(smooth music) - The Ohio Debate Commission has scheduled debates in the major statewide races, but only half of the candidates have signed on, Akron now has two competing plans for establishing a civilian police review board, and Cleveland changes police hiring policies because officials can't discipline an officer who made antisemitic social media posts before he joined the force.

Ideas is next.

(tense music) Hello, and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

We're entering into the prime time of the political season now that the Labor Day holiday is here, that means ads and robocalls, yard signs, and usually debates.

But only the Democrats have accepted invitations from the Ohio Debate Commission.

Cleveland City Council President, Blaine Griffin, a Democrat, says he's livid about being listed as a host of an East Cleveland fundraiser for Republican governor, Mike DeWine.

He won't attend the fundraiser, he says, and he has publicly endorsed Nan Whaley.

Community groups turned in petitions to force a vote to amend Akron's charter to include a civilian police review board.

Just after the petitions were delivered, Akron's mayor revealed a competing plan.

And Cleveland's mayor and police chief announced policy changes after the city is told it can't discipline an officer for antisemitic social media posts.

They were made before he was hired by the city.

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

Joining me this week from Ideastream Public Media, deputy editor for news, Andrew Meyer, from The Buckeye Flame, editor, Ken Schneck, and Statehouse News Bureau chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

The Ohio Debate Commission has lined up debates for the governor and senate races in Ohio, and a forum for the race for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.

Problem is, so far, only Democrats have confirmed they'll participate.

Republicans have not said no, but none have committed, and some of them have made comments that sound like they don't have any interest in a debate.

Is this an indication that debates are on the wane, that some believe they just aren't needed?

And is it a debate if only one candidate shows up?

Karen, it looks like there will be a couple of debates in the senate race, if not the one sanctioned by the Debate Commission and streamed editorial board interviews with some newspapers for the candidates.

But in the governor's race, could we be seeing a John Kasich in 2014 situation all over again?

- I think there's a distinct possibility of that.

I think that DeWine has made the calculus that he doesn't need to be there.

I mean, he has outraised Nan Whaley, his democratic opponent, significantly.

He has four decades of name recognition for being in public office.

I mean, everything from the U.S. Senate to governor to Congress.

Polls are showing that he has a double digit lead on her.

And so, I think that he's making the decision to not go ahead and debate.

There was some reference on social media yesterday to that campaign in 2014, where Kasich had said he would not debate Ed FitzGerald basically because FitzGerald wasn't a legitimate candidate that, kind of, deserved to have a debate with him.

And that there were suggestions that Whaley is moving into that territory.

I don't think that's fair.

Whaley is running a campaign that has her out, she's on TV, she's doing things that Ed FitzGerald never did.

She's raising money in a way that he really didn't.

But DeWine also says, hey, he's accessible to the media, he does events, he goes out and speaks to people at fairs and all sorts of things like that, but that's not a debate.

And I think that that's what's really important here that the only debate is when you get the candidates on stage together in front of a panel of journalists and you widely distribute it to voters who can see it and make their decisions on who they wanna support.

- So what are the issues preventing the debate then?

Why, why... Is it just this political calculus?

Are there other things in terms of the format of the debate?

You mentioned a panel of journalists.

Maybe candidates would not want journalists, and they want citizens to ask questions or those types of things.

And as a matter of fact, the Ohio Debate Commission is in negotiations to say what should these things be.

But what are the hang-ups?

Is it just a political calculus, Karen?

- I'm not sure.

I mean, for instance, the seven candidates for U.S. Supreme Court, Republicans, who are running in May, they all agreed to an Ohio Debate Commission debate in Central State University.

I was the moderator for that debate.

And it was a really great opportunity for people to submit questions through a portal that was set up so I could ask those questions of the candidates, and there was a bit of satisfaction, I think, for people who were submitting questions and getting something of answers, though I had to fact-check a lot of those answers.

You know, I think that there's a question too about what the reach of debates is.

Do people even watch debates anymore?

It's interesting when DeWine says, "Hey, I'm gonna do all these editorial board meetings with Nan Whaley."

Well, editorial board meetings and debates are entirely different.

I mean, debates have candidates and journalists who work on questions to craft them carefully.

They represent large groups of people.

Ideally, a statewide debate, like the Ohio Debate Commission is planning, would reach potentially concerns of all Ohioans.

They're well-produced, they look nice, they're nice to watch, they're widely distributed.

Whereas an editorial board meeting features only those journalists from that particular outlet, and is usually like a single camera shot in a windowless white room and is watched by tens of people, you know?

(Mike laughs) These are totally different things.

- Andrew, in the Senate race, we hear J.D.

Vance, the Republican candidate, saying yes, he wants to have debates.

There are a couple that are set up through some TV stations throughout the state, hasn't agreed yet to this one at the Ohio Debate Commission.

That's likely because that's a tight race.

- It's a tight race, number one, but number two, it allows him and his campaign to better control the format and the messaging that goes out.

One of the reasons for the establishment of the Ohio Debate Commission a few years ago was to really try and take back this idea of debates being unwatchable and really unconnected with the audiences, but to actually serve as forums where voters can get the information they need to make informed choices about the candidates.

Now, we have a couple of media organizations in Ohio who, at least according to the Ohio Debate Commission website, are not part of the Ohio Debate Commission and they're freelancing this, but the Ohio Debate Commission was set up to get all of us on board as a unified front representing the people.

- Right.

Ken, when we talk about the U.S. Senate race, we have Tim Ryan and J.D.

Vance.

As I said, there are going to be some debates in that, and perhaps more.

It seems like in any race, but particularly in that race, as they're trying to replace an incumbent, neither one of them is in that position, public really would benefit from seeing the two of them spar a little bit.

- Right.

I mean, this is a position that neither of them has been in, and people certainly knew a lot of Senator Portman, outgoing Senator Portman's stances.

And so, this would be an incredible opportunity for these two to establish themselves both in opposition to each other, as Andrew just said, but also, "Hey, this is a position that neither one of us has held."

Certainly for J.D.

Vance, political office is not something that he has held.

So this is something that the public would wanna see in a moderated format that features journalists.

- And also Portman did debate when he last ran.

He ran and debated Democratic former governor, Ted Strickland.

So Portman has actually stood up there and taken questions.

I was a moderator for that debate as well.

So this is not unusual.

What I think is unusual is the decision to decline debates.

And I mean, when you talk about taking questions from your opponent, I mean, that is the debate format that could potentially happen with the U.S. Senate race and the governor's race.

When it comes to the Supreme Court races, that's a forum where the candidates are not allowed to ask questions of each other.

So you've got Jennifer Brunner and Sharon Kennedy who are both justices running for the Supreme Court, and they would not be able to challenge each other like the candidates for governor and U.S. Senate.

Jennifer Brunner, the Democrat, has agreed to the forum, whereas Sharon Kennedy, the Republican, has not.

- Karen, you mentioned a couple of times that you've moderated some of these debates.

Do you think all of this might just be a anti-Kasler sentiment?

(all laughing) - Gosh, I hope not cuz I mean, I've tried.

I did fact-check again the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate in March, because that fact-checking needed to happen.

These were candidates who were falsely claiming that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

And I feel that that's important, and it's part of why journalists need to be involved in these debates and that they're not just forum sponsored by groups that promote particular issues, cuz that was what we were seeing in a lot of the Republican discussions that were happening before the primary.

Having journalists who craft careful questions and use audience input, finding out what people wanna know and then asking the candidates about that is hugely important.

- We're looking at voter turnout in primaries that are pathetically low.

We're looking at voter turnout in general elections that aren't particularly robust.

And now, we talk about a debate that isn't, wouldn't...

There probably are no car chase scenes, (Ken chuckles) so it isn't action-packed television.

- That's funny.

- Do people care?

- Yeah, by the way, I have long thought that that last, that Senate debate would have been the launch of an amazing sitcom with Karen Kasler and Josh Mandel, (Mike laughs) but I think that's in the running.

But yeah, look, oh, there's so many different pieces of this.

And in looking at people's opinions online, there's certainly a gender aspect to this too in looking at the gubernatorial debate, and it very much appearing that there's disdain for the female candidate in this gubernatorial race.

But the Republicans were really clear in their, the House Republicans were really clear in their last session in June, on June 1st, in decrying the fact that turnout is going to be so astronomically low certainly for that second primary and possibly for November as well.

So it is a little bit confusing to people why this isn't seen as an opportunity for them to cement their ideas and really establish themselves.

For Governor DeWine, his opinion is, "I've already done that."

Nan Whaley obviously feels will not in this context.

- Michelle sends us a message saying why debate when gerrymandering gives you an uncontested win?

Interesting, although in this case, we're talking about statewide races.

So gerrymandering isn't quite the kind of- - Right.

- impact it might have if you were running for a congressional seat or something of that nature.

But I guess, it's the partisanship argument.

- Yeah, even so indirectly, I mean, you've got Republicans in charge of all five statewide executive offices and in firm control of the legislature.

So it's not like DeWine is going to get pressure from the legislature or from the lawmakers there to step up and debate.

I mean, the walking lockstep.

- Go ahead, Karen.

- I'd also add one thing that that's, you know, gerrymandering and redistricting, that there are issues here in some of these races that maybe the candidates don't wanna talk about.

I mean, certainly, the decision on abortion from the U.S. Supreme Court is become a key issue for Nan Whaley and it may not be something that Mike DeWine wants to talk about.

So I think the questions could potentially and the issues covered in those could potentially change the messaging for each candidate.

And Andrew's right that, you know, the messaging is a big part of what the candidates wanna control.

They feel they can do that with ads.

They're all raising a lot of money.

Though Tim Ryan is ahead of J.D.

Vance in terms of fundraising, though there was also a big input of money from Mitch McConnell's super PAC to try to support Vance, the messaging, I think for candidates, they want that to come through those highly-produced commercials that also need to be fact-checked in many cases rather than in a live debate setting, where there could be a gotcha moment that they're not prepared for.

(tense music) - Cleveland City Council president, Blaine Griffin, a Democrat, has publicly endorsed former Dayton mayor, Nan Whaley, also a Democrat, in this year's governor's race.

So what was Griffin's name doing on a flyer along with other names of local-elected Democrats listed as hosts of a fundraiser for the reelection of Republican governor, Mike DeWine?

It's a big mix up that Griffin says has him incensed.

Griffin said he thought he was agreeing to attend a meeting with DeWine about a development in East Cleveland, near the Cleveland border, in his ward when he had a conversation with East Cleveland mayor, Brandon King.

King is listed as the lead host for the DeWine fundraiser.

He says Griffin is right, that he talked about the fundraiser and a meeting, must have mixed it up when it came time to make the flyer.

King, a Democrat, didn't repudiate DeWine as Griffin did.

He praised him for caring about East Cleveland.

Andrew, this had to make you scratch your head when we saw that flyer come across, saying, "Why would Griffin do such a thing," and pretty quickly Nick found out he didn't.

- He didn't.

And Brandon King, the mayor of East Cleveland, stepped up and said, "My bad, my mistake."

He apologized to Council President, Blaine Griffin, over what happened, but it's a big old oops.

Now, what's driving this is, okay so Blaine Griffin has no interest in going to a fundraiser for the governor, the Republican governor of Ohio.

- Right.

- But he is interested in this development, in talking about development, having the opportunity to talk about this development.

And this is a significant development that they are focused on that straddles the border there.

It's about 30 acres of property that they're looking at doing potentially $120 million development, new housing, commercial development, a significant investment in an area that is economically challenged.

(tense music) - There are now two proposals for a new civilian police review board in Akron, one from community activists and another from Mayor Dan Horrigan.

On the same day activist turned in a petition to force a ballot issue, Horrigan announced plans for a city ordinance instead.

So interesting timing.

We finally see this and we've been hearing about it for a long time.

There'd be this review board of police actions.

And then the mayor steps in with, "Okay, let's have an ordinance instead and not have this vote."

What's at play, Andrew?

- Yeah, I wish I knew.

(chuckles) My crystal ball's a little murky on this one.

But you're right, this does predate the police killing of Jayland Walker.

It goes back, I believe, to the racial equity and social justice task force that Akron put together following the George Floyd killing.

And at this point, there's certainly the motivation to get something done.

But if we had a whole other hour, we could go into the nuances between the mayor's plan and that that was put forth by the NAACP in Akron and Freedom BLOC.

There are subtle differences here, but in either case, it's not just a blank check for the mayor because the mayor, under the Freedom BLOC plan, can appoint three of the members, six come from the council.

They need to have bonafides that actually legitimize their place having a say on this.

In the case of the mayor's plan, it's 11 people.

He would name them all, but they would require city council oversight and approval.

So there is that.

Also, one of the big differences here, the community plan that was put forth for a charter amendment, it calls for an independent auditor that we keep sight on this.

And ultimately under the mayor's plan, the police department will carry out investigations.

So those are some of the big differences there.

- And there's also a timing issue.

If council doesn't act very quickly, we could be seeing a special election.

So there's gonna be some cost.

- September 9th is the big day.

That is just a week from now.

And what we're looking at here is council doesn't have its next regularly scheduled meeting until September 12th.

That means they have to call a special meeting before the 9th to take action, if they're going to take action, on the community charter amendment.

I'm not sure that's gonna happen.

We haven't heard any rumblings yet from council about any move for a special meeting ahead of time, which means that they could still take action on the community plan from Freedom BLOC and NAACP, but the earliest it would hit the ballot would be in a special election next year.

- In Cleveland, they're moving toward putting together a civilian police review board.

We saw a council submit finalists for that this week.

The mayor will have his own list and we'll eventually get the people that'll formulate that.

Last year, Cleveland voters overwhelmingly approved issue 24, which establishes that community police commission.

It's an issue that got a boost from the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis in 2020, as you mentioned, the same thing that started what was going on in Akron.

It led to protest too that Floyd's death in downtown Cleveland, they turned violent outside the justice center.

This week, though, the city agreed to pay $540,000, Cleveland did, to settle a federal lawsuit brought by a dozen people who say they were wrongfully arrested during the demonstration.

They say they protested lawfully and peacefully, but were arrested anyway.

Some spending as many as three days in jail and released without charges.

We saw a lot happen outside the justice center, Ken, you know, bean bag bullets and tear gas, and now we're seeing the city have to pay for the actions of police who are arresting people who have a right to protest, obviously not to protest violently.

But apparently this proves, at least these dozen people, were not violent.

- Right.

And these dozen people, there are some great soundbites, really illustrative soundbites, from these individuals saying, "Look, the most destruction that they saw and the most violence that they saw was actually at the hands of the police."

And they were very clear in saying they weren't part of any vandalism, they weren't part of any unrest in that way.

This was their civil right to protest peacefully, and this is how they were treated.

- In fact, two of the people weren't even involved.

One was just going out their door to pick up a grocery delivery being dropped off, and the other one was on their way home from work.

- Yeah.

(tense music) - The Cleveland Division of Police will make changes to recruitment and training policies after discovering it had no power to discipline an officer for antisemitic statements made on social media long before he became a cop.

Mayor Justin Bibb and Police Chief Wayne Drummond announced the changes to policy after the city learned it couldn't discipline.

Officer Ismail Quran.

Quran was named Officer of the Year in 2019, but the group, StopAntisemitism, wants the city to take that back.

Policy changes include monitoring officers' social media accounts, taking a look at the social media accounts of new hires, something that was not done when he joined the force.

City will also now require implicit and explicit bias training for officers and all first responders.

Ken, checking social media accounts for incoming employees would seem to be pretty standard.

- Standard, but not official, right?

This is something I would tell any of my students, "Hey, look, this is gonna be part of your job search process.

People are gonna check your social media."

The police here in Cleveland will be taking this a step further by standardizing it and putting it into their procedures.

But as you said, so many different groups here in Cleveland say that this is not enough.

And so, questioning the idea that they have no power to discipline this officer in this at-will state, of course, there's a police union so it's a little bit more complicated than that, but at the very least, taking back his Officer of the Year Award.

- Speaking of the union, the union said these statements were made when he was younger and that he has changed, his mindset has changed.

Is that a fair point?

- So I'm gonna put my professor hat back on, right?

So, of course, people grow and evolve and we wanna give them room to do so, but some of the frustration that's being expressed by groups here is it's that this is the police union saying this and not the officer in question.

You know, anti-Semitism and racism and sexism and homophobia and transphobia, these aren't views that just change.

These are views that need to be unlearned, and it takes time to do so with some intentional work.

So I think that a lot of citizens want to hear that this officer has done that intentional work, which would then attest to the change, not a statement from the police union.

- You know, I say this is something that happened in the past.

He was named Officer of the Year in 2019.

These comments were made in 2017.

Now, I don't know what the time limit should be on something like this in giving somebody a chance to show that they have changed, but we're talking about two years.

- Right.

- And we're not talking about, when they say younger, we're not talking about he was 14.

- Right.

And we're not talking about a specific political view.

When I was reading the story, I was thinking about, "Oh, well, President Obama didn't used to be for gay marriage, and then his views evolved and he was, right?"

And he could cite that.

This is, again, about some really antisemitic remarks that would have to be unlearned in a way, and I certainly don't think he was rewarded for those with the Officer of the Year.

But that was a really tight timeframe between those two things.

(tense music) - NASA will try again, Saturday to launch the Artemis 1 mission.

It's the first in a series of missions with a goal of returning humans to the moon and eventually to other planets.

The mission will be an uncrewed flight that will orbit the moon and return.

It's been 50 years since the end of the Apollo program that first took astronauts to the surface of the moon.

Andrew, the idea of putting astronauts on the moon captured global attention back then.

Does the Artemis project have the same allure?

- I don't know.

In the day and age of sci-fi and special effects, and you know, you can watch 10 different Star Trek episodes and it all feels like you're out there in the universe, it's hard to imagine.

I think back 50 years ago when I was really, really young and too young to remember this, but being parked in front of the black and white television and my parents taking a snapshot of the first astronaut setting foot on the moon- - You know that guy's name?

- I believe it's Neil Armstrong.

- Maybe.

- You know?

Maybe.

(Mike laughs) - I like how you just very generically, "the first astronaut."

- It was a fun moment of education.

Yeah (laughs).

- But yeah, I mean, it's a whole different generation, but I mean, we kinda went through a period with the decommissioning of the space shuttle where we were no longer in space.

I mean, we've been shooting up satellites and we are just on the cusp of private companies starting to get out of the Earth's atmosphere.

But there was that moment of, "Wow, is this it?

Are we over?

I mean, are we not going out there anymore?"

So there's something really inspiring, I think, at least for somebody my generation, your generation- - Right.

- getting back out there, heading back to the moon, albeit this time with a bunch of dummies on board.

- Yeah, but eventually.

- But eventually.

2024 is when they're shooting, have Artemis 2 actually take a manned crew to the moon.

- And then, long-term base there, and from there you springboard to other planets.

And this argument has gone on forever, but the question, I guess, Ken, is why?

- Right.

- You're a Star Trek man, maybe that's why.

(Ken laughs) I don't know.

- More Star Wars than Star Trek, but yes.

Well, look.

I think that certainly not to pivot to global warming, but you know, as we look at the state of the planet and look at how much are we exhausting our resources here, we certainly need some other options.

And so, looking up for those other options is going to get increasingly important for our planet.

(tense music) - It is not, I repeat, it is not yet autumn, but the pumpkin spice invasion has already begun.

Thanks a lot, Starbucks.

The pumpkin spice latte is back this week.

Too soon.

And at local breweries, you can get the Spooky Tooth and the Pumpkin Chucker, the Franklin Castle Pumpkin Spice Ale, and the Haunted Hayride.

And I'm not going to complain about pumpkin beers because if I drink enough pumpkin beers, (Ken and Andrew laughing) I will forget that everything in this country will be pumpkin-flavored for the next two months.

There are pumpkin spice Oreos, talk about sacrilege, pumpkin spice pancakes, and oatmeal, and English muffins.

And if the flavor ever leaves your lips, don't worry, there's pumpkin spice ChapStick.

- Yay.

- Yay.

(Ken chuckles) So complaining though is futile.

So I read this in The Washington Post and I wanna bring this up to you.

A column this week with the headline, "Pumpkin spice won.

It's time to accept it and move on."

Did pumpkin spice win, Ken?

- As I told Producer Lee Barr, I have never tasted coffee in my life so- - But there are other things.

- Yeah, it's not my particular flavor.

I'm a big fan of pumpkin spice pie.

But yeah, I choose not to weigh in on the coffee debate.

- And Andrew, by the way, this sprung from the fact that I was complaining about it in a morning news meeting, (Ken and Andrew laughing) and Lee said, "All right, let's put it in the show."

- And it was all downhill from there.

(Ken laughs) Personally, I'd go with Posh Spice or Scary Spice, but not pumpkin spice.

- Oh, that was well done.

- Thank you.

- Well done.

Yeah.

- Columnist, Emily Heil, in The Washington Post notes like death taxes and new Taylor Swift albums, pumpkin spice is now merely a part of the human condition.

- Yeah.

- Karen, are you a big pumpkin spice fan?

- To me, the marker of fall is what's on the screen behind me.

I changed my screen.

It's the Ohio State Football, Ohio stadium with the, packed with the crowd.

Since we're starting the season on Saturday, that's what fall is all about.

(laughs) - There you go.

- Got it.

Monday, on The Sound of Ideas, on WKSU, the team is off for the Labor Day holiday.

In our time slot at 9:00 AM and 9:00 PM, we'll bring you the first two episodes of a series called Smarter Health, artificial intelligence and the future of American healthcare.

The series investigates how technology and machine learning may revolutionize patient care.

The series concludes Tuesday night.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for watching and stay safe.

(smooth music) (upbeat music fades)