(calm music) - Less than two months from Ohio's primary, the map making process remains unfinished and behind schedule.

Ohio lawmakers and greater Clevelanders find ways to support Ukraine as Russia intensifies its attacks.

And a bill on its way to governor DeWine would remove permits for carrying a concealed handgun.

Ideas is next.

(inspiring music) Hello, and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Rick Jackson, in this week for Mike McIntyre, thank you for joining us.

The Ohio primary is less than two months away, and the redistricting process is way behind schedule.

This week, Republicans on the Ohio redistricting commission approved a new congressional map that carves the state into 15 districts.

Russia has ramped up attacks on cities in Ukraine, putting more civilians in harms way in an invasion that's been condemned worldwide.

Here in Ohio, lawmakers from Cleveland to Columbus to Washington, DC are finding ways to offer support to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

A bill that removes the permit requirement for carrying a concealed handgun has passed the general assembly.

It now goes to Governor DeWine.

And the new era of the Cleveland Guardians will be delayed.

Major League Baseball canceled the first two series of games for every team due to an ongoing labor dispute.

We'll talk about that and the rest of the week's news on the reporter's round table.

Joining me this week, Ideastream Public Media's health reporter, Anna Huntsman.

Also from Ideastream Public Media, reporter Matt Richmond.

And in Columbus, we have Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

So let's get started.

This week, the Ohio redistricting commission adopted a new congressional map that carves the state into 15 districts.

Ohio will lose a seat in the US House of Representatives as a result of the 2020 census.

That map creates 10 Republican districts, three democratic districts, two others that are competitive, but lean slightly toward Democrats.

It was adopted with only Republican support.

Karen, is it pretty much all but certain this map will also see a challenge?

- I would expect so, and that's something we expect to see as early as today.

Typically the opponents of a map will just take a day or two to look at it and decide that they're gonna challenge it.

And that's certainly been the case.

I mean the congressional map, and remember, this is the second congressional map.

This was approved completely along party lines.

It was a Republican drawn map.

And so the Democrats are likely to have the groups, the Democrats did not vote for it and the groups that have been challenging these maps are likely to see some problems here because I mean, you just went through the countdown and how it shakes out.

Now we're getting to the point here where the timing is really critical.

And you mentioned that that the May 3rd primary, we're at this position where it could be, it could go either way in a sense and even Republican Secretary of State Franklin Rose, who is on the redistricting commission and has voted for these maps, he has said that if they're challenged, then that really puts the May primary in jeopardy.

The Ohio association of elections officials, the people who actually have to do this election, they have said that they are really out of time, that while they appreciate more money that's coming from the legislature, what they really need is time to run a good election.

And that maybe even some counties don't have that ability at this point.

- Hey, you mentioned the money that's coming in.

They've voted $9 million to go toward election concerns and coverage.

How is that going to be divided?

Where's that come from?

Oh, it comes from the general assembly, but yeah, where's it gonna be divided?

- That's a good question and I think we're still trying to find out some details on that.

I mean, certainly there are some things that have to happen and people have to be hired and processes have to be put into place for all this to go forward.

It's not like a primary just happens without all of this preparation.

There are deadlines that have to be met and we're coming up on one on March 18th about military voters and overseas voters.

And so all of that money is gonna be used throughout Ohio's 88 counties to try to make this May 3rd primary happen.

The Secretary of State has certified the statewide offices, so that's Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Auditor and Attorney General, as well as Chief Justice and the two other Justices on the Supreme court who are up for election and all the candidates for US Senate, those are not affected by the maps.

The candidates that are by the maps are the candidates for Ohio House and Senate and the candidates for Ohio's 15 congressional districts.

And that's the question, is if these maps are challenged, is the primary, the primary can't go forward in a sense, because there aren't legal maps under which these candidates can run.

And so then the question becomes, do you move the primary entirely, all those races?

So you have two primaries, one on May 3rd and one later on?

And these are questions that, you know, lawmakers are gonna have to at least think about, though they're saying that they're not making that decision, that the primary's gonna happen on May 3rd.

- May 3rd, still eight weeks away.

But obviously the time, we don't have eight weeks to figure it out.

Hard turn.

- Yeah, I mean, it takes time.

It takes time to register voters and send ballots out and all that.

- Right, hard turn some people, you know, as you were just explaining, we have races that do matter in terms of the maps and races that are dependent on the maps.

We are, the Ohio House and Senate maps.

These are still in limbo.

Three times we've seen this fight go down.

We're waiting in the Ohio Supreme Court to weigh in once more.

- Yeah, and yesterday there was a series of filings from all of the parties involved in the Ohio redistricting commission, filing as part of the process, when the maps were challenged at the Ohio Supreme Court, by the groups that opposed them, the League of Women Voters of Ohio, the National Redistricting in Action Fund, the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, these are the groups that have all come together to oppose those legislative maps.

They had filed their objections, and yesterday we saw the answer to those objections from the members of the redistricting commission.

And it's a big group of filings because you've got the redistricting commission itself filing through its lawyer.

Speaker Bob Cupp and Senate President Matt Huffman, they filed, Secretary of state Franklin rose filed, Governor Mike DeWine filed, and the two Democrats who opposed the maps all filed.

The only person who didn't file was state auditor, Keith Favor, who voted with the Democrats this time, but didn't file anything, and so you saw once again, this kind of back and forth of the court doesn't have the authority to do this, that was the Republicans filings, at least one of them, that the governor said that he had tried to make the commission, force the commission to push this forward.

He thinks the legislative maps are okay.

So do the members of the commission.

Of course the Democrats say, they're not.

And Democrats ask the courts to either to throw out those legislative maps and either declare the Democrats maps constitutional or appoint a special master to draw new maps.

And so that got a little bit of pushback from Republicans who say that Democrats are trying to choose the outcome here as opposed to the Ohio redistricting commission.

- I think we'll be talking about this next Friday as well.

Hopefully we have a resolution.

- It's just like Groundhog Day.

I gotta tell you, I mean, you know, it's over and over and over and it's incredibly important.

It's incredibly confusing, and it's starting to become incredibly repetitive.

And that really concerns me because this is something people should be paid attention to.

- Right.

(inspiring music) Russia's attacks on Ukraine intensified this week.

In addition to the sanctions levied by the United States, state and local leaders have been adding to the global effort to support Ukraine and Ukrainian-Americans.

Those efforts include banning the sale of Russian vodka in Ohio to lighting up bridges and buildings in the state in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine's flag.

Anna Huntsman, over the weekend, we saw prayer services in support of Ukraine.

We saw an indication, really the sizeable number of Ukrainian-Americans who call Northeast Ohio home.

- Right, and you know, we've been hearing about this crisis for a couple weeks now, and I'm sure, you know, we all feel it's so hard to watch from afar and lots of feelings, but we might forget that there's many Ukrainian-Americans in the Cleveland area.

In fact, in Parma, that's the largest group.

There's an estimated 4,000 who are there.

And many at these prayer services have family that are living in Ukraine and living through this.

And they're trying to contact them, they're not always hearing from them.

They're trying to figure out how they can support from here.

My colleague Lisa Ryan went to one of the prayer services in Parma at St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral.

And she was talking to people and they were saying, you know, I haven't heard from my loved one or they an exit plan or some are simply staying and trying to kind of hunker down there.

Lots of emotions, lots of, but it was, you know, lots of support.

Apparently it was standing room only at this church.

All the pews were filled, so much to the point that some people were just standing outside.

They couldn't even hear the service that was going on, but they were just there to support.

So this is a really big deal obviously to pretty much everybody, but it especially hits home for a lot of those in Northeast Ohio.

- Yeah, people who were descendants or expats, either way.

- [Huntsman] Exactly.

- Matt, Cleveland City Council this week signed off on a resolution condemning the attacks in Ukraine.

- Yeah, all 17 council members signed on like four days after the invasion started.

And, you know, it's just a sign, it's just been complete total opposition to what's going on.

- It is frightening, and we see the signs everywhere Anna, we mentioned the bridges and buildings being lit up in blue and yellow, Voinovich Bridge, the bridge went over the Cuyahoga, named for a former Cleveland Mayor and Ohio Senator.

The governor stepped in and said, "Yeah, let's do what we can."

It's symbolic, but... - Exactly.

It's kind of standing in solidarity and let's do everything we can.

So like you mentioned the Voinovich Bridge, there's a bridge in Toledo as well.

The governor called on other bridges and buildings to just go ahead and do that.

I saw a terminal tower in Cleveland was lit up in blue and yellow.

So it's kind of just a lot of people are trying to show the support in any way they can.

Also, the governor has also called on people to do their part and not support Russian made products and things like that.

- I was at a Cavalier's game this week and a woman just had up a sign that said "Peace for Ukraine" in the blue and yellow colors.

And they put it up on the jumbotron, that drew as big a cheer as any play that the team made that night, just people.

- I just had chills, that's, wow.

- Karen, Senator Rob Portman, very vocal about the need to do more to help Ukraine.

What's he pursuing?

- Yeah, he is a co-chair of the Ukrainian Caucus in the Senate.

And so he and his colleagues met with Ukrainian ambassador to the US earlier this week.

And he has said that there are some things that could be done, for instance, when he had a conference call with reporters, he talked about closing US airspace to Russian aircraft.

That did happen in fact a couple hours later, that was something that came out in the State of the Union address.

He's talked about some other actions.

He's talked about, for instance, Russian oil.

And that's something that NPR has covered a lot of, the questions about Russian oil and nobody's really dealt with a ban on that yet, but certain companies are taking that action at this point.

Of course, Portman also looks at it from the perspective of drilling and opening up some more opportunities in the United States, which some Democrats opposed.

He talked about removing all Russian bank from Swift, seizing Russian assets.

We are seeing some of the seizing of the yachts that are owned by oligarchs, and some other actions that are being taken here.

But yeah I mean, this is, the State has some things that it can do.

For instance, you mentioned Governor DeWine halting the sale and purchase of Russian-made vodka, or at least you kind of referenced that there.

There was also some discussion this week and DeWine signed an executive order ordering Ohio's five pension systems, public pension systems to get out of their investments in Russian backed assets.

And while there's a state law that typically has to be changed to force that to happen, the problem is right now, I think a lot of pension funds are finding that there's nobody to buy those assets.

Nobody's buying Russian-based, Russian-backed assets and it's hard to sell them.

And so that, while it's a very small percentage of the overall portfolio of the five public pension funds, I mean, we're talking $220 billion in those funds that serve millions of Ohioans.

Getting rid of those Russian backed assets right now is really difficult.

(inspiring music) - A bill on its way to Governor DeWine that would remove the need for permits to carry a concealed handgun in Ohio.

The Ohio house passed the bill this week.

The Ohio Senate had previously approved the measure.

Matt where are supporters and opponents coming down on this bill?

- Well, it's interesting.

You know, for supporters, this is just a straight second amendment issue, that this is a question of the right to bear arms.

And so there shouldn't, this to them is an unnecessary restriction.

I mean, it should be pointed out that it's very easy to get a concealed carry permit in Ohio.

It's what's known as a "shall issue" state, which means as long as you don't have, you know, a felony or a domestic violence conviction on your record and you know, you show up at a Sheriff's office and then you renew it every five years, they give you the card.

But, you know, there were some issues during the pandemic about Sheriff's office being open and gun rights groups in Ohio have been, you know, waiting to get this thing passed for years.

And my understanding is that this year that Buckeye firearms, the big gun rights group in Ohio, it was their top priority.

And, you know, opponents, you know, there's not great evidence that this one requirement for a concealed carry permit really reduces violent crime.

What they talk about is that it's a series of measures.

So you know, you have a concealed carry permit, which also requires a carrier to go in every five years and get their license renewed so sheriff can check to see if they've had any crimes in the last five years, and, you know, they say that this and state rules on purchasing a gun, 'cause you know, without a concealed carry permit, when you go and buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer, you still have to get a background check.

There's of course a famous gun show loophole, And if you're buying from family members, you don't have to do that, but there are still some requirements for background checks before you get the gun.

And so, you know they say, this is gun control advocates say, you know, you should have a concealed carry permit.

You should have state background checks, a state system for checking people when they buy guns.

There should be red flag laws.

And if you have this whole system of restrictions that their studies that showed us, you tend to have a state with a lower rate of gun violence.

- That last part I read though, about not having to tell an officer that you have a concealed weapon been in the vehicle, if for chance you're pulled over for a traffic stop, I would've thought that would've gotten a lot more pushback from the police unions from various departments.

- You know, the police unions did oppose this removal, this bill.

And I mean, I think in cars and then I think also, you know, in Cleveland for instance, about like, you know, several thousand guns get confiscated every year.

And if a person in the street has a gun on them, like if you look at the booking list every morning at Cuyahoga County Jail, the most frequent single charge that people end up in jail for is some illegal possession of a gun charge.

And so now, you know, if police find a gun on a person, the presumption should be that they're legally carrying it.

And so they should be letting the person go.

So I think it take and find a gun on a person, they check their record, they check to see if there are warrants, if, you know, they don't have a concealed carry permit, but now that you don't need a concealed carry permit, those other checks are, you know, I assume not going to happen.

- [Jackson] Right.

- So, I think it just takes one way of identifying people who are a risk away from law enforcement.

- Anna, Matt touched on it a bit, but opponents are also concerned the bill would increase gun violence.

Some have already labeled that, of course, a public health crisis.

We see far too many homicides in this city with guns as it is.

How worried are they?

- Well, yeah, absolutely, that's a big deal is people advocating, this is medical experts, nonprofit officials as well, that we should take politics out of the gun rights debate.

Well, I guess it's not, I guess that is politics, but taking it away from addressing gun violence.

So instead of looking at it from, you know, a second amendment or, you know, whatever, they're saying look at the facts.

There are so many homicides, and not just homicides, there's just gun injuries, exactly, shootings, injuries, you know, suicide, things like that, that happen every year.

And it has increased dramatically in the last decade for sure, the numbers show this, but what has happened is there's not a lot of funding at the national level for research into this and like specific ways that you can target this.

And so absolutely opponents are saying that this is going to make it easier for this startling trend to continue.

- Karen, Anna brought up the whole national idea.

This bill's just one of several making its way through our State House, but it does reflect a national trend in loosening gun restrictions.

Is Ohio watching what other states are doing?

- Oh, I think so, and certainly the fact that this is an election year makes a difference.

A couple of things that I will point out though, when you start talking about how easy it is to get a concealed carry permit.

Every year, the attorney general issues a report on new licenses, renewed licenses, suspended licenses, that sort of thing.

Ohio's been the same for 2020 and 2021 approximately, the biggest year was in 2016 when there were more, over 117,000, almost 118,000 concealed carry new licenses that were issued and you know, that really shows that there's still an interest here, but also one other thing that I'd add is the Buckeye Firearms Association is considered to be the biggest gun rights organization in the state, but it's not the furthest, the most extreme in a sense.

And there's a story from my colleagues at the Ohio Capital Journal who cover the State House that actually this particular no compromise gun situation as they call it as, as the advocates call it, was actually written by a lobbyist for the more extreme group, which is Ohio Gun Owners.

And so that's interesting because typically lawmakers had been working with Buckeye Firearms, considering them the more mainstream organization, but still very strongly supportive of gun rights.

Ohio Gun Owners is considered to be the real, the one that goes the furthest.

And yet apparently, it helped in writing this.

(inspiring music) - Two ordinances that would expand the patrol area for University Circle and Case Western Reserve University Police were pulled before this week's Cleveland City Council meeting.

- Matt, start with the legislation to expand patrol areas for University Circle and Case.

That was delayed why?

- Well Mike, from what I've gathered, it was because of a request from Councilman Kevin Conwell, whose ward includes that sliver of Glenville, not little Italy, and, you know, my understanding is that residents in that neighborhood had some concerns about Case Western police patrolling there.

And, you know, there had been discussions with Councilman Conwell and it just came as a surprise that the legislation was already being presented.

They felt like there were still conversations to be had.

- Well what are the reasons that they're asking for the expansion in the first place?

- You know, I think, I mean, I think at the root of it is that with these private police departments, there is no elected official who's responsible for them.

So there's no one who kind of has to answer to the community in the same way that, you know, when there are concerns about the Cleveland Police Department, the mayor has to answer for them.

So I think people wanted some assurances that this wasn't gonna lead to overpolicing, this wasn't gonna lead to harassment.

And the kind of the only sort of democratic way to do that was before this legislation passes.

- City has a lot of agreements with other agencies that are out there for policing Those agreements really all under scrutiny, because of, as you said, accountability concerns.

We don't know who's in charge.

- Yeah, yeah, and you know, it's, so in Cleveland, seven years ago, the Consent Decree was up it in place.

And that document says this is what we expect of our police in the city.

And I think a lot of people kind of say, "Okay, you know, that is sort of like a bare minimum.

That's what constitutional policing is."

And then to look at these other police departments that don't actually have to follow those rules, they kind of say, "Well then, you know, what sort of police departments are these?

Shouldn't they be held the same standard that we expect of our police?"

- People may not be aware of just how many quote "private police departments" there are in Cuyahoga county and operating in the City of Cleveland.

- Yeah, it's (trails off) - It's a difficult number isn't it?

- But I could start going through a list just off the top of my head, it's pretty surprising.

And you know, I've come to start a habit of just always looking at the door, because you see them all over the place.

And there are many.

- There are many, yes.

City Council getting a first look at the new Cleveland Community Police Commission during budget hearings, wrangling with the commission's budget what's gonna be at least a million bucks.

- Yeah, there are two parts to it.

There's at least a million dollars for operations.

And then there is a separate part that's calculated based on the police budget that is for grant making.

And, you know, at the budget hearing, City Council is used to this kind of moment in the sun where they get to take a close look at all the money the city spends, and then the commission comes in front of them and they, you know, it's written into the charter, These two dollar amounts are set in stone.

So it was, you know, there was some clear frustration about where they'd been placed.

(inspiring music) - The guardians debut as Cleveland's baseball team will be delayed.

Major League Baseball has scrapped opening day and canceled the first two series of the season for every team after contract talks with the players union broke down.

Anna, folks who had tickets through those games, what do they to do.?

- Well for now, they're told to hold on to them.

And the team says once they have more clarity on when opening day will be, they will contact fans and let them know what to do.

And hopefully it still holds up, but they have also been advised if you got your tickets through a third party site, like StubHub, to contact those services directly, 'cause it might be different in that case.

But if you got it through the organization, hold onto your tickets, hopefully something will happen.

- Hopefully.

Karen, Cleveland's home opener already gone.

Even the new opening date though could change if the talks drag on.

- Yeah, and I had my opening day tickets, I was ready to go.

It was during my son's spring break.

I was not gonna have to take him outta school.

But yeah, it's unfortunate.

The good news is for those of us who are real baseball fans and really just wanna see some baseball again, besides high school games, which my son made his high school team by the way.

- [Jackson] Oh good for him.

- [Huntsman] Oh congrats.

- Yeah, so there's minor league baseball.

That is gonna start on time.

Governor Mike DeWine was asked about that earlier this week because not only is he a baseball fan, we have two Major League Professional teams in Ohio.

He's a Reds fan, but also his family owns a Minor League team in North Carolina that's affiliated with the Astros and he said that Minor League teams, because those players don't play under the Major League contracts, those players can play.

So we do have baseball.

That's gonna be coming to Lake County.

It's gonna be coming to Akron, Columbus, Toledo, Dayton.

So there is a little bit of a silver lining here and those minor league games, if you've never been to one, really, if you're a fan consider going, because it's a great experience, it's a lot of fun.

- It can be a lot of fun, yeah.

I've done games with the Captains and the now Rubber Ducks.

Yeah, that can be a lot of fun, you're right.

- Well you've thrown our a first pitch, so I don't even wanna talk to you, so.

- Oo, wow, jealousy.

- Would I remember this Rick?

Was it that long ago?

- Oh my goodness!

We can close this show, right?

Yes, you would remember it, okay?

- We would be negligent not to point out that county just agreed to fork over 200 some odd million dollars to renovate that ballpark.

and there was some urgency, even though the lease is not up but it was never that, you know, part of the urgency, if there had been a lockout while they were trying to get this money would've changed negotiations I imagine.

- Yeah, it could have changed negotiations, but at least now they have more time to at least make the initial changes they were gonna make.

So we don't have an idea whether this was gonna start in April, we hope or May, you know, and once you get to past May, do you need a season at all?

It would be difficult thing.

- [Kasler] Duh, yes, I am gonna say yes.

- Hey, for me, yes.

But will they do it?

- [Kasler] A short season's better than no season.

- Well we can have opening day and the World Series all in the same month.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 90.3 WCPN, we discuss banned books and why there's pressure to remove more titles from library and school shelves.

I'm Rick Jackson, thank you for watching.

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