(logo chimes) (soft music) - [Mike] The process of redrawing political districts in Ohio dragged out in 2022 and produced unconstitutional maps.

Civilians are stepping in to provide police oversight in Cleveland and Akron.

And Ohio lawmakers consider the state's post-Roe abortion policy.

Ideas' Looking Back on the News of 2022 is next.

(strong orchestral music) Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Today, we'll look back on some of the top stories of 2022.

We'll start with the map-making mess that developed during the political redistricting process.

Voters demanded reforms to make the maps more fair.

Elected officials charged with doing that failed.

We focused on a lot of other issues at the Statehouse this year, too, including abortion and what the overturning of Roe v. Wade means for Ohio.

Locally, police reform was big in northeast Ohio, where Cleveland began implementing civilian oversight that was passed in 2021.

And Akron voters last month approved their own version of civilian oversight of police.

We have a larger than normal round table today.

Joining us will be Karen Kasler, Chief of the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau, Andy Chow, the Bureau's news editor, Ideastream Public Media Criminal Justice reporter, Matt Richmond, Akron-Canton reporter Anna Huntsman, and Ken Schneck, editor of The Buckeye Flame.

Let's get ready to round table.

We talked about redistricting more than any other topic in 2022.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission and the Ohio Supreme Court dueled much of the first half of the year, and the state settled on maps that the court rejected as unconstitutional.

Andy, let's first take a look ahead.

The commission that didn't draw the maps that passed muster with the Ohio Supreme Court is supposed to be working on new maps for 2024.

Is it happening?

Will it?

- Is it happening right now?

No.

Will it happen?

Apparently, so.

That's what we hear.

They're supposed to start working on it.

Well, they, they, they were supposed to start working on it weeks ago, but they have a little bit more time.

Now, the question is, Are legislators going to go about this a different way so they don't see a repeat of what we saw in 2022?

And, are they gonna start early enough, so we can see, maybe, a more thorough process and not anything that's rushed up to the deadline of the next primary like we saw this year.

When we talk to different stakeholders, talk to different community groups, they're calling for Representatives, Senators, Democrats, Republicans, to come back to the table as soon as possible to get going with these new maps again.

- As I mentioned, Karen, this thing played out over the whole year.

That's why it was our most talked about show, because every week there was another development.

You know, another map was passed, another map was rejected.

- [Karen] It started in 2021.

(Karen laughs) - Right, exactly, geez.

So this this could be a triple, a triple topic, 'cause we'll end up talking about it next year, as well.

- Oh gosh, you, you're right.

I, I don't want that to be the the case, but you're right.

- But it will be.

One constant throughout the year, and but going back to 2021, but one constant throughout the year is that there was a swing vote on the Ohio Supreme Court and Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, a Republican who sided with the Democrats in ruling each of these maps unconstitutional.

She won't be there in 2023.

- Right, she was required to not run for reelection because of age limits.

She's not happy about that, and I think she's said that in interviews, including with my Statehouse News Bureau colleague, Joe Ingles.

But she has said that she wants to get involved in clarifying this and any sort of a ballot issue that may come forward that would try to make it more clear what exactly the standards are for something being held unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

So, you know, she, she's been pretty clear about how she didn't really side with the Democrats, as a lot of people put it, but she sided with what she thought was the law and what was really being held by the, the two voter approved constitutional amendments in 2015 and 2018.

But it was clear during this process that even though those things are in the Constitution, there were some interesting interpretations.

- She won't be there on the Supreme Court to be that vote.

She will be, as you said, working on this issue, but not as a Justice.

So, what happens then with the makeup of the court?

Should the process result in another one of those kinds of maps, is it likely that it would then pass muster, because she's not there to vote no?

- I mean, you don't want to assume based on political leaning how they're gonna vote.

But certainly, you've got the two Justices who are running this past year were Democrat Jennifer Bruner and Republican Sharon Kennedy.

They ran for Chief Justice.

Kennedy won, and so Kennedy's seat will now be filled by Republican Governor Mike DeWine, presumably with a Republican Justice.

So, that certainly keeps the balance in terms of being in favor of Republicans.

The question is then, Are, are all of those Republicans going to vote the same way and vote to uphold whatever the Ohio redistricting, which is also dominated by Republicans, is gonna produce?

- So, voting groups, and the Supreme Court, and all of these others said, "Look at this, it's still gerrymandered."

And Andy, you went over why that argument has been made.

The idea that there are districts that are supposed to lean Democrat, but they're basically tossups, and the ones that lean Republican are not.

And so, we've gone through all that kind of discussion.

But then came the November election, and in that, there were Democrats on the congressional level that did, and that did better than expected in some of these, in some of these races.

And then you also look at the statewide races where there is no districting.

So, you couldn't argue gerrymandering, and Republicans swept in those situations.

So, what does that tell us, and does it undercut the gerrymandering argument?

- It might undercut it a little bit, but I think what it really tells us is another part of the whole issue.

The whole debate when the Ohio Redistricting Commission was meeting, was this idea of protecting incumbents.

And what we saw in those swing districts that were supposed to lean democratic, but still not enough to give them a a, a big a favorability among voters, is that those were also districts that had Republican incumbents in them who already had, had name recognition, who already had grassroots support built up.

And so, the protection of those incumbents in those House Republican districts also went a long way of swaying power back to the GOP in the long run, too.

And I think that's where we saw with those congressional districts, yes, they were tossups, but they were tossups among people who were not necessarily running for reelection.

Although, in the Cincinnati area, it was Steve Chabot running for reelection.

But that was also skewed, drawn to be more favorable to the Democrats.

- I don't think anybody expected, though, when those maps were drawn, that there would be five Democrats that would win.

And I think, I mean, you saw Marcy Kaptor ran a, a, a close race for a while against J.R. Majewski who had some issues with misrepresenting his military record.

And the national Republicans pulled out of that race.

He was a a a Trump cheerleader.

And then, the other ones that went forward, I think, were a big surprise.

Well, we ended up with here, interestingly enough, we had one fewer, we now have one fewer, one less member of Congress, ten Republican Congress men, and then five Democratic members of Congress, four of them are women and three of them are African American women.

So it's, it's been, I would say that that was probably a bright spot for Democrats in the 2022 elections.

- [Mike] Ken?

- And, and you mentioned it in the intro, but that real world effect of those two primaries, the one in May and the one in August, I mean, the turnout for the one in August was abysmal.

And I don't, I'm pretty civically minded.

I'm not sure I would've known that I was supposed to vote then if I didn't sit here on the reporter's round table, right?

Like, getting that information out to people and explaining, "No, no, no, you need to go and vote again, 'cause this one's totally separate."

And I remember on June 1st that a Republican member of the House, and I honestly can't remember who, stood up there and said, "We're talking about all these other things.

We should probably acknowledge that we're going to be reelected by abysmally small margins, and that people are not going to turn out for this."

So, even when we're talking about some of the results, the results of not that many people voting, especially in that August one.

(strong orchestral music) - 2022 will go into the history books as the year that the United States Supreme Court upended nearly 50 years of precedent and overturned Roe versus Wade.

Ohio moved to enacted its so-called Heartbeat Law soon after the Supreme Court decision.

It is now though, Andy, suspended as there's a legal challenge against it.

A judge in Hamilton County has suspended that.

Where are we at with that law?

Is it, I know there's likely nothing to happen in the lame duck as we're recording this.

But, in the new session, are we likely to see more severe abortion restrictions?

- Yeah, so you have two different issues that we're likely to see on abortion coming up next year.

One is the more conservative members of the House and Senate are gonna be pushing for a total ban on abortion.

And while that's going on, they're also looking at the current language, like you said, in the Heartbeat Law that's already been put on hold by a county court.

And they want to see if they, if they should clarify that language to make it less vague when it comes to the exceptions for abortion in the case of the life of the pregnant person.

So, I think we're gonna see movement on both those issues.

But because the, because the law is already tied up in court, the appeal will likely move all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court.

It is possible Ohio lawmakers might just press pause on the issue altogether to see where the Ohio Supreme Court lands on it.

- [Mike] Karen?

- And there are some groups now that are mobilizing to try to put a constitutional amendment proposal on the ballot before voters.

You've seen this in other states where it's been overwhelmingly approved.

As we're talking right now, there is this proposal that would require a 60% approval by voters to get any sort of constitutional amendment going forward.

It looks like that's not gonna happen in this year, but there is still time to get that through.

- And if you're listening to this on the 30th, then it's already happened.

- Yes, yes.

(group laughs) There is still time in 2023 to get this potentially onto the May ballot.

And so, that's something to watch for at the early part of 2023 to see if this constitutional amendment proposal, this 60% threshold, goes forward.

Again, there are a couple of groups that really wanna bring this to voters.

And then, when you talk about the Ohio Supreme Court, that Andy just did, there were three Supreme Court Justices who were reelected this time, Sharon Kennedy, Pat Fischer, and Pat DeWine.

They all responded to a political action committee from Right to Life in their candidate surveys saying that they believe that life begins at fertilization.

So, that gives you an indication of where the Ohio Supreme Court may fall on this.

(strong orchestral music) - A number of bills introduced in Ohio in 2022, activists say, could harm LGBTQ people in the state.

Ken, this is what you have been covering extensively throughout the year.

Let's start with the state school board, it's opposition to the protections for LGBTQ students.

- Right, so the the preamble was dropped, and and the preamble had a a ton of scientifically inaccurate and just trans-attacking language.

But still the the message that's out there to to LGBTQ students, to their families, and my gosh, were there are a ton of parents of LGBTQ students who testified.

The the message is this is a priority.

It is a priority for us.

It's not achievement.

It's not about retention of students and how we're dealing post-covid, but we need to take copious amounts of hours.

I I mean, if you really add up how many people have testified, we're talking 15, 16 hours of testimony just to not have the Board of Education in the state of Ohio say, "Hey, we're not gonna protect LGBTQ students."

That's a, that was a very clear priority for them, debated back and forth.

It also highlighted that they don't know their Robert's Rules of Order very well, and they're gonna have to, (group laughs) they're gonna have to work on that a little bit.

They struggled.

- What about the transgender sports bill?

- Okay, so this is where we have to pause and say that's not what this bill was.

HB 151 was a bill, putting on my professor hat, Professor of Education.

HB 151 was a bill to provide more support to teachers.

It was going to expand the number of mentors that K through 12 teachers had access to in Ohio.

And then, after 11:00 PM on June 1st, happy Pride month, everybody.

Right there on the first day of Pride month, Representative Jena Powell stood up there and tacked on an unrelated, completely nothing to do with the bill, set of language called the Save Women's Sports Act.

This is where we have to remember, currently in the Ohio High School Athletic Association, there is one, there is one transgender athlete in the entire state of Ohio who is currently competing.

And again, as some parents highlighted at at a hearing here in in early December, this is, "Why is this a priority for you?"

There have been 15, 15 transgender athletes since 2018, 15 in the entire state of Ohio.

That's not even a whole number percentage wise, and yet we are spending hour after hour after hour debating this.

- Andy, what do the lawmakers say about why it's a priority then?

- Well, the lawmakers make this argument that if you are born and assigned male at birth, that you are biologically have an advantage over people who are born and assigned girl, women at birth.

The other issue here, though, is that for the transgender athletes who do participate in girl's sports, they already have to go through a specific policy through the OHSAA, that that makes sure that they don't have a physiological advantage.

They have to go through hormone treatment, and they have to prove that they've been on treatment for a certain amount of time.

And so, the OHSAA and certain elected officials have already pointed out that there's already a process in place for this.

So that's, that's where the rubber's meeting the road, and that's, of course, that's where LGBTQ advocates say that this is just mean-spirited and discriminating against transgender students.

(strong orchestral music) - Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is scheduled to stand trial next month in a case that prosecutors call the biggest political bribery scandal in the state's history.

Householder and former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges face federal charges in connection with the passage of House Bill 6, the nuclear bailout bill.

He was arrested in 2020.

So, we talk about a story that goes over the, the years.

And we're going to be talking about it next year, Andy.

What do, what do we look forward to on that?

- Well, the question is, when you, when it comes to policy making and the promises that you make to different special interest groups, if you take money from them, Are you allowed to still pass policy from them?

And in this case, what the federal agents have, what they say they have, is a direct line of Householder creating a special fund, and then having dark money funneled into that fund for his personal and political benefit.

What I'm really interested to see is, What else do they have?

What other indictments might be coming down the pipeline?

And the case that the federal agents, we've been waiting so long to actually see it play out.

We've read the affidavit.

So, we're gonna see how the federal government actually lays their case out.

- Finally in 2023, we have this trial, Karen.

- [Karen] Well?

(laughs) - You think?

That's what, that's what I was gonna... - [Karen] I think so.

- And Matt Borges as well, the former Republican.

Party chair.

- Right, I I think so.

I mean, that certainly appears to be the way it is, but I, it wouldn't surprise me if there were some last minute moves to try to delay, at least from the beginning of the year.

But yeah, this this may be the year that we finally find out if Larry Householder did indeed do what he has always said he didn't do, but federal prosecutors say he did.

(orchestral music) - Cleveland voters last year passed Issue 24, creating a revamped community police commission with authority over officer discipline.

It's still being implemented.

In Akron, voters last month passed Issue 10 that creates a civilian police oversight board there.

Matt, let's talk a little bit about Cleveland.

First of all, it's taken a full year to put what voters passed into action.

Why so long?

- Well, you know, I think Mayor Bibb did a very careful, very kind of long process of finding 13, or he found 10 candidates and then City Council found three.

And there, there was a bit of a hold up, too, in the beginning where they had to get the consent decree change, which still exists and still kind of governs police reform.

And then, you know, I think there's, there's no rush, because the work that the commission's gonna have to do is gonna be so complicated and so new that, you know, I think they're just being very, very careful.

- What's interesting is Mayor Bibb kind of rode into office as a supporter of Issue 24, where others were not.

And yet, when he's standing there at a press conference talking about some of the action, the people that are being appointed, he got protested by the very people that were pushing for Issue 24.

So, what used to be allies, now maybe not so much.

- Yeah, that was a very interesting moment.

And you know, it was protesting, and at one point one of the protestors stood in front of him with an air horn drowning him out, saying that, "You didn't really follow what, what we wrote and what we campaigned on when you named these nominees."

And whether they're kind of checked out and sort of are in opposition to Mayor Bib, or if this was just kind of alerting him that they're watching very closely, we'll see.

- Anna, we have a reform process in Akron as well that was prompted by Jalen Walker's shooting death, Issue 10.

What's the, what's the prognosis for how long it'll take for that to be implemented?

- Technically City Council has to pass implementing legislation by June of 2023.

So, there's a six month period where they'll be looking into what exactly is in Issue 10 and how that's all gonna work.

This is a charter amendment, so this is gonna be permanently in the city's charter.

It's, you know, was seen by advocates as a permanent solution.

But of course, it is possible that it could take even longer to then get the applications and get that process going of, 'cause council gets a lot of the picks.

So yeah, it could potentially take a little bit longer, but we do have at least until June to see what's really gonna be happening.

- And how is that playing out with the forces?

What, what do the police in Akron say about this happening?

Well, police have, the police union had been publicly opposed to Issue 10, and after Issue 10 passed, they said that they would work closely with City Council and the different key players here to make sure that it does not conflict with the city's contract with the police union.

So, you know, they have not filed suit or anything yet.

Obviously we haven't seen any real action yet.

So, I mean, time will tell here.

But that was one of the biggest reasons some people did not want issue 10 to pass, because they thought it would conflict.

- This arises out of frustration that the public has with some, some of the things police do, and sometimes, how they don't appear to be disciplined for it.

And all of that is is going into this equation.

But is there any indication, from either of you when you've done reporting and looked at other places, that citizen oversight makes policing better?

- I mean, Matt, you might have a a another perspective on this, but at least from what I have seen, is it really, I think, depends on the type of oversight board.

Because there's a lot of different ones out there, and some have actual investigative powers, and they have some authority, but then others don't have as much power.

And so, some people say that there really was no change.

And then, sometimes you hear of it causing more conflicts between police and the community.

- Yeah, I think everywhere you look, it still is a political question.

It it comes down to the people who appoint the members of these commissions.

It comes down to how much the people in power, the people who are elected, want to put real authority in these commissions.

And that can change over time.

- And is there any indication that the commissions, the structure in Cleveland and Akron, are going to be the kind that might set people up for more success?

Or are they looked at as a little too tepid?

- I think in Cleveland they, they intentionally tried to write something that would, you know, counteract a City Council or a mayor who wanted to not have a really aggressive and and activist commission.

You know, they they said that a member of the public can sue the city, can sue the commission, if the commission's not taking the kind of actions that that they're supposed to under the charter.

So they, they've tried to address that and we'll see.

- Obviously, we'll have to see in Akron as well, because this is still very new.

I will say that this Issue 10 is a little more open-ended as far as qualification.

So, you really only have to be a resident of Akron.

I mean, there are recommendations that someone should have previous law enforcement experience, someone should be an attorney.

But they, the people who wrote this intentionally made it so that this would, in their words, hopefully be members of the public.

(strong orchestral music) - Cuyahoga County looked on track to begin building a new jail this year.

But it all went off the rails in October when the proposed site for the new facility was rejected.

After all of this discussion over years, Matt, they finally looked as though, "Okay, we're going to build this jail."

But a lot of controversy, protests about where the the jail would be sited and environmental concerns.

Now, the incoming county executive, Chris Ronayne, he'll be sworn in in January.

He'll turn his attention to the jail mess.

And meanwhile, there were several more jail deaths in last month here in in Cuyahoga County.

- Yeah, you know, there's, in the short term, the county's gonna have to start putting some money into the jail that they have 'cause they're gonna have that jail for a a few more years.

And you saw County Council set aside some money from from ARPA funds, from American Rescue Plan Act funding, for that work.

And, you know, I I think one of the first priorities for County Executive Chris Ronayne, is gonna be coming up with a plan that brings the overall cost down from, you know, around a billion dollars to something that is not so shocking.

- Also, one that the prosecutor, the chief judge, the public defender, the administration, all can agree on, because there's there's not a lot of agreement right now.

- Yeah, I think, you know, one of the shifts that, that, that Executive-Elect Ronayne made was that, you know, no matter what, he says he wants a jail connected to the courthouse building.

And I think that simple change would go a a long way to kind of overcome the concerns of the prosecutor, and the judges, and the public defender.

- [Mike] Ken?

- I've never seen a phrase take the air out of the room.

And with all seriousness, both at the debates, at the the county executive debates, here in this studio, than just saying the jail.

That there isn't a path forward that people agree on.

And this has been going on for so long.

So I, I'd be curious to see some metrics for 2023.

- Matt, the other day in the newsroom when you sent me a note and said, "Hey, I'm gonna submit something for the midday newscast.

There was another death in the jail."

I just, I sat there for a moment and I thought, "Okay, there was this spate, there was a a report by the U.S.

Marshals Service that said there are huge problems at the jail."

There was then the implementation of Metro Health doing more healthcare on intake and screening and those types of things.

So, you figure they got a handle on it.

And then, when you told me that was, that was three in the last, at that time, within the last few weeks.

What's going on?

- Yeah, well this was the first time, you know.

One thing that was interesting that that that came in the follow up to this most recent death was that a couple of staff members from from Metro Health were were placed on leave.

And you know, that is one of the big... - [Mike] As a punishment.

- Mm-hmm, it it it appears so.

I mean, there weren't details on what led to them being placed on leave, but that is, you know.

How is it that people arrive at the jail, and then within 24 hours, which is what's been happening over and over again, die in their cell?

Something is is is going wrong with the way that they're being screened, and that's Metro Health, and the monitoring that goes on in inside the jail.

And, you know that activists have said over and over again, "A new building's not gonna fix those problems."

(orchestral music) - Let's round out this part of our conversation with some politics.

And Anna, we have a new mayor in Cleveland, Justin Bibb, who took over this year.

We will have a new mayor in Akron in 2023, as Dan Horrigan says that he's not going to run.

We have a bunch of people that jumped into that race, number of City Council members, and others.

What are we expecting in terms of, in terms of that race?

- It's kind of similar, thus far, to the Cleveland Mayor's race in 2021, when you've got people who have been in, working in city and county government for a long time running against some kind of newer players here, some kind of up and coming Akron politicians.

So you have, as you mentioned, two people from Akron City Council, Tara Mosley and Shammas Malik.

They kind of, a lot of people are backing them who are on the more progressive side.

Lots of young people, that kind of new generation.

And then, on the other hand you have Jeff Wilhite, a county, former County Councilman.

And Marco Sommerville, who's been, he's one of the Deputy Mayors, works closely with Horrigan, has been around for a long time.

You also have a couple small business owners, thus far.

But, so it's kind of that, you know, establishment versus the newcomers.

And so, this will be really interesting to follow for sure.

(strong orchestral music) - Monday on the Sound of Ideas, the team is off for the New Year's holiday.

In our time slot, we bring you a special that explores the link between misinformation and conflict.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for watching all year and stay safe.

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