(dramatic music) - Voters say yes loudly to abortion rights, but Republican lawmakers say the fight is far from over.

Tensions over the Israel-Hamas war flare in Cleveland after students at Case Western Reserve University stage a protest.

And the new CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District has lofty goals and a budget problem to deal with.

"Ideas" is next.

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

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Despite strong opposition by Republican lawmakers, Ohio voters said yes in a big way to abortion rights protections and legal recreational marijuana.

But lawmakers say the battle for both is far from over.

Warren Morgan, the new CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, in his first State of the Schools address this week said safety and better communication are key issues for the district.

And cuts are coming as pandemic money runs out.

Tensions over the Israel-Hamas war flared on the campus of Case Western Reserve University this week.

Students protested the university president because he has not condemned Israel's actions in response to the October 7th attack by Hamas.

And recreational trails, or as Shel Silverstein and all of us call them, sidewalks, will be coming to Pepper Pike after voters approved them.

Joining me for the roundtable, from Ideastream Public Media, two of my closest day-to-day collaborators in the news division: deputy editors Andrew Meyer and Stephanie Czekalinski.

In Columbus, Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

Abortion rights and legalized marijuana advocates celebrated this week after Ohio voters decisively passed State Issue 1, the reproductive rights amendment that includes abortion rights, and Issue 2, legalizing recreational marijuana.

Opponents, including state lawmakers, say the battle is far from over.

Karen, Ohio has more than 30 laws on the books restricting abortion in some way, and two Democrats who are also doctors are sponsoring a Reproductive Care Act to do away with targeted regulation of abortion providers.

That's a common term.

They're called TRAP laws.

Tell me a little bit about what they have in mind.

- Well, it's important to note that these two medical doctors who are in the Ohio House are both Democrats.

And Democrats are in the minority in both the House and Senate, so the questions about whether this Reproductive Care Act will actually go forward are serious.

I mean, Republicans have said that they are gonna put out their own proposal on what to do about all the laws that are potentially affected by the passage of Issue 1.

And so this is a proposal from Dr. Anita Somani and Dr. Beth Liston that would address, for instance, the ban on abortions after six weeks, the so-called heartbeat ban.

That's currently before the Ohio Supreme Court on a technical issue.

But the general consensus is that will be unconstitutional under this new Issue 1 amendment.

But there are some other laws, like you said.

There's the 24-hour waiting period.

There's some privacy laws that they're concerned about.

But one of the things that they're not proposing needs to be changed at all is the parental consent law.

And they have not, there's nothing on that in their package.

And indeed, the attorney general, Republican Dave Yost, had said in a legal analysis of Issue 1 that the constitutional amendment would not affect parental consent.

And so right now, parental consent is not even on the table as being something that would be overturned or repealed or changed.

- So what we're looking at with the Democrat lawmakers is that they're saying, "We wanna get this act and put it out there because it would then comply with all of the things we see in the amendment."

What the Republican lawmakers are saying, though, is that, "We've got ideas that will weaken both of the measures, the amendment on abortion and the statute on marijuana."

They wanted to look at ways to amend those.

- Right, and I mean, Senate President Matt Huffman, within an hour or so after we found out the results of Issue 1, had put out a statement saying that there were suggestions that he wanted to go with another ballot issue and put this issue of abortion before voters again.

His statement said, "This isn't the end.

It's really just the beginning of a revolving door of ballot campaigns to repeal or replace Issue 1."

State lawmakers can do that.

They would have to get 2/3 vote in the House and Senate by December 20th to put it before voters.

But I think that there's a lot of voter fatigue about abortion.

We've talked about it in August.

We've talked about it in this election.

And there's a lot of donor fatigue, not only money, people who have been putting money behind these issues, but also people who are volunteering and working on these issues.

There's a lot of fatigue around these elections and the fact that abortion was a big part of it.

So I expect that Republicans will probably come up with something, but they're in charge.

And they're gonna be able to do some tweaks potentially.

The Ohio Supreme Court then would have to potentially decide.

I mean, the constitutional amendment sets a standard by which laws are governed or are judged, rather.

It doesn't automatically eliminate all the laws, because you have to decide which ones are affected by the constitutional amendment and which ones aren't.

- Moving on, Karen.

One other issue.

We've talked a little bit about what might be done with the abortion issue, and that's still gonna be, a lotta that's gonna end up in court and there's all kinds of issues going on with that.

When it comes to marijuana, there are obviously going to be situations where the legislature's gonna come in and tweak and say, "Here are some potency limits and some other issues in regards to where taxes go."

That is not a surprise, right?

That's something that even the folks who pushed for the marijuana statute said would clearly happen.

It's laid out in it.

- Oh yeah, and lawmakers have been saying that pretty directly even before the Issue 2 vote.

Again, Senate President Matt Huffman talking about he wanted to make some changes to the social equity and jobs program fund, where 36% of the revenue goes to that fund.

There's a provision in there that says that some of that money can be used for assistance for people who have been convicted of marijuana-related laws to start cannabis businesses.

He says that's a problem for him.

He's also said, like you said, the THC content, the tax revenue, where that goes.

And lawmakers can do that, because this is an initiated statute, and so they can make some changes.

Governor Mike DeWine said yesterday that he wants a package of changes to Issue 2 to be put into place by December 6th, which is when Issue 2, the legalization of marijuana, takes effect.

Because he says he doesn't want people to enjoy certain things after December 6th and then have them taken away.

So I don't know.

Certainly, lawmakers are gonna come back and talk about these things.

Whether they can push something forward that quickly, I don't know.

But I was on a panel yesterday talking about Issue 2 with some of the people who were involved in it.

And the idea was always to do this as a law, not an amendment, so that there could be changes.

Because the industry is changing, and certainly, the research around marijuana's changing.

So they're onboard with some changes, but obviously, the voters spoke and marijuana is legal, and DeWine even said that.

- And in fact, though, it was just kinda funny.

It was very DeWine.

He said, "Yeah, people can smoke it, but I don't wanna smell it."

- Yeah, I was asking (Mike laughing) them about that.

How do you regulate marijuana smoke?

I mean, certainly, you can indicate in certain areas where people can and can't smoke, but in the general like on the street, I don't know how you do that.

(laughing) - I would say, do not go to a concert at Blossom then, sir.

(Karen laughing) Stephanie, it's interesting that Ohio's big counties, especially Cuyahoga, drove Issue 1.

Support for Issue 2, though, was much more widespread, it seemed.

- It was, it was.

You know, when you look at the maps, it's very interesting.

Every county in northeast Ohio supported Issue 2, including several that went for Trump by more than 60% in the last presidential.

Those include Geauga, Ashtabula, and Medina, which is really interesting.

And I think what we're seeing is a cultural shift in the way people feel about marijuana.

And when we talk to voters, they really take a very nuanced view of this issue.

There were people who talked about concerns regarding, you know, like when people are going to jail for, you know, possession of marijuana, they were worried about that.

But there were also things like financial concerns that people are talking about.

You know, investments.

So it's not just a, you know, necessarily a cultural shift, but people are thinking about it economically as well.

- Can I add something here on the maps- - No.

- And how this looked?

- No.

- No?

(laughing) - Have I ever said that?

- I wanna hear it.

(panelists laughing) - Yes, you may, please.

- Issue 1, when you look at the actual results, it looks like Issue 1 and Issue 2 had almost exactly the same percentage results, and they did.

But when you look at the maps, that's what's really interesting here.

Issue 1 won in 25 counties.

In 63 counties, it lost.

It won all seven counties won by President Biden in 2020 and in 18 counties won by former President Trump in 2020.

That's Issue 1.

Issue 2 passed in 40 counties and failed in 48.

And it just, the maps look totally different in a sense.

And it's really interesting to see where the support for Issue 1 was versus Issue 2.

It's the data on this is really fascinating.

- So in that regard, Andrew, you might look at this and say, okay, these two issues passed.

Maybe Ohio is becoming more red or more blue.

Maybe it's not as red.

- Or purple.

- And that's a question really.

These are issues.

The issues don't have labels next to them, D or R. These are just purple issues.

- Well, I think you can look at both of these issues.

And you could choose to read everything into this.

Yes, Ohio is more purple.

(Mike laughing) Or you can read nothing at all into it.

Look, when you look at the support for both of these issues and the opposition, the Republican hierarchy walked lockstep in opposition.

The Democratic hierarchy, I'm talking about leadership, I'm talking abut political officials, they walked lockstep for the most part in support of these issues.

But what does that mean when it comes to the makeup of Ohio?

You look at registration.

There are more Democrats registered in Ohio than Republicans, but that is tiny compared to unaffiliated voters in the state.

And then, you have the whole issue of people crossing the party lines, not going with what their leadership said, to support what they felt was important to them.

So I think it might reflect in some way where Ohio might be drifting when it comes to the gerrymandering that has overly skewed Republican control of the Statehouse.

However, when you look back at the last three executive cycles for elections, so I'm talking about governor and the other statewide executive offices, lockstep, they've been overwhelmingly won by Republicans.

So I don't think you can necessarily read that there's this momentous shift that can be inferred from this on the statewide level.

- Well, can I jump- - I think Andrew is exactly right, if I can jump in here.

That I don't think you can project this, because when you look back, going back a decade here, Republicans have dominated the statewide elections, and really, Republicans have won over the last, you know, 30 years or so far more than Democrats.

In this particular Issue 1 especially, it broke down when you look at the exit polls by ideology and by political affiliation.

But it was the Independent voters.

They came out in big numbers, and more than 2/3 of those Independent, non-affiliated voters in that group voted yes on Issue 1.

And I think that that's really interesting.

(dramatic music) - The People's Budget charter amendment, which would've earmarked 2% of Cleveland's budget to be decided on by a committee of residents, lost in a close vote, 51 to 49%, less than 1,400 votes short.

Stephanie, the very vocal and formal opposition to Issue 38 coming from city leadership and council, they had a big hill to climb, the folks that wanted this.

- Yeah, they certainly did.

The city council has, I mean, like people listen when they speak, right?

And they were very opposed to this measure.

There was a debate with Kris Harsh and organizers for PB CLE, which we covered.

There was a "Sound of Ideas" when they came on our show and debated it.

Council members spoke out individually.

There were, gosh, there's social media of a little car with an audio system driving through Cleveland telling people to vote against it.

And different unions in the city jumped into the fray too and also said that they opposed it.

- [Mike] And yet, it was really close.

- It was really close, yeah.

I think they were surprised.

- You know, one of the things that participatory budgeting was supposed to do is try to get people more involved, try to get citizens more engaged.

But then when you look at the turnout in some parts of Cleveland, it was abysmal.

The overall turnout for the election was a little bit better, but some neighborhoods in Cleveland saw single-digit turnout.

- Yes, and it's extremely uneven.

Some saw a turnout over 50%.

So it was really high in certain areas and really low in others.

You know, these kinds of elections, in off years, they really turn on whoever's like, whichever base is most excited too.

So you know, it may be that when you're looking at that map, you're seeing different pockets of people who were particularly motivated by one of the issues that was on the ballot.

But I think, you know, turnout is king for a lot of these kinds of issues.

And 6% in a certain place is really, really low.

- Not good.

- And when you're talking about turnout, I think this speaks to the larger challenges that Democrats in Ohio face, which is, this is symptomatic of why Democrats have come up short in a number of statewide races, because turnout in the urban areas, in the urban cores has been lagging because they have not been able to excite the base.

They haven't motivated them.

And I think, when you're looking at some of the precincts in Cleveland where you saw extremely low voter turnout- - Yes.

- This go around, that's a manifestation of this ongoing challenge, Cleveland being a very Democratic city.

You're seeing a manifestation of this ongoing challenge that Democrats in Ohio face.

(dramatic music) - Statewide issues helped drive voter turnout, but counting those ballots proved to be a slow process in Cuyahoga County.

And website glitches led to confusion in Summit County.

It was a real slow process.

What do they have to say about why it was so slow?

- Well, they actually say, "Everything worked."

Can you believe that?

Everything worked.

Now, what they said in the case of Cuyahoga County in the Board of Elections was that the process slowed them down.

There was a new twist this year where they had to capture images of every single ballot that was filed.

And in this case, depending on where you were voting, there were multiple pages, either two or three pages.

Each of those had to be scanned, captured, imaged independently of the vote count.

- Mine had seven.

- As part- - Seven?

- Seven pages.

- Wow, that must've been fun filling out all those circles.

- Well, the whole, no, it wasn't that many circles.

It was describing what the amendments were, et cetera.

Lots of pages.

- But yet, they say, you know, where there were 400,000 or so votes that were submitted on election day, there were a million pages.

And they say they're going to work in the future to speed that up, but- - [Mike] Okay, they knew that was coming.

- They knew that was, yep.

- The idea was they had to take pictures of it.

They said the turnout kind of meant they had more to do.

Turnout was 45% in Cuyahoga County, down from 47.39% in 2022.

So it was actually less than the 2022 election.

I don't understand, and I guess, the answer was, "Everything worked fine, it just took a long time."

- It just took a long time.

- [Mike] "And we'll do it faster next time."

- And we'll do it, yeah, "We'll be faster next time," and hopefully they'll print enough ballots.

- Yeah that was another issue.

- In every single area that's going to be voting.

You know, we got reports that evening that Lakewood and Valley View were running out of ballots.

- Ran out of 'em.

- Pre-printed ballots.

- Right.

- They were able to print ballots there on the ADA-compatible voting machines.

But that just further slowed down the process.

- Yeah, that was because they said they estimate based on the last election.

So in that case- - Yeah.

- Turnout was what bit them.

Summit County had a little bit of a problem too.

If you were looking on their website, it was a little confusing.

- Yeah, we first got wind of this a little bit before nine o'clock.

I was looking at the results on the Akron School Board race.

And I was looking at the individual line for the actual contest, and it said every single precinct was reporting.

So I got in touch with our education reporter and I said, "It looks like the race is called."

He said, "That's not what I'm hearing."

And then I scanned back up to the top of the live results page and it showed that there was only 4% of precincts reporting.

So in the long and short of it, we reached out to Summit County Board of Elections on Wednesday.

They said, "Yeah, there was an issue with the vendor.

It was the vendor's fault."

And once they realized what was going on a little bit after 10 o'clock, they took down the live results page, and they replaced that with static PDFs, which they updated on a infrequent basis throughout the evening until all the votes were in, sometime after 11 o'clock.

- Which is the way they used to do it.

- Which is what they used to do, yes.

- All right, sometimes progress isn't progress.

The new vendor didn't quite work out.

Let's see if they can get that buttoned up for what we will all know is an incredible election year next year.

It's gonna be nothing like this one.

This was kind of a little bit of a training wheels election compared to what- - Hopefully they're looking - We're gonna see.

- At this as a test run, because there are other counties where, in for instance, in Portage, they said their count was slowed because they had an inordinate number of write-in candidates and it just, they had to go through by hand and count every single ballot.

And they had to do that before they could update the results.

(dramatic music) - The new CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District says he will focus on better communication between the district, students, and parents.

Warren Morgan also says budget cuts are coming as pandemic money comes to an end.

Andrew, Morgan says his priority list that he came up with, though, came from a listening tour that he conducted after getting the job.

- Spent the first 100 days getting out, meeting with parents, meeting with students, meeting with stakeholders, community engagement meetings, meeting one-on-one, and that helped him form what he said are gonna be his five-year goals for the district.

- Morgan says that he heard from students who want high-quality academic programs at all schools, not just select magnet schools, Stephanie.

- That's absolutely right.

They told him about their long commutes.

Some students that were attending magnet schools, they said that they love them.

They love their educations, but they'd like to have those resources in their neighborhoods.

- Boy, that's not a tall order.

By the way, you know, we have some of these real sterling schools.

Make them all that.

I mean, I think that's everyone's goal.

- [Stephanie] Yeah.

- [Andrew] At a time when they're facing budget cuts, no less.

- Yeah, not an easy one.

In addition to the budget issues, in addition to trying to increase the quality of education, safety is a big concern for students and parents.

- And the big concern not just the safety of the students themselves, but how it impacts the ability to learn within the schools.

The stats show that 10, at least 10 CMSD students have been killed in the last year.

That's according to reporting by our education reporter.

One of these students was killed in a shooting while waiting to catch a bus home after school.

Now, you know, the district has a trauma team that goes in and works long-term with students who are dealing with the after effects.

But there needs to be a recognition.

There is a recognition.

They need to be more proactively done to protect, safeguard students and make sure they can learn without distraction.

- He talked about these five-year goals that he set up.

One of 'em, I thought, jumped right off the page: getting 90% of students enrolled in college, employed, or enlisted in the armed forces after graduation and increasing the four-year and five-year graduation rates to 90%.

Currently, they're around 74%.

That's a tall order as well.

- That's a tall order.

It's going to take investment.

The budget cuts that are coming are fueled, and we're seeing this in other districts as well, by the end of pandemic-related funding.

That gave schools a lot of additional capital to work with, and now, it's drying up.

And you know, we're seeing that in Akron as well.

It's an issue that's going to be hampering, you know, efforts by these districts to properly serve their students.

- That is the first of five really aspirational five-year goals that he put out.

Also, improving English and math proficiency scores in kindergarten through eighth grade.

- Yeah, it's, I'd love to know how he's going to do it.

It's always, you have a State of the Schools, you have a state of the whatever where you talk aspirationally about what you're going to do in the year to come.

And then there comes the reality of the rubber hitting the road.

- Stephanie, it's not all about academics.

He also said he's heard from students who aren't happy with what they're getting fed at lunch.

- No, he was at Ginn Academy, and he had- - Ginn.

- Excuse me.

He had lunch with students and they told him, some student athletes said they were concerned about the caloric content.

And other students wanted more fresh produce and more choices in general.

- And my understanding is Morgan, who's a vegetarian, found it hard to find anything to eat on the menu there the day he was visiting.

- There you go.

- Interesting.

And when you talked about caloric content, it wasn't that they thought it was too calorie-heavy.

They were football players- - Yeah.

- Who wanted to have more substantive meals.

- [Stephanie] Yes, people have different dietary needs.

- Well, it was good to hear from him.

I thought that it was an interesting, he just seems like a real personable guy.

And this is his introduction really to the community.

And he's got a lotta work to do, and we certainly wish him well in those endeavors.

(dramatic music) Students at Case Western Reserve University marched in front of university president Eric Kaler's office this week, saying that campus has been divided because the administration has not issued a statement supporting Gazans in the Israel-Hamas war.

Kaler had sent an email to the campus community on October 13th, five days after Hamas' attack on Israel killed 1,400 people.

More than 200 were kidnapped.

Kaler condemned, quote, "The level of terrorist violence by Hamas against Israel."

Protestors want condemnation as well of the Israeli response, which has killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza and continues now, many of them children.

Andrew, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Black Student Union participated.

This is a fraught topic.

The students say they don't feel safe on campus.

- Well, they're saying that Kaler's stance not to also recognize what's going on in total is raising the level of Islamophobia on campus.

And there was one demonstration, one dialogue actually, that the organization had scheduled that they ended up deciding they needed to cancel because of threats to them.

So they're saying the fear, the threats that they face is very real.

- I think what I've heard most people say is, you know, they have sympathy for all loss of life and that all of this is an unfortunate situation.

I think what they're asking for is very specifically, you know, Israel shouldn't be bombing or, in this case now, on the ground in the Gaza Strip.

Their issues, Stephanie, with Kaler go back to his lack of support for an Undergraduate Student Government call to disinvest in companies that support Israel's military.

So this goes back.

- Yes, this is an ongoing issue.

That happened last November.

The Undergraduate Student Government passed a resolution that called on the university to divest, as you said, from companies and organizations that provide support for Israel's military and other industries, in prisons.

Kaler responded forcefully in a letter.

He called the resolution profoundly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

And then the Council on American Islamic Relations weighed in saying that his letter was dishonest, dangerous, and defamatory.

So this is just roiling everyone.

(dramatic music) - Sidewalks, or when you're in semi-rural Pepper Pike, recreational trails, will be installed in that eastern suburb of Cleveland beginning in 2024.

Those of us who live in communities with sidewalks are like, "How could this be?"

Well, go to Pepper Pike sometime, and a lotta these kinda communities, they're bucolic, there aren't any sidewalks.

But it seems like this was one where the pedestrians ruled, Stephanie.

- Yeah, I mean, what they were talking about is being concerned about walking on the street.

You know, and that argument seemed to win out, especially when they were talking about, you know, kids who didn't have space to walk or ride their bikes.

That argument seemed to win out over the argument that adding these trails would change the city's rural feel or semi-rural feel.

- And the way that trails comes into play here is, if you call it a recreational trail and not a sidewalk, then the homeowner isn't responsible for its upkeep.

- That's right.

It's not just up- I believe it's snow removal.

- Liability.

- And also the, exactly, the liability.

- And it's gonna happen on three main roads to start, could be added to some others eventually.

- That's what we're hearing.

I think city council member said that they were first going to start by trying to mend some fences, work through some details, and then ensure that there's community input as the council moves ahead with the sidewalk project.

- All right.

Those three roads are Lander, South Woodland, and Shaker Boulevard.

(dramatic music) Monday on the "Sound of Ideas" on 89.7 WKSU, we'll discuss the traumatic impact the Israel-Hamas war is having here in northeast Ohio.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching, and stay safe.

(light music) (bright music)