing during budgeting seasons they always manage to find extra money for things like this. So I don't want to like sell short the idea that there is, there could be ways to pay for this out of the state's current operations.
Juravich: Operations. When they vote for it though on Wednesday do they have to say where the money comes from in the voting? Yeah. Okay.
Hancock: The bill, the bill, and we don't have a bill yet.
Juravich: Okay, well, stay tuned.
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with Laura Hancock from Cleveland.com and Andrew Tobias from Signal, Ohio. I wanted to pivot to U.S. Senator John Husted, who is in a tight race to retain his seat. In an interview with Politico last week, he called for a quick end to the war in Iran, and he joined with other Republicans who are speaking out. He cited high fuel costs as the for him saying this. Yet he also voted last week. Against a resolution to limit President Trump's war powers in Iran. Four Republicans did vote for it. So Laura, speaking of President Trump, he's coming to Ohio this Saturday. He's gonna be in the Dayton area and he's going to be campaigning for Houston, right?
Hancock: Yeah. So, you know, there's on the one hand, this is a general election. So you would be like, well, why would Houston want to be seen with this very, this president who has negatives in Ohio? On the other hand, he has hitched his horse, his horse to, to the president. So so like it or not, the area has a lot of military who generally support, you know, the president just so he they're not going to downtown Cleveland. They're going to an area where there is going to be some support.
Juravich: Yeah, and I, I mean, what do you make of, you know, Republicans at the national level and here in Ohio, everyone's pushing back against the war. Everyone's pushing get back against these high fuel prices. But someone like Senator Houston has has had the opportunity to vote to stop the war. I think it's like 13 times or something. I don't know. Do I have the number right? And he's voted to you know he hasn't voted to stop. The war 13 times. Yeah.
Hancock: I mean, I think that Trump, you know, he's known to primary people who go against him. All sorts of normal votes are seen as slights and disloyalty to Trump. So I think at this stage where Houston is very dependent on national Republican Senate money for his race, he is not going to anger the establishment.
Juravich: And Andrew, I read a story, I don't know where, where someone in the Ohio Republican Party said, of course we'll welcome President Trump to Ohio. He's a vote magnet, I think was the phrase that was used. Did you read that too? I did, yeah.
Tobias: I did. Yeah, that was the state party chairman, Alex Triantafilou. OK, yeah. It's an interesting question. In elections past, you've seen in Republican ads, they almost can't say Trump enough times in a commercial in 30 seconds. And so in contrast, this cycle, I haven't really seen them much at all. I mean, Houston's first campaign ad at the beginning of the year is before the primary mentioned it, but it's really been pretty subtle. I mean that they've been referencing like the president's, you know, his spending bill that cut taxes and stuff like that. So it's not like. He's just not a main character in this election. And the fact that he's showing up. So if the question is, do I think this helps Republicans? I think it probably does. Trump has activated a whole swath of voters in Ohio and elsewhere who aren't super engaged with politics, but they really like him and.
Juravich: And they'll vote for who he says to vote for.
Tobias: And in the past, I mean, I remember in the 2018 election, he came to Ohio right before, literally a week or two before the election, and Mike DeWine went from trailing in the polls to surging and ultimately winning that race. And so when Trump comes here, people show up, it's a spectacle, it gets covered by local media, it's an organizing tool for Republicans. And the question is now though, does that work right now when, you know, he's six years into eight years in office, even though it's been split up? Gas prices are near all time highs diesel prices are at all time. Highs You know, I've I've done canvassing with Republican groups and There are definitely people out there who voted for Trump who are unhappy with his performance especially when it comes to the war in Iran, so Um, yeah, it's not as simple as it normally would be, but ultimately him coming, I think it's probably Republicans best card to play is to hope that they can mobilize Donald Trump's voters. Because if, you know, it simple, like he won the state by 11 points. If everybody votes for Donald Trump votes for John Houston, John Houston will win.
Juravich: Is every Republican in Ohio going to be in this outside of Dayton on Saturday for this?
Tobias: We will find out. We will. I'm very interested. Mike Turner is the local Republican congressman and he won his race by six, or rather Trump won his district by six points. Turner outran Trump by about 10 or 15 points. But does Mike Turner think it's helpful for Donald Trump to come and campaign for him in that district? I guess we'll find out if he, we'll see what he does and says.
Juravich: Or if Ramaswami will be there, that's why I was wondering that too.
Tobias: I've read that Vivek Ramaswamy will be there, I've not done any reporting on it. This was announced just last night, I didn't have a chance to really look into it.
Juravich: Well, and just before we take the break, there is a federal gas tax, which is 18.4 cents a gallon, which that's not very much 18 cents, but do you think that, I mean, Ohio wants to suspend the gas tax? Will there be a federal call to suspend the gas taxes?
Tobias: Donald Trump proposed it earlier this year. I've shared it around and others called it a gimmick. I don't know how they view that now, but.
Juravich: Is it a gimmick when Ohio does it too?
Tobias: That's a fair question. It's a gimmick when the Democratic governor candidate proposes it.
Hancock: Yeah, I mean, we're going to get $5,000 if Republicans retain Congress and that's a lot more than the gas tax. That's true. Okay.
Juravich: Well, we'll see about all of that. This is the Reporter Roundtable from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. Coming up, we're going to discuss a little bit more about the Senate race and other election news when the Roundtable continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable. This is an hour where we talk all things Ohio politics. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Still with us, Laura Hancock, politics and policy reporter at cleveland.com, and Andrew Tobias, state government and politics reporter for Signal Ohio. Andrew, I wanted to talk about cryptocurrency. You wrote about the role a political action committee played in derailing Sherrod Brown's re-election bid two years ago, and the role they're playing now in his effort to return to the Senate. And it kind of all... Is focused around cryptocurrency. Tell us about that.
Tobias: Yeah, so in 2024, I don't remember all the numbers. It was a lot, but Democrats were spending a lot of money and Republicans were spending a lot money as they were contesting Sherrod Brown's seat, which ultimately he ended up losing. And, but a factor in that race that broke late was that after all of that spending was in place, a group supporting, basically funded by the cryptocurrency industry dropped an additional $40 million in the last weeks of the election on ads basically largely attacking Sherrod brown. And so. It's not so simple to say that Sherrod Brown lost because of one reason. Some Republicans have made the case though that that is why he lost that race is because this late money arrived and pushed him over the edge. So when Sherrod brown announced his candidacy, this time he's running for to go back to get back into the Senate, I believe it was in April, closer to when Sherrod started, his campaign manager issued a statement about the cryptocurrency industry saying that He had an open mind on the subject and that he saw that cryptocurrency served a role in the American economy in supporting jobs and stuff like that. And I remember thinking that's like a, please don't spend $40 million against me again, cryptocurrency industry. And so-
Juravich: Well, the cryptocurrency industry did that because when he was a senator, he was on the banking committee and he was kind of anti-crypto, right? Yeah, he wasn't sure.
Tobias: Yeah, he was the chairman of the Senate banking committee and he was not supportive of priority legislation that the industry wanted at that time.
Juravich: OK, so so they basically said, OK, well, we need him out. So they gave a whole bunch of money to and well, to Bernie Moreno, but also anti Sherrod Brown. I spent it on his behalf.
Tobias: They spent it on his behalf, basically, yeah. And so $40 million in 2024, like we were just talking about, they announced last week that they're spending another $30 million against Sherrod Brown in this year's election. So Sherrod- So they don't believe- All of it branch did not work.
Juravich: They don't believe him? No. Okay. Well...
Hancock: It's really interesting. I remember, you probably remember this, from 2024, Crypto brought in the Black Keys to Akron for a concert. And even the Black keys were like, this is the weirdest concert we've ever done. Yeah.
Juravich: I don't remember this. Yeah, it was, it was.
Tobias: It got overshadowed a little bit, but yes, that indeed did happen.
Juravich: Okay, so it was a pro crypto concert, rally.
Tobias: Yeah, and it was separate from the political action part. It was more of like the support crypto. And, you know, I don't know if the black keys like crypto or they like getting paid it by the cryptocurrency. Maybe they like it.
Juravich: Maybe they like getting paid. Were there any candidates at it or it was just a pro crypto
Hancock: It was just kind of a pro crypto concert, no Canada, so the Black Keys did their set and kind of mentioned that this was a weird situation.
Juravich: Okay. Are you expecting another weird situation in the next month? Is that what you mean? Probably. I'm expecting a lot of weird situations in the month. Yeah. Well, but just speaking of this race between Houston and Brown, a little over a week ago, I moderated a forum at Ohio State's John Glenn College of Public Affairs. And the students, you know, it was just like, it like this town hall where all the students were talking about their concerns, like what issues they think we're facing and stuff like They could not get over. The number of negative ads and they were sick of them as of last week and they didn't know who to believe and I so I just wanted to ask like a lot of these students are first time voters like I had them raise their hand if they've never voted before and that was like most of the room so what are what's going on if everyone hates the negative ads. Like, why? Why?
Hancock: I tune them out and I wonder if I'm just weird like that, but I just kind of, as soon as I can almost like hear that voice, I'm like, oh, here we go. So I don't know because everybody talks about how much they hate it, but then they continue.
Juravich: Well, if you're a young voter on TikTok and YouTube all the time, maybe they're seeing a lot of them, right? I don't know.
Tobias: Oh yeah, I was watching YouTube for a couple of hours the other day, which I don't usually do and I probably saw ten political ads.
Juravich: Okay, so who are we to believe here? I mean, I'm told, on numerous roundtables, everyone says that negative ads exist because they work. But like, do they?
Hancock: Do they? Believe the media. There's going to be a lot of fact checking going on by all the media, our particular outlet is going to do a bunch of videos. We have two people assigned to this full time between now and election day where they're going to go through and kind of fact check what is true about this ad and what isn't. It kind of always starts out with a kernel of truth and then it kind of takes a crazy turn.
Tobias: And I have a take on this. So I've gone door to door and seen canvassers, basically ask voters about the election and they will repeat back the things that they see on TV. That is how people find out about the elections. And so these attacks work in that they definitely get into people's brains. Even some people like Laura might tune them out, but enough people at least like passively hear them that it's just the thing that they they see. And so I've seen focus groups this cycle where voters will say like, yeah, I've heard X or Y, I don't know if it's true. And so then, and then some of them will say, oh, certain candidates getting attacked a lot, I'm gonna vote for the other person. Like there's definitely a risk of these things causing a backlash, especially, you know, like you can just imagine, maybe it's like, oh, they're being really mean, I don't like that, or I'm suspicious that this group has so much money, they must, the other must be worth supporting. So it doesn't necessarily always land the same, but I do think that over time, voters, maybe it like Tactically a good idea to just bury people negative ads, but strategically what it does is it makes voters cynical about everything And that's that's not good for our democracy. Like we don't want voters to not believe anything that they see so it's a problem Yeah, but there's a reason why they do it. So it's little bit more complicated than they just work But they they do they do work
Juravich: Well, then there's the idea of, you know, the amount of money being spent, and we could think about what that money could go toward if it wasn't being spent on all these ads, right? And then there is the fact that numerous court cases and judges have ruled that you're allowed to lie in political ads. Now, if it is truly a lie, I guess the other person can sue for defamation, right? But from what I read in my like trying to understand this. You're allowed to lie. Someone can sue for defamation, but by the time that court case gets through anything, the election will be over. Is that right? Is that right?
Hancock: The bar is pretty high when you're a public official. Like if I said my next door neighbor was a drunk on TV, she could sue me, take me to the cleaners. But if I was like Vivek's who's saying, Amy Acton's a drunk, she's going to have a hard time winning because the bar is higher for public officials.
Juravich: For him to prove that he, or for her to prove that he's lying. In court, uh-huh. And what about like, is it the political candidate who's allowed to lie? Can like, can a PAC lie too, or, yeah?
Tobias: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of I mean, this is really esoteric, but like the we have in America a long tradition of mudslinging back to their very earliest elections. And so there are court cases and precedents that say like, you know, outrageous speech in the context of politics is it's it's more important for us to have a freewheeling debate about politics about politics than it is for us to have a more strict constraint about what's true and what's not. And so judges and courts do give more leeway to stuff that might be considered defamation like Laura said, if you're saying it about. You know, if I was thinking about you Amy, for instance, but
Juravich: Oh, please on the radio. Let's go
Tobias: but as opposed to it being done in the context of a political campaign against a political figure. Yeah.
Juravich: Um, well, as you cover also, I wanted to pivot a little bit to the governor's race, like as you covered and watch these candidates, you know, for, for governor sprinting to the November 3rd election, I want it to know what's catching everyone's attention. Is this campaign any different than other campaigns? Um, except for the fact that you said that it's good for like the, you know, the political ads and you use the word debate and we're not having debates, but you know. Andrew, is this campaign any different than four years ago, eight years ago?
Tobias: It definitely reminds me more of eight years ago. Four years ago, Mike DeWine ended up winning his race by like 30 points and it was pretty clear going into it that that was gonna be the case. Like the most competitive race we had was the U.S. Senate race and JD Vance beat Tim Ryan by six points. So that was, you know, but back in 2018, you know I don't wanna like do like the story hour with Andrew about days gone by, but. It wasn't clear then that Democrats had lost as much ground in Ohio as they did. Twenty sixteen was kind of a shock to them after Obama was elected here twice. And so I think they really plan to make a bounce back here. Ultimately, Republicans rallied. They won here or they lost here. But Republicans won here. But Democrats picked up red states. They won the Kansas governor's election that year. So. You know, I've become very cynical about polling. We've seen it under measure, Republican support repeatedly here in Ohio, but I always take my cues off of the candidates and how are they acting, you know, and then I can infer, do they think the race is close? And Donald Trump is campaigning here. We were talking in the last segment about that. We were also talking about how Republicans are scrambling to pass a gas tax holiday as voting is beginning. I mean, Republicans are running, like they think they might lose this election. And so. That was not the case in 2022 at all, which is why it reminds me more of 2018.
Juravich: Laura, does Donald Trump care who the governor of Ohio is? I mean, I'm sure he cares who the senator from Ohio is, but does he care who's the governor from Ohio?
Hancock: Less so but yeah because um well first of all he um wants to help the vague because the vague helped him briefly for doge and supported him when he dropped out of the um presidential race but yeah i mean you want to be able to work with the states and if you have a state that's suing you every other day which you know you have that with like new york pennsylvania minnesota you all these other states, it's hard to get your agenda through.
Tobias: Donald Trump also really cares if the people, if he endorses, if they win, like he will go so far as to endorse, like in 2022, he endorsed the entire slate of Republican candidates. And these are races that Democrats had no shot. And it was specifically so that he'd count five more wins on his win and loss top columns. So I think that he will take it very personally if Ohio goes blue because of. That what I just said, if it were anywhere, he would care. But Ohio is also a place that he said many times on the stump is very important to him. You know, he won here in 2016 when they quote unquote said it couldn't be done. He did his first housing project as a developer in Cincinnati back in the seventies. So it's, I think Ohio has a greater meaning to him than other States does.
Juravich: And Andrew, you and your colleague, Jake Zuckerman, reported on Acton's campaign traveling through Appalachia. And is she visiting rural areas more than other candidates? Did other candidates tend to stick to the cities?
Tobias: I think it's kind of a gimmick that Democrats can campaign in rural areas and say, we're doing things that other Democrats haven't done and they all do it, you know? I mean, it's definitely it's true that that Democrats, there's a strategy through which they could basically just try to run the vote in the urban areas and the suburbs and that works in other states. But there's just not enough urban and suburban voters to know how to offset the how far back Democrats are in the rural areas. So I think... It's important that they try to do it because I mean, one of the places that she went was Rio Grande in Galea County and I checked and Donald Trump won Galeah County by 60 points in 2024.
Juravich: Oh, so it's like you're asking, what is she doing down there? Yeah.
Tobias: Yeah, and you can't lose counties in Ohio by 60 points and expect to win statewide, even though there aren't a lot of voters in those kinds of places, there are a lot counties like that, and they start adding up. And so I think as opposed to, you know, it used to be that Democrats would compete in along the Ohio River because of the coal industry and United Mine workers and like all that stuff and those days are gone, but Democrats have been completely eviscerated in the rural areas and they just like, they need to just lose not as bad. And so I think it makes a lot of sense to like, you can't make up any ground if you act like you don't care. And so one way that you can show that you care is to actually take the time to visit those places and do the kinds of things that kind of can't work.
Juravich: Okay, so Laura it's not that Amy Acton's campaign is wasting its time. It's it's strategic. They're trying to
Hancock: Talk to everyone. Yeah, everyone. She's very, very much into showing how bipartisan she would be.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're having the Weekly Reporter Roundtable. We're talking with Andrew Tobias from Signal Ohio and Laura Hancock from cleveland.com. Before we take the break, just for a couple of minutes, I wanted to touch on a circuit court recently ruled that the Ohio BMV is allowed to require proof of citizenship before you register to vote. And this ruling seemed complicated to me whenever I was reading the story. It involved cases where people tried to register to vote but didn't have the right documents to get a driver's license or their name on their license was incorrect because of a name change, but they still wanted to register the vote. I mean, Andrew, can you tell me more about this ruling? You have to prove you're a citizen to register a vote.
Tobias: So if you do it at the BMV, so there is a federal law called the National Motor Voter Act that says that state BMVs have to ask voters if they want to register to vote when they visit. And so Republicans, I think earlier this year, maybe it was last year because it's dragged out in court for a long time, passed a law that said if the BMB is doing that, then they also must ask voters to provide proof of their U.S. Citizenship. So if think about that, That can be kind of complicated. I was born here, but if I wanted to prove it, I would have to dig up my birth certificate. If I was, if I changed my name, if I were a woman who'd gotten married and changed my last name, or for any reason, you'd have to then find like your marriage license or just documentary proof to kind of string all that stuff together. Well
Juravich: Well, I had to do all that to get the real compliant ID, so, yeah.
Tobias: It's very similar. And so what the case against it was that, you know, this is burdensome to prove this stuff. People may not have the documents. They may have lost them. They might not have the wherewithal to go get a new copy and that kind of thing. And furthermore, it's not it's against the federal law to have different sets of standards for different kinds of voter registration processes. They lost that case. That's what we're talking about, a federal judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs who were voting rights groups, basically, and with Democratic allies, and then the Federal Appeals Court then overturned that ruling and basically said this law can go into effect.
Juravich: Okay, so I'm sure there's more appeals as is still going on. But as it stands right now, if you're at the Ohio BMV and they have to say, do you want to register to vote? But then if you don't have all the documents to prove you're a citizen, then you can't.
Tobias: Right, but I was at the Grandview hop on Saturday and there were, you know, people with clipboards. And yeah, you can register to vote. Ohio actually does have a process to verify citizenship of people who registered to vote, but like if you're signing a clipboard at the library, you don't have to show your birth certificate to do it. It's a different process because it's not at the BMV.
Juravich: Okay, so that same person who was suing, because they couldn't register to vote at the BMV, they could go find a clipboard person. Correct. Okay, great.
This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. This is the Reporter Roundtable. And coming up, will Ohio be home to the Space Academy? State leaders are lobbying hard to make that happen. That is when All Sighs continues on 89, 7 NPR news.
You're listening to All Sides and the Weekly Reporter Roundtable. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Still with us, we have Andrew Tobias, State Government and Politics reporter for Signal Ohio, and Laura Hancock, politics and policy reporter for cleveland.com. There is a push underway to have Ohio house the U.S. Space Academy. Governor DeWine is on board and naming an 11-person steering committee. Um, so. Laura, can you tell me more about this? The state is lobbying at the federal level. They want the Space Academy here.
Hancock: Yeah, our two U.S. Senators, John Husted and Bernie Moreno are also really pushing hard. So you know, obviously the Space Force is headquartered at the Pentagon, but you know you have West Point, you have Annapolis, you Colorado Springs, so they're hoping at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, you know the space academy would be located there. Already, you have NASA doing some training at Wright-Patterson for astronauts. And President Trump said, I think it was last week, that this is the next thing that needs to be set up for this new branch of the military.
Juravich: Okay, so it would be training people for the future space force here in Ohio if we get it.
Hancock: Cadets who would graduate and become commission officers, that kind of thing.
Juravich: I mean, Ohio does have a great tie to the space program. We have the NASA Glenn Research Center. I don't think it's an off-the-wall request. Are we competing against a bunch of states, though?
Hancock: I'm not aware of what other states are interested. It's just that they say it would fit nicely into the state's heritage of flight.
Juravich: Okay, so President Trump is coming to Ohio Saturday, he'll be near Dayton, not actually in Dayton, but do you think that the Space Force will come up?
Hancock: I would think that Pete and Seth would also help make that decision, so I don't know.
Juravich: All right, well, you know, arguably it would be cool to have a space Academy here.
Hancock: President Trump, when he talks about it, the first thing he says is the moon, and then immediately I just think, oh, the rich people who are going to colonize the moon. So I'm like, are these officers who are gonna graduate, are they gonna really do national defense, or are they just gonna be doing like pet projects for rich people? We'll see. We're gonna.
Juravich: They're going to protect our satellites. That's what they're doing, right? I think so.
Hancock: That's yeah, I mean you would hope right
Juravich: Um, another thing I wanted to get an update on is just because it's been a long time since we've talked about him. He, he made a lot of national news for like a solid week and a half. And then it just kind of all went away. Max Miller, Ohio's 7th congressional district. Um, has there been some more news about the Max Miller campaign regarding political ads? Like Laura, can you give us an update?
Hancock: The Democrat who is running against him, Brian Poindexter, is running a television ad in Cleveland that is pretty nasty. It brings up all this stuff in court documents. Court documents said he broke his daughter's collarbone, which we know that hasn't been proven. But yeah, he's definitely, Brian Poindexter is definitely exploiting Max Miller's vulnerabilities in that race.
Juravich: And so what's the polling been like? I mean, I know we have to take polls with a grain of salt, but like, is it close?
Hancock: I have not seen any polls. I would be surprised. This is definitely drawn for a Republican to win. I mean, it goes all the way down to, I believe, Ashland?
Juravich: So you're talking about the congressional seat has been a Republican stronghold. So despite Max Miller and his issues regarding his wife and his daughter and his ex, sorry, his ex wife is Emily Moreno, Bernie Moreno are senators daughter. So all of that was a huge story, but has it really has it gone away for him?
Hancock: No, no, this is gonna dog him till November 3. Yeah, all right.
Juravich: Um, this is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News, and you're listening to The Weekly Reporter Roundtable, where you're talking with Laura Hancock of Cleveland.com. And we're also talking with Andrew Tobias of Signal Ohio. Um, I wanted to talk for a minute about Andrew, an issue that is coming up in the race, um, you're seeing, you are seeing ads for it related to Marcy Kaptur and Sherrod Brown. And it's, it's a transgender issue. Our WOSU news reporter George Shillcock had a story out this morning about the race and about whether or not people in the trans community are one issue voters and if they're going to vote based on how certain candidates are reacting to different transgender issues. What have you been hearing in this case?
Tobias: About what the one issue voter part or which part exactly?
Juravich: Well, what's happening with what Amy Acton's campaign has been saying, just basically what Democrats in Ohio have been saying regarding the transgender issues.
Tobias: Yes. So just to set it up in 2024, Republicans ran a bunch of attack ads against Sherrod Brown, attacking him on this issue. And I know Democrats in real time felt like he didn't respond quickly enough. Eventually, he lost the race. Some Democrats think that's the reason why we talked earlier in the show about maybe the cryptocurrency ads, which didn't touch on this stuff. Maybe that had a factor too. But so this year, Democrats are going in ready for these attacks, knowing that it's going to be something that came up. So kind of just moving down the line, I'll start with Sherrod Brown, actually. So just because I just mentioned him. So these ads have started being funded by the Republican Senate Leadership Fund, which is the big Senate Republican PAC that spends hundreds of millions of dollars helping elect Republicans across the country in the Senate. And they said, you know, Sherrod brown supports girls playing, or boys playing girl sports. And he immediately. Had his own ad and it said, oh, here we go again. This issue, don't they have anything else to talk about? And then kind of pivoted to, but John Husted voted to raise gas prices or whatever. They're trying to forgo.
Juravich: They're trying to focus on affordability and pivot away from that.
Tobias: Yeah, and it described it said, you know, gender transitions for children's is illegal under Ohio laws. And then it's a way of saying this is a settled issue. This is irrelevant. You know, these other things are more important. So then Marcy Kaptur has, you know, been subject to the same kinds of ads in her race. She's a congresswoman from Toledo. She represents a district that Donald Trump won by like 10 points. So she's in big trouble just on day one because of what the district looks like. And her rather than kind of quickly moving on, it says something like, it references a vote she took in May that supported Republican legislation that banned schools from teaching, quote, gender ideology in schools. And so she said, I don't support transgender ideology in our schools, which is why I voted to make sure that parents decide first. And I also don't supports boys playing in girl sports. And that is a phrase, boys playing girl sports, that transgender activists take a deep issue with because they believe that it implies that. Transgender girls aren't girls and they say that that kind of seeds the ground to Republicans And so I just you know, I've been going for a while, but basically Democrats on the one hand Really believe that this is a civil rights issue and their voters do and transgender people do obviously But on the other hand some of them believe that This is you know polling shows that Republicans have popular opinion on this and they have to figure out how they can Deal with it without completely throwing the transgender community under the bus And so. When Kaptur launched those ads that I mentioned, the Lucas County Democratic Party actually issued a statement calling on her to take them down, which is kind of remarkable. But yeah, it's a difficult issue for Democrats and those are two candidates who are dealing with it in different ways.
Hancock: And Acton also has said she doesn't support boys playing girl sports. So you're seeing a lot of Democrats just take 10 steps back from this traditionally democratic issue for LGBTQ rights. I think... Isn't the boy-
Juravich: Playing girl sports part though it impacts like what 20 people or something like that is a small amount but
Hancock: you know, if we all had a dollar for every minute Republicans spent talking about this, we'd all be able to retire. You know, there's way more discussion about it than actually people doing it. So but you know they're they're making a calculated choice that there's too few LGBTQ people that this is not going to decide the race for them. So I think, you know for lack of a better word, they're kind of almost like throwing them under the bus. And a lot of LGBTQ people will probably hold their nose and still vote for some of these Democratic candidates, knowing that they still have a better chance under them than they would for civil rights under Republicans. And then some of them just won't vote, but the Democratic candidates are just kind of like, oh, well, this is not gonna win my race.
Juravich: Yeah, that was the question that was posed this morning in WSU news reporter George Shillcock's story was will this cause them to vote for a third party progressive candidate or will LGBTQ people sit out and not vote based on this? Do you know, have you heard, have, is there any polling on that? It's kind of like a very specific thing to poll.
Tobias: Yeah, it's probably too niche of a subject like it's a small group where you know The polling gets less accurate and they're kind of more concerned with who's gonna win the race and stuff like that anecdotally though You know, I've interviewed transgender people Something like, you know, it it's this small group So I don't want to speak for all of them But some of them say like what Laura said Oh, I know that the Democrat is better for me than the Republican candidate is so they sort of get it On the other hand, I you know some of have said I refuse to vote for a party that is helping assist a political movement that doesn't believe that I should exist. And so it's a tough issue for them, whether it is decisive in the election. I mean, I know the calculation that Democrats are making is that Democratic voters are so angry about everything else going on, that they'll just kind of vote, pull the lever. And then ultimately, they're trying to like, this is a state that Donald Trump won by 11 points. And so they cannot win this race anywhere without getting Trump voters. And so this is the way that they see the path forward to do it. And like I said, I mean, Sherrod Brown kind of like, didn't bring up some of these things and he just kind of tried to move past it and then Marcy Kaptur kind of leaned into it more. And so I guess we'll get, maybe get to see which one of those strategies works better.
Juravich: Right. And so what you're saying is Sherrod Brown is trying to really lean into the affordability issue and just say this other issue is a distraction, which to the LGBT community, they don't want to be called a distraction. Right?
Tobias: Like, yeah, that's sort of like the shared broad messages. This is a settled law. Like other things are more important right now. And then the Marcy Kaptur one is more like, you know, I agree with you that transgender rights have gone too far, which is why I did this. And that's the part that really has upset some Democrats.
Juravich: We only have two minutes left, but I wanted to just very quickly, the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, and the headline said, The Rust Belt Lawmaker Leading the Fight Against Trump's Kennedy Center Plans. And I found, that just made me smile because I was, is Joyce Beaty a Rust Belt lawmaker? Because she's Columbus's Congresswoman. So that made me laugh, but yeah.
Hancock: Yeah, I mean, I don't know how much of an industrial past Columbus has. Certainly nothing like Cleveland or Youngstown.
Juravich: Right, it was just an interesting characterization, but the fact that, so in one minute, I guess, Andrew or Laura, Joyce Beatty, the Rust Belt lawmaker that she is, she's fighting the fight at the Kennedy Center. How does that benefit people here in Ohio and in her district?
Tobias: I can't say I followed this issue carefully. I can imagine, I mean, not really at all, but to the extent that it does matter, I think that there are Democratic voters who like to see their representatives just pushing back against Trump. And so in this case, he renamed the Kennedy Center, the Trump Center, over the wishes of Beatty, who's a member of the board. And so a judge blocked them, and then Trump is talking about demolishing it now rather than putting Kennedy Center's line back up.
Hancock: Beatty in her lawsuit said that she saw your earth moving equipment starting to destroy part of the Kennedy Center. And so yeah, but yeah, she she's giving Democrats like kind of ammunition to go on the attack. And then also, I mean, she's on the board of the center. And so she had I think she sees her role very much as like, I need to represent the public, you know, and the public doesn't necessarily want to see this.
Juravich: Well, that good old Rust Belt lawmaker, Joyce Beatty, I wanna say thank you to Laura Hancock, politics and policy reporter at Cleveland.com. Laura, thank you so much. Thank you. And Andrew Tobias, state government and politics reporter for Signal Ohio. Thanks for being here, Andrew.
Tobias: Always happy to do it.
Juravich: And you've been listening to All Sides and The Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich, thanks for joining us.