- Governor Mike DeWine has ordered lawmakers back to Columbus to put President Biden on the November ballot in Ohio.

The Ohio Supreme Court said no to a request to unblock House Bill 68 dealing with transgender youth and Cleveland and Akron are looking to suppress the summer surge of violent crime ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Governor DeWine stopped the car yesterday, turned to legislators in the back seat and told 'em to knock it off and sit up straight.

Really, that's a fair way to describe his rebuke over what he called the ridiculous and absurd situation where lawmakers could not agree on a simple administrative fix to allow President Joe Biden to appear on the November ballot in Ohio.

The governor went further though urging lawmakers to pass a bill that would seek to limit the power of local judges to block state laws.

And another banning foreign contributions to state issue campaigns.

A Franklin County Judge's restraining order suspending HB 68.

The law dealing with transgender healthcare and sports was upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court this week, but several justices were open to considering later.

The Attorney General's claim that local judges should not have such power over statewide issues.

The Ohio Senate passed a bill on that issue that the governor wants the house to consider next week and summer normally brings a spike in crime.

Cleveland and Akron are looking to get ahead of the curve to keep neighborhoods safe.

Joining me for the round table from Idea Stream Public Media Reporter is Matt Richmond and Abigail Boar in Columbus State House News Bureau Chief Karen Kassler.

Let's get ready to round table.

Governor DeWine ordered lawmakers to return to Columbus next week after the Memorial Day holiday to pass legislation that will ensure President Joe Biden is on the ballot in November.

He called it absurd that a sitting president is at risk of being left off the ballot when an easy fix is available.

Alabama had no problem fixing a similar problem weeks ago.

DeWine has set a special session for Tuesday and Wednesday next week and wants a legislature to act on other matters too.

And what happens is there's 90 days before the election that you have to put the name on a ballot.

The Democratic National Convention is not until less than 90 days.

So he is not officially, the president is not officially the candidate until that time.

The easy fix is to change the date at least for once or maybe even permanently.

And why could the legislature not get that done?

- Well, certainly you could connect it to the continuing battle between House speaker Jason Stevens and Senate President Matt Huffman, who are likely to face one another for the speakership coming up next year.

That's the undercurrent of everything that's been happening here at the State House for a while.

But you've got a, a set of bills here that have been going back and forth and the most recent set of bills, the Senate had passed a couple of house bills where they had added in this ban on foreign contributions to ballot issue campaigns.

They added that to a bill that would, it was actually a Democratic bill that would allow candidates to pay for childcare through campaign funds.

They added that ban on foreign contributions and they also added the ban or the, the extent, the change of the deadline to make sure that Biden can get on the ballot that was passed on May 8th.

Democrats opposed that saying, this is a way to change funding for ballot issue campaigns because republicans keep losing those ballot issues.

They lost their side lost to last August on issue one.

Their side lost last November on issue one.

So that's been the undercurrent here is that, that there are all these different things trying to come together because as both Stevens and Huffman speaker Jason Stevens, senate President Matt Hoffman have said there's no will among Republicans alone to just pass a bill that would put Biden on the ballot, which is pretty interesting.

- So now the governor is saying, just go ahead and get this done.

How, how do they just fall in line then?

- Well, that's a good question.

We haven't had a special session in 20 years, and there was a bill that was specifically passed during that special session because Governor Bob Taft had called for that for campaign finance reform that bill was passed.

So it's assumed that there's going to be something that's going to happen in the special session on Tuesday, but we don't know what that is yet.

It could be DeWine specifically wants both the change to put Biden on the ballot and the ban on foreign contributions and ballot campaigns that ban on foreign contributions and ballot campaigns is important because there are two big ballot issues that may come up this fall.

They haven't made the ballot yet one on redistricting and one on raising the minimum wage.

And so republicans really wanna put some rules on funding and fundraising and, and contributions for ballot issue campaigns before those issues come forward.

So the wine wants both of those.

How that's gonna happen is really the question.

- When you talk about the foreign money in campaign issues, there's already a, a ban on foreign money in individual election races, right?

For - For people, yes.

State law does say that foreign nationals cannot contribute to campaign to to candidates rather.

But there was a, an opinion from 2021 from the Ohio Elections Commission that said that that law that bans foreign nationals from contributing to candidates also bans foreign nationals from contributing to campaigns.

And all this comes because there is a Swiss billionaire who is given to a progressive dark money group called the 1630 fund.

And that group was one of many that donated last year around the abortion related issue that came up in November.

There are conservative groups, dark money groups that donated as well, but this, this Swiss billionaire has gotten a lot of attention among Republicans across the country because of his donations to this progressive group.

- Right.

When you say around the abortion issue, it was in support of the amendment enshrining abortion rights - Yes.

On for the 1630 fund and some of these other groups that were specifically donating to try to get issue one passed and get that abortion access amendment approved.

And then there were some conservative groups that were advocating against issue one in November.

Of course there was an issue one in August, but that was the reverse.

There.

- There's another issue that the, the governor says needs to be dealt with next week, and that's a bill that already passed along.

Party lines in the Senate could make it harder for common plea court judges to block state laws.

The Supreme Court this week allowed a Franklin County Judge's temporary restraining order of House bill 68 to stand that blocks the bill that bans gender affirming healthcare for trans youth and prohibits trans athletes from competing in women's sports.

It will be blocked until the resolution of a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.

But in blocking it, several Republican justices led by Pat DeWine, the governor's son, indicated the question about local judicial power should be decided later on.

And the Ohio Attorney General has claimed that restraining orders should apply only to the defendants in the case, not to everyone.

This has really set off a firestorm within the court.

- Yeah.

And, and that's why said that we don't know exactly what bill the legislature's gonna take up because of the several bills that are out there that would ban foreign contributions to ballot issue campaigns.

That one, the one you just referenced that passed this week, does include this provision that would make it easier for the state to appeal when local judges block state laws.

And and that's a real question that came up in the order that said basically House bill 68, the the bill that would ban transgender transition treatments for minors and trans athletes and girls sports that can't go into effect until after the trial.

And and the judges were unanimous.

The justices were unanimous on that saying that this is not an emergency, we're not gonna lift that order and let that law go into effect.

But the question of whether a local judge can put an order on a state law that does stop that law from going into effect, the court has signaled that they would be interested in hearing that case.

And Stevens and Huffman both have suggested that they think that there's a problem with that.

But when you look at the opinions there, democratic justice, Jennifer Bruner said, Hey, wait a minute.

That's if, if a judge, if a judge determines a law as likely unconstitutional, it shouldn't be put into place on anyone.

It shouldn't be just not put into place locally, but it shouldn't be put into place on anyone.

So that's a real question I think will lightly come - Up.

What's interesting is that what they're talking about are common please court judges.

And so they keep referred to them as local judges, like their rulings only deal with a certain small geographic area.

They are a state court.

- Yeah.

And, and what this really means is for a lot of legislation, house Bill 68 abortion legislation, this is the path that it goes through.

It gets passed by Republicans in the legislature and there are groups that oppose it once it's signed, they take it to court and they get a judge to put an order to stop the law from going into effect until the trial can happen and until the case can be litigated.

And so if you take that away or you make it easier for the state to appeal, you potentially put some of these laws into place more quickly, or at least you move the legal process forward more quickly.

That's really important because the legislature said they're not gonna pass any laws that change abortion policy in Ohio, so all abortion related laws are gonna go through this process.

So that, that really suggests an impact that goes in a, in a totally different direction.

- So rather than being in response to HB 68, many are seeing this as a preemptive measure because of what's coming down the pike regarding abortion rights.

- Absolutely.

I mean, I think everything that you have to look at here with the ban on foreign contributions and ballot issues with, with this proposal to make it easier for the state to appeal when local judges block state laws.

All of this is looking down the road at what might happen going forward because voters approved this abortion access amendment and there are other ballot issues that are ahead on redistricting that would change the way those district lines are drawn that would raise the minimum wage.

All of this stuff is coming together and, and the legislature has been unable to move a lot of legislation because of this battle between Stevens and Huffman.

So this is all coming up to a boil right now.

- Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, outlined his summer safety plan this week promising an all of government approach.

The arrival of summer typically brings a spike in violent crime.

Last May, the city encountered a dramatic increase in homicides, Matt, the crime numbers have been low, which has been good.

They've been low compared to comparisons to last year in history, et cetera.

But summer always brings a wave.

- Yeah.

That's to be expected there.

The, the idea is to continue something that, that Mayor Bibb started last year called the RISE Initiative.

And I mean, I started in August LA last year, - Which is raising investment in safety for everyone.

- I was gonna do that.

I got you.

I promise.

And you know, that's, that's phrases for, for police.

That's an increased use of task forces, like federal, local partnerships, that's traffic and warrant sort of sweeps and crackdowns.

And then there are, there are the changes to the policy with the, with the police department where they're the, the patrol's on 12 hour shifts now and that makes it easier to keep those, those shifts fully staffed every day.

- What is hotspot policing?

- That is, you know, basically you take crime, crime data to si kind of figure out where most crime occurs and then focus your resources in those places.

And so, you know, that would mean, and it's not, it's not a new thing.

You know, there are certain neighborhoods when, when there's increase in violent crime in any of these crackdowns, you know, you'll highway patrol cars on corners kind of watching for traffic violations and pulling people over and checking for warrants.

And it's sort of, you know, a flooding of the zone to, to kind of try to tamp down crime.

And one of the things that interim public safety director Wayne Drummond said that I thought was interesting, you know, was that he is not gonna say where these hotspots are, where this in increase in, in enforcement's gonna occur.

But in his 35 years in c in the Cleveland Police Department, it's pretty much always the same areas.

- So, and they're looking at camera, you know, security cameras are in a shot spotter, which is the sound system that would detect that there is gunfire, although you've done a lot of reporting on that and whether there's a lot of efficacy to it.

But they put all that together to determine where these hotspots are.

As you said, people basically know what they are.

Is there anyone that has a problem with the constitutionality of going into a neighborhood and saying, we're we're gonna do a blitz of enforcements?

So basically anyone in that neighborhood is a suspect.

- Yes.

I mean there, there are questions about, you know, the, if if like, like, you know, interim state director Drummond said, if it's always the same neighborhoods, what, what kind of a why are these neighborhoods kind of getting this increased, even if it's just traffic enforcement Like that is a, a burden to place on people.

And then, you know, there, there's a question of like, how, how really effective is it?

If you go in and do this, you, you're quieting things down.

A lot of people are kind of laying low 'cause there are police everywhere for two weeks, three, three weeks.

But that doesn't really solve the, the, the problem.

And like Drummond said, it, it keeps coming back and we keep going back and doing these things, but it doesn't really address the underlying issues.

One of the things that the Mayor Bibb said that this summer's gonna include it when he says the all of government approach is that in these hotspot areas, particularly they're going to send in building and housing for, for code violation checks.

They're gonna go in and fix light bulb sidewalks, due public works repairs, you know, so it won't just be police attention on these parts of the city - And not just government either.

There are violence interrupters city council voted for $300,000, a hundred thousand each to three groups that will deploy street violence interrupters in these hotspots.

And Akron Abigail is working on a pilot program for a street team to curb gun violence too.

City council still has to approve the program, but the outline of the plan was unveiled in a special city council caucus this week, I think it was in a local restaurant.

The idea here is to have people experienced in gun violence be the ones that help curb it.

- Right.

It seems similar to what, what Cleveland's idea is here.

And this is something that Mayor Shamus Malik unveiled in his state of the city speech.

And the plan here is that the city will hire and train what they call these credible messengers who are able to speak directly to those involved in gun violence, especially young people.

And that's because these credible messengers have themselves had a history with the criminal justice system.

So they'll be able to more relate and, and get through to people likely to be committing crime or involved in violence in this city.

And Molik has said that these programs have been very effective across the country.

It's time to bring it to Akron.

And, and so the city, if passed by city council, the plan would be to contract with a nonprofit that already provides mental health support and then they can hire and train the credible messengers and get them out on the streets - Like Cleveland.

They'll find the hotspots, that's where they're gonna work.

But importantly, these folks are not in conjunction with police.

- Right.

And so they'll, the police will be providing the data on the hotspots, but the, the city has said that the credible messengers won't even be in contact with the police to get that data.

It'll go through a different agency to get that information on, on the crime hotspots.

And they, and, and they said the plan would be to start the pilot in one or two neighborhoods that have have significant crime but aren't like the biggest hotspots in the city to kind of see how it works before expanding to maybe some of those higher, higher areas of crime.

- It will be really interesting, and I know you are always pulling records and looking at stats, Matt, the idea that we are down in crime generally across the country in, in Cleveland, and whether that holds for the summer or we end up, you know, this sort of becomes a, a a a point where, where it turns the other way.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, there's a lot that has changed in the last couple years.

You know, there's a, there's a new chief of police, obviously new mayor in the last couple years, a new public safety director.

There's sort of been a shift in, you know, and nobody knows how much this played a role in spiking crime, but there have been a lot of things done to, to address low police morale.

And so it'll be interesting to see if all these things together change things.

This, this summer - I'd say we're all hoping that they do.

The Akron Board of Education signed off this week on the elimination of 285 positions, including 52 teacher positions due to a budget deficit and declining enrollment.

Abigail, the decision to cut those positions came as teachers protested against the budget reduction plan.

They mobilized - Yeah.

Immediately right before the school board met teachers were outside of the, of the headquarters in downtown Akron protesting the proposed cuts.

There's some pretty strong allegations here.

The union is even saying that the district and the superintendent are union busting and, and they're alleging that the superintendent has disciplined teachers who are critical of his administration.

So tensions are, are certainly high right now between the union and the district.

- So these cuts are not the only way the district is dealing with budget shortfalls in Akron.

Abigail voters are gonna be asked to approve a new levy that hasn't yet been put on yet, but they will be, they'll be asked to do - That.

Right.

That's something that, that the school board is discussing.

The district says it needs increased funding to keep operations even with these cuts.

And so next week we'll see if the board will vote to put this levy and what the exact details will be in terms of, of cost that, that the voters will be asked to weigh in on in November.

So that'll be next week.

And I know Connor Morris will be all over that - Teachers have made allegations that the new superintendent there and the district are looking to bust the union.

And I wonder how he's responded, the superintendent to that criticism.

- Yeah, he didn't really, he, he responded through the spokesperson for the district who said that the district hasn't heard of these allegations.

That the union hasn't brought them to the district, which the spokesperson said would be the appropriate way to address concerns.

So we haven't really gotten an answer on if those are credible allegations.

The, the union also had issues with some comments that the superintendent Michael Robinson made at a church, which was right before the board meeting.

He was at a church mainly talking about the financial health of the district and the plan for cuts.

But union members specifically had issues with the, his use of the word devil, which he used to describe bad forces that were going to come out for this board meeting this week.

And the union took that to mean that he was referring to them, although Robinson never directly referenced the union.

And, and he later denied he was talking about the union and said he was talking generally about challenges facing the district as a whole.

It was, it was a weird, it was a weird speech, but certainly amped up, you know, that contentiousness between the superintendent and the, the teacher's union in a, in a time where things are already really, tensions are already really high.

- That's a common thing in Akron.

I I remember Christine Fowler, Mack and her being in having contentious relationships with the board and et cetera.

Now a new superintendent, same thing.

It seems like that's an Akron thing.

It's, - It's a it's a tough look I think for, for the, because a lot of people in the community think that the board kind of ruined a ch chance with Fowler Mac that she was really well liked in the community.

And so now to turn around and have, you know, teacher cuts, which are not gonna be popular levy, which, you know, is a hard ask for people in, in today's financial times.

So it's, it's a I don't, it's a bad look for a PS I'll actually be going to a meeting later today talking about how, what the community view of the schools is.

So more to come on that, but love to hear about that.

Yeah, it's very, very interesting.

Right now - The Cleveland Metropolitan School District facing its own budget woes, resulting in cuts, will ask voters in November to approve a combined levy and bond issue.

The combined issue is 8.6 mils for operating costs and this levy as well, if you split the two of them apart, it's a lot, it's a lot to ask.

It's not like a a a mill increase or two mil and mill is not million by the way.

It's a unit of measurement to determine how much you'll pay in your, in your property tax bill.

But it's a big ask.

Yeah.

And it's, it's - Interesting to compare it to, to Akron, the new superintendent here in here in Cleveland did not do cuts that were nearly, as you know, there were not several hundred layoffs before going for this levy.

And, and he maybe wanted to skip the fights that are occurring in, in, in Akron.

And you know, it'll be interesting to see how this, how this campaign goes.

The, the previous superintendent was a very popular, very popular with with council.

And so it'll be interesting to see the, the mayor and the new superintendent going out and how much support they get from, from council - In addition to this operating levy.

There's the separate bond issue.

It's 2.65 mil for a bond issue that's to renovate and construct district buildings pay for capital expenses.

So to know how taxes work, the operating levy will pay for, you know, salaries and all that kind of stuff to administer a school district capital stuff comes from a bond issue.

That's where you build stuff.

- Yeah.

And that, yeah.

And that basically means that the money comes in at once and then you pay it off over time when you, when you sell the bonds and they're combining 'em together.

So it's one vote.

And that seems to be, at least in part to make it more likely that the capital bond because it's, you know, it's easier to sell an operating levee.

We say if we don't do this, we're layoff teachers, kids are gonna suffer.

Whereas it could be a little harder to say, well we need some new carpet.

We got a roof problem at the, at the administration building.

- Yeah.

The boring stuff.

- Yeah.

It's easier to vote no on those and say you'll just just live with that.

So they combined it and you gotta vote once.

- Yeah.

Anybody who's had to foot the bill on putting in a new furnace at their house realizes that's the stuff you never want to have to pay for.

Yeah.

Not, it's not, it doesn't make the house look any better.

The Ohio Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would make it easier for drivers to restore suspended licenses and make it harder for authorities to suspend licenses in the first place.

Matt, criminal justice reform advocates point to license suspension is unfair because they impact people who are poor more, they generally impact people who are minorities more.

- Yeah.

This is one of those really big ongoing issues that like anytime, if you ever go to municipal court and talk to just about anybody there, it's one person after another trying to deal with they a suspended license and trying to pay off tickets.

And once you get a suspended license license, you still gotta drive to work.

You still gotta take your kids around, you still have to live your life and then you get pulled over again and, and you're driving on a suspended license.

Then you get another year tacked on.

It's a spiral.

So it is just so hard to get out of - Karen.

It's interesting.

It's very, it's a bipartisan bill and it was a unanimous passage.

- Yeah.

And as I mentioned earlier in this environment, that's kind of a big deal, but what you said in the beginning about how there's like some 30 reasons that your driver's could be suspended, it's all sorts of things like not having insurance on a car you don't regularly drive causing significant property damage, alcohol and drug offenses, failure to pay a court debt.

These are some of the things that lawmakers were looking at as reasons to suspend that suspension and make it easier for people to get their driver's licenses back and, and reinstated and, and not have to deal with all that, that spiral that Matt just talked - About.

It's interesting, the Ohio Poverty Law Center estimated a million drivers had suspended licenses from 2016 to 2020.

That's where our, our data set comes from.

It's one out of every eight license drivers across the state.

And 60% of the suspensions stem from, as you mentioned, debt related or other issues not related to dangerous driving.

I mean, you, you would think suspend because you're not, you can hurt people on the road but you're being suspended 'cause you can't pay your court bill.

- Right.

And, and it's one of those things that, you know, I think the goal is to try to make sure that people do pay these debts, but it does create matched use of the word spiral is exactly the right one.

And, and especially among people who have lesser means.

- One of the things I saw when I was reading was a, a retroactive effort too, because there had been times when there was sort of a phishing for who doesn't have a, an insurance card.

It wasn't just being stopped and asked.

But there are a lot of ways that people are being jammed up.

- Yeah.

And it's interesting because when you renew your driver's license and that sort of thing, they ask you if you have insurance, but they don't require you to show an insurance card.

And, and so, you know, this is one of the little areas of the law that's kind of interesting, but we're talking about, you know, about hundreds of thousands of people who were caught in this.

I mean 250,000 people last number I saw that have their driver's license suspension driver's license suspended each year in Ohio.

And that's, that's a tremendous number of people.

And when you talk about all the money that's involved in getting those suspensions overturned and those licenses reinstated, this is this, it's big - Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 7 WKSU.

The team is off for the Memorial Day holiday.

I hope you are too in our time slots 9:00 AM and 9:00 PM we'll bring you the first episodes of the taking cover podcast.

It examines the worst marine on marine friendly fire incident in modern history in Fallujah, Iraq.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe this holiday weekend.