- [Mike] Larry Householder, the once powerful Speaker of the Ohio House became the first lawmaker expelled from the legislature since before the Civil War.

Colleagues dismissed him earlier this week, nearly a year after his indictment on Federal corruption charges.

Eight candidates are buying for Cleveland's top job as the field in the Cleveland mayoral race is set.

There are some newcomers and some very familiar names.

And there's been a shakeup on the monitoring team overseeing police reform in Cleveland, compelled by a Federal consent decree.

Ideas is next.

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

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks for joining us.

This week, lawmakers in a bipartisan vote remove state representative Larry Householder, the once powerful House Speaker who is at the center of a Federal bribery probe.

Householder fought to keep his seat telling colleagues he's innocent of Federal charges and was hired by voters, not lawmakers.

Eight people are vying to be Cleveland's next mayor each looking to put their stamp on the direction of the city.

There's a mix of familiar and new names.

Lawmakers are hammering out a compromised state budget and some of the items slipped into the Senate version are drawing attention.

One would keep tabs on the assets of low income people seeking food assistance.

Another would prevent cities from creating their own broadband networks.

Something critics say could hurt efforts to attract and keep businesses.

And the Federal government adds its first Federal holiday in nearly 40 years, the Juneteenth National Independence Day which commemorates the end of slavery.

Joining me to talk about these stories and more, Ideas stream public media reporter, Nick Castele and multiple media journalists, Gabriel Kramer, and from Columbus, Ohio public radio StateHouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

By the way, before that 75 to 21 vote, Karen, there was a vote needed in order to suspend the rules and basically have this discussion.

66 votes were needed for that, exactly 66 votes came in for that.

It was close.

- Yeah, it was close.

And it's been like you said, 11 months since Larry Householder was arrested in what is considered to be the largest public corruption case in Ohio history, $61 million bribery scheme that Federal prosecutors say Larry Householder was a major part of along with four other defendants in a utility widely believed to be FirstEnergy.

And he was immediately removed from his leadership position at that point.

And Larry Householder, I can't think of a more towering and historic figure in Ohio politics in the last 20 years than Larry Householder, not necessarily for the reasons that you'd wanna be those things.

I mean, he was the first person to serve as Speaker two separate times, the first person in 60 years to do that.

He became the fourth Speaker that Ohio had in three years.

The year that he was elected Speaker, 2019, he was the third Speaker in that one year period.

And now is the first member of the Ohio House of Representatives to be removed since 1857.

It's it's really just, it's extraordinary.

- The Speaker that he replaced also faced Federal charges there.

When you look nationally at what people are talking about in Ohio, it seems like we're getting a pretty big corruption reputation.

- Well, yeah.

And there've been articles written about that.

Householder actually replaced Ryan Smith, who left after a...

When Cliff Rosenberger, the Speaker that you're referring to, who was under FBI investigation for payday lending allegations involved in that, no charges were ever filed, just like no charges were ever filed against Larry Householder back in the early 2000s when he was Speaker under investigation for campaign contributions.

So there's been a lot of FBI attention on leadership and politicians in Ohio.

But that battle that Larry Householder had with Ryan Smith to become Speaker in 2019 was really interesting because Larry Householder became Speaker by building a coalition of Republicans and Democrats, he had an even split of both to become Speaker.

Well then obviously after the Federal charges were filed, Democrats came out in force saying Larry Householder needs to go.

And they had proposed some resolutions to try to get rid of him.

And this process took what I think a lot of people think was a pretty long time to happen.

I mean, he was removed from his speakership, ran for reelection last fall and won, because he ran and unopposed, he was in a Republican district and ran unopposed.

And then the process to expel him started.

And for a long time, it seemed like nothing was happening.

I mean, when reporters would talk to his successor Speaker, Bob Cupp about what's happening with Larry Householder, we were told that there's nothing to report, nothing new going on.

- Nick, what about the argument, innocent until proven guilty?

Because that's what came up a lot in the debate for those who said that Householder should keep his seat, he's simply been charged, he hasn't been convicted of anything, but, and then they said, essentially, this is a slippery slope.

So where does that come into play?

And think about other instances where people have been removed?

- Well, innocent until proven guilty, that's the standard for in a court of law and you're convicted of course, by the overwhelming evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that you're guilty.

But again, that's all the rule for the courtroom.

Outside of that, there are different rules.

The House can choose to expel someone, as Karen said, for what they consider to be disorderly conduct, which they defined, in this case, as Federal charges.

It's a little like impeachment, what's a high crime and misdemeanor?

Well, it's what Congress decides it is.

I mean, that's sort of how this process works.

It's just a different standard than you would have in a courtroom, in a criminal proceeding.

- And the disorderly conduct thing is interesting, Gabe, because when you think of disorderly conduct, in fact this is what the legislature did.

They said, let's go to the law books and say, what is disorderly conduct?

And it's the kind of stuff that you might imagine happens at a bar when someone gets arrested for being disorderly.

This wasn't that.

He wasn't out pushing people around or doing anything physically, so they said, "Okay, well, how can you call it disorderly conduct?"

That they're just a semantics thing?

- Yeah, I mean, it's not 1857 anymore, right?

So it doesn't take a punch necessarily to get expelled, but it's almost like it's a social thing.

It's almost like, well, we're tired of dealing with this, we're tired of this being a blip on the House, we're tired of having to hear about this time and time again.

So perhaps, just the rest of the House said, we're tired of this, we wanna expel this, because yes, it's true that he hasn't been proven of anything yet.

He's been denying everything.

Certainly I think we can accept that there was corruption going on.

The other people involved in the case pleaded guilty.

So something was happening, whether or not he was involved, time will tell, which is exactly what he said.

But there were some allies of his who want him to remain in office while the case is still being prosecuted, and that does make sense.

But enough people said, "We're tired of having to deal with this.

And that means he's gotta go."

- He's basically told them to, "I'll be back."

Or, "I might be back.

If I beat these charges, I can run again."

- And he's already kind of working his campaign.

I've actually gotten some texts from him in the last couple of days.

He definitely is not going to stay quiet if he can avoid it.

And the question then becomes, will anybody be listening?

Because obviously he still is awaiting trial on the Federal charges.

And that was one thing that I thought was really interesting in his sudden press conference outside the Chamber after he was escorted out, reporters were surrounding him.

And he was saying that he has all these plans, he's gonna travel the state, talk to voters, keeping open the door for a possibility of running for Office again.

He still has that Federal trial ahead of him.

And so that's something that I think he probably needs to carve out some time for.

(dramatic music) - With Frank Jackson leaving after 16 years as Cleveland mayor, the field of candidates to replace him is now set.

Eight candidates filed petitions with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections this week.

They are former mayor U.S. representative, presidential and gubernatorial candidate, Dennis Kucinich.

Cleveland city council president, Kevin Kelly, state Senator, Sandra Williams, former Cleveland Councilman, Zack Reed, current Cleveland Councilman, Basheer Jones, nonprofit executive, Justin Bibb, attorney Ross DiBello and Cuyahoga County sheriff's deputy, Landry Simmons Jr.

So some of them you might've heard of, some of them maybe not.

I know you've heard of all of them, right Nick?

- I have heard of all of them at this point.

Yeah, there were other people who had expressed an interest in running who had pulled petitions and were even participating in some of these early mayoral issue forums that some community groups have put on, but they either decided not to follow through, well, they decided not to follow through, because they didn't file their petition.

So we ended up with this field of eight.

And like you said, it's an interesting mix.

You've got people like Kevin Kelly, Sandra Williams, Zack Reed who have long political histories, who have a history of running for Office and being on the ballot.

Basheer Jones is a first term city Councilman, this is his first elected office.

He beat TJ Dow in 2017 in ward seven, by just a small sliver of votes, I think it was like 13 or 14 votes.

Now he's running for mayor.

And then you have folks who have not run for office before, Justin Bibb, who does seem to have a pretty big social media following.

And I think a good number of fans in places like downtown in the near west side.

And you've got Ross DiBello, Landry Simmons, also people I think who have not run for elected office before.

Although Simmons is a precinct committee member in the County Republican party.

So that is sort of a minor political office that he's held.

- They are not, it's not a partisan race, right?

It's not a Republican against a Democrat, which why I didn't mention, but there's one Republican in that field.

It doesn't essentially matter at the poll itself.

- Right, exactly.

This is, if you look at the list of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections it'll say nonpartisan next to their name.

Although we all know that most of them are Democrats.

But it's because it's a non-partisan race, everybody runs together in the same field in the September 14th primary.

And the top two vote getters will go on to the general.

So you do not have separate democratic and Republican primaries, everybody's in the mix together.

- I was interested to see the Dennis Kucinich was late.

I mean, literally the day before the filing deadline had his press conference, he was down in Treemont and delivering his speech.

Which was really just on safety.

I don't think he even said, "I'm running for mayor."

It just, there were signs that said, Vote for Dennis.

And he said he gave his whole spiel on safety.

Interesting approach.

- Well, yeah we were waiting for that, because there had been some speculation before about, is he running, is he not running?

He was not on the list of candidates, which meant he had, I think it's called a pulling blind, which means you pull your petitions, but you don't say who you are.

So it could have possibly gone either way.

We were waiting for that big, "I am running for mayor" statement.

He didn't really make that, he went right into his campaign pitch, which, like you said, focused a lot on crime and safety.

Kucinich says that he's gonna be rolling out other parts of his platform as the campaign goes on.

But he has concluded that crime is the number one issue on voters' minds.

And he's not the only one who said that.

Kevin Kelly has said the same thing Zach Reed of course campaigned on that in 2017.

And I think he's gonna do it again.

Sandra Williams essentially thinks crime and public safety are up there too.

We saw a big increase in homicides last year and in felonious assaults.

And this was a phenomenon not just limited to Cleveland, cities all over the country saw this increase in violent crime during the pandemic.

And so, it seems like this is something that the candidates believe is a big issue on the minds of people who vote this year.

- You said that it was on the minds of voters, but we don't have that many voters when it comes to mayoral elections in Cleveland.

In fact, that's a story you're working on, Gabe, for a podcast that we're putting together that Nick is helming, called After Jackson.

And we're gonna be starting that sometime in July and we'll carry it through the election.

But there aren't that many voters.

So when we say that's what the voters are concerned about, is it really that's what maybe the community is concerned about, but will it actually bring people out to the polls?

So what does the thought, Gabe, early in your reporting of the idea that we don't have an incumbent, there are eight people that are running, some very familiar names, some breaths of fresh air that people consider it to be that we might see a bigger turnout, and even a bigger turnout among younger voters.

- Breath of fresh air is a good way to put it, because I think there is kind of this excitement that something could be different.

And almost seemed like with Frank Jackson running time and time and time again, it was almost as if it was just almost inevitable that he was gonna continue to be there until he decided on his own he wasn't gonna be there anymore.

About 60,000 people voted in the 2017 mayoral election.

That's less than 30% of the voting population.

And if you compare that to, let's say 2005, about 99,000 people voted, 2009, 79,000 people voted, 2013, 6,000 people, again so, that number is shrinking every four years.

People pass away, people move, our population has shrunk in the city over the last two decades, certainly.

But that part that, we're still talking about less than 30% of population voting and showing up.

- When you say the population, you mean registered voters?

- Yeah, registered voters.

- So it's not even the voting age population, it's just those who have already registered.

So there's a whole lot of other population out there where people haven't even registered.

- Absolutely.

And we're talking about perhaps a small population of people could show up that didn't show up in 2017 or 2013, that could very seriously change the outcome of this election.

If that less than 30% is more than 30%, you could really see a new way of people looking at things heading into the election.

(dramatic music) - There was a shakeup this week on the monitoring team overseeing compliance with the consent decree signed between Cleveland and the Justice Department.

The decree compels reforms of the Cleveland Division of Police.

Case Western Reserve law professor Ayesha Bell Hardaway, says she was forced out of her role as deputy monitor.

Nick, let's take a look at this whole thing.

She appears on the Sound of Ideas, she's asked her opinions about policing and the minority community nationwide in the wake of the Chauvin verdict.

She gives informed opinion and discussion and fact giving about a nationwide issue.

And then it seemed to then be disqualified from doing her job locally.

What is the issue?

- Well like you laid out, it sounds, at least according to Hardaway that city officials did not like what she had to say and they put some pressure on the Monitor to remove her or at least to sort of sideline her, and evidently create a situation that she saw was untenable and decided to leave.

I think we saw a lot of reaction after we came out with this story after Matt Richmond, our criminal justice reporter, came out with this story.

There are a lot of people on social media who are outraged about it.

Even the Acting U.S. Attorney, Bridget Brennan, I was looking up the statement here.

She came out with a statement saying, "The importance of diversity of thought and experiences to the police reform process cannot be overstated."

She called Hardaway, "an integral part of this dialogue" and said she was disappointed to learn that she had resigned.

And so, it sounds like even the U.S. Attorney's saying, "Hey, it's okay to have a diversity of thought.

It's okay to have a difference of opinions on this monitoring team."

And I think that there's certainly a question to ask, don't you want people on the monitoring team who have a different way of looking at things who can think critically about policing and maybe who even have opinions that are difficult for the city to accept, because you want someone to be monitoring, to be a a check and balance in the completion of this consent decree.

I mean, that's certainly a question and it would be interesting to hear the city respond to that question but I don't believe they responded to our requests after this story came out.

- This consent decree process has dragged on for years.

It's past what would have originally been a deadline to sort of wrap it up.

Yet, there are some that are calling for it to end, to just say, "We're done with the consent decree."

Now, where does it stand and what work needs to be done still?

- Well, those, some people calling for it to end is the union for rank-and-file police officers, the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association.

They held a news conference pretty recently saying that they were basically done with the consent decree, they wanted it to be finished up.

Jeff Fullmer, the president was there as well as some other union officials, I think.

It is still going.

There's a general sense that the decree will, at least sort of the court mandated part of it, will be coming to its conclusion in the near future, maybe next year.

And at that point, then the city will be effectively on its own to make sure that those reforms stick and that they are followed by officers.

The city has written, rewritten many of its policies.

They're trying to focus on this community-based policing mindset, having officers trying to be members of the community, and not just people who are responding call, to call, to call.

And the real task will be whether these changes stick once there's no longer a Federal judge overseeing everything.

(dramatic music) - Lawmakers have about two weeks to hammer out a compromise budget after the House and Senate passed their own versions.

We're finding a lot of items in the budget proposals, some offered in the form of amendments that normally it would be independent bills that would get public scrutiny and debate.

Instead they're just quietly folded into the huge two-year budget bill.

One amendment in the Senate's bill would require an asset test for those who get supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits, commonly referred to as food stamps.

The test would evaluate a recipient's net worth to determine whether they're eligible for help, among the assets, a vehicle worth more than $4,650.

Karen, there has been, I've seen, a lot of criticism over this, which is, someone wants to climb out of poverty, have a job, needs to get to it, has a car that's their really their only asset, and yet it disqualifies them from benefits?

- I got to tell you that the things that the Senate added to the budget are some of the most interesting and potentially divisive things I've seen in a long time.

And this is one of them.

This is a bill that has been out there for a while.

Senator, Tim Schaffer of Lancaster Republican had put this out there before.

And like you said, this has been folded into the budget, partly because things are folded into the budget because the budget has to pass.

And so things are often put in there that are policy issues or statements that would make it a priority for these things, because this is a bill that must move on.

Though, governor Mike DeWine does have the ability to line item vetoes out certain things.

And so, this one is really for a lot of advocates, for people who are low-income and in poverty, they say that this is devastating.

Because people who are in this position are not as Tim Shaffer said in a story by my colleague, Andy Chow, "Using this money, using their money to build up their savings accounts and investment portfolios.

These are people who really need money to eat and they need reliable transportation to get to work."

When you consider how many people don't live in an area where there's public transit or widely available public transit, those people need vehicles to get to work.

And a lot of those places, where there isn't public transit, are also some of the poorest parts of Ohio.

And so, they're very concerned about what's happening in this bill and some of the other efforts that have come along to try to attack what Republicans say is waste fraud and abuse in the public assistance programs.

But the advocates will say, this is not an example of waste, fraud or abuse, these are people who need benefits and to make them jump through these hoops and have this other means testing going on that even adds their car in as an asset is really, it's unfair.

- The Senate budget proposal also contains a measure that seeks to ban municipal broadband programs which could not operate if a private sector company serves the area.

That opponents say is almost always the case.

Why is that in there?

- Well, what's interesting too, is governor Mike DeWine in his initial budget had put $250 million into the budget for broadband programs.

The House reduced that to $190 million.

The Senate eliminated that money entirely.

Now, when I asked Senate president Matt Huffman about this earlier this week, he said there's going to be significant dollars, as he put it, in the final version of the budget for broadband.

But he said that that hasn't been worked out yet.

So that's something that the conference committee that's working on the two versions of the budget will work on.

But he says that he wants this money, the broadband money, to be prioritized to rural areas and underserved urban areas.

And he said that municipalities could potentially take this money, and as he put it, the entrepreneurs and kind of sell it off to other providers.

And so he wants these programs to be focused on areas where it's hard to get broadband, but he, I think the potential impact of this is huge especially on communities that are already running broadband programs and have been for some time.

- And Nick, how does that affect some local communities?

Fairlawn is one that wants to have faster internet, so for their businesses in order to attract businesses, so they say, "Okay, we're gonna step in and get something done."

But that provides competition then for some of these big tech companies that are providing broadband.

- Well, yeah, I mean, Fairlawn is one example of a community that has municipal broadband and they seem to be very proud of it.

And I know the mayor of Fairlawn has been in the media this week warning about the possible consequences of this provision in the budget.

It's not just cities though.

You have a Republican lieutenant governor John Husted who's been very vocal this week in opposing this measure saying, he's defending the idea of having municipal broadband and certainly makes you think whether that view is shared by his running mate on the ticket, who's got the power of the line item veto.

And whether Mike DeWine would exercise that when the final version of the budget gets to him.

But Husted has certainly been trying to get out there and opposing this provision.

(dramatic music) - President Joe Biden signed a bill this week establishing June 19th as Juneteenth National Independence Day.

The Juneteenth holiday commemorates June 19th, 1865 when Union troops reached Galveston, Texas announcing previously enslaved people were free.

Gabe, awareness of Juneteenth really shot up in the last year.

I can tell you that many, many people I know had no idea it was.

- So Juneteenth has been around a long time.

Black communities have been celebrating Juneteenth for awhile, but I definitely think after the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, allyship grew and not just allyship but intentional allyship of wanting to be there and being supportive.

So I definitely think in the last year, people were made more aware of this, and now want to celebrate it and be a part of it.

- We know that the state workers are often in Ohio that follows the Federal, what about County workers, or city workers?

- Yeah, the Cuyahoga County had already passed Cuyahoga County Council passed a measure to give County workers a day off.

And even my wife who works in the private sector got a call this morning from her employer saying, "Hey, guess what?

You have the day off today for Juneteenth."

- Where's my call?

(Nick laughs) - That's a good point.

Let's bring that one up.

Karen, and where's your call?

You're there where everyone else is off, right?

- Yeah, that's right.

There is still mail postal delivery today, today and tomorrow.

But I think it comes at a really interesting time, Gabe's right, that there's been a lot more attention and allyship, but also you've got a lot of pushback in states.

20 states, including Ohio where there are bills that would ban the teaching of critical race theory.

And this is one of those things that might fall into critical race theory, is teaching about Juneteenth and how it was two years after the end of the Civil War that these folks in Texas found out that they were free.

I mean that's one of those elements that's just really kind of extraordinary when you think about how long it took for those people to find out that they actually were free.

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

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 90.3 WCPN, we'll bring you the most recent conversation in a year-long series convened by the United Way of Greater Cleveland, and the Cleveland NAACP on the consent decree.

This discussion focuses on families and communities building resilience and it's moderated by Ideastream Public Media's Rick Jackson.

The discussion features families touched by violence, including the mothers of Angelo Miller and Tamir Rice.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks so much for watching.

And stay safe.

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