(techno music) (man shouting and pounding) - In a surprise move on the floor of the Ohio house this week, a measure that would ban transgender girls from competing in high school or college sports was slipped into a separate bi-partisan bill at the last minute.

The Ohio Supreme court ruled teachers can't carry guns in school unless they undergo extensive peace officer training or have 20 years of experience as a police officer.

And there's turmoil on the monitoring team overseeing consent decree reforms, in the Cleveland Division of Police.

Ideas is next.

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(dramatic music) - Hello and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre, Executive Editor of Ideastream Public Media.

(pounding on table) It was a raucous day in the Ohio House Thursday, as state representative Jena Powell, who had proposed a bill banning transgender girls from playing high school and college sports slip the measure into another bill, allowing college athletes to be compensated for their name, image, and likeness.

The bill dealing with the compensation for college athletes had bipartisan support.

The transgender ban did not.

There are calls by groups representing black Clevelanders through removal of the lead monitor, overseeing implementation of the consent decree, compelling reforms and the Cleveland division of police.

This, after a Case Western Reserve University professor says she was forced to leave the team by the monitor.

And earlier this week, the Ohio Supreme Court dealt a blow to school districts that believe arming teachers will make classrooms safer.

Joining me to talk about these stories and more, Ideastream Public Media Managing Producer of Health, Marlene Harris-Taylor, host and producer, Glenn Forbes, and from Columbus, Statehouse News Bureau Chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready the round table.

All right, that's a lot.

Karen.

I think, I think we'd be actually just saying... - It is a lot, isn't it?

- What the heck happened?

Maybe that's a good opening question.

- Sure.

The name, image, and likeness bill that has become a very popular bill.

It passed the Senate unanimously, it passed a House Committee with only one no vote, the rest were yes votes.

So when it came to the floor, it was expected to pass very easily.

And this is a bill that allows for college athletes to benefit from the use of their name, image, or likeness, there was a Supreme Court ruling on that earlier this week.

I mean, this is a bill that was, that had a lot of momentum.

The so-called and I use this in quotes "save women's sports act" that's the proposal from Representative Powell, that's the bill that would ban trans women from participating in girl's and women's sports at the high school and collegiate level.

And that was tacked on to this name, image, and likeness bill, a bill that was very popular, so a very controversial bill tacked onto that.

And that's why Democrats erupted and I have to say, I've been here at the State House 17 years, I've never seen anything like that eruption.

Because that banging that you heard in that video, or that audio, that was Democrats banging on their desks, because like you said, Representative Stephanie Howse was not being recognized, but speaker Bob Cupp, who's a Republican, let them go for quite a while.

He picked up the gavel at one point, and set it back down.

He didn't gavel them down.

And I think that that's really an important moment because both the House and the Senate operate on decorum and if there's outbursts and things like that, they're usually not tolerated.

This was tolerated, and it was, I think Democrats were so furious that this proposal had been put into such a popular bill that they couldn't, that they needed to, they needed to express themselves.

They knew this was likely going to go forward and it was incredibly frustrating as you heard in the quote from Minority Leader, Emilia Sykes.

- If Cupp had started gaveling, it would have sounded like he was part of the den though.

I mean, I don't know how can you gavel down pounding, you know?

By pounding.

- But when, when you're gaveled down, you're supposed to be quiet and so that's, you know, there was, I think that indeed Cupp was weighing exactly that, that if he started to gavel, what would that sound like?

And so this was just an extraordinary moment, but it really shows the frustration I think on the part of a lot of Democrats, about some of the things that have been happening here at the State House, some of the bills that a lot of people would describe as extreme, this is certainly one of them.

There's also bills on vaccines and some other things that I think a lot of people, a lot of Democrats have really seen as being further to the right than even things that we've seen before.

And so we're going back to the whole back and forth that was going on.

When that bill was altered and that anti-trans women amendment was added to that bill, that bill then takes the bill back to the Senate.

The Senate said they're not going to take that up.

They want hearings on this anti-trans women in sports that bill, they want hearings on that so they're not going to pass that as is.

Then the Senate decided to add some things to another bill, like you said, adding in sports gambling.

And that's another point of contention between the house and the Senate.

The Senate wants sports gambling to be controlled by the Casino Control Commission.

The House wants it controlled by the Ohio Lottery Commission.

So it's just, it's grievances back and forth it feels like.

- Glenn.

- Regardless of how you feel about the issue of transgender athletes and where they should compete and whom they should compete with, this is what people can't stand about politics.

This addition of a bill that seemingly really has nothing to do with the image and likeness portion of this.

- (Mike) It doesn't have anything to do with it.

- Exactly and it all, all Ohio state had a head coach, head football coach Ryan Day, former quarterback Cardale Jones.

I believe athletic director Gene Smith, all testifying in favor of this bill.

Ohio state came out and said, we wanted this as a clean bill.

And typically, you know, certainly advocates want things done as a clean bill.

It strikes me as interesting that usually it's the party that's not in power that wants a clean bill, right?

We saw this at the federal level yesterday too, with the infrastructure bill where Republicans are saying, well, we're, Rob Portman Ohio's Republican US Senator says, well I'm not going to talk about the reconciliation that's possible on this.

We want a clean infrastructure bill.

They wanted a clean bill for this image and likeness as Karen and as many people pointed out, this was a bipartisan bill.

- As bipartisan, as you can get in Ohio.

- Yes and now you stick something into it, that's about as divisive as you can get.

And people who are following this, I'm sure voters who are following this, this is why we can't get anything done.

I'm sure is the refrain from people who are following this.

It's like, why can't we just do things piecemeal that we agree on.

Marlene.

- I just kind of wanted to jump in on this too, and agree with Glenn that this is the thing that people hate, but the point I wanted to make is that it's setting Ohio up once again to look very extreme.

I mean, it was just a few weeks ago that the video from that hearing where the doctor and the nurse were making these really wild claims about the vaccine were permeated across the country.

- Vaccine and cell tower interfaces.

- Yeah, cell tower interfaces, and that you know, there's things inside your body that the vaccine, just some really extreme, you know, wild stuff, right?

And so we have that happen just a couple of weeks ago.

Then on the heels of that, then we have this happen in the legislature.

And it's really, I think, given Ohio a black eye across the country and putting us in the same company with some other Southern states that many people see passing this kind of extreme legislation.

- I think somebody said back then we were trying to out Tennessee, Tennessee, somebody said, so.

- [Marlene] Right, right.

- Well, let me ask you this Karen.

The transgender bill HB61 that had had a couple of hearings already, although no opposition hearings, no one came in and was able to sit and give their reasons why this was not a good idea.

So that would have been coming or maybe still will be, who knows, but did this get inserted as an amendment because the sponsor, Jena Powell believed it wouldn't pass?

Is that a fair indication or no?

- I mean, sometimes you'll have things.

We call them Christmas tree bills here because there's something for everybody.

You'll have these kinds of bills, and the budget is an excellent example where things are put in that don't seem to belong, but because these bills are going to pass or have to pass, these things then are carried along with them.

Now with the budget, of course, Governor Mike DeWine has the line item veto power.

And so he can certainly X out things that he doesn't like.

And when it comes to the idea of these two bills not having anything to do with one another, there is something called a single subject rule, which says that when you pass a bill, you can't just add something that is completely unrelated onto that bill.

And so the argument is probably going to be made that because we're dealing with name, image, and likeness for athletes, then somehow a bill that would ban trans-women from competing in women and girls sports is somehow related because we're talking about athletes.

But it's still, it's a stretch, and there are a lot of stretches that happen with these kinds of legislation.

But to Marlene's point, the whole idea of the state really looking extreme.

I mean, when you get out of the major cities, there is a lot of support for some of these things that many people in the urban areas and many Democrats, which dominate the urban areas think are controversial.

I mean, when you look at the differences between the House and Senate budget, and some specifically things that the Senate added to the budget that a deal with means testing on people who are in the food stamp or snap program, a medical conscience clause that would allow medical professionals to deny treatment to patients.

If doing that treatment would violate their personal beliefs.

I mean, these are things that have been added on that really are controversial to Democrats, but for some people are right in line with what they believe.

This state voted for Donald Trump twice.

The state is arguably a red state.

- Right.

Maybe this is because of what I do for a living and the place where I work, where we foster the idea of engagement and discussion.

And let's get all the facts out on the table and let's be able to make some informed decisions.

The whole idea for a single subject rule is that when you propose something, then we get to hear about it.

It goes to a committee, we get a session, there is debate on either side.

And then at the end of that, people stand up publicly who are representatives and make votes.

This seems totally antithetical to that.

- And it does, but it does happen.

I mean, in the budget process for instance, there will be things that will be added on that didn't have hearings.

And I think that's one thing to note that the Senate said they weren't going to take up this amendment because they hadn't had any hearings in on Senate side.

And indeed this anti-trans women bill was proposed last year, there were a set of hearings and it didn't go forward and then there was a set of hearings this year.

But yeah, these things feel like they come out of the blue, but quite often they're things that have been discussed before, and certainly there's a procedure to add them.

And that's where Democrats really got angry because this throwing this stuff into a bill that was going to be popular, that was going to pass, that had benefits for college athletes in it to throw that in there, Democrats really felt was a violation of the whole process, which exactly as you describe.

Where people come in, share their opinions, share facts.

We like to have facts in committee hearings though.

Some committee hearings have, the facts have been very debatable or even completely wrong.

Like in the one Marlene just talked about with the magnetized so-called vaccine people.

It's really extraordinary, some of the things that are happening.

(dramatic music) - The house amendment maneuver also was used Thursday to pass a measure preventing schools and businesses from requiring students or employees to be vaccinated.

And not just COVID 19 vaccines, but any vaccines that do not yet have full FDA approval.

Based on comments by Governor Mike DeWine, it likely faces a veto.

That happened yesterday as well.

- Yeah.

Yeah, the Senate had passed that bill saying that employers couldn't require or schools couldn't require COVID-19 vaccines.

The house added on that kind of a provision saying that anything that doesn't have FDA approval and it really comes from that whole debate over the anti-vax bill that we were just talking about before and we've talked about on the show previously.

That bill was supposed to come up for a vote in committee this week, it did not.

And even the chair has said there aren't enough votes to pass that.

But that provision apparently is something that Republicans felt could be passed.

But it certainly opens the door for banning mandatory vaccines in schools and by employers.

However, Democrats all voted against it and governor Mike DeWine has said that he is really concerned about this.

He doesn't like the idea of lawmakers telling businesses how they can run their operations.

But then there's still a question of public health and vaccines proving to be so important during this pandemic.

And DeWine has been very, very vocal in his support.

I mean, Vax-a-million ended this week, we had our final $1 million prize winner and final college scholarship winner.

That was DeWine's idea to try to get more people to get vaccinated.

- You know, it's so interesting that so often you hear Republicans saying that you shouldn't tell businesses how to run their business.

But here we have the opposite.

- Well, it is a Republican in Mike DeWine, but it's a Republican telling other Republicans.

- That's what I'm saying.

It's a Republican telling other Republicans, we shouldn't tell businesses how to run their business.

But what I wanted to say about this is really, really, this is a preemptive strike, I think because we see that slowly, hospitals in particular, across the country are starting to say, you know what?

The carrots, the incentives are not getting us where we need to be.

So some hospitals have actually started to say, if you want to work here, you've got to get vaccinated.

Right?

And so I think they see that that's coming, and so they want to keep that from coming in Ohio.

And so Ohio hospitals and nursing homes are really concerned about this because it leaves them in a position where they could have people working in their hospital who are around immunocompromised folks and there's nothing that they can do about it.

So it really puts the hospitals in a quandary if this gets through.

(dramatic music) - The Ohio Supreme Court ruled four to three this week, that teachers cannot carry firearms in school, unless they undergo peace officer training or have 20 years of law enforcement experience.

The training requirements are much less stringent now.

Whether arming teachers make schools any safer is a matter for debate.

But for districts who thought teachers carrying firearms would protect against an active shooter situation, plans will have to be rethought.

Glenn, this will clearly make it more difficult for a number of districts who had encouraged their teachers to carry.

- Absolutely I mean, you look at the difference just in hours that it takes now to have a teacher be able to carry that weapon.

I think it was interesting also in this that you have Chief Justice, Maureen O'Connor a Republican, who's writing the majority opinion, but she sided with the other Democrats on the court and kind of strayed away from the other three Republican justices.

It's interesting to note also that the interpretation of this law now is that...

If you read it, no school shall employ a person as a special police officer, security guard, or other position in which such person goes armed while on duty.

- (Mike) Right.

- I think it's that, of course, it's that other position designation and the argument was well that only applies to school employees who serve in a safety or security position, that was the argument I would say against the additional training, I suppose, just to make it easy.

But no, and there was an interesting debate between Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor and Justice Pat DeWine about how that law was written.

And if Pat DeWine said, well, if they wanted it to say teachers, they would have written teachers.

I mean, they would have had it written in such a way that made it less obvious.

So there was some interesting debate among the justices, but I do think it's worth noting that the Republican Maureen O'Connor the chief justice sided with the three Democrats on the court.

- So Karen can the legislature do anything to clarify?

Are there some measures in the works where they'll say, nope, this is what we meant.

- Well the legislature take up a piece of gun legislations is that what you're asking me?

- [Mike] That's what I'm asking.

- Most yeah, most likely.

I mean, this legislature has over really the last decade or more expanded gun rights.

And so I would expect that something would come out of this in fact, there's a piece of legislation right now, Representative Thomas Hall, who has talked about what this would clarify that.

But I think one thing that's important in looking at this decision, it was not a decision about guns, necessarily, it wasn't a decision about training, it was a decision about the language and who it applies to.

I mean, there was nothing in this decision that said that, a certain amount of training was not enough training.

It was a question of whether a person had to have that kind of training.

I mean, the state now requires 737 hours of training to be a peace officer.

And this particular school district in Butler county, which had had a school shooting in 2016, and that's why they pass this policy, was requiring 24 hours.

And in the arguments on this case, the attorney for the parents who sued over this and said that 24 hours training, that's less training than a little league umpire is required to have in Ohio.

That's less training than a nail technician is required to have in Ohio.

But that was not what this decision was about.

This decision was not about how much training is needed, it was about who should be required to get this training.

And so I think for people who wanted to look at this as some sort of a gun proposal, as a gun decision, it really wasn't, it was more of a language and semantics decision.

(dramatic music) - Well, before the calls for reform after the death of George Floyd, Cleveland was working on reforming its police department, having entered into a consent decree with the US Department of Justice in 2015.

But rather than adding momentum to complete the task, recent turmoil has raised questions about the process in Cleveland.

Several groups representing black Clevelanders are calling for the removal of the lead monitor, overseeing the reforms.

Glenn, is there a concern about this turmoil at this point?

You know you think about the fact that we're many years into this process.

In fact, it's to a point where it's supposed to be sort of saying, here's all the things we've done, we've reformed the department, let's ease it in for a landing, and now turbulence.

- Yeah.

This is not easing in for a landing on many different fronts.

I don't know that anyone is particularly in favor of Hassan Aden right now, but somebody in Hassan's Aden's position may say that's proof that I'm doing a good job, right?

If no one thinks I'm doing a good job, maybe I am doing a good job.

I think there are a couple issues here.

One as it pertains to professor Hardaway, just because these people are on the monitoring board, does that mean that they're not supposed to have their own opinion?

I mean, their have their own opinions and have their own, can they not appear on a show like this and kind of say what they feel?

Are they supposed to remain totally neutral in all these issues?

- One thing that should be noted is that she did not speak about the Cleveland Police Department.

It was very specific to say what I'm talking about are the kinds of reactions and the kinds of issues we're seeing nationwide, which was evident to anybody who has been looking in particularly a professor who's a fourth amendment law expert.

- And the job of the panel, you would think the job of the monitored is that the consent decrees to have someone like professor Hardaway, but then to also have someone who may be able to argue the other side.

You don't want people that are, you know, totally not ambivalent, that's the wrong word, but you know, totally down the middle on some of these issues.

I think the idea was to have these people from diverse backgrounds, kind of everybody coming in, and making they're making their statements.

The interesting part about this is that Cleveland police held a press conference a couple of weeks ago.

They're very, they did not mention Hassan Aden by name, but what they did say was that it's time for the consent decree to be over, these issues of discipline have gone too far, it's beyond what was designed in the consent decree.

We're not firing officers just for excessive use of force, we're firing them for maybe these sort of conduct violations.

There were some personal conduct violations.

And they're saying our police force is so disenchanted, we are so disillusioned.

With Governor DeWine and in the law enforcement recruiting thing, recruiting press conference earlier this week.

He echoed some things that Jeff Fulmer had said, who's the head of the Cleveland police union, there used to be 2000, between 2,000 5,000 people that used to apply for this job, 425 people applied this time.

So there are shortages in the ranks, there's concern on by the police department they're calling for the removal of the Cleveland public safety director.

This all does tie back into the consent decree because they feel like they've gone too far with this consent decree.

And Carrie Howard, the public safety director is just doing the bidding of the Department of Justice.

- Now, when you're saying they, you're talking about the unionists.

- The police union is saying that correct.

And there's certainly some issue with the rank and file officers and a disconnect between them.

And obviously not only the consent decree monitor, but the public safety director as well.

So it all kind of ties in together and it's a big mess, as you said, not heading in for a smooth landing at this point.

- Marlene and I mentioned the three community groups that are calling for the ouster of the monitor.

Who, by the way, is a former police chief himself, Norman has minor bar association, black lives matter, and the NAACP all minority groups.

So this is resonating particularly in the community where this consent decree is targeted to improve policing.

- Yeah, it's interesting that, I mean, let me just first say if this is a complex issue.

To the points that Glenn was making, nobody wants a demoralized police force to the point that people are saying to themselves, why would I want to even think about joining the ranks of that group.

But on the other hand, it's interesting that you have Mr. Aden, who himself as you just noted, is a former police officer, former police chief.

And he does not conceive in his own mind that he brings bias to the decisions that are being made.

But if there's a law professor who has a different point of view than him on things in general, as you said, she didn't even speak to the consent decree, that she brings bias.

And I have to bring into this conversation, Mike, the spectrum of race, as you just brought up, I know there are people out there listening who are like, oh my gosh, do we have to bring race into everything?

But yes, we do have to bring race into this conversation because we've seen a pattern of this across the country of when black people are in positions, where they're expected to bring up a neutral point of view and being able to assess things, there seems to be this feeling that for some reason, they cannot set aside some of their feelings or some of the things that they know from being in the community to bring a neutral assessment to a situation we've seen this happen with reporters.

We saw this happen with a reporter in Pittsburgh who was told that they couldn't go and cover a black lives matter protest because they would be biased.

So in these spaces, in these public spaces, where you have black professionals who are put in positions whether they're on boards and so forth, there seem to be, there seems to be a different set of standards for folks in terms of whether or not they can be unbiased and render opinions and render opinions that are neutral.

- I think that's a great point.

And basically, to kind of go back to something that I was talking about, why would you want this person to be neutral anyway?

If you don't want them talking to the media, say they can't talk to the media, right?

But why would you want this person in this role to be neutral?

And I think it's indicative of some of the pressure that Hassan Aden, I haven't talked to Hassan Aden, full disclosure.

But I think it might be indicative of some of the pressure that Hassan Aden is feeling that if Professor Hardaway comes on a show like this and makes those comments, even though it's not specific to anything going on in Cleveland, that it now the perception is, is that there is bias on the monitoring team.

- Just the point of this whole consent decree, and this board is to bring more transparency to what's going on in Cleveland policing.

And I believe that was one of the goals.

Then why tell the folks on the board, you can't speak to the media.

I get your point that that would help solve this problem.

- And you certainly don't want to negotiate matters of the city of Cleveland through the media, which she didn't do anyway.

(Glenn laughs) - Right, but if you want transparency, you don't tell folks don't speak to the media.

But I think she was trying to be careful in the comments that she made, but it's still backfired.

And we'll see if Mr. Aden gets to stay in his role.

- And that's it for us this week, Monday on the sound of ideas, Marlene Harris-Taylor, joins Rick Jackson to discuss a new project from Ideastream public media, where we seek to connect the dots between race and health.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.

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