- The Ohio House is finally considering a bill to expel former speaker Larry Householder, charged nearly a year ago, in a federal corruption probe tied to house Bill six, the Nuclear Bailout Bill.

Governor Mike DeWine, criticized by fellow Republicans because of his pandemic response, now has a serious primary challenger.

And a Cleveland area doctor's, out there, testimony on an anti-vaccination bill goes viral for all the wrong reasons.

Ideas, is next (light piano music) - Brought to you by Westfield.

Offering insurance to protect what's yours.

Grow your business and achieve your dreams.

(light piano music) - Hello, and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike MacIntyre, Ideastreams Executive Editor.

Thanks for joining us.

The Ohio House Rules and Reference Committee heard testimony Thursday on two bills seeking to expel former Speaker, Larry Householder.

Sponsors say the reputation of the Ohio House suffers the longer Householder remains.

This week a Cleveland area doctor testifying in Columbus, in favor of an anti-vaccination bill, spewed debunked and baseless claims about the impact of the COVID 19 vaccine.

It was out there.

And June is LGBTQ Plus pride month, but one Northeast, Ohio city refuses to acknowledge it.

Joining me to talk about these stories and more, Statehouse News Bureau reporter Andy Chow in Columbus Ideastream reporter, Taylor Haggerty, and Buckeye Flame editor, and Baldwin Wallace University Professor Ken Schneck.

Let's get ready to round table.

Andy, there are two bills one from Republicans, one from Democrats.

Are they essentially the same?

- Yeah, they do the same exact thing.

They're just two different resolutions.

And actually there, you know, the insider politics of it all, there was sort of this wait and see game going on with the Republican Caucus where now, speaker Bob Cup had said, you know, this is something to be handled in 2021.

Let's see what the caucus feels about it.

He was asked about it over and over again, and it just seemed like the Republican Caucus wasn't going to move on it.

And so that's when the Democrats said, all right enough is enough.

I think we can get the votes to do this on our own.

So the Democrats crafted a resolution that's when Republicans started grafting a resolution.

And so we saw both of them doing the same exact thing, which is to expel Larry Householder from the Chamber.

We saw both of those in the rules and reference hearing.

- The body acted pretty quickly to remove him from the speakership after his indictment.

They certainly haven't moved quickly on this endeavor.

What are the chances, in your view, that either one of these bills moves forward and he actually is expelled from the House?

- It is really difficult to predict this one.

This is, this is kind a toss-up.

What you have here is, if you were to really poll every single member of the Ohio House which has a super majority of Republicans, if you were to poll every member, I think you could find the two thirds majority needed to expel Larry Householder, but, some of the most influential people in the Republican leadership position are the people who might be holding this back and might try to stop it from ever reaching a vote.

And so it really just depends on what speaker Bob Cup is going to do about it.

If he calls for a vote on this issue, or if those two thirds, majority who don't have the leadership positions really try to push the issue themselves.

There are some parliamentary tricks there that that can happen to get that going.

But, so, is it going to happen?

I don't know.

Do they have enough votes if it were to be brought up for a vote?

I think they do.

- One person we haven't heard from yet, Larry Householder, but that's supposedly going to happen next week.

- [Andy] Well, he has an opportunity to testify, to present his case before the Rules and Reference Committee in the Ohio House.

He has talked a couple of times but then tried to stay quiet even more than that because of the ongoing criminal case, with the US Department of Justice.

And, you know, during the Rules and Reference Committee yesterday, he, we, he himself Larry Householder, was in Federal Court facing those DOJ charges.

So the question is, does he feel comfortable enough to go before the Rules and Reference Committee and answer questions in front of them, while he has an ongoing case in federal court?

- [Mike] And speaking of the case, there's just a huge, an avalanche a huge amount of documents in that case we learned this week, which led to another delay being granted.

- [Andy] Yeah, federal prosecutors and, and the different attorneys are, are experiencing what state house reporters experience a lot, when they request records.

There is just a lot of stuff that happens into the policy making process at the Ohio House, and that includes a lot of documents, a lot of emails, a lot of notes, committee advisory meeting, and just all sorts of things.

And that's just on the Ohio house side.

And then whatever is going on with what federal agents collected in their own investigation with their with their own, you know, hidden recordings and everything like that.

So, yes, the trial has been extended once again for this discovery process to take place, for all the attorneys to look over all of the documents and all of the records that, that the federal government say they have a case against them for.

- [Mike] Case that never ends.

Ken?

- [Andy] Yeah.

- [Ken] My favorite quote, that I have to put out there, is, it came from Bill Seitz, who's a veteran lawmaker Republican from Cincinnati, he's the House majority floor leader, and he said this a few weeks ago, and I just keep pivoting back to it because I think it's hilarious.

He said, "There have been at least four members of the Ohio House, in my time here, who have been indicted on felony charges, they were never expelled.

So I think we have to be very mindful of the precedent that we set."

The idea that this is the role modeling that we are going for, is, quite frankly, hilarious, but also just shows where some of these lawmakers are at.

- [Mike] Interesting.

And, and Bill Seitz, Andy, yesterday was kind of put in that position where he was the one trying to poke holes in the reasoning of the lawmakers who said that Larry Householder should be expelled.

- [Andy] Yeah.

He's been a vocal opponent to the motion to expel.

I don't want to say that he's been a vocal supporter of Larry Householder, but he's been very staunch in his opposition against the expulsion.

I believe that this is a move that he does not want to see taken, that he believes that Householder is still innocent until proven guilty.

Householder has pleaded not guilty in federal court, although the other co-defendants have pleaded guilty in the case.

And so at this point you have somebody like Bill Seitz, who is in a leadership role, being sort of the outspoken person on that panel, defending Householder and fighting against a possible expulsion, at least through his line of questioning.

- [Mike] Yeah.

And to Ken's point though, the, the reasoning is, well we didn't expel the other ones who were, who were found to or who were indicted or found to be criminal, so why should we expel this one?

- Well, and Representative Seitz laid out several arguments.

One of the most interesting ones and one of the ones that might be more aligned, with sort of, the legal process of it all, is in the Ohio Constitution, in the language that talks about expelling a member, it says that the body has the opportunity to do so, if a member has engaged in disorderly conduct.

Now in the Ohio Constitution, it does not go any further in defining what disorderly conduct means.

Now, representative Seitz went into criminal code to talk about what disorderly conduct means in criminal code, which is more along threatening, physical harm, injury those types of things.

And so.

that's where the debate really is at this point.

And I think, you know, trying to gauge the temperature of a lot of the members, they were not swayed by that argument, that disorderly conduct in the Constitution, should be reflected as disorderly conduct in criminal cases.

- This is not unexpected, because of the criticism levied at Governor Mike DeWine by the Trump wing of the Republican party.

He now has a primary challenger for 2022.

Former US Representative Jim Renacci, says he'll take on his fellow Republican.

- This is obviously, not the usual course of action for politics in Ohio, Andy, when you have, as you just mentioned, a supermajority in the legislature and a Republican governor, and now we're going to have a, what appears to be knocked down, drag out battle, in the primary.

- Yeah, you have these different Republican candidates really trying to vie for the, the Trump supporter vote.

I think that people like Jim Renacci, a former Congressman business owner, and Joe Blystone, a business man here in central, Ohio and a farmer.

I think they see this as an opportunity to get what could be a large amount of votes from Republicans who would align themselves with former president Donald Trump, but do not align themselves with, for, with with current Governor Mike DeWine.

And so the question there is, how many voters are out there are like that?

Are there enough voters who are more of the establishment Republicans, who were more than happy to vote for former president Donald Trump, and are also more than happy to vote for governor Mike DeWine?

So that's the big question, because you can tell when Jim Renacci released his ad, it was about a three minute ad, and all it was doing, is just lot lobbying lots of attacks at Governor DeWine, saying that he is the antithesis of former President, Donald Trump, and really trying hard to compare it to DeWine to current New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, which I thought was interesting.

But apparently, that must be among the talking points around people who are trying to court the Trump vote.

- [Mike] I think It's obviously because of the mandates, with the pandemic Ken.

But I don't, I didn't think we'd ever get to a point where people were essentially questioning the Republican credentials of Mike DeWine.

- Right?

Yeah.

I mean, you had those rallies where he was almost effectively booed off stage, Republican rallies.

So, I think the Trump question is the question at the heart of this right now, and this isn't an Ohio question this is an across the United States question, of, of whether or not Trump holds sway.

And so, in this way, we are the nice little microcosm for the United States to see what kind of effect this is going to have here.

I'm, I'm really curious to watch this one.

- [Mike] And Trump actually put this out in a tweet, saying, you know, will Dewine have a challenger?

So some could equate this to that.

- [Ken] Yes, it was his only tweet that minute, that he put it out there.

But yeah, it was it's those any number of, of of things that he said.

And I don't know that that necessarily bolstered up challengers, but at the same time, this is this is the curious question.

It's, it's not about Cincinnati and Columbus and Cleveland.

It's about these questions of, where's Trump's still holding sway across Ohio?

- Lawmakers in Columbus are considering a Bill that would make it illegal for businesses and others, to require the COVID-19 vaccine.

But it goes beyond that, to cover all vaccines.

Testimony in favor of the anti-vaccination bill, by Cleveland area, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, earned national attention and ridicule this week.

- I'm sure you've seen the pictures all over the internet of people who've had these shots, and now they're magnetized.

They put a key on their forehead, it sticks.

They can put spoons and forks all over them, and they can stick.

Because now we think that there's a metal piece to that.

There has been people who've long suspected that there was some sort of an interface, yet to be defined, an interface, between what's being injected in these shots and all of the 5g towers, not proven yet.

- First of all, Ken, what we're seeing on social media as a result of this one hearing has been, maybe not encouraging to people who live in Ohio.

- No, this is where I remind people that I'm not from here, but it's, it's been rough.

It's been rough to just, just see it and, and to see how much things have changed from, from the start of the pandemic, to where we are now, right?

Like, we were role models.

We really, there were other states who were turning to Ohio and saying, look how amazingly they are handling this.

And now we're the key sticking to the forehead, vax-a-million state.

Cause I had to get vax-a-million in there.

Right?

That's who we are.

And so it, it, the credibility, has just tanked in the past couple of days.

- [Mike] And Taylor, you're not originally from here either, but I hear your texts were being blowup - Yeah, I heard from reporter friends in all of the states that I've lived in, asking me if I had seen the clip, if I was reporting on it, if I knew anything about it.

And you know, we've been trying to counter misinformation.

Our health team is doing FAQ's about the coronavirus, and has been since it started.

So, there is an effort to get the correct information out there in Ohio, I promise - [Mike] You know, we've been talking about the the lagging vaccination numbers and you mentioned Vax-a-Million Ken, some may say that did it's job.

It got people interested in, and maybe over the hump in terms of getting vaccinated.

But, this kind of disinformation, and when you're hearing, oh, that's a doctor saying that.

And then the next person coming up, well, that's a nurse.

So, there must be some value to what it is they're saying when, again, as we've mentioned these are not things that are rooted in science.

What about that disinformation?

And is that something that might be to blame or to, to to point to for why we're seeing lower vaccination rates?

- [Taylor] Possibly, quite a few of the places that I've talked to about efforts to get people, to get vaccinated and to come in have talked about the concerns about disinformation and the risk of getting the vaccine and how people are scared, or they don't necessarily know how it works, because there has been a lot of discussion of what does it mean for a vaccine to work in this way, I've never heard these terms before.

People are putting it under a lot of scrutiny, which, you know if you can't find the answers, that can be pretty scary.

So, a lot of local groups, and statewide groups as well, are out there trying to get people to come in and to ask those questions and to get those answers.

And we're talking about, you know, when she said the key sticks to me, there was no pushback but researchers have said in the past, one of the important things is when one of those claims is put out there, for it to be refuted, especially in media and in news coverage, you put the claim there and then you say, by the way, that's not true.

- [Mike] Right So that people know where the correct information is.

- [Mike] I was Talking to somebody yesterday, who said they had been in New Orleans on a trip and, and was asking and saying, boy, isn't it great that we're vaccinated.

And the person at this establishment said, oh I'm not getting vaccinated, then they can track you, which is another one of the, the debunked theories that's put out there.

She, by the way, held up her phone and said, they already are, right.

I have a phone on me.

They can track me anytime they want.

Andy, let's get into the bill itself.

I mean, this was sort of the side show, and it really is that, but the bill itself really does make some serious changes to vaccination, not just for COVID-19 vaccines, but vaccination in general in Ohio.

Can we go through a little bit about what specifically it does?

- [Andy] Yeah.

It's a, it's, it's a sweeping bill that would change what the typical policy is when it comes to allowing private businesses to require someone to get vaccinated, before they can come into the office.

You mentioned hospitals and, and other businesses, but nursing homes as well.

And this has been a bill that has been drafted for several sessions now.

Lawmakers usually in the house, always Republican, have drafted a bill like this, and it gets nowhere.

And, because of the events of the past year, I think because we've seen this rise of opposition against vaccines you know, much to, much because of the amount of coverage and amount of spotlighting about the, the high profile that these people like, the people that we saw and those committee, we've seen this rise against anti vaccinations.

And so this bill, which had gone nowhere for years, is gaining a little bit more support.

And I still am not sure, you know, just trying to gauge lawmakers, temperatures, where it might go, or if this is just going to be, we'll hear from proponents and opponents, or this is going to go further than that.

Not sure.

- [Mike] We mentioned earlier that he's at odds with some members of his party and and has a primary challenger because of it now.

But governor DeWine, is totally opposed to this ex anti-vaccine bill.

And he talked about it at the Vax-a-Million press conference.

He delved in some other avenues there, and talked about how there was a time when polio was striking fear throughout the country and talked about the importance of vaccines and where we are today.

And let's not forget our history.

- This is not a new narrative from governor DeWine.

He has been saying this from, for a long time now.

Especially during the big, since the beginning of the pandemic, that he has been a vocal supporter of the use of vaccinations because of the efficiency of, you know, ridding people, ridding, ridding the population of these diseases and of these issues, that health issues that people had to face for such a long time.

So I think it's very likely that, if the bill were to get any further than committee process and actually make it to his desk, that he would veto it.

And then from there, I, you know, again not exactly sure what the temperature of the legislature is, but I, I would be surprised if they had the majority they needed to override a veto on this particular bill, but it does just continue the debate over the role of vaccinations and the role of, of what supporters of this bill say are just personal freedom and and how those two interact.

- [Mike] Ken - [Ken] Yeah, Yeah.

And I know we talked about her weeks, and weeks ago, but I just have to highlight one of the co-sponsors of the bill, which is who is state representative, Jennifer Gross.

Who's a Republican from, I always have to say West, hard pause, Chester, and and she's a nurse practitioner.

She is a family nurse practitioner.

And one would expect that she is just on the forefront saying, really pushing people to get vaccinated, but she truly is one of the co-sponsors saying, this is a personal choice.

And, and that's, as you were saying earlier, this is a nurse practitioner.

This is someone who people are looking towards, not just as a lawmaker, but someone who's in that medical field.

And she's one of the chief proponents of saying, no, no, no, no, this is your personal choice here.

- June is celebrated as national LGBTQ plus pride month.

Not much pride in Maple Heights though, where the city failed to approve a resolution to name June as Pride Month.

- Ken, you've been following this story.

Your reporting indicated that the public it's spoken to recent meeting was in favor of the designation, and yet, it's just not happening.

- [Ken] I would like about 45 minutes to talk about this story now.

Yeah.

I very quickly it is.

I am, I am low key obsessed with this story.

I have attended the meetings online, and this story had everything.

This story had homophobia.

This story had racism.

This story had a city council woman who repeatedly kept referring to herself in the third person, which was incredible to see.

But yes, the resolution was brought forward to recognize pride month in Maple Heights.

They would say, technically, those who did not approve it, that they weren't voting on pride month.

What they were voting on was to, so normally resolution has to be read in, on the third reading is when they vote on it.

But what they habitually do is on the first reading they will declare it an emergency, just doesn't right.

Suspend the rules.

So this has now come up at the past two meetings by my count, they have suspended the rules over 20 times, a 20 out of 21 times.

And the one time they have chosen not to suspend the rules is to approve pride month.

So there was a public comment at the last meeting.

It's probably the most number of people that have gone to a Maple Heights city council meeting in quite some time, probably ever.

And there were certainly vocal proponents, but the detractors were saying this is not a priority for us.

And there was some problematic language.

There was a lot about people saying we can't spend time on people who choose to be this way.

Not a choice.

But it was, we cannot prioritize a whole month for the LGBTQ community when there is such violent crime here in Maple Heights.

And there are other people trying to say that these two things are not mutually exclusive, we can do both.

But indeed, though they did declare a June to be prostate cancer awareness month.

They did shoot down a pride month.

So, it would next be voted on, unless a special meeting is called, it would next be voted on for June to be pride month at their July meeting.

- [Mike] You're, low-key, obsessed with it.

Let me just ask, why does it matter?

- Yeah.

There are LGBTQ people who, who live in maple Heights.

This is a recognition that is given to so many other state and national holidays in Maple Heights.

And so that some council, some council persons have dug in and said, said, we are not going to give time to this is really denying the lived experience of LGBTQ people in Maple Heights who can clearly see that exceptions are being made constantly and designations are being made constantly.

And certainly, there were some really problematic and homophobic things said at this meeting.

And so to be LGBTQ and be living in Maple Heights, and it was even presented it almost that it's mutually exclusive to be gay and black.

Nope, not mutually exclusive.

That's actually a thing that can happen.

So very difficult to live your full and lived experience as an LGBTQ person in maple Heights right now - [Mike] Andy, more broadly throughout the state there is something called the Ohio Fairness Act, which has been presented.

Where does that stand now?

It has bi-partisan support.

Tell us a little bit about first of all, about the act and where that stands.

- Well, there currently is no, there is no movement to move that bill forward.

It's usually custom around this time, in the State House, for lawmakers to be focusing on the budget.

But you know, they have been focusing on other things too, so they could be focusing on this and they're not.

The Ohio Business Fairness Act would, would add into the anti-discrimination laws, sexual orientation and gender identity, to make those two things protected classes in discrimination laws.

And that goes back to what we talked about earlier, where you know, this language and the budget to create protections for healthcare workers to, to protect their own religious beliefs when it comes to taking care of somebody, because sexual orientation and gender identity are not under Ohio's protected class laws, that leaves LGBTQ plus people vulnerable to possible discrimination.

- [Mike] This is something Senator Nicki Antonio has brought up a number of times, Ken.

Your thoughts on the fact that, that class is not already included in this protection.

- [Ken] Yeah, very difficult.

I, I say quite frequently for for me to name check Vermont again, to drive from Vermont to here and leave those protections behind.

Cause it's, this is in employment, public accommodations and housing, so that I could be kicked out of my house or Baldwin Wallace could fire me, please don't.

I could be kicked out of a restaurant right, for, for being LGBTQ is is a bizarre situation for LGBTQ people to be living under.

And, and as you said, right, it's, it's hard not to see the Fairness Act as this, this Sisyphus boulder that we just keep pushing up.

Something different needs to happen.

It needs to be approached differently.

There are more co-sponsors this year.

But one thing that, that we've been reporting on at the Buckeye Flame, is that, it's, it's being couched almost exclusively in in some circles in Columbus, as business, right?

That, that some of these Republican co-sponsors are very comfortable saying this is good for business.

And then hard stop right there.

And they don't speak to the more general equality pieces.

So there, there really needs to be a change in mindset here, or a change of change in approach.

Because what's currently happening it's not working.

- [Mike] Does it matter to you if they say it's business and pass it, then you at least get the legislation or are you more concerned with the way people are relating to this issue?

- [Ken] Right.

I want the legislation.

So in some ways, if this is the way that it needs to be approached to get it passed, great, but clearly there's still education that needs to be done again.

You cannot watch the Maple Heights meeting and say, oh okay, if the legislation existed everything would be fine, because the mindsets are still so problematic that so many people are holding in the state.

- [Mike] Yeah.

Taylor.

- [Taylor] Yeah.

And Ken touched on this earlier.

There's something to be said about the message that you're sending, when you're saying this is good for the businesses.

About who is the legislation even for, is it for protecting the people who have these lived experiences, or is it for the people who are running the businesses?

And when it's kind of pitched one way or the other you're picking, who's important to you as the lawmaker and that sends a message in itself.

- [Mike] Hmm - [Ken] And, and it allows them to not talk about churches right?

If I'm, if I'm a Republican lawmaker, I can focus in on the corporate aspect, the business aspect, they let's bring people to Ohio aspect, but then I don't have to go home to my home district and face the pastors who turn out in droves for opponent testimony.

- And that's going to wrap up our show.

Monday, on The Sound of Ideas on 90.3 WCPN, we'll bring you the latest community tour conversation from our collaborative reporting project with WKSU Public Radio, Learning Curve.

I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.

(light piano music) - Brought to you by Westfield, offering insurance to protect what's yours.

Grow your business, and achieve your dreams.