(gentle music) - Supporters of an abortion amendment say ballot language is unfair.

A teacher's strike in Youngstown pushes back the start of school in that city's district.

And dozens of rural districts in Ohio arm their teachers and staff to boost security preparations.

"Ideas" is next.

(thrilling music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Glenn Forbes in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Supporters of a proposed abortion rights amendment say the ballot language chosen by the Ohio Ballot Board is biased and inaccurate.

The school year is underway for most students in northeast Ohio, but students in Youngstown are getting a late start.

After teachers went on strike this week, they'll start the school year remotely.

The return to school puts the focus on safety.

46 districts in Ohio, most of them rural areas, have opted to arm teachers and staff as part of their security plan.

And a new proposal to take the power to draw legislative maps from lawmakers has hit a snag.

Ohio Attorney General, Dave Yost, has sent proponents back to the drawing board after rejecting summary language.

Joining me this week from Ideastream Public Media, Deputy Editor of News, Stephanie Czekalinski, and Environmental Reporter, Zaria Johnson.

In Columbus, State House News Bureau Chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

The Ohio Ballot Board met late Thursday to create ballot language for the proposed abortion rights amendment and the recreational marijuana statute.

Both will be voted on in November.

Democrats say the language for the abortion amendment is biased and inaccurate.

Karen Kasler, the Ballot Board adopted the language using the phrase 'unborn child' rather than 'fetus.'

Let's talk about that.

There were other terms in the language that could be raising controversy and your colleague, Joe Engles, was all over this and previewed this story and said, "Yeah, this could happen.

There could be some interesting arguments at the Ballot Board."

- Yeah, I mean, we were expected that because the Ballot Board is not a place where the merits of a particular issue are debated.

The Ballot Board is simply the board of state lawmakers and appointees who come up with the language and approve the language that voters will see when they go to vote.

Now, voters of course, have the option of going to the Secretary of State's website and actually reading the amendment and the law that they're gonna be voting on.

There are signs posted up in polling places that give you the actual text of the amendment.

But when it comes to what you see in front of you when you actually go to vote, the Ballot Board is the one that approves that.

And the Secretary of State's office writes that language, and this time wrote it for both issue one, the Abortion Rights Amendment, as well as the marijuana legalization law.

And the question about this was, first of all, Democrats and supporters of issue one had argued that just put the entire 250-word amendment before voters.

It's not that long.

Just let them see that.

The language that the Secretary of State's office wrote was longer than the 250-word amendment, even though it's supposed to be a summary.

And it did use words like 'unborn child' instead of 'fetus,' which is the word that's actually in the amendment.

And also it refers to prohibiting the citizens of the state of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable.

And they said that it's not the citizens of Ohio, it's the state that should be in there.

So this is very specific language, but it can mean something to people who are seeing it potentially for the first time.

- Yeah, and that's what I was gonna ask, Karen.

Obviously there's a reason why Republicans were for this language and Democrats were against it.

I think it's fair to say it gets to the crux of the issue, right, when you talk about humanizing this term and saying unborn child rather than fetus.

And do we expect that to have some impact on voters?

- Well, and we also expect it to have a lawsuit.

We expect that the backers of issue one will actually go to the Ohio Supreme Court and sue over this language because they say it's not...

The definition between unborn child versus fetus, one of those is a medical term and one is those is technically not a medical term.

So that's kind of where this is right now.

I mean, what we know now is that the Ballot Board did approve this language, and there was a little bit of back and forth there between Republican Ballot Board member, Senator Theresa Gavarone, and Democratic Ballot Board member, Paula Hicks-Hudson, where Gavarone started making statements against issue one, which again, is not what the Ballot Board is trying to do with that.

They're just trying to, at that meeting, approve the language.

And the Democrat Hicks-Hudson then said, "Hey, wait, this is appalling that you are saying these things when this is not what this meeting is about."

- Yeah, and I heard Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, say right off the top that that was not the purpose of the meeting.

That we're not debating the merits of the issue, we're simply debating the language of the issue that will appear on the ballot.

Go ahead, Karen.

Yeah.

- And he's the chair of the Ballot Board.

And his office, again, wrote the language.

He made it clear that he agreed with Senator Gavarone's comments against issue one, but then said, "That's not what this is...

This meeting is not about that.

This meeting is about approving that language."

- To throw another curve ball into this, because what would a statewide election be without several curve balls?

This is going to be called state issue one.

Now, if you voted in the August election, the August special election, you were also voting on state issue one.

Those who voted no in August are likely to vote yes, and vice versa.

Just your impression of that, Karen, and how this may go to confuse voters?

'Cause here we go, another state issue one within two, three months.

- I think both supporters and opponents of issue one as it appeared on the August ballot, went into the August election saying that to their supporters, "Vote one way in August, vote another way in November."

So it's kind of a flip now.

So people who were nos on issue one in August are potentially now yeses on issue one in November, and vice versa.

And it is a little confusing, but I've heard from other people that this whole thing has been confusing.

That the whole 60% voter approval to change the constitution that we voted on earlier this month was confusing.

That this is confusing.

And it's really, I think, pretty straightforward when you look at specifically what is happening here.

You've got republicans who are against putting abortion rights in the constitution, Democrats who are trying to do this because they're frustrated with Republicans continuing to pass bans on abortion.

And that's really what this issue, I think, is gonna come down to for a lot of people.

- I wanted to mention quickly the marijuana statute, not an amendment, it's a statute of potential law, with the chance to be repealed.

But not a lot of controversy there.

That was passed, I suppose, with ease and without a lot of conversation, but that will now officially appear on the ballot with that language.

- Yeah.

And I think it's gonna be really interesting to see what the results are gonna be when there are no statewide candidates on the ballot.

The only statewide issues are these two, and they're pretty-hot button controversial issues for a lot of people.

It should drive turnout, especially in a year when we wouldn't expect a big turnout.

One of the other things I would say about issue one is, I am kind of surprised that the language did not include the words 'parental rights,' because that's a thing that you're gonna be hearing a lot.

Opponents of issue one are gonna bring that up saying that the issue affects parental rights.

There's no reference to parental rights in the abortion amendment language.

So that didn't get into the actual summary, but that's gonna be a big part of the opponents of issue one, what they're gonna argue.

(thrilling music) - A delayed start to the new school year for students in the Youngstown City school district.

Teachers there began a strike Wednesday on what should have been the first day of school.

Instead, teachers are on the picket line and students are beginning classes remotely today.

Stephanie, of course, the first question, some of the sticking points, right?

We always see this back and forth.

Usually it's about pay and benefits.

What can you tell us?

- Well, I mean, money, right, is a central issue.

The district and the union are reportedly nearly three percentage points away from each other in how much teachers should be getting in raises.

Teachers want 4.89%, and the district is reportedly offering two.

So that's there.

But interestingly, there's also contract language that's serving as a sticking point.

And that sort of focuses around, like the district itself wants to be able to assign teachers to roles and buildings where it feels teachers will best serve students.

And the district says that the union wants teacher seniority to be taken into account in terms of those assignments.

The teachers' union says it also wants a say on professional development and different interventions that students need.

And then there's also this disagreement over what's called student contact time.

The district wants that to increase, but the union wants it to stay the same.

- Interesting.

And as I understand, no talks are scheduled this week.

That is not necessarily a good sign.

- No, it actually has to do with... Well, it's hard to say how long this will go, right?

The district has filed a complaint with the state Employee Relations Board because it says the strike is unlawful.

They contend that the union should have worked with a third-party fact finder before striking.

And that hearing was, I believe, likely to happen today.

And so now we'll see what happens.

- Never a good situation for parents who, and I am speaking a little bit from experience, so forgive me if you don't feel this way, but always anxious to get kids back in school, back in the classroom.

And obviously there are childcare issues that go along with this too.

I mean, anytime there's a strike like this, this really does affect families as well.

Yeah, I really feel for the parents and the kids and the teachers and the administrators too.

I mean, everybody wants the kids to be able to go back to school.

Our reporter, Connor Morris, went out to one of the elementary schools where people were picketing.

And he talked to parents.

They were supportive of teachers and understanding.

But I mean, we know from the pandemic that remote learning is challenging, to say the very least.

- [Glenn] Yep.

- Students were set back during the pandemic with that model.

And then there's also emotional impacts and things like that.

And that's before you even start to try and figure out, like just practically, where are my kids gonna be while I need to be at work?

Because... - [Glenn] What you gonna do with them?

- Yeah, that's a problem too.

- We're still talking about learning loss from the pandemic.

And then who knows how long this strike will last, but that just kind of exacerbates the problem.

(thrilling music) 46 of Ohio school districts have opted to arm teachers or other personnel to bolster school security.

The Ohio Department of Public Safety released the list of districts this week.

The names and number of personnel armed in each district are not public record.

Karen Kasler, remind us why we're here, how we got here, the decision to arm teachers following the state cutting down the hours required for training in this area.

- Well, the decision wasn't necessarily made by the state.

I mean, the law was passed, but districts could decide whether they wanted to allow teachers and school employees to carry weapons.

And 46 districts have said that they will allow this.

And what's required, then, of those people who work in those districts and wanna carry weapons, they need up to 24 hours of additional training.

And it's things like scenario-based training, deescalation techniques, tactical live firearm training, some of the stuff that law enforcement gets, but a lot less training than typical law enforcement does get.

So there was a lot of opposition to that because the training requirements were lowered in this bill.

And so this is the second year, I believe, this has been in effect.

So it's interesting to see the list of schools districts that are allowing this and where they're located.

- And any analysis on the decision to not make more of these details public.

I mean, we know the districts, but we don't know some other key questions.

And you would think that parents would certainly have questions about this.

- I think the idea all along was to not make it public who was actually going to be armed in school.

And that, I think, was a decision made while this bill was being debated because of possible, I guess, pushback from parents and from other people.

So we really don't know, but we do know that the majority of schools and districts are not choosing to allow their staff to be armed.

So that's one thing that parents can at least know, and they can know whether their district is one of those 46.

- Stephanie, I wanted to ask you about the rural districts.

Obviously there are concerns there because of response times.

And some of these counties are very large and it does take a while, especially if you're in a township, let's say you're not under the jurisdiction of a city police department.

It can take sheriff's deputies quite a while to get out there.

- Yeah, I mean, there was reports this last week about a superintendent for a school in Shelby County, and he pointed out just what you're saying.

There's no police department there, and they have to wait for a sheriff's deputy or a patrolman for the state highway patrol.

That's a practical reason that they cite to want to be able to take action quickly.

They feel vulnerable.

- Karen, real quick, just remind us of what some of those requirements are.

As you mentioned, it's up to each district whether or not they want to arm teachers, but overseeing this training, who's doing that and what are some of the requirements?

- Well, there is a Ohio School Safety and Crisis Center within the Department of Public Safety that helps districts meet those requirements if they wanna allow teachers and school personnel to be armed.

There's a training program for districts.

There are third party programs that have been approved.

Again, it's 24 hours of initial training, up to eight hours of requalification training annually.

But the criticism has been primarily that this is not enough.

That law enforcement gets a lot more training than this.

And even law enforcement sometimes has had...

I mean, we saw what happened in Parkland in Florida and Uvalde in Texas, where professional law enforcement had difficulty and didn't even, in some cases, respond when there was a school shooter in the building.

So there's some questions about how this would work in an actual live school shooting situation.

But like Stephanie said, there's also the point made that some of these counties are pretty large and the law enforcement response time is pretty far.

And when you've got somebody in the building and this is happening, teachers and school employees want to be able to do something right then.

(thrilling music) - The proposal to take the power to draw political maps in Ohio out of politicians' hands hit a snag this week.

Attorney General Dave Yost rejecting the petition summary language submitted by the group backing the measure.

The group calling itself citizens, not politicians, wants to create a 15-member citizen redistricting commission made up equally of Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

Karen, not necessarily an unusual occurrence to have some of this petition summary language rejected.

What can you tell us?

- Well, by my count, there have been 37 petitions submitted to Dave Yost since he took office as Attorney General in 2019.

And 14 of those were rejected on the first try, with some being certified later, including, for instance, the marijuana legalization issue that Ohioans are gonna vote on issue two on the November ballot.

So this is not unusual.

He did list a...

It was nine different areas that he said he had concerns about.

And he said that those were just some of the concerns that he had.

This is a very complicated amendment, this amendment that would create a 15-member citizens commission that would ban current and former politicians and professional partisans from being on it.

It sets up the whole process of how those 15 citizens would be selected.

And so there's a lot of things to go over here.

So I would expect, and the group that's pushing this, which is called Citizens Not Politicians, has said they're gonna look at the letter that the secretary or that the Attorney General sent them, and go back and make the necessary changes, go back and get the signatures they need to get, again, another thousand signatures to put this before the Attorney General one more.

But this is not a big surprise.

And it really has less to do with politics, I think, at this point, though I could be wrong, that it's really more of a first step in the whole process that many other amendments and issues do take forward and find some success in getting to the ballot.

- I won't make you go through all nine, but what were some of the big objections Citizens Non politicians said?

As you said, that they'll regroup, they'll try to fix some of these.

What are some of the big ones?

- Well, he wrote that the makeup of the commission in his letter was confusing and vague.

That's what he said.

He was also concerned about statements about the bipartisan screening panel.

This would be a panel of four retired judges, two from each party.

He said some of those were materially misleading.

He said that there were some words being omitted that should be in there, and he found some parts of the summary to be inaccurate, incomplete, or a misrepresentation.

And again, this is the summary of the amendment that would be on a petition that a person could sign to get this onto the ballot.

So this is not the full amendment, this is just a ruling on what the summarized language of the amendment is and whether it's truthful or not.

He says it's not.

Obviously the group that put it together says they think it is, but they will take his guidance and go back and fix it and come back with another proposal.

- We got some big names, of course, in Ohio, politics involved in this.

We talked about former Chief Justice, Maureen O'Connor last week.

Now she says she'll step back if the amendment passes.

But also Governor DeWine saying this week, he's somewhat in favor of removing politicians from this process, but he's not totally on board with this proposal either.

- Well, he says he hasn't really looked at it yet, but I don't know whether he has at this point or not.

And of course the summary language will be changed.

The amendment is still what it is.

He had said though, that legislators shouldn't be on this panel, which is interesting because the Ohio Redistricting Commission was really there.

There are politicians that are on this.

And Maureen O'Connor's saying that she'll back away from it, well, her own proposal would ban current and former politicians, she's one of them, from being on this commission.

So I think her role and the role of Democratic former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Yvette McGee Brown, who's also involved with this group, is really just kind of to raise awareness, to give some gravitas to this issue as it goes through the process of getting to the ballot.

Once that... And I should go over that.

Once the approval from the Attorney General is received, which one would expect will happen at some point, then it goes to the Ballot Board.

They determine how many amendments actually are there.

And then the process of gathering 413,000 signatures by July 3rd of next year has to begin.

- Meanwhile, Karen, the state is still using maps ruled unconstitutional several times by the Ohio Supreme Court, and the Redistricting Commission will meet next month.

But I read this is not necessarily about withdrawing maps, this is to explain what a recent North Carolina ruling has to do with Ohio and what impact that could have in Ohio.

What can you tell us there?

- Yeah, there's two tracks here because there are two sets of maps.

There are the maps for the State House and Senate, and then there is the map for Ohio's 15 congressional districts.

That congressional map is gonna be reconsidered by the Ohio Supreme Court in light of that decision from North Carolina.

And that was the decision that involved the independent legislatures theory and whether state lawmakers and only state lawmakers have the authority to draw state or congressional district lines.

So the Ohio Supreme Court will look at that, and then the Redistricting Commission is gonna convene on September 13th to go through this process again.

I mean, we went through this for two years.

Redistricting went on for two years of meetings and public hearings, and there was a point at which cameras were set up here in the State House so that people could actually watch the map drawers work.

I mean, it's been-- - We heard all about their lunch orders.

What they were planning on doing after the meeting.

Those were fun days, Karen, come on.

- Oh, just a blast.

It was great.

It was riveting television.

But I mean, it's important, though.

That's exactly the kind of thing that entities like the Ohio Channel really provide is, is the window into how government works.

But you can make the argument here that government really didn't work at this point because we have maps that are unconstitutional.

So we get to start that process again.

(thrilling music) - The Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, NOACA, as it's been called, Zaria, you know a lot about, you're very familiar with this.

Yeah, NOACA experts.

They've been collecting information from residents across the region over the last few weeks.

The agency seeking input from residents as it puts together a long-range climate action plan.

And we've been following that for months as well.

The plan expected to be drafted later this year.

Zaria, first to start, why did NOACA embark on this listening tour to gather information for a climate plan?

- Yeah, so NOACA had a round or maybe a day of public engagement sessions across the region back in January, but CEO, Grace Gallucci, said that meeting, that those sessions didn't allow NOACA to get the feedback that accurately represented the needs and thoughts about climate change across the five-county region.

The January sessions were also kind of virtual, NOACA members attended virtually.

So those who attended in person didn't really have the opportunity to ask questions or address concerns directly with NOACA.

And so this time around, the meetings are in person and they're also simplified, kind of focusing more on community members concerns about the climate or changes they've noticed themselves about their environment.

And they're also talking about potential solutions.

They're able to ask questions about things like solar panels and electric vehicles.

And NOACA members are, again, in person in the room to answer those questions.

- One of the interesting things about this, sorry, is, NOACA it's in the name Northeast Ohio Areawide, so you think Cuyahoga County, and that's an urban and suburban county, but NOACA also encompasses a lot of rural counties.

So I would assume there's a lot of, I don't wanna say built-in tension, but there are a lot of different opinions being brought to the table when we talk about NOACA.

And some pushback is possible not only from residents, but also from members of NACA themselves.

- Yeah, so NOACA does represent Cuyahoga County, which it has the largest population of the five-county region, and it's also the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the region.

But when we think about Geauga, Lake, Lorain, and Medina counties, they have smaller populations, but also smaller emission levels.

So when we think about board members, there were some concerns about residents at rural counties needing to make changes when they aren't emitting as much.

And when we think about residents' concerns and kind of that residential pushback, it's pretty similar, but there's also seems to be a sense of distrust in NOACA in terms of why they're doing this, what the need is for this climate action plan, and what exactly it'll mean for them in terms of how much they'll have to change how they live their lives.

And there also seems to be this sort of maybe need for more education or more understanding about the climate science or these sources of climate science.

Like where is this information coming from?

How accurate is it?

Especially when we think about sort of conversations around climate change and climate that have happened in the past.

- So in your analysis from covering this, are they making progress?

And what kind of information is being shared here?

I guess, if you had a crystal ball, which you don't, but if you did, are they making progress to the point where they can get something accomplished and they can get this climate action plan together?

- I've attended a couple of the sessions this time around, and I think they are making progress in the sense that they're able to, again, hear directly from residents what their thoughts, concerns, and ideas are around climate action and climate action planning.

And there are a lot of sort of diverse opinions and perspectives about climate change.

So I think it'll be interesting to see how they're able to put it all together into a comprehensive plan that it works for all five counties.

But I definitely think they're making progress.

I don't envy them for having to do the work, but I think they're making progress and they're getting the information they do need to do so.

(thrilling music) - Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" on 897-WKSU.

A couple of school districts in Ohio are experimenting with a four-day school week.

We'll discuss that concept and why districts are considering the move.

I'm Glenn Forbes in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.

(gentle music)