(lighthearted rhythmic music) - Ohio lawmakers turned to outside help to draw new legislative maps and put the entire process in front of the public through an online television stream.

Ohio's top doctor says the new Omicron sub-variant is unlikely to create another surge here.

And the Cleveland Browns sign quarterback, Deshaun Watson to a mega contract and deal with mega fallout due to his off the field issues.

Ideas is next.

(lighthearted rhythmic music) Hello, and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

After being criticized for a lack of transparency when drawing new legislative maps, the Ohio Redistricting Commission decided the map making process is now, must see TV.

The Director of the Ohio Department of Health says, he does not expect the new sub-variant of Omicron to create a surge in Ohio.

The Browns make a change of quarterback by signing Deshaun Watson, and there are a lot of people unhappy about it because of the many women who have accused him of sexual misconduct.

And the Bibb administration has proposals to help Cleveland's iconic West Side Market, but the plans will take time.

We'll talk about those stories and the rest of the week's news on the Reporters' Roundtable.

Joining me this week, from Ideastream Public Media, Managing Producer of Health, Marlene Harris Taylor and Supervising Producer of Newscast, Glenn Forbes.

In Columbus Statehouse News Bureau Chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to Roundtable.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission's fourth effort at drawing constitutional state legislative maps is being streamed live on the Ohio Channel website.

The stars of the show, two outside consultants and their computers.

Democrats chose University of Florida, Professor Michael McDonald and Republicans chose California consultant, Douglas Johnson.

It's a hugely different process from the ones used to draw the overrule maps, question is, will it make a difference?

And what it sounds like to me, Karen, is that the commission is trying to basically remove itself unless really necessary and there's a dispute, but they're saying, okay, you guys take care of it maybe we'll have something we can give to the Supreme Court.

- This process right now, I think looks a lot more like what maybe the Supreme Court was hoping.

- And maybe what voters were hoping too.

- And maybe what voters were hoping for.

That there's a transparency aspect here in the sense that you can actually watch what's happening if you're so inclined and you know what you're looking for, you can actually see it happen and I think that that's what a lot of advocates have wanted to see from the very beginning, going back to last year, that there would be this opportunity to see independent or map makers who are not overly partisan actually coming up with these district lines.

The concern right now I think though, is this process is going very, very, very slowly.

- [Mike] Right.

- And the deadline for the new maps is Monday.

So, you gotta draw 132 districts, 99 in the House and 33 in the Senate and you've got a deadline by Monday and I think yesterday at the status report, the outside map makers had said that they had come up with one, maybe district so... - [Mike] Out how many?

- This process is going very slowly, again 132 districts.

- [Mike] Right.

- So, this needs to move along a lot more quickly for a real expectation that there would be the meeting of this deadline coming up on Monday.

- Marlene we're journalists, we know what deadlines mean.

If it's a Monday deadline, we'll get it done Sunday night so maybe there's still some hope.

- I was just thinking that, they're gonna be cramming seriously on Sunday night, but I love what Karen said about, and you said Mike about, this is really finally getting to what voters had hoped for in Ohio, some transparency and some fairness, because as we know, the Republicans have been drawing these maps to favor them, overwhelmingly favor them and often in the news media, I hear people say, well, you know, the lawmakers in Columbus are not getting this right.

Let's be really honest.

It's the Republicans who are really... - [Mike] On this commission.

- Who are really trying to rig the system.

The system is rigged right now in Ohio and what the voters are asking for is a little bit more fairness to be sort of in line with how people vote in Ohio, we're a red state.

The Republicans will still have the upper hand, will still have more districts, but just more fairness.

- One of the things Glenn, that you might start assuming if you don't see the process is there is a back room and it's smokey and decisions are being made or people are being undercut, all of these things that you might imagine when you have a camera in, even though it's two, the backs of the heads of two guys and the computers they're working on, as I said, not riveting TV, but as Karen mentioned, very important TV, how does that change the process?

The idea of just letting the sunshine in a little.

- Yeah, I mean, you're gonna think I'm a liar or crazy even more so than you already do when I make this statement, but I wish I had had more time to watch this yesterday.

It was kind of, it was compelling in an odd way, right?

Because you could see the discussions going on and say, well, we don't have the data we need, well, how long is it gonna take to get, well, I'm not sure, well, should I go back to my hotel and get my laptop?

And then at one point they had somebody on the phone and they were introducing everybody in the room, 'cause he was on speaker phone, you're on with, you know, McDonald and Glasper and all these guys and then he says, and everybody watching around the world on this stream, it was just kind of funny to know that they were being watched and I think one of the, I believe it was McDonald, correct me if I'm wrong, but one of them tweeted out a picture of a fish in a fish bowl and said, this is me for the next couple days.

So it certainly is an interesting window into the process.

It was nice to have on, kind of in the background, you hear something, you put on the video and you're like, oh, that's what they're doing and that's what they- - [Mike] Right, it changes... - It was different, it was very different.

- Yeah, it changes things a little when you can see it, absolutely.

- Mike, you know he's a journalist that he really enjoyed watching this.

- [Glenn] Yeah.

- [Mike] Right.

- You know he's truly a journalist.

- I know Karen, Karen you're gonna be there all weekend with popcorn.

- Yeah, Karen (indistinct) Karen might not be as, it's more of a novel concept to me, I think Karen and her colleague, Andy Chow, and a couple of the other ones who are covering this all the time are like, oh God, just get me out of this.

- I don't know, Karen's kind of a junkie for that.

Like I said, I think she's gonna be watching all weekend.

Karen, you mentioned the importance of this and the time or maybe not.

(laughs) Okay, but you mentioned the importance of this- - [Karen] Well, no, I have a thought here.

- Yeah, go ahead.

- Yeah, certainly whatever happens with the Redistricting Commission this weekend, I will be watching, my colleague Jo Ingles will be watching as well, but I feel like we're approaching an endpoint here and there's a hearing going on right now in Federal Court on a lawsuit that some Republican voters had brought to try to force that third set of maps that were ruled unconstitutional to be used for the next five days so the May primary can go forward.

Now, if that happens, that potentially, I don't know what that does to the map making process that we're watching on the Ohio Channel right now.

So, I'm trying to get a sense of whether this is just more of same or whether there is an endpoint here potentially coming because certainly the May primary is a big endpoint, it's a big target, so to speak.

- [Mike] Yeah.

And this week, Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that those legislative offices, State House and State Senate Offices couldn't be on the May ballot unless a Federal Court intervened and so that's what we're watching for right now and Federal Court action, should it happen, what that would do to the map making process, I'm not sure, I think that there are a lot of Republicans who had been hoping and expecting that there would be intervention by the Federal Court.

Certainly we've seen that already in the congressional map case and now potentially in this legislative maps case as well.

- You just answered my next two questions, so thank you.

But I do have... - [Karen] I do my best.

- I do have one more and that's about the congressional maps.

Now that we're, let's switch over to that.

So we've been talking about state legislative maps for the House and for the Senate and that's what we're watching on television and that's, what's supposed to be done by Monday, a separate set of maps, congressional maps, which have also been thrown out by the Ohio Supreme Court, another set was then sent to them, there were challenges to those, which is the process whereby the Supreme Court would then rule whether they're constitutional and now we're seeing some groups continue with their challenge and some including League of Women Voters who are peeling off, 'cause they say, there's just not enough to time.

So, we even have disagreements amongst those who think the maps are bad.

- Yeah, there's a real split amongst the people who have really been the leaders in getting these maps challenged in court.

I mean the League of Women Voters and the ACLU of Ohio, they filed the first lawsuits over both the state House and Senate maps as well as the congressional maps and they have said, and this is really complicated, I'm gonna try to simplify it, I'm probably gonna not characterize it perfectly because I'm not a lawyer, but they basically said that because of the way that the election calendar runs and because of all the things that have been happening here, they no longer feel that they can challenge the congressional map for this year, that they're going to, they've refiled their lawsuit back in the Ohio Supreme Court to challenge using that congressional map for the next election cycle in 2024 and they say it's very painful, they understand, they feel that this map is rigged and they hate going through an election cycle with a map that they think is rigged but they say that they don't have the time on the election calendar to really challenge it.

There are other groups that disagree, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which is a voting rights group that joined them in that lawsuit says, it's gonna go its own way on this, it's withdrawn from that lawsuit, and this afternoon, we have a group of voting rights coalitions that are getting together saying here's what our plans are to continue to challenge this congressional map because no one should be voting under a map that we feel is unconstitutional, that the Ohio Supreme Court has said is unconstitutional.

So, this is an interesting split amongst those activists who have pushed the state to this level already so far.

- So there are still some pending challenges, as you mentioned, A. Philip Randolph Institute and a number of others.

- They are.

- So what happens then, does the Supreme Court have a deadline for ruling on those challenges?

- I think what the deadline really is, is what are we gonna do about the May primary?

Because that's the real question for voters, for candidates and, you know, there have been some motions that and some moves to try to move that primary from May 3rd to June 28th, with the thought that that would settle everything and then we could vote on everything and the primary on June 28th, Republican leadership has no interest in that and so the continuation is to try to move toward a full May primary where all the statewide offices, all the state legislative offices, all the congressional offices, all the judicial offices are gonna be on that primary.

And at this point it just seems so difficult to think about that because early voting starts on April 5th and here we are on May 25th where we don't have valid state House and Senate maps and where there are questions about what are we gonna do about the congressional map?

- I have a note here from Pat in Painesville says, are other states having the same kind of issues or is Ohio an outlier again?

Do you know?

- Ohio is an outlier.

Most other states have at least certainly the congressional map, most other states have worked this out.

There have been plenty of lawsuits, Ohio was not alone in that.

What is unique about Ohio I think is that we do have these two constitutional amendments that were overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2015 and 2018, of course Republicans have said, those have created this brand new process that we're all navigating through and it can be difficult to understand and certainly the Supreme Court and other courts are giving guidance on that, but yeah, Ohio is really behind nearly all other states in coming up with what people are going to vote on, in the primaries that are ahead of the general election this fall.

(upbeat music) - The Ohio Department of Health, offered some optimism yesterday regarding the impact of the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, Director of the Ohio Department of Health, says he does not expect there to be a big surge here.

He says, BA.2 is closely related to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which drove the last surge in Ohio and he says the high infection rate from that, offers of Ohioans more protection.

So, maybe there is a silver lining about so many people being infected with Omicron, Marlene.

- Maybe, and I think that was welcome news for a lot of Ohioans to hear him say that, that they're not expecting a big surge in Ohio from this but, there's some people who, people who still care, 'cause a lot of people are just over this Mike, but the people who still care, those who are immunocompromised or have really small children who have not been able to be vaccinated, they're looking at this with sort of with a side eye because we do see infection rates going up in Europe, even in some parts of the United States, the question is, will those infections be serious?

- [Mike] Right.

- The experts are saying they don't think so and even Dr. Fauci is agreeing with Dr. Vanderhoff on that.

- We're seeing that Pfizer and Moderna this week raise a possibility of a fourth booster, another booster and I read some reports on that, where there are medical experts that say, we don't think that's necessary, maybe for the very immunocompromised and the older, much older population, but let's not be rolling out another booster everybody, there's a bit of booster fatigue, perhaps.

- I think that's true, and I think that, you know, unlike the first three vaccines, the two doses and the and the first booster, there was almost universal agreement that those were needed, but you're right there's not a lot of agreement, we have the CEOs of the two big companies, Pfizer and Moderna saying, oh yeah, yeah, it's gonna be needed absolutely.

- [Mike] Right.

- But everybody else is like, let's wait and see.

- Maybe eventually.

- [Marlene] Maybe eventually.

- Dr. Fauci says eventually, but maybe not right now.

One other thing about vaccines is that Moderna has asked for permission for a vaccine for young children, a smaller dose kids under six, that I know a number of people who have been waiting for that, in fact, Natalie Pillsbury who is our Director of Strategic Content, here at Ideastream Strategic Content Initiatives, wrote a piece in our Noon(ish) newsletter, if you don't subscribe, go to ideastream.org/noonish, and her point was, a lot of people are looking at her with a side eye because she's still being very cautious.

She and her husband and their two children, 'cause one of them is under six and isn't yet vaccinated, she was celebrating this news that there might be a vaccine.

- Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

That group with small children, they're still being very cautious and they still care.

The question is though, even when that booster or when that shot opens up for the very young young kids, how many people are gonna really take advantage of it?

Like we look at when it was opened up to kids over five, between five and 12, there were still only a small percentage, I can't remember the exact number of parents who took advantage of that.

So you have this group of people who are just waiting for the vaccines, but then you have a lot of the public that's still ambivalent about it.

(upbeat music) - As the Cleveland Browns prepared to introduce the team's new quarterback, Deshaun Watson to the media and to the public, blowback is strong.

22 women have civil cases against the quarterback, alleging sexual impropriety.

Two grand juries have declined to bring criminal charges on those claims.

Glenn you're our sports guy, the Browns have claimed, they did their due diligence before signing Watson, there's a letter that was sent out by both Dee and Jimmy Haslam.

They said they looked into it, they talked to Deshaun Watson, they are confident that things will go well although they called the civil suits, sort of legal proceedings.

- [Glenn] Yes.

- That's gotten a lot of attention.

- The statements, listen, I mean if you follow sports at all, particularly the NFL, you know a couple things about the NFL, most teams are gonna come out with statements that are intentionally vague.

This kind of takes it to a new level, right?

Because of the seriousness of the accusation.

So when you say we did extensive legal research, the questions today are going to be, okay, what was your extensive legal research?

Now, the defense attorney, the prosecuting attorney, excuse me, the attorney for the accusers is saying, well, nobody talked to me, nobody from the Browns talked to me, nobody from any of these teams talked to me - [Mike] Or any of the... - Any of the teams that were vying for Watson or the... - [Mike] The accusers, victims.

- Right.

I think what the answer is gonna be as well, they're in the middle of legal proceedings and we think that they weren't gonna comment or whatever.

I think people are gonna be looking for answers today.

So, Watson, General Manager Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski go first at one o'clock, then Jimmy and Dee Haslam are gonna hold a Zoom call at three o'clock, and I think, you know, there's not gonna be a lot of football talk in these- - That's right.

- Two press conferences.

This is all going to be about, well, what is this process that you went through?

You said you did due diligence, you said you did extensive legal research, personal research, or talking to references for Watson, you know, was it all one sided?

If you didn't talk to any of the accusers or the attorney for the accusers, who did you talk to try to get, you know, a handle on this?

Deshaun Watson is represented by a very famous attorney in Texas, Rusty Hardin, well known in that area and as you mentioned, there was the, in Harris County where Houston is located, they declined to indict about a week and a half ago.

Yesterday, you know, you were here, I was talking to Marlene this morning, it was a span of two hours that we find out, here's the second grand jury convening, they're gonna hear more evidence on Watson and an hour and a half later, two hours later that grand jury declined to indict.

Now, apparently that was on one charge that was already kind of heard by Harris County down in Brazoria County, the Browns say they knew, Watson's attorney says the Browns knew and Watson's attorney also said, this was not a new allegation, this was a known allegation that they declined to indict on.

I'll let you ask the next question, I could keep going, but you keep this on the rails, Mike, 'cause the Browns are gonna have a hard time doing that later.

- For sure, let me share Pat's email this morning.

She says, after having served on a grand jury, I have no confidence whatsoever in the decisions that come out of them.

So that's Pat's point of view.

- [Marlene] That's interesting.

- Marlene, let me ask you this and this is, like in one sense, you just wanna say, look, I just wanna worry about football, all this other stuff, like there are people that, somebody who was in the Baltimore Ravens who was accused of murder, people say, okay, he wasn't indicted for that, but he did it and it was in the City of Akron and we think that that's a pretty serious thing yet everybody in Baltimore rooted for that team.

So there is this kind of overriding feeling of just rooting for a team but then you have a situation like this, there isn't a charge by the grand jury.

Does that make a difference when you have 22 accusers?

- Yeah, you know, I think the point you are making there Mike is there's sort of this stain that's kind of coming from this that is in the mind of some folks who support the team and they're like, why would you wanna get us embroiled in something like this where there's this stain from the beginning with this person who potentially could do a wonderful thing for the team?

And I wanna step back for a minute though and say that, everybody is innocent until you're proven guilty, right?

So, we should come with a presumption of innocence here, but at the same time, what we learn through the MeToo Movement is that women should be listened to.

So these women should be taken at their word until we know what's going on.

And with this grand jury situation, we cannot know the details of what happened.

All we see is this pattern, apparent pattern where apparently he likes massages and we don't know what happened in those rooms.

We've got 22 women, we can't treat them as a monolith like every case is exactly the same, there are some cases that women are making some really serious accusations here that are basically rape in some of those accusations, right?

But, if there's no indictment from a grand jury, the only opportunity that we would have as the public to know what's going on is if these civil cases actually proceed to court, if they're not pleaded, I mean if they don't take a payment, take a payout and sign some kind of agreement that they're not gonna talk.

- Karen, let me bring you into this conversation as a big sports fan and I know you've been a Browns fan for a long time as well, it seems like now there's this, people are being torn, it's like, you wanna root for your team, they now have a guy who on the field is a top five quarterback, but then you have this situation as Marlene said, you believe women when they say that they have been raped and so now you're in this quandary, I hear a lot of people on social media saying, I'm done with the Browns, but I heard them say that when they left for Baltimore and then came back in the mid 90s, I've heard them say that when they went Owen 16 and yet I see a full stadium and people having parties to watch this team, so, where do you come down in this and what do you think is gonna happen in regards to fandom?

- Well, when the news of Deshaun Watson and the trade broke, I tweeted out that, I just didn't know what to do with this because innocent until proven guilty, all of that, but still there are, 22 women is a lot and when you consider the effect throughout Cleveland I mean, calls to the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center hotline have spiked by 130%, according to somebody over there and it's just, it's very concerning I think when the Browns are gonna make this player, potentially the highest paid player in NFL history, right?

$230 million giving up three first round draft picks?

Is this the right trade?

Now my son's a huge football fan, he says that the trade is being graded very, very well among those people who watch performance of athletes and really feel that this is a great get for Cleveland, but boy, it just really strikes at the heart of fans who were hoping for something different and especially when you look at other players, even in Ohio, Joe Burrow, for example, you just think to yourself, gosh, is this what we want?

How much do we wanna win and what are we willing to sacrifice of ourselves to get there?

(upbeat music) - Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb says he intends to find a nonprofit operator for the West Side Market, but in the meantime, the Mayor is proposing short term improvements.

Marlene, a new operator sounds like it could take a while though to get into place.

- Yeah, they're not expecting this to happen like overnight, right?

But, one of the things that's interesting about all these changes that are being proposed is, there's a feeling of optimism for the first time in a long time over there at the market, that you have a mayor who's paying attention, who's making these proposals and who's looking at this 32% vacancy rate over there and saying, hey, we've really gotta do something about it, and one of the interesting things too, is they wanna make it so that people can do pop-ups over there, like pop-up markets, let the food trucks come in.

- [Mike] Right.

- So a lot of really interesting proposals, but none of these are gonna be overnight.

- Yeah, it's gonna be a little bit of a wait, but at least we're hearing and the vendors seem to be encouraged as well.

They can get longer leases, there had been one year leases, which is hard to plan a business.

- And Mike, you know, I recently went to Seattle, so I had a chance to go to their market, you know, their tourist market and it was great, it was vibrant.

- [Mike] Pike Place, something like that?

- No, it's just called the Fresh, the market.

- [Mike] Okay.

- I think it's just called, it just has a very generic name, like public market, but it was great and it's a vision of what our West Side Market could be, right?

- Are you saying they're gonna start throwing fish over our heads at the West Side Market?

- I felt so bad for the guy who had to throw the fish, like every five minutes they have to throw the fish because that's what the tourists wanna see, but it's a tourist destination and I'm sure the people in town, when they have folks in town, that's where they take them and that's what the West Side Market could be potentially.

(upbeat music) - Big changes will be coming Monday to Ideastream Public Media.

WKSU will become the primary NPR news and information station for Northeast Ohio.

So beginning Monday, you'll hear the sound of ideas and all of your other local and national public radio programming, including NPR on 89.7 WKSU and 104.9, the new WCPN.

When you tune in to 90.3, you'll get WCLV and classical music.

And I just want to take a moment to thank you sincerely for being with us here on 90.3, I came in more than a decade ago as the host of the Sound of Ideas with no idea what the heck I was doing, but your feedback, your participation in the shows and today is a good example with the emails, that drove me to always strive to do my best for you and that's how everyone at Ideastream Public Media approaches our jobs and I know that's how you approach yours as well Marlene.

- Absolutely Mike.

I think that once people get used to the change and it is change, and it will be different from some folks, they have to move down the dial a little bit to 89.7.

I think once people get used to the change, they're gonna appreciate all the new shows, the new newscast, the new, the staffs coming together, I think people are gonna appreciate that.

- And I wanna let you know, if you've listened to this show and Jenny Northern, the General Manager has talked about this, many of the shows are the same and some of them are in the same time slots and where there are shows that are missing, if you are a listener of WKSU or Ideastream, they're gonna be carried on an HD channel.

And one other thing to address, there are a number of people that are concerned that they don't get 89.7 or 104.9 very well in their neighborhoods.

- [Marlene] Yes I've heard that.

- We hear you, and I can tell you that engineers are working on boosting the signal, there is a lot of work being done there and we also encourage you as I do to listen on your smart speaker.

I don't even have a radio at home and I work in radio.

- [Marlene] Right - But I tell Alexa to play and it'll be, play WKSU.

I'm sorry I said Alexa, if that screwed up your, if you're listening right now.

- That happened all across the area Mike, Alexa is known all over right now.

- Alexa play WKSU.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89.7 WKSU, we preview the debates for governor and senate taking place at Central State University and the latest on the Brown signing of quarterback Deshaun Watson.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for watching and stay safe.

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