(upbeat inspiring music) - Hello and welcome to The Journal.

I'm Steve Kendall.

2021, a challenging year for the state of Ohio.

It's legislators, it's governor, and of course, all its elected officials.

The budget's been approved.

Ohio has a new school funding plan.

Pandemic is still with us, but that doesn't mean there aren't other things going on in Columbus.

And of course here to help us get caught up with all of that because the, you know, the legislature will be headed back into session soon, is Karen Kasler the host of The State of Ohio, which you can view every Sunday at noon here on WBGU PBS.

So Karen, thanks again for joining us on Journal.

- Hey, great to see you, Steve.

- Yeah now, you mentioned things that got accomplished.

Of course the budget had to be done that sort of thing, and that rolled school funding in, and so supposedly we have a school funding plan.

But one of the things that's still floating around out there, and of course the rules have changed for the governor and the Ohio Department of Health is how the state is going to deal with the continuing COVID pandemic.

So talk a little bit about what the legislature is doing with that right now, because of course we've talked about it before, but it's evergreen, that particular topic.

- Yeah, unfortunately it's not only evergreen, but it's really coming back now.

We're seeing case numbers continue to rise.

And this is a real concerning time now because kids are going back to school, they're going back to college.

And so as these numbers are growing and they're growing fast.

I mean, I've been tracking them since the beginning and where we were two months ago when we had so many fewer people with confirmed cases of COVID, but also so many fewer in the hospital, those numbers have just ballooned.

And now we're down into, back to where we were, approaching, where we were last fall.

Which you might remember last fall into last winter was terrible.

And we had a lot of people hospitalized, a big strain on the Ohio hospital system.

And that's seems to be where these numbers are headed.

And what's different this time is that Governor Mike DeWine doesn't really have the authority to do some of the things he was doing last time.

He knew there was a statewide mask mandate in place and it came off in June, but DeWine doesn't really have the authority to issue it in the long-term sense because there was this bill that passed, that took effect in June that allows state lawmakers to override his vetoes.

It also keeps local health departments from issuing mask mandates.

Now you're seeing some entities do this.

City councils, school districts have been issuing mask mandates, but as for a statewide mask mandate, the governor could issue one, state lawmakers who have opposed mass mandates largely would have the opportunity to come back and overturn that.

And so DeWine has fewer tools at this point to combat what's happening.

He's been doing press conferences, putting hi Ohio Department of Health Director, who is now a doctor, Dr. Bruce.

Vanderhoff, out there to talk about the connection between vaccines and getting those and how it's the best tool to fight the pandemic versus the rise and the continue climb of the Delta variant, but the actual mandates and things that he did a year ago just aren't really accessible to him anymore.

- Right, and he knows he's strongly advising, recommending, trying to say everything but, "You must do this," but he's trying to do it with the tools that he has, and as you said, he does not have the ability now or the capability to say, put a mask mandate.

He could, but the legislature would review it fairly quickly we assume and would probably say, "No, no, no, Governor, we're gonna override you on that."

It does leave the state, as you said, kind of in this checkerboard approach to it though.

Because you can look around a county like where we're located in Wood County, some schools are using masks for that.

Some of them are saying, okay in some places, not in others, others it's totally optional.

So, and yet at the same time, all of these groups are going to be interacting with each other.

So it does leave everyone kind of asking, "What's today's rule?"

"What's today's method for dealing with this?"

- Yeah And Dayton mayor Nan Whaley, who was one of the Democrats challenging DeWine for governor next year, she has called on him to issue a mask mandate and go ahead and take it to court if he has to.

Now, DeWine has said it's about local control.

And they said that local communities, local school districts have the option to issue mask mandates and that no matter what a local community or school district does, people always have the option of wearing masks if they are personally concerned, if they don't want to send their kids to school because there's no mask mandate.

But you know that for some people who are really looking at the science behind this, they say that that, the lack of more vaccination and more people completing that vaccination process really is not stopping the virus from spreading among the unvaccinated and then becoming a more contagious and more potentially dangerous virus that is now hitting the vaccinated.

And for instance, my statehouse news bureau colleague Andy Chow has talked openly about how he, his wife and their two young children tested positive for COVID.

Their kids are too young to get vaxxed and Andy and his wife had been vaccinated a while ago.

It really does show these breakthrough infections are happening a lot more because this virus has been spreading and mutating, and there are other mutations beyond Delta that potentially could make the vaccines useless.

And that's the point that the doctors and experts say we don't want to get to.

- And I know now that this is now, I believe then moved from the emergency use to now fully being accepted by the FDA, the Federal Department of Drug Administration.

And hopefully I think the thought is now that it's not listed as an emergency use, that some people say "Okay, now I'm going to trust it."

We'll have to see on that.

But it does leave the state in this, let's say, this potpourri of approaches to things.

And it's an interesting point that the governor could take that step, but then by the same token, you know, he's gonna be up for reelection in the not too distant future, and he has to sort of look at the terrain overall and we assume that he's doing that.

And trying to find that happy spot where he can keep a lid on the COVID pandemic, and yet at the same time, still get support from his side of the aisle, which has been up and down for him on almost every issue, it seems.

- Yeah.

And I think for a moderates and Democrats who really were supportive of DeWine early on, some of that has really fallen off because there was a lot of thought of, "Hey, Dewine was handling this really well."

He got tough.

He was, oh, I was the first state to close schools for instance.

And DeWine just doesn't have that ability to do that anymore.

He did veto that bill that took away his authority, but the legislature came back and overrode it.

Now the moving the COVID vaccines from emergency use authorization into full approval by the FDA does allow school districts and hospitals and other places to require those COVID vaccines.

But then there's a bill that's gonna be here this week that would really take away some of that, that would ban all mandatory vaccines, not just COVID vaccines, but also childhood vaccines.

Mumps, measles, those vaccines, that little kids get.

The meningitis vaccine that college bound students get when they're going to go live in the dorms.

All rules for mandatory vaccines of those types would be taken off from almost any entity, including employers.

And so that's a bill that I think has a lot of concern by people, especially in the scientific community and the medical community who say vaccines have saved lives, and to take away any sort of ability for an entity to mandate a basic vaccine like a measles shot or a polio shot, you know, that's gonna be potentially really problematic.

- Well, when we come back, and what's interesting is the fact that you touched on it for just a second was the fact that it isn't just public entities that that anti-vaccination proposed legislation would deal with, but private businesses, which is kind of an interesting reach for legislature, you know, in the Republican side of the aisle, which is really about local control and keeping a smaller government approach.

So let's talk about that when we come back, we'll be back in just a moment with Karen Kasler, host of The State of Ohio, here on The Journal.

Thank you for staying with us on The Journal.

Our guest is Karen Kasler, the host of The State of Ohio.

You can watch that program every Sunday at 12 noon here on WBGU PBS.

That last segment Karen, you talked about the fact that this anti-vaccination proposed legislation is pretty broad sweeping, not just the public sector, but actually would talk about private employers and what they could do regarding whether or not to require vaccinations.

- Yeah, and I'm gonna read this because it's a long list of entities that would not be allowed to have required vaccinations and would also not be allowed to treat vaccinated people and unvaccinated people differently.

It bans the so-called vaccine passports, but also would say that, you know, you can't have a special section for vaccinated people versus unvaccinated people.

And again, this is all vaccines.

Childhood vaccines, all the way to COVID.

It would cover a person, public official or employee, public agency, state agency, political subdivision, school childcare center, nursing home, residential care facility, healthcare provider, insurer institution, and employer.

And so that really broadens this idea of employers requiring certain vaccines, schools requiring vaccines for kids to come in and go to school.

And you wouldn't under this bill be allowed to require those vaccines.

And also wouldn't be allowed to segregate people based on vaccination status, which is really, really kind of amazing when you think about it.

Because you're talking about vaccines in many cases that have been around for decades.

- Right, and it's an interesting point because the COVID vaccine has now triggered, as you said, this response, which suddenly now we're going to look at vaccines that have been in use for decades that have worked very well.

And there's a reason why we don't see some of the diseases that we have because of that.

But to now say, I guess, and that's, what's interesting.

It's not only is it get into the private sector, but it says we're talking about any vaccine, not just COVID.

And as you said that's a real stretch, a real broadening of the legislature's take from, I mean, you ran down that list.

There aren't many things left after you get to the end of that list that would have an option to say yes or no about vaccinations.

- And even by the time this show airs, we may have seen some changes in that bill.

But still the extraordinary nature of it, that it was proposed by Republican Jennifer Gross, a Republican rookie legislator.

She says she proposed it not because she's opposed to childhood vaccines, because she said she got her children vaccinated when they were young and she's been vaccinated.

And not because she's opposed to COVID vaccines.

But I think there was a lot of testimony at one point on the COVID vaccines in this in hearings on this bill.

And a lot of it was disinformation and false and completely wrong.

But she said she was concerned about the meningitis vaccine in particular, and why her son had gotten a letter saying that he's gonna go to college and live in the dorms, he had to get the meningitis vaccine.

But still the idea of serious consideration given to a bill that would ban all mandatory vaccines and leave it up to people to judge is pretty amazing.

And when Jennifer Gross, I asked her, Hey, if you take away that mandate and you allow people to decide for themselves, what makes you think people will actually make this choice to vaccinate their kids before they go to school?

That sort of thing.

She says, I believe if you give people the right information, they will do the right thing.

Which is exactly the message that Governor Mike DeWine has been sending about masks and the COVID vaccine, which is a message that is not gotten through to a significant portion of Ohio's population.

- And so you're sort of like, in a way she's like, we hope everybody will do the right thing, which most people will, but most isn't everyone.

And when you're looking at diseases like this, epidemic diseases or pandemic diseases, you pretty much need everyone to be on board to actually put a stop to it.

And I know when I talked with the Wood County Health Commissioner, he talked about the fact that one of the reasons that population will not have to deal with shingles is because they were all vaccinated against chicken pox, and never got it.

For those of us who got it before they vaccinated for that, yeah, we're eligible, you know.

We have the possibility of getting shingles.

There you've taken a vaccination that took care of two things.

It took care of chicken pox and it took care of a disease in the future like shingles.

So yeah, it is a little unnerving when you think about the fact that we're gonna take things like that and say, well, make up your own mind and hope that nothing goes wrong, I guess is how some people, I would view it that way.

Maybe other people obviously view it differently.

- Yeah this whole argument about choice and personal freedom versus protecting the larger group.

I mean, that's what we're seeing with some of these breakthrough cases among people who were too young to get vaccinated or people who had been vaccinated, but again, the virus is spreading, it's stronger.

This whole discussion has really, through this particular bill, morphed into something much bigger, and something that's very concerning to groups like the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Business Round Table, two very powerful business groups who have really come out swinging against this bill saying, this is not the way that Ohio should be going.

- Right, and cause typically businesses have been left to make those decisions on their own.

And again, especially in an approach that says really, the state's going to reach into private enterprise and say, this is what you are not allowed to do is a different approach than we've seen from Columbus, especially on the Republican side who have been always, you know, somewhat, that's been their area of small government.

No intrusion into private enterprise, private business.

And in this particular piece though, they want to be involved in it, in this case.

So it does create an interesting situation.

As you said, traditional groups that would side with Republicans on that are saying, well, wait a minute, we have a question about this too.

It is an interesting approach.

It cuts across a lot of different lines.

- Yeah, and this whole idea of local control.

I mean, home rule in general has been something that there's been some pushback.

Lawmakers will talk about home rule, but then propose pieces of legislation that cities and communities will say, Hey, wait a minute.

That infringes on our home rule powers.

And the highest Supreme Court has had to come through and referee a lot of these arguments.

- And you mentioned home rule.

In a totally different piece of this though.

The whole idea, there is of course discussion, and this is way off of this topic, but still an example of how the legislature looks at certain issues and has different approaches to it.

A lot of cities had talked about going to single use plastic bags and eliminating those.

And the legislature said, no, no.

That's not fair to private business.

They should be able to make that decision.

People should be able to make that decision.

And that's a case where again, they reached into the public entity and said, you can't make a law like that.

The state will not allow you to do that.

So it's just interesting how certain areas are approachable for local control.

Other ones, no, no, we're not gonna let you have that local control.

So it is what it is.

When we come back, we touched briefly on the fact that a redistricting will be underway by the time this airs in terms of some of the meetings will have taken place, the public hearings, that sort of thing.

Maybe touch base briefly on that.

And then talk a little about- we'll look at the, some of the election laws that are out there that the state has talked about a little bit as well.

So back in just a moment with Karen Kasler, here on The Journal.

You're with us here on The Journal on WBGU PBS.

Our guest is Karen Kasler, the host of The State of Ohio program seen every Sunday here on WBGU PBS.

We talked about this the last time we talked a few weeks ago and then it was still sort of esoteric, kind of up in the air.

But the state has actually begun its public hearings on the redistricting package that it needs to do in the next few months and get that taken care of.

So kind of bring us up to speed on where they are right now, knowing that this will air after some of those public hearings have taken place.

- Yeah there were two meetings each day this week where this redistricting commission went out and heard from members of the public who had input.

And a lot of the concerns have been about partisanship in terms of drawing the maps.

Not only for the Ohio House and Senate, which the redistricting commission will draw, but then for Congress, which state lawmakers will draw.

And again, the big thing about that one is that Ohio is going to lose a congressional seat, going from 16 to 15.

And the question for most people is who loses?

Which party is going to lose?

Because we have 12 Republicans and four Democrats right now.

We still don't know the answer to that.

And the timeline is getting very short.

The census has turned over its data, and now lawmakers have to look at this and come up with some sort of a map.

Again for both House and the Senate, but also Congress.

And it's gonna be a short process, but have a lot of interest because certainly how those districts are drawn potentially affects what kind of candidates, the ideology of those candidates that comes out.

And that's really what a lot of people are focused on.

- And one part of the argument from one side, because there are multiple sides to redistricting and the way those lines are drawn, is that Ohio is basically a 50/50 blue/red state.

However you want to define it, Republican/Democrat.

And yet, as you said, in our representation, things are not quite 50/50.

And it speaks to the point that, so again, some people argue that, well, the districts are drawn so that most of them are not competitive in terms of two parties running.

Typically they're designed and it appears in some cases that if you're of one party, you're going to get elected in there, if you're the other party, you're not.

And then there are other districts where it flips back the other way.

But more of them one way than the other.

- Yeah, and I mean, when you start talking about the congressional map and that's the one most people are the closest awareness of.

That's the one that has the snake on the lake that goes from Toledo all the way over to Cleveland.

That map was drawn really to focus on 12 Republicans and four Democrats.

But your comment about the state being kind of 50/50.

Well, it hasn't been the case in the 2016 and the 2020 elections because Donald Trump won by more than eight points.

In 2020 he won by more than 450,000 votes.

And so Republicans are going to use that as justification for drawing the map to favor Republicans who dominate the state.

Democrats are going to say, Hey, wait a minute.

Our population has changed.

Our population centers have changed.

People have been moving out of rural areas into more urban areas and to the suburbs, that's making them more blue.

And there are new rules here.

65 of Ohio's 88 counties cannot be split up.

So that makes it a real challenge for the map drawers to figure out how do you bring all of these voters into these districts and keep them fairly partisan?

Because that's- gerrymandering is partisan.

Redistricting is partisan no matter who controls the pen.

- Right.

Right.

And, you make an interesting point too, that we focus on the congressional seats because that's the one that we know the most about or feel we're more aware of.

But redrawing the state Senate and state representatives, those are every bit as important because those are the people that are making the laws for the state of Ohio.

- [Karen] Absolutely.

I would argue they're more important.

Because these are the issues that touch people.

The budget, you've got school funding and taxes and all these things.

So those are extremely important offices, definitely.

- Yeah, and those are reflective of their populations, but those are, as you said, probably more important in terms of what happens locally in the state, than the congressional races.

Yet we focus on the congressional seats because that's what the national news and, you know, Ohio has so many electoral votes and that sort of thing.

Now, since we're talking a little bit about elections in a way, the legislature has a couple of bills or at least one that was put out a few weeks ago, and then one fairly recently that deals with how we're going to conduct our elections in Ohio.

So talk a little about House Bill 294 and House Bill 387 and see if we can package those so people understand what each of them does and doesn't do.

- You've been seeing a lot of election law changes bills being put forward, especially in states where the states flipped.

I mean, I'm thinking of states like Georgia that has got a lot of attention for their laws, which have been very expansive.

And Democrats will argue, have been completely unfair to voters.

Ohio has two of these bills now.

And both backed by Republicans.

Democrats opposed both of them.

But one would create an online voting system, or I'm sorry to online ballot request system and would also do some things in terms of shortening the early voting period by a day and some other things.

But it's the second one that's really gotten some more attention.

This one would ban ballot drop boxes.

It would shorten the early voting period from 28 days to 13 and then down to six days.

It would also really curb mail-in voting by bringing back the way that you used to have to vote if you wanted to vote absentee.

You had to provide an excuse saying I'm going to be ill.

I'm going to be in the hospital.

I'm going to be traveling for the entire period.

It would bring that back.

So there'll be almost no mail in voting.

And so that's the one that has a lot of attention right now from national groups who are saying that if Ohio does indeed pass that version of the law, the state will get sued.

Secretary of State Franklin Rose says he is not on board with this bill.

He doesn't think there should be major overhaul in Ohio's election system, because he says the 2020 vote was the successful one in Ohio history.

And so he's supportive of the other one to create this online ballot request system and do some other things.

Limit the number of valid drop boxes, other things that bill would do, but not this stricter bill that's just been proposed.

- Yeah, and it puts him in an interesting position because he obviously is the Secretary of State.

He says that we conducted a very good election, very secure election, and you know, and interested in some modifications.

Okay, fine.

But the implication is that he didn't conduct or wasn't in charge of a secure, good, straightforward election because someone saying we're gonna do away with all of these pieces that were used in that.

So it puts him in an interesting position because he obviously could end up with a challenger in terms of his Secretary of State position.

And it puts him in, like I said, an interesting position because he's defending something that a good share of his party is saying, no, no, you're wrong, it wasn't secure.

It wasn't accurate.

It wasn't whatever.

And this is a state where basically Republicans won most of everything.

So it puts him in an it real interesting location as he deals with this.

- He does have a challenger.

Just this past week, a Republican former state representative has challenged him on the basis of that the 2020 election was stolen.

Which there is no evidence that.

That is not true.

But he's seeing that challenge from his right.

And what's really interesting here is that several of the candidates in the US Senate race, Josh Mandel, Mike Gibbons, and Bernie Moreno showed up to support him.

So that suggests that they also believe this false claim that the election was stolen.

And also speaking at his event, this is former representative John Adams, by the way, also speaking at his event was representative Marjorie Taylor Green, a controversial conspiracy theory spouting a Republican from Georgia.

And so this race could get really, really interesting.

But there are Republicans who believe, and again, this is all false, that the election was stolen and that is something that should be highlighted in the 2022 elections.

Whether that turns out to be a winning strategy, especially since it's based on a false claim, I don't know.

- And as we said, too, it will affect Governor DeWine and his race because he will be seen as a governor who for whatever reason didn't do what people thought he should do with regard to the election, that sort of thing.

And then the COVID thing.

It's interesting that there is an incredibly difficult time for the party in power in Ohio, in terms of which part of the party is going to possibly take the lead here.

So it'll be interesting to see, but it, it puts current public office holders like the Governor and the Secretary of State in an interesting position because they were in charge.

And yet they're being told, no, no, you didn't do a good, you didn't do well in this election.

So it is interesting.

- By a small minority though.

I mean, I have to note that the voices that we've been hearing on the big lie, the stolen election have been vocal, they've been loud.

But I don't know that they necessarily represent the entire party, but there is definitely a split that's happening here.

And it's definitely going to affect some races in Ohio.

- Yeah.

That's good information.

We're gonna have to leave it at that.

We're out of time, but to thank you, Karen Kasler host of The State of Ohio, appreciate you being here.

And of course, we'll be touching base with you in the future as things continue to evolve in Columbus and across the state.

So thank you so much for being here.

You can check us out at WBGU.org.

Of course you can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM here on WBGU PBS.

Thanks for watching The Journal.

We'll see you again next time.

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