a bathroom bill that will impact transgender students heads to Governor DeWine for his signature, who will end up in the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Vice President elect J.D.

Vance and Will imprisoned former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder seek a pardon from President elect Donald Trump.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Anna Huntsman, in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The election is in the books and lawmakers are back to work in Columbus.

The frenzied dash to the end of the year is on a bill passed this week would create restrictions for transgender students, requiring them to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender at birth.

Governor Mike DeWine will have to decide who takes over in the U.S. Senate for Vice President elect J.D.

Vance.

There are plenty of contenders with President elect Donald Trump headed back to the White House.

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder says he will pursue clemency or even a pardon.

And a popular neighborhood light display gets dimmed.

Joining me for the roundtable from Ideastream, Public Media health reporter Taylor Wizner and associate producer for Newscast Josh Boose in Columbus.

We have Statehouse bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get started.

A bill on its way to Governor Mike DeWine would mean that transgender students would have to use bathrooms that correspond to their sex assigned at birth.

Karen the element that pertains to bathroom and locker rooms was actually added on to another bill that deals with college credit.

Can you talk about this a little bit?

Yeah, this was a bill that would make some operational changes in the college Credit Plus program, which is a program by which kids in grades seven through senior year high school can earn high school and college credit.

So that's how it started an education bill, essentially.

And when it passed, it started in the Senate.

Then it went over to the House.

When that passed the House, the House made a change to it and added in a provision that you just described there that would ban transgender students from using bathrooms that are not the gender listed on their birth certificates.

And so this is a bathroom ban, that bathroom bill that's that's similar to one in other states.

And it passed in a late night session of the House back in June.

Republicans passed it.

Democrats voted against it.

And so now it's over in the House or in the Senate now for those changes to come forward.

And this is it's controversial in terms of being very divisive between the members of the parties.

I mean, Democrats who were listed as sponsors on this original college credit.

Plus Bill asked that their names be removed from it because they didn't want to have their names attached to something that dealt with this bathroom bill.

And so it did pass along party lines and now goes on to the governor.

And he's expected to sign it.

He indicated earlier this year that he probably would.

Hmm.

I know that the supporters say this is about school safety, but transgender advocates have also said this is worsening safety.

Right.

So can you talk about what both sides are saying?

Yeah, it was interesting the day that this passed the Senate and we're finally back after four months off where lawmakers didn't meet in session since June because they were all running for reelection while the entire House and a half the Senate.

And so this was the first session that we've seen in a while, and committees have started up again.

The state house is now a place of activity again after a little bit of a break.

But on this particular day, there were two things that were going on that were really interesting to happen.

At the same time, there was a press conference by some LGBTQ advocates who were speaking out against this proposal, saying that this would harm students mental and physical health, that they could be bullied and threatened and it just contributes to mental health concerns that trans students have.

And it's a terrible precedent to set that sort of thing.

And as they were having this press conference in an adjacent room, the atrium of the state house, which is really big, there was a prayer rally going on sponsored by the Center for Christian Virtue.

And so they had to even close the door.

So that they could be heard over the music from that prayer rally.

It was really an interesting juxtaposition of things that were happening.

But yeah, the LGBTQ advocates who spoke out, including Equality Ohio, Trans Ohio, have said that this is a dangerous bill when it comes to that particular population.

Transgender students already marginalized, and they feel that it's an attack on trans kids.

And you mentioned that Governor DeWine has indicated he will likely sign it.

But that's kind of interesting because he's vetoed legislation dealing with transgender individuals in the past.

Yeah, he did not sign He vetoed the bill that would ban gender transition treatments for minors back in January of last year.

It did not take long for Republicans in the House and Senate to override his veto.

And he also, when he vetoed that bill, he also proposed some rules on tracking transgender, tracking gender treatment options for people.

And there were some activists who were very concerned about what his proposal was.

So I think he's decided that this is something that he is okay with.

And certainly Democrats expect that he will sign it.

Senate Minority Leader Nikki Antonio said after this passed that that's what she expects is that he will sign it.

And you mentioned this is the first bill passed since lawmakers turned return from a long break.

So does it signal anything for the session to come?

Well, we asked Senate President Matt Huffman about that, and we also asked the LGBT LGBTQ activists about that.

And Huffman said, now, this is something that we've been talking about for a while.

He referenced, you know, the visit passed in the House back in June, and the session time is growing short.

Whatever is in the pipeline right now that's been proposed, if it doesn't get acted on and signed into law by the end of the year, it has to start all over.

And so he said this is a way to get something that we know we want to do done quickly.

But certainly there's a thought that the results of the election sent a message to Republican lawmakers that this is an issue that voters are interested in.

At least that's the way Republicans are seeing it.

And so I could expect to see another bill that kind of deals in the same area.

It's called the Parents Bill of Rights.

It kind of does some things that activists are concerned about in terms of kids in school who maybe are identifying themselves in a different way than they would at home at all.

All of that area there, that's another bill that is possible that could come forward.

So I don't think we're done with social issues yet when it comes to this legislature.

Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit more about that mad dash to get things passed before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, though, lawmakers are still proposing new items.

Josh, one of these would ban pronouns on college and job applications.

This comes from Portage County State Representative Gail Paglia.

Yeah, but have we got a Republican?

Says she wants there to be no bias when it comes to college applications and job applications for public universities in the state of Ohio.

Well, she says eliminating pronouns would take that bias away.

Pretty.

You know, she doesn't go on to say exactly what the how, but I thought this was interesting because most universities in Ohio use something called a common app.

It's called Common App.

And you can apply for multiple colleges at once, much different than the Pony Express when I did my college applications.

But that that app, though, asks pronouns as a voluntary question, an optional question.

They've been doing that since 2021, so it's not something that you have to put down.

But again, Pavlik says it's to eliminate the bias.

Now, I did look up glad the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and they say pronouns are a way to let trans and non-binary, non-binary youth let them know that they are seen and that they are affirmed.

So this is, you know, making it taking the bias out of that does not make sense with that definition.

Okay, That's the GLAAD's point of view there.

Oh, Kieran, did you want to jump in on that?

Yeah, We are seeing a flurry of bills that are being proposed over the last couple of weeks because we are approaching the end of the session.

There are over the course of the two year session, there have been over a thousand bills that have been proposed and certainly not all of them pass and a lot of them don't even get a hearing.

This one was just proposed in the last week.

And so this may be the kind of bill that the sponsor and other sponsors have talked about, similar bills where it's a conversation starter.

They don't expect it to go forward, but it signals that this is an issue that in this case, Republican lawmakers are interested in looking at.

Now, whether this passes or not, it seems unlikely that it would, but it's the kind of thing that if it doesn't, then it could be taken up again in January.

Okay, Governor Mike DeWine must decide who takes over in the U.S. Senate for Vice President elect J.D.

Vance.

DeWine says this is one of the biggest decisions he will make.

Karen, a prime contender for the job, Vivek Ramaswamy, withdrew from consideration to lead a new government agency.

The Department of Government Efficiency?

Yeah.

Have the Department of Government efficiency will be led by two people, and it's a newly created agency.

It will be led by Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk.

And so that does take Vivek Y Swamy out of the contention for the Senate seat.

And he even tweeted about that or shared on X about that.

But that opens the door potentially for other people.

And DeWine's been asked multiple times who he's considering when he might reveal who's on the short list even.

And he's been getting calls from a lot of people.

And I've heard some names that I haven't heard in a long time that have come up as people who have reached out to wine saying that they are interested and people I mean, a Senate seat, an open Senate seat is a huge opportunity.

So you're going to have people who have no chance who are just going to say, hey, why not?

Why not me?

And so you're seeing some people line up behind.

I mean, you've got I'm trying I'm lose my train of thought here.

Some names that are out there.

Jane Timken.

That's the name I was trying to think of.

She's the former Ohio Republican Party chair, and I think she's one of the leading contenders there.

Trump kind of put her in charge of the Ohio Republican Party after he was elected and took office in 2017.

So I think she's looked at as a as a front runner for this.

But there are other folks I mean, you've got the two candidates who are likely running for governor, Lieutenant Governor John Houston and Attorney General Dave Yost.

Yost has said he will not take the appointment if he's offered the Senate appointment.

But you've got those two guys out there.

You've got Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who has said that he may be in the running for a position in the Trump administration on cybersecurity.

You got a lot of Republicans in the state who are very interested.

Yeah, and it's kind of interesting.

I've seen some discourse about this, you know, with Jane Timken and Matt Dolan, who they both ran in the primary for the Senate and did not win.

And so people are kind of making some comments about, you know, if the voters didn't support them before and now they might get picked to be the senator.

Have you heard any of that, Karen?

Well, yeah, I mean, Matt Dolan, DeWine endorsed Dolan, but Dolan has not won either of the two U.S. Senate primaries that he's run in 2022 and in 2024.

So that makes it doubtful that he could actually run and win.

Though Ohio is a very Republican state now, but he doesn't have the real support of some of the more Trump backed elements of the Ohio Republican Party.

So he's considered kind of a long shot, I think, in this race.

DeWine has said that he wants somebody who can run in two years because there's a special election in two years for whoever gets this position.

And then, of course, a Democrat could run against whoever gets this position.

And then in 2026, that's when the full six year term comes up.

I'm sorry, in 2028, that's when the full six year term comes up.

So whoever gets the Senate seat has to be prepared to run not only in 2026 but also in 2028.

And it takes a lot of money to run for the U.S. Senate.

You have to be able to raise a lot of money and maybe you have to bring some money to the table.

That was the case with both Vance and Bernie Moreno, who just beat Sherrod Brown.

And that kind of shortens the list a little bit, too.

So I'm very interested to see who he chooses.

I think it could be a very interesting choice.

Both Vance and Marino had the support of President elect Donald Trump.

Do we know how much Trump is going to influence DeWine's pick?

Oh, I think it's going to be I mean, obviously, because of the relationship between Trump and Vance, it's Vance's word on this is very important, I think.

And Vance met with DeWine last week about this while he met with DeWine last week.

We don't know what they talked about, but I'm guessing that they were talking about the U.S. Senate race.

And I think his opinion on this is really going to be important.

Now that Vivek Ramaswamy is out, It makes the pool a little bit smaller, of course.

And I think that whoever Vance likes and whoever Trump likes, which are probably the same person there, that's the person who's going to get the appointment and possibly making the pool even smaller.

Secretary of State Frankly, Rose has been mentioned for Senate, but Politico reported this week that he actually might be in line for another role in the Trump administration.

Yeah, I the cybersecurity role that I mentioned there earlier, that's something that at least he's been talking about.

But there's another one that I who has he just ran in the 2024 Republican primary and did not win.

So, you know, do you want to nominate somebody who has not won a primary even?

And that's but we've had these primaries.

We've had these huge primaries.

I mean, in 2022, there were nine people running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

This past time, there were three people running.

So we've had these big groups of people.

And that's what you get in a way when you have one party that's dominant in a state and that has allowed a lot of people to move up and to seek big offices.

And so that's you have a big pool to choose from.

It's a nice problem to have in some ways, but it also makes things really, really competitive among those folks.

Dr. Akram Boutros, the former CEO of MetroHealth, has been found not criminally liable for taking supplemental bonus payments.

That's according to the findings from a new report from the Ohio Auditor of State Special Investigations Unit.

MetroHealth says the report was also, quote, clear on several key facts, including that Boutros did not share management of the bonus program with the board and that the board never overtly authorized the bonuses.

That was pretty big news this week.

Taylor.

What has Dr. Boutros or his legal team said about this?

Yeah, well, the report found that Dr. Akram Boutros is interpretation of his his employment contract wasn't unreasonable because it was pretty ambiguous.

So essentially the determination was that he was not criminally liable.

And it also determined that MetroHealth, a board of trustees, did not effectively oversee that 1.9 million in bonuses that Boutros took, which led to his firing in 2022.

So Boutros, his team, his attorney, James Wooley, he says the audit clears Boutros of any wrongdoing, and it proved MetroHealth was in the wrong for claiming Boutros fraudulently misappropriated or concealed his compensation.

And they came out with a pretty strong press release saying that, you know, this was merely a compensation dispute that destroyed basically Dr. Boutris his reputation, his livelihood, even his health.

And they say that basically MetroHealth owes him an apology.

Well, how has MetroHealth responded to this?

Yeah, MetroHealth stands by its actions.

The system's board of trustees said in a statement that the report affirms the board's action to terminate Boutros.

Even though it didn't find him criminally culpable, the board said the report was clear on several facts, including that Boutros did not share management of the bonus program with the board that the board never overtly authorized the bonuses, and when they confronted him over the bonuses, Boutros repaid them, including interest to a total of 2.1 million.

So, yeah, basically they say those facts prove their case, that they were right to terminate Boutros.

I'm curious what happens next here.

This report was commissioned by the county prosecutor.

Was is there anything that's going to happen next there or what was the prosecutor's reaction?

Yeah, they because it was sort of inconclusive.

The prosecutor's office will not pursue criminal charges against the former CEO.

And essentially, that kind of ends that question of are we going to see sort of further investigation of him criminally, although that does not end things?

You know, and MetroHealth, you know, they still as I said, they stand behind their belief that what happened was correct on their end, even though these criminal charges won't be pursued.

They do think that they were in the right.

And if it comes to a legal case, they're going to keep pushing that.

And I doubt that an apology to Dr. Boutrous will go through.

So, Boutros, his team has signaled that he intends to file a defamation case in damages against MetroHealth.

Supposedly, that's going to happen next week.

That was originally a case Boutrous filed last year, but he dropped it in December due to a health issue.

Cleveland City Council member Jenny Spencer will not seek reelection when her current term ends in 2025.

Spencer represents Ward 15, which includes the Edgewater and Detroit Shore Way Neighborhoods and part of Ohio City.

Josh Cleveland City Council is in the process of redistricting, and so they're going to lose two seats.

Did this seem to play a role in why she is out?

Yeah, that's a good question.

And it was asked to her, certainly, she acknowledged Spencer acknowledged that redistricting is going to happen, but says it had no bearing whatsoever.

She said that she made the decision months ago but wanted to wait until after the election to officially announce it.

Our colleague Abbi Marshall, has done some great reporting on this, and Spencer plans to finish out the rest of her term rather than leave.

Now, if she did that, she would get to a point, right?

So it would kind of be a hand.

The next person would be hand-picked.

Right.

She's not doing that.

Why?

Yeah.

And well, because she says she wants to give everybody a chance to to launch their campaigns.

If she stepped down now, you mentioned and this is a process that has been looked at not in a positive light as far as replacing a candidate or a city council member.

She would appoint a successor and then that successor would be able to run as an incumbent.

We know what that means.

You know, a lot of times the incumbent has that that extra positive attribute going into the election.

So Spencer says she's willing to talk to anybody about running, but she wants the people to be able to launch their campaigns and not have someone new come in and automatically have that incumbency.

She's a first term council member.

What are some of the accomplishments that she's talked about during her sort of short time on council?

Yeah, well, she said that the big thing is affordable housing, that in her she has worked really hard to make housing more affordable.

And then she's also working to get residents worked, I should say, to give residents the chance to speak at some of the city council meetings.

So that was something to thinks that she she really said this was important for her and that she's accomplished the affordable housing is something that she said she continues to work on, but is very important, particularly in her work.

And as we talked about, she's not going to handpick the next person, but she wants to encourage more women to run.

Yeah, and not just for her seat either, You know, I mean, she talks about, you know, Spencer is one of five women right now, 17 council members overall.

She said that she hopes more women will run for different seats.

It's interesting when you look at the redistricting aspect of this, I went over it last night preparing just unbelievable the the amount of change, population change that Cleveland has seen.

Right now, we're at about 367,000 people in the city of Cleveland.

The last time that we did that, the city did a lowering of city council seats was in 2013.

So they were at 19 before that.

They went down to 17.

Now they're going to go down to 15 going into well, by the end of next year.

So each council member, according to the city charter, you have to have about 25,000 people per council member.

Otherwise seats have to be reduced.

So how long will this trend continue, I guess is the next question and where these where these boundaries will be changed and who could or will be eliminated is interesting, right?

Because the west side is more stable, right?

The population there?

Certainly more so, yeah.

So I mean, her seat right now is probably more safe than others because of the population.

Like you mentioned, parts of Ohio City, the Gordon Square Arts district that is in her area as well, the Detroit sure way.

So, yes, she's probably safer than others.

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is planning to seek clemency from President elect Donald Trump and potentially pursue a full pardon.

Householder is serving a 20 year prison term for his conviction in the House bill six nuclear bailout bribery scandal.

Karen, House leaders team seems fairly confident that Trump would grant this.

Well, when I talked to householders lawyer Scott Collins earlier this week, he said that Householder and Trump had a good relationship.

And I think it's interesting to note that on in January of 2017, it was the trip to Trump's inauguration where Householder and his son were on First Energy's corporate jet.

So there's that connection.

They're kind of heavily involved in this whole House Bill six situation.

But yeah, I mean, Collins has said that he thinks that this will get Trump's attention because he compared householders case to some of the legal troubles that Trump has been involved in and kind of implied that they've both been wrongly accused or convicted.

Donald Trump convicted of 34 felony counts, obviously householder convicted of a federal count of racketeering.

So he says there are parallels there and he thinks that that'll get Trump interested.

Householder still faces state charges.

Would those be affected by this?

There's nothing that the president can do about state charges, and he's set to go on trial in Cuyahoga County in April.

And so those charges, I think, in some way may have been filed because of concerns about a pardon at a federal level.

And certainly state has its concerns about what happened with the House bill sex scandal and, of course, House Bill six.

For those who are new, here is the bill that was passed that provided $1,000,000,000 bailout to Ohio's two nuclear power plants that were owned by a subsidiary, First Energy.

And FirstEnergy has admitted to bribing Householder and another official to keep that and get that law passed and keep it in place.

And that's a sketch of it.

This is a big sweeping scandal that involved $61 million in bribes.

So this is not going to go away anytime soon, with Thanksgiving less than two weeks away.

Big holiday lighting displays are going up in downtown areas and at local zoos.

Neighborhoods and homeowners are also putting up lights.

But one display in Fairview Park has been scaled back.

The display along Seabury Avenue is dazzling and has been drawing people to Fairview Park for years.

But this year police have stepped in to say no to the tunnels of lights over sidewalks, and the city is also cracking down on heavier, such as limos or senior center busses, to try and keep traffic congestion under control.

To limit the issue in Fairview Park is that many people love the display, but it was an issue for some and there were some safety complaints.

Yeah, it sounds like, you know, this really popular display has just gotten more and more popular, I think, with social media too, like elevating, you know, the scene there.

And it sounds like it just is getting kind of out of control.

You know, there were reports of like public intoxication, trespassing on people's property, parking violations, public indecency.

I mean, you can just imagine when something blows up like this that things can get out of control.

So I think this is the police trying to see if they can set some guardrails to see if they can keep people's behavior more in check and see if that can make the experience still pleasurable for people.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 80 97w KSU.

We'll talk about how policing reforms have evolved in the ten years since Tamir Rice was shot and killed by officers outside a Cleveland recreation center.

I'm an A Huntsman in for Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for watching.