- Lawmakers may override the governor's veto of a bill impacting transgender youth.

The new year begins with new leadership in Akron and an Ohio Congressman prepares to take the reins of Youngstown State University Ideas is next.

Welcome to Ideas.

I'm Andrew Meyer in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The Ohio House will reconvene soon in Columbus where lawmakers are expected to attempt an override of the governor's veto in house Bill 68 that Bill bans gender affirming care for transgender youth and prevents transgender athletes from playing on girls and women's sports teams from kindergarten through college Akronist during the year with the new mayor, Shamus Malik, who was sworn in privately.

A much larger public event is happening this weekend and Bill Johnson will be stepping away from Congress and Ohio's sixth district earlier than anticipated to take the reins at Youngstown State University, an appointment that has drawn criticism and protest.

Joining me for the Roundtable, we have from I Idea Stream Public Media, my fellow deputy editor for News, Stephanie Kolinski and Akron Canton Reporter Anna Huntsman and Columbus State House News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

The Ohio House will reconvene this month and lawmakers may take up an override of Governor Monk Dee's veto of House Bill 68.

DeWine vetoed the bill on December 29th after he says he consulted with a variety of stakeholders, including parents of transgender children.

Karen Republicans have firm control of both chambers, so a veto override seems pretty likely, but you know, do they have the votes to pull this off?

- This is the bill that would not only ban gender transition treatment for minors, but also ban trans athletes and girls sports.

And it's the combination of those two bills that have some concerns here because there are groups that support one but not in the other.

Obviously there are groups that support neither of them, but this bill passed with veto proof majority 62 Republican votes in the House, 24 Republican votes in the Senate.

So it seems, and those are numbers that are bigger than what would be needed to override of veto.

So it seems likely, when I spoke to Aaron Bayer, who's the head of the Citizens for Christian Virtue Organization, the influential group that's here on Capital Square, he said he thinks that the votes are there and he doesn't feel like it's a heavy lift because he feels like lawmakers have shown that they wanna see this happen.

So we'll wait to see.

- And so Karen, they're coming back early potentially to do an override, but they do have until the end of the legislative term to do any sort of override on that veto.

There may be the votes there, but when it comes to leadership, is this really a priority?

- Yeah, it is.

I mean, certainly the ban on trans athletes and girls sports was listed as a priority bill for both house speaker Jason Stevens and Senate President Matt Hoffman last year about this time.

And again, this is a bill that combines that as well as this ban on gender transition treatment for minors.

But these are important bills for Republicans because they're big talking points for Republicans as we're in this election year.

And so when I talked to Aaron Bearer for our TV show, the State of Ohio about this, he said the push has been to get this overridden as quickly as possible.

And you know, certainly the backers of this say that they wanna do this because they wanna stop gender transition treatments for minors and, and all this.

But it really does give them an opportunity to use that when they're campaigning.

We've got a primary coming up in March.

This is an issue that's very, very important to Republican candidates and, and it's considered a, an issue they think they can win on.

- Let's back up for just a moment.

Talk about the veto itself at that happened over our holiday break while, while we were on hiatus for Roundtable.

What reasons did DeWine give her vetoing house bill 68 in the first place?

Well, - He was pretty strongly directed about or directive about how he felt that this was a parent's rights issue, that this was the parents need to be able to make this decision having been informed by doctors, parents know their kids best.

He talked to parents of trans kids who said their kids would not be alive, their kids would be dead by suicide if they didn't have this option.

And so he said it was a parent's rights issue as well as a pro-life issue.

He felt that because these parents were saying that their kids would've taken their own lives if they hadn't been able to go through this treatment.

He feels it's a pro-life issue.

Certainly the, the people who have pushed for this all identify as pro-life and they say it's a pro-life issue in a different way.

They've cited some studies that don't appear to have a whole lot of, of backing in terms of peer review that suggest that there are higher levels of suicidal ideation among trans kids.

But the evidence that has been peer review suggests that kids who are, who have, who are trans, trans kids who get this gender reassignment treatment, do have less suicidal thoughts than other kids.

- Several transgender candidates have filed petitions to run for State House seats driven in part by the political climate in Columbus, but in existing law on the books is creating a hurdle.

The law requires candidates to put their current and former names from the past five years on their candidate petitions.

Stephanie, this law has led one candidate, Vanessa Joy is running for the 50th district in Stark County to have the, their petition disqualified.

- That's right.

Joy has sent a letter contesting that as well with the county BOE.

And I think something that's interesting to note about this law is that it includes some exemptions.

So name changes like what after you get married, that's an exemption.

You don't have to list that.

And also, if you're a candidate who's previously complied with the law, you don't have to go through the process of including all those names as well.

So it's, you know, there are exceptions.

It's - A new law but not often invoked.

And as you said, there are exemptions, but how often has it actually been invoked?

- Well, according to the plane dealer, they, their reporter talked to an, an expert who said that he didn't, he couldn't put his finger on any examples of of this being used to disqualify candidates before.

And in Joy's letter they called the, they called the, this a discrimination barrier and said that their disqualification was unjust.

- Now, joy isn't, doesn't have issue with the law per se, but their beef is that there's no mention of this when it comes to the guidelines given to candidates.

- That's right.

Joy said that when she got her candidate guide, it didn't say, you know, that this was a, a necessary requirement.

And she understands that it was designed to keep track of people's names so that they could, you know, avoid putting people on the ballot who had unsavory backgrounds or criminal histories or whatever.

But you know, it wasn't clear.

- The use of former names can be an especially difficult issue for somebody who's transgender.

It has a lot more weight than just putting down your former legal names.

- Yeah, it's sort of interesting.

It's, the change of name in the law is sort of seen as something that is trying to protect people from people who are being dishonest.

Right.

And the, as it's been explained to me by a variety of different people, when a trans person changes their name, it's an attempt at transparency.

They want to become the person that they feel they've always been.

And so you have these two, you know, competing impulses that are sort of existing in the interpretation of this law.

- While many folks in Akron were sleeping or ringing in the new year, just after midnight on Monday, sha Miss Malik took the oath of office at a private swearing in ceremony as the city's new mayor Anna, there is a much larger public swearing in ceremony planned for molik for Saturday.

You'll be there.

I've got my tickets.

What are, what are we looking at tomorrow?

- Oh yeah, that is tomorrow.

Wow.

This is a, this is the first week back from the new year and we were off on Monday, so Wow.

That is tomorrow.

Tomorrow's Saturday.

But yes, this is going to be a, there's two different celebrations.

The first is the formal swearing in which also has performances and different things kind of going on before the actual swearing in, which is at EJ Thomas Hall.

And then later in the day there's a community celebration, which is at House three 30, the LeBron James Family Foundation new space.

And so that's all happening tomorrow.

I will say it did look like a pretty fun celebration in city hall chambers from the pictures that I saw on New Year's Eve.

So that is what's going on.

- Malik's been using this time now to fill out his cabinet and there are new people in the mix as well as some familiar fa faces from the previous administration.

Where are the big takeaways?

Who, who, who are the notables in there that you've seen?

- Well, I think what's been interesting yesterday there was this announcement that Molik has tapped Susie Graham Moore, who has been the longtime CEO of the Downtown Akron partnership.

So she's done a lot with businesses downtown and planning events downtown.

Pretty much she's been at the helm of that.

And so now she's gonna be the director of economic development for the city.

So that was kind of an interesting decision there.

He picked the new law director, it's gonna be Deborah Mats, she's coming from the Summit County executive, the former law director there.

Kind of interesting there.

Gosh, I'm trying to think.

Andrew, what are some of your takeaways too?

- Well, the fire chief, he's keeping the fire Chief Matco who's gonna continue on.

And one person who is probably less on the radar for, I think most of the public, but very much somebody that we deal with on a regular basis is the head of communications.

Oh, right.

Which is Right.

The point person who controls the information and the access to the person.

Yes.

Who's sitting in the big chair in, in Akron, that's the communications director.

Stephanie Marsh will continue on in her position, - Correct?

Yes.

Some other ones sticking around.

Brian Angeloni, he is gonna be deputy law director.

And Sean Vollman, who was the director of integrated development before, I don't think that that's the title anymore.

I think he's just the deputy economic director now.

- So those are some of the people.

What about Malik's priorities?

- Right, so this was a huge thing for his campaign was focusing on public safety.

That continues to be a big priority for him in the new year, particularly with a huge task of selecting a new police chief.

So Akron's former police chief, Steve Millet retired at the end of the year.

Now this search is on and they're, or actually he's looking for community input in this.

So there's actually a community conversation next week where he wants people to come out and talk about what they would like to see in the city's new police chief.

Obviously it was a rocky tenure for millet, not necessarily of his own doing, but because of some things going on in the city, the fatal police shooting of Jalen Walker and subsequent protests and then the police response to the protest.

There was a lot of controversy there.

So millet was only there for I think, two or three years.

So, you know, there's a lot of conversations in Akron about what they wanna see with police and police oversight and safety.

I mean, just the overall, the safety, the crime and violence numbers and whatnot.

So should be interesting to watch there.

- We hear the expression a lot about a new person in a position of leadership, an expression of them having a honeymoon period.

Does Shamas Malik as mayor get that same sort of honeymoon period considering the fact that we've pretty much known since May of last year right.

That he was gonna be the next mayor.

And for those who haven't been following the backstory on this, he won the Democratic primary, there was no Republican challenger Yes.

In the general election.

So he's been presumptive mayor in waiting for eight months.

- Correct.

And he's been having these conversa, he's, he had conversations with the previous mayor, Dan Horrigan.

He's been having conversations about who would stay on with his cabinet, who wasn't staying on for a long time, as you mentioned.

So while it may be for some other mares, new mayors in, in the area that this time is their time to get to know the place and lay the groundwork, Malik's been probably doing that to the most of his ability previously.

So, you know, it's up to, for debate whether we can say he has a, a honeymoon phase.

I'm not sure I've ever said that about a mare before, but you know, that's up for debate.

However, yeah, I think he's had a lot more time to prepare.

- So one of the other priorities we haven't touched on yet, but is going to be very important for Mayor Malik, and he was a big part of, as a previously as a council member, is the Citizens Police Oversight Board.

He was one of the key authors of drawing up the legislation that was put to voters to approve as part of the change to the city's charter for 2024.

What does the Citizens Police Oversight Board mean now that Molik is mayor?

How does that change the dynamic there?

- Well, this is something I talked about with the chair of the board, Kemp Boyd going into the New year and the, the board just recently had a kind of a setback because they drafted their rules.

They wanted to have in full investigatory power over the police.

They have to put those rules before City Council.

City Council did not approve them.

- Gave 'em a big thumbs down, - Big thumbs down.

Correct.

And - So, and they cited the contract they have with the fraternal order Yes.

Police the fact that, you know, we can give you those powers, but it's gonna violate the contract that we have.

Yes, - Correct.

So, however, with what Chair Chairman Boyd was saying is that Molik was so closely involved with writing this and has from the beginning been a supporter of issue 10, which then became the review board.

And has also continued to say that there is a line in there that Molik probably himself wrote, which is, we will comply with any state federal city laws.

This has to comply with the contract.

So they want the board to do, it's what it's supposed to do while still complying.

So Molik is a big proponent of that.

When the rules came before council and Molik was still on city council, he said, why don't we take a minute and get the law department's, you know, feedback before moving on.

So that's kind of where he's been.

So I think that the board is maybe feeling a little bit more optimistic.

However, you know, there's also a new council, so we don't know what they're gonna do.

- And now, of course, with the board in 20 24, 1 of the things that has been a question about when will it happen for the board is when will they get the Jalen Walker investigation?

The police department has concluded its own investigation.

So now in 2024, we're gonna be looking to see what the CPOB comes up with when it looks - Into it.

Yeah.

And they are already kind of starting that process.

They want the all nine board members, they wanna be involved, but the main person who will be looking at this is the police auditor, which has not quite been determined yet.

So they, this could take some time.

They're gonna be looking at everything.

They're gonna go even back to the BCI investigation, all that evidence.

So that's something that's gonna be happening this year.

- Bill Johnson submitted his resignation letter to Congress this week.

He'll take over the presidency of Youngstown State University on January 22nd.

Johnson has served six terms in Congress representing Ohio Sixth District.

His district includes portions of eastern and southeastern Ohio, including Mahoney County, where Youngstown State is located.

Stephanie Johnson start date for Youngstown State is sooner than originally expected.

- Yeah.

Our education reporter, Connor Morris, reported this week that it's about two months earlier than what was originally expected.

And that's coming from a letter that came out of the, that Johnson submitted to, to resign and then is coming to us through the, the university trustees, - Karen, the governor, has announced that he's saying a special election to Phil Johnson's seat.

The actual special election will be June 11th.

There's a primary on March 19th.

There's not a lot of time to get campaigns going, is there?

- Yeah.

And it's one of those situations where the Republican candidate to who wins the primary is probably going to win the seat because of the way that the district is drawn.

But that announcement was just made this week.

So yeah, it's, it's a short timeline.

I think we have 72 days until the primary, so not a lot of time.

- So whoever gets elected on June 19th or rather June 11th, there's not a whole lot of time before they have to turn around and basically start campaigning for the seat for 2024.

- Yeah, when I said 72 days, I was thinking to the March primary.

So yeah, there is not a lot of time.

And that's typically what happens in a lot of these special elections.

You'll see this big group and it weeds, you know, the election basically weeds out who the candidate is, but for a while there, it, it's a, it's a bit of a, a rumble among the candidates who all want a chance at that seat.

- Anna, the hiring of Bill Johnson didn't go over all that well with faculty, students and donors, but trustees are standing by their choice.

- Yes.

They continue to stand by the choice.

I know in, in the official press release that was kind of announcing that Johnson would be coming to campus sooner than expected.

They say that he's gonna be coming to meet with students and staff in the coming weeks and things like that.

But yeah, this was a really interesting and controversial choice.

Also, the selection process was controversial because they didn't release publicly any names while they were doing the process, which they say was to protect the candidates and, you know, in case their current employer found out that they were going through the process.

But, you know, aside from just Johnson's, you know, politics and, and being a congressman and, and all that, I know that I was reading some alumni who were saying, you know, just questioning does he have the experience to run a university?

So this has been something we've been talking about.

So I I think seeing the resignation letter come through so early was also interesting.

- So Johnson, who's a supporter of former president Donald Trump, says he'll leave politics at the door.

Yet his resignation letter seemed to echo some political rhetoric we hear about academia.

- Yeah, exactly.

So from this, this part of his letter, he is talking about the hardworking men and women of the sixth District and saying they're often disregarded by America's elites, be they political media, corporate and or academic.

So interesting that he's calling out, paraphrasing here, academic elites, you know, someone who's about to go into academia.

So it'll just be interesting to watch, you know, what, how his role is a as the president.

- And I'd like to add one other thing here.

He follows, I believe Jim Tressel, right?

Correct.

Who was the, yeah.

Who was the president at Youngstown State who was a, a pretty conservative person in terms of his politics, I believe, but universally popular, I mean, with what he did at Ohio State in terms of the Ohio State Buckets football team.

So it's, it's an interesting transition here to go from somebody who had been so well known and mostly liked to go to somebody who has had such a controversial beginning, even before he takes office.

- A coalition of voting and civil rights groups is in the beginning stages of a campaign to put a state constitutional amendment before voters in November.

The amendment proposal seeks to greatly expand voting access in the state, while at the same time rolling back several voting changes put into place by Republicans.

The proposal has a lot in it, including automatically registering Ohioan to vote and allowing for same day registration and voting.

- Yeah, same day registration and voting in Ohio was allowed under what was called the golden week.

That was outlawed in 2014.

The US Supreme Court upheld that ban on the golden week in 2016.

And so that's one thing that's in here.

Automatic voter registration in Ohio would be like when you go to the BMV, then you could opt out of having your, of, of being registered to vote.

That would be the way that that would work.

And it's interesting because that would be the proposal here.

Secretary of State, Frank LaRose had supported that idea in 2019, but now opposes it.

He put out a statement after the amendment came out, which he called a radical effort to undermine election integrity, other things that are in this proposed amendment, multiple locations for ballot drop boxes.

And as you mentioned, photo ID for voters.

Both of those were banned in a bill that passed last year, took effect in April.

And also this proposal would allow counties to expand early voting hours and offer multiple locations for early in-person voting.

'cause right now they can only offer one, - So the campaigns in the early stages.

But Attorney General Dave Yos is already saying Uhuh, he's rejecting the petition summary.

What's up there?

- That's not unusual.

I mean, when you talk about the redistricting amendment, that's now they're gathering signatures to put that on the 2024 ballot that was rejected twice.

And then the group citizens, not politicians found a typo.

And so they had to go back and fix it.

So it's, it's not at all unusual for the first time, a petition to be rejected.

So we'll just have to watch and see if they come back with something that passes.

- And of course, if it does make the ballot, it would not be the only election related amendment for voters to possibly consider.

There's also the anti gerrymandering amendment at citizens, not politicians.

It's also aiming for November.

Is there concern over these compe competing amendments being on the same ballot?

- I don't think that there's any concern here, but I know that there are of course, people who are gonna talk about how, since we didn't change the requirement that 60% of voters have to approve constitutional amendments, that there are gonna be this flood of constitutional amendments coming toward the ballot and it's gonna be all this progressive stuff.

But in reality, there's no more amendments being talked about this year than there are in other years.

I mean, in 2015 there were three constitutional amendments on the ballot, including legalized marijuana and redistricting.

In 2015, there were five or 20 2005 rather.

There were five issues on the ballot.

And that included an independent redistricting commission, early absentee voting campaign, finance reform, and a board to administer elections instead of the Secretary of State.

All of those were rejected.

But that goes way back.

So this is not all that unusual.

- The start of the new year brings new laws in Ohio later this month, a law that requires social media companies to get parental permission for users age 16 and younger goes into effect.

Lawmakers passed the Social Media Parental Notification Act as part of the budget.

Karen, Lieutenant coverage, John Husted has pushed for this law and he's a big proponent of it.

- Yeah.

And we've heard a lot about the effect that social media can have on teenagers, especially girls, but not only girls.

And so the thought is to try to come up with a way to ensure that people who are, kids who are under 14 or 16 or whatever the number you wanna put there, would have parental permission so that parents know their kids are on social media.

As Houston often puts it, you wouldn't invite a stranger to come in and talk to your teenage child in their bedroom.

And yet when they're on social media, that's kind of what they're doing.

But the question of course, is the implementation.

How are these outlets, TikTok and Snapchat and Instagram, how are they going to get that parental permission and, and where's all that data gonna go?

I mean, how, how are parents gonna prove that yes, this is my child and I do give my child permission to use social media and that data then is stored somewhere, what happens to that data?

So I think the, the implementation of this is gonna be interesting to watch.

- Karen, are there any exemptions in the new law?

- I, I am not certain off the top of my head, but I I think the whole point of this is, again, to try to give parents a little bit more information.

Now of course, these social media companies say, Hey, they have done what they think is important to try to keep predators away from kids and try to keep certain situations away from younger children.

They, there's a requirement that they do, there's an age limit and this sort of thing, but of course it's not enough for some people who wanna see a little bit more here.

So this is a struggle, I think, among the social media companies and with lawmakers, not just in Ohio, but in other states who really want there to be a little bit more of a crackdown.

- If you are feeling a shade of blue to start the new year, you're right on trend.

Sherwin Williams, based in Cleveland, has declared upward as the color of 2024.

So the company which is headquartered in Cleveland describes the shade as a breezy, blissful blue, and as denim blue with calm gray undertones.

Anyone gonna, gonna, going to add a little upward to your home?

I hope - That that is the color of 2024.

- Yeah, that sounds like a nice color.

They were really looking to the sky with that one.

Yep.

- Maybe I'm ready.

A repaint on the bureau in Columbus, Karen?

Mm.

- Yeah.

Outside.

Let's, let's paint the white statehouse something else.

It's been white for a long time.

What?

200 years?

You know, 150 years, whatever.

It's time for a refresh - Monday on the Sound of Ideas.

On 89 7 WKSU.

Jenny Hamill hosts a conversation reconnecting with Idea Stream's, poetic Reentry series showcasing formerly incarcerated men who are using poetry as part of their transition to the outside world.

I'm Andrew Meyer in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.