(dramatic music) - [Mike] Facing pressure from the Ohio Supreme Court to explain its failure, the Ohio Redistricting Commission passed new state legislative maps, still, without bipartisan support.

Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb, presented his first budget proposal to City Council, and it spends more than the city takes in.

And Ohio members of Congress react as Russia invades Ukraine.

"Ideas" is next.

(dramatic music) Hello, and welcome to "Ideas".

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks for joining us.

What a difference a week makes.

Facing pressure, and possible contempt charges, members of the Ohio Redistricting Commission passed new state legislative maps, Thursday.

It's their third effort, after the first two were kicked back by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Republicans say the maps meet constitutional requirements, Democrats say they still favor Republicans too much.

Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb, presented his first budget to City Council, one that spent ends more than the city will take in.

He balanced it with federal pandemic money.

Still unknown is how work from home, and a possible loss of income taxes, will impact city finances.

A bill protecting student athletes, religious expression, heads to Governor Mike DeWine for his signature, after being passed by the Ohio House and Senate.

The bill prohibits schools from limiting a student athlete's religious apparel, unless there is a legitimate danger.

And Ohio's congressional delegation, and Northeast Ohioans with ties to Ukraine and Russia, weigh in, as Russia invades Ukraine.

And the United States and its allies respond with more sanctions.

We'll talk about those stories, and the rest of the week's news, on the "Reporter's Round Table".

Joining me, "Ideas"'s Stream Public Media's Senior Reporter, Nick Castele.

And Multiple Media Reporter, Gabriel Kramer.

And Ohio Public Radio on Television, Statehouse News Bureau Chief, Karen Kasler, joins us from Columbus.

Okay, let's get ready to "Roundtable".

The impossible became possible Thursday, when the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which declared an impasse, when attempting to draw fair state legislative district maps last week, got together and passed new maps.

But they did not get bipartisan support, and there will still be a battle over their legitimacy, as the Ohio Supreme Court examines them, and the May 3rd primary is in peril.

Is that the case, Karen, is there no way we can have a primary, that has the state races, the statewide races, the district races, as well as congressional?

- Well, that's the assessment from Attorney General, Dave Yost, and Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, who I should remind everybody, is on the Redistricting Commission.

But he and Yost have been warning the members of the commission for a while now, that the May primary, for all of those offices, is in danger.

Now, earlier this week, LaRose did certify the statewide offices, which are the five executive offices: governor, auditor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer.

Also, the three judicial offices: chief justice, and two associate justices, and the US Senate candidates.

Those are all set for the May 3rd ballot, but because we don't have any districts, for candidates for the State House, for the State Senate, and for Congress, to run in, those candidates cannot be certified, they can't be on the May 3rd ballot.

And LaRose and Yost have said, "We've blown past the deadlines to put those folks on the ballot."

So it looks like we're facing two possibilities here; either two separate primaries, one on May 3rd for those statewide offices, and a second primary later, for the legislative and congressional districts, once those maps are approved, and ruled constitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Or the whole primary, altogether, could be moved, and it looks like it would be moved to sometime in June.

Now, speaker Bob Cupp says there really isn't an appetite to move the primary, but it sure looks like something's going to happen.

The May primary, that would be all of these offices, doesn't seem like it's gonna happen.

- So let's talk about the map that was approved yesterday, in a partisan manner, with four Republican votes.

What does that mean?

Does that go to the Supreme Court again?

And the Supreme Court would look at it, or does someone have to challenge it for the Supreme Court to take a look?

And does this preempt the contempt hearing that we were talking about for Tuesday?

- The Ohio Supreme Court retains jurisdiction over all these cases, so they're gonna look at that map.

And let me just say, this has been the most wild week, when it comes to all this stuff.

Just in the last seven days, there was a lawsuit filed to move redistricting to federal court.

Again, as you mentioned, the court ordered elected officials to show the court why they shouldn't be held in contempt, those elected officials on the commission, those officials filed those responses.

The court set a contempt of court hearing.

One Justice, Pat DeWine, recused himself, because his father, Governor Mike DeWine, is on the commission, and could face individual consequences, if there's a finding of a contempt.

Two Justices said they don't agree with the court setting a hearing for contempt.

And then, of course, the questions about the primary.

This has been just a massive week, and it really indicates why redistricting is incredibly important, and why those two constitutional amendments in 2015 and 2018 were a big deal.

So what happened yesterday?

That doesn't change, there's still a court hearing set for Tuesday- - [Mike] Okay.

- on whether the members of the Redistricting Commission should be held in contempt for not filing, not passing maps by February 17th.

And the case just continues on.

- I've done this before, I think it worked, when you say, "Well, I didn't get my homework in on time, but I did do it," right?

(Karen laughs) Is that basically gonna be their argument?

- I mean, the arguments... And well, that's the thing, is you've got three separate cases that were all combined to one case on the legislative maps.

And so each individual is filing in each of those cases, but also, you had five separate filings here.

You had the commission filing, you had the two legislative leaders, Speaker Bob Cupp, and Senate President Matt Huffman filing.

You had Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, and auditor, Keith Faber, filing.

You had Governor Mike DeWine filing, and then you had the two Democrats on the commission, House Minority Leader, Allison Russo, and Senator Vernon Sykes, they all filed, so five different filings of why the maps weren't done on February 17th, and why the elected officials on the Redistricting Commission should not be held in contempt.

So there's a lot of reasons, excuses, there was an apology, there was a lot going on here.

So that court hearing on Tuesday, I think, is gonna be significant.

Even if nothing happens to these elected officials, it's still amazing that you've got them in a court hearing on whether they should be held in contempt.

And they're all saying different things, and some are pointing fingers at the others, it's extraordinary.

- So let's ask about the map itself.

It much more closely mirrors the partisan breakdown in Ohio.

So the Republicans say, "Take a look at that, we've done what we've been asked to do."

Democrats are saying, "But wait a minute, the close ones are really too close, and the Democratic ones, not very close in Republican ones."

Does that matter?

Do you think the Supreme Court looks at that, or is that just sort of a pickier argument at the end of this map-making process?

- Well, the court has said that there are constitutional criteria that need to be followed.

And of course, a lot of the focus has been on the criteria, that the partisan breakdown needs to reflect how voters have voted in the last decade or so.

54% Republican, 46% Democratic.

And this, I guess, technically hits that; 54 Republican seats, 45 Democratic seats in the House, 18 Republican seats and 15 Democratic seats in the Senate.

That's actually a huge change, because right now, I believe there are 24 Republicans in the Senate, that would take 'em down to 18.

But still, the question of whether that's the only criteria, I think the court's been clear that there were other criteria, as well.

This idea of compactness, and competitiveness, and those sorts of issues, that make deciding this a lot more than just looking at the partisan breakdown, and saying, "Yeah, that's a constitutional map, and that's not."

And so that's why the court's gonna look at this, and decide whether this really goes along with what voters had wanted, when they passed, overwhelmingly, that constitutional amendment in 2015.

(dramatic music) - Russia's invasion of Ukraine is eliciting reactions from Ohio's congressional delegation, and from Northeast Ohioans, with connections to Ukraine and Russia.

Nick, the condemnation of Russia's invasion is coming from both Democrats, and Republicans, in the congressional delegation, not necessarily support of the President's leadership, though.

- Well, I think that you see, you know, candidates who are running for office this year, on the Republican side, criticizing the President, explicitly, President of the United States, Joe Biden, explicitly.

You know, Senator Rob Portman, who does not have another election to worry about, he was pretty extensive and substantive in his comments.

I mean, he definitely is advocating for the administration to take a much harder line, with more sanctions against Putin and his inner circle, more military aid in Europe.

But it seemed like he was stopping short of, for instance, calling Biden weak, or using some of this other rhetoric that you're hearing from the candidates.

J.D.

Vance, one Senate candidate, was quoted in an interview, saying he didn't really care about Ukraine.

And then later supplemented that by saying, he does care about Ukraine, but he laid the blame at the feet of the US Foreign Policy establishment, for saying that they mishandled this situation.

So you are hearing a difference of opinion here, kind of across the spectrum, of Republican officials, and you know, hopefuls.

- And the primary figure in the Republican party is still former President Donald Trump.

It's interesting, Gabe, because Trump has publicly praised Vladimir Putin's savvy, and has talked about how his relationship with him would've prevented these types of things.

And Putin knows what he's doing, and those types of things.

And now we look at him invading Ukraine.

You wonder if that puts Ohio lawmakers, loyal to Trump, in a precarious situation?

- It certainly does, and I think that's a situation where, you know, a lot of Republicans don't want to, especially here in Ohio, we don't want to just jump at the opportunity to support Donald Trump, in any... show any support for Vladimir Putin.

Because, you know, it seems like the response has been essentially one of two things.

The response has either been, "I'm going to just kind of stay on the sideline, and give kind of a generic response."

For instance, Representative Jim Jordan, serving the 4th District, Northwest Ohio, a very simple tweet he put out yesterday, I have right in front of me, "Pray for Ukraine, may God bless its great citizens."

So that's it, it's simple, it's minimal.

And then you're also seeing Republicans, along the lines of just criticizing the current President, Joe Biden, to say, "This is not enough," you know, "there needs to be harsher action taken by the United States."

So it seems like those two trains of thought are really where Ohioan Republicans are.

- Jenny Hamel, our reporter here in Cleveland, got in touch with a number of Northeast Ohioans, with ties to this, including folks who've... their wife is in Ukraine.

When you hear about these situations, it brings those headlines very close.

We have a very significantly large Ukrainian community, in Northeast Ohio.

Church service last night in Parma, and Parma is a place where there are many Ukrainian people, of Ukrainian heritage.

But this is one of those things, Nick, that is felt in an ethnic melting pot, city like Cleveland.

- Yeah, absolutely, I mean, it calls to mind, you know, the crisis and civil war in Syria.

Many Syrian Americans, here in Northeast Ohio, who have very personal ties back home.

I think you're seeing the same thing with the Ukrainian community, people who are, you know, this is not something happening on the other side of the world, this is happening in a very personal way to people's loved ones, and families, home in Europe.

- I thought it was interesting that Jenny also made the effort to talk to Russians in Cleveland, including the Russian Cultural Garden of Cleveland's Vice President, who issued a statement in solidarity with Ukrainians, and basically said, "Putin is not Russia, Putin is not Russia."

So an interesting mix of the kinds of reactions that we have here.

And Karen, when we talk about the politicians in Columbus, and those who are running for office, as Nick has already referenced, this has become a divisive issue, though.

- And I think the whole personal impact, and the fact that there are about 80,000 Ohioans that have roots in Ukraine, and are Ukrainian Americans, really makes what J.D.

Vance said surprising to a lot of folks.

I mean, certainly, that's a Republican talking point, that President Biden cares more about what's happening in Ukraine, than on the Southern border, we heard that a lot.

But to say that you don't care about what's happening in Ukraine, is really an extraordinary statement to make, if you're running for the US Senate, and trying to represent all of Ohio.

Vance also clarified yesterday, with a statement that said that he... "Our leaders should be honest with the American people, and admit what they really want; military intervention from American, or NATO, troops."

Nobody's talked about that.

In fact, that's been said that that's not going to happen.

So that's kind of a disingenuous thing for him to say, that somehow that's what people are talking about, that that's what leaders plan to do.

What I thought was really interesting was to see Josh Mandel, who has been openly courting President, former President Trump's, endorsement.

And he put out a tweet, saying that, "Vladimir Putin is a KGB man from the USSR, who was focused on reuniting the old Soviet Union.

In other words, Putin is anti-American, anti-freedom, communist thug."

Then he later clarified, by saying that, "Putin is a thug, Biden is ninny, bring back Trump."

So he was kind of trying to look like, ride both sides of that there.

And then there's Jane Timken- - [Mike] "Ninny".

(laughs) who got the endorsement of... yeah, Jane Timken got the endorsement of Sitting Senator, Rob Portman, who she wants to replace, and has gotten some pushback on some of the things that she's tweeted.

She re-tweeted former President Trump, saying, "Putin is playing Biden like a drum, it is not a pretty thing to watch."

She wrote, "Fact-check true," which got her a lot of response there.

But then she also tweeted, "Praying for Ukraine", which has been something that a lot of folks are really urging everyone to do at this point, because that's at least something.

I think there's a lot of hopelessness and helplessness among people, about what's next, and what can be done.

And this ends a long period of peace in Europe.

(dramatic music) - The Cuyahoga County, Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board, reversed course this week, and reinstated the word "racism", in its declaration that racism is a public health crisis.

Nick, let's talk about that.

One point the board was planning to approve, a different resolution, one that read, "Racism, discrimination, and bigotry, are a behavioral health crisis," so it was gonna add everything in there.

And then at the last minute, decided, "No, we're not going to do that," and essentially just adopted what the original language was.

- Well, you know, in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, you know, you saw a lot of jurisdictions, cities, counties, as well as, you know, agencies like the ADAMHS Board, adopting resolutions, saying, "We believe racism is a public health crisis."

There was a real push to define racism, in a systemic way, saying it's not about individual behaviors, it's about the way that, collectively, society is, you know, affects people of color.

And, you know, in some way, this maybe was a sign of the pendulum starting to swing the other way, softening that language, from racism, to discrimination.

I think some of the criticism, that was reported in the story, said, this was sort of returning the blame, from systems, to individual responsibility, and that was what they were criticizing.

And it sounds like the board heard that criticism, and decided again, to reverse course.

- We had that conversation last week, right?

That they had made the decision to take racism out.

And then a week later, here we are saying, "Well, wait, it's back in."

Words matter, Gabe.

- Absolutely, and I think when... Nick brings up the point, it takes the responsibility off of a system, and put it on individuals, I think that's the huge point.

Because, you know, the ADAMHS Board is a leader, as an organization, in services for health reasons, right?

So if they aren't going to be the ones, to specifically hone in on racism, and aren't gonna be the ones to... And they think about health disparities in Cuyahoga County, you know, that is a systemic racism issue.

And if the ADAMHS Board isn't going to recognize that, or attack and approach that, who will?

If they're a leader in this world, what organization is going to do that, and treat it, and understand and recognize, that this is a systemic issue.

And rather than, as Nick said, put this on the responsibility of the individuals.

- Interesting to see a board that doesn't dig in its heels, and says, "Okay, we made that decision, we've heard the feedback, we're going back to what we had in the first place."

- Absolutely, and as I mentioned this, in the past, I think this is really an issue where, you know, it's for a organization to kind think this way, and think, "Okay, we're gonna step back, and not necessarily recognize it as a systemic issue."

And it's a bad look because, you know, again, you're serving a community that, very specifically, is divided by race when it comes health disparities.

(dramatic music) - Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb, presented his first budget to City Council this week, a $1.8 billion proposal, in which expenditures outpace revenues.

Bibb called it a "transition budget".

That's how it's supposed to go, Nick, right?

Aren't you supposed to spend less than you're bringing in?

- Well, so, municipalities are required to have balanced budgets, but they are not necessarily required to have structurally balanced budgets, where the amount of money you're bringing in, is equal to what you're spending.

And in fact, for quite a while, the city did not have structurally balanced budgets after the 2009 recession, it took Mayor Jackson, until I think about 2017, after the passage of an income tax increase, to get that structural balance.

That was thrown out of whack by the pandemic, the city saw income tax collections fall, and was obviously making up for lost revenue with federal coronavirus aid.

Mayor Bibb is now doing that in this budget, as well, using $56 million to basically fill the gaps in the budget.

And much of that is thanks to the federal aid, that the city received from the Biden administration last year.

So that did get some criticism from council members.

But you know, I would say, I sat through the mayor's presentation to council, a little bit of criticism.

You know, Brian Kazy, Ward 16 Councilman, who, I think, is sort of making a space for himself on council, as being sort of the budget-hawk, described it as an unrealistic budget.

But I would say, by and large, you know, Bibb did not, you know, really get raked over the coals for this.

We'll see, though, I mean, how this pans out in the future, because, you know, the mayor did say that he wants to get costs under control, find ways to bring in new revenues, so the city can get to a structural balance.

At the same time, he's trying to carry out this change agenda, that he says voters, you know, gave him a mandate to enact.

And so that's, in his view, is gonna require some spending.

- So he wasn't raked over the coals on that, but there are things that council members had a lot of questions about.

One of them is the fact that he's spending a whole lot of money on high-level people in his office, that he says are needed to make City Hall more modern and responsive.

But they're looking at the price tags on these, and the cost of salaries, and saying, "Maybe that's a little too much."

- It got a little bit of questioning at the table, when the mayor presented.

And what he is proposing here is about a 30% increase in the budget for the mayor's office, over Mayor Jackson's last budget.

And so this is for, you know, a reorganization of the cabinet.

He's created some new chief positions, he also has this team of senior strategists, who he wants to be focused on certain issues, like lead poisoning, the West Side Market, equity, arts and culture.

And, you know, the mayor's justification for it was that one, he said that this budget does not really go that far above what Jackson had budgeted for his office in the past.

Which is true, although, Jackson historically underspent what he budgeted for in the mayor's office.

So if Bibb does fulfill this budget, he will be spending more than his predecessor did, in the mayor's office.

But again, you know, that ultimately is a few million dollars, which is a small percentage of the city's overall $1.8 billion budget.

There were also additional investments in the public health department.

There was an increase in police spending, although not really an increase in the staffed budget, you know, the budgeted number of staff members.

And so the way the mayor described it was this is a transition budget, which I think means he's doing some things he wants to do, and he's carrying over some things that the previous mayor had budgeted for.

And they're gonna figure out exactly what they're gonna do with, you know, the full budget.

- When it comes to the mayor's budget, one thing I found to be interesting is how much engagement this budget hearing got on social media, on Twitter.

I don't remember any time, you know, hearing about this on, or about, Frank Jackson on Twitter.

And one of the comments that you saw kind of frequently was, "Well, you get what you pay for" type deal, where, you know, proponents of Justin Bibb, and what he's doing here, to say, you know, "If you want the best in your office, you gotta pay the best in the office."

Or if you want to have, you know, good policies, you gotta pay for it, right?

So I'm just surprised that that was something that people were so adamant, to say, "Hey, we gotta spend money to make money," in a sense.

- One other quick question about this, and that's gonna be a big issue, which is, the income tax collections.

If you live in a suburb, and you work in the city of Cleveland, what you would do is pay taxes to the city of Cleveland, where you work.

And you also have a share that you have to pay to your community, and that all adds up.

Now that people have been working from home, they can look at it and say, "Listen, I worked entirely from home, I owe the city of Cleveland nothing, gimme a refund," or, "Here are the days I work from home, so for that amount, I want a refund."

We don't know how many people might do that, but they sure can, and how will that affect the bottom line?

- Well, it's a big unknown, and the city's new finance director said as much, they don't know how many refund requests they're going to get.

They are already getting some, and so they've gotta watch this, over the next few weeks and months, to see how many people are requesting refunds, how much money are they losing?

And the finance director said that they are going to come up with, basically, a worst-case scenario.

Look at all of the people who are suburbanites, who pay income taxes to the city, and try to see, you know, if you added up the most the city possibly lose, what is that number?

And we don't know what that number is yet, but the city warned that could be a really high number.

Although they said it could be, you know, unrealistically high, but it's supposed to be the worst-case scenario.

And so we're waiting to see just how big that hit could be.

(dramatic music) - A bill protecting student athletes' religious expression heads to Governor Mike DeWine for his signature, after being passed unanimously by the Ohio House and Senate.

The bill prohibits schools from limiting a student athlete's religious apparel, unless there's a legitimate danger.

It was spurred by a 2019 incident, where a high school runner in Finley was disqualified for wearing a hijab head covering.

Gabe, the Ohio High School Athletic Association reworked its rules after that happened.

But now the discussion is about wanting to protect the... having the law to protect anybody in the future, that a rule couldn't come up like this, and abridge someone's rights.

- Right, so the OHSAA, Ohio High School Athletic Association, changes its rules all the time.

I mean, every semester, there's some kind of rule change.

So, you know, to prevent a rule change for this happening, or changing again, this law will prohibit that.

And I think this is really just a very... this is a very nice story.

I mean, could you imagine being the official, or the referee, who went up to this young woman, and said, "You're disqualified?"

- [Mike] Yeah.

- I mean, I would be the one who'd looked the other way, because I couldn't imagine such a thing.

So, you know, it would prevent that from happening.

I know the young woman who was such an advocate for this, 'cause she was the one who had to go through this, you know, was, you know, such a thing, I wish...

Very happy about this, treated this bill like it was her baby, they said in the story, but you know, even if... You know, to think that there could be even more, maybe sensitivity training for officials, referees, moving forward on things like this.

So this is a pretty big thing.

And this was a bill that was pushed by a Republican Senator from (indistinct), so, you know, this is a pretty big deal.

- Well, I mean, when you'll look at it, you're like, "Come on," right?

There's no competitive advantage.

- [Gabe] Right.

- And this person is expressing themselves religiously, and it's not affecting the competition, let's just... Come on.

- I mean, when I was in high school, which I swear wasn't that long ago, (everyone laughs) I mean, I remember seeing kids disqualified for wearing the wrong T-shirt underneath their track uniform, or, you know, wearing a different colored pair of socks.

I mean that, I mean, I understand rules are rules, but like you said, come on, I would turn the other cheek on this one.

There's obviously a reason this person's wearing what they're wearing.

- And now there's a law.

And Karen, I think what's interesting is, you know, I said, "come on", because I think everybody would sort of realize this is ridiculous.

Everybody in both chambers of legislature, also agreed, it was unanimous, which is pretty unusual, isn't it?

- Yeah, it is.

And it still needs to be signed by Governor DeWine, but I see no reason why it wouldn't be.

- [Mike] Come on.

- But it also goes in line with other pieces of legislation that specifically speak to student religious expression, those pieces have passed unanimously as well.

There has been some opposition in the past, from some Democrats who are worried about how that would be interpreted, but this goes along with that.

And so there are things that happen here, at the state house, that do pass unanimously.

- Monday, on the "Sound of Ideas" on 90.3 WCPN, we'll hear from some of the winners of the 2022 Accelerate Cleveland Civic Pitch contest.

They've got lots of ideas about how to make life better here.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

(soothing music)