(upbeat music) - The Ohio Supreme Court strikes down state legislative maps for a fourth time and orders lawmakers to try again.

Cleveland State University's law school students demanding that the Cleveland Marshall College of Law change its name, get a boost from civil rights activists.

And Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb says in his first state of the city address that his focus will be on change and setting expectations higher now, because Cleveland can't wait.

Ideas is next.

(upbeat music) Hello, and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks for joining us.

The Ohio Supreme Court struck down state legislative district maps for a fourth time ordering the Ohio Redistricting Commission to get back to work, but a Federal Court may step in.

A national civil rights organization, joined the effort to change the name of the Cleveland Marshall College of Law, because the US Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall, after for whom it's named also was a slave owner.

Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb laid out his priorities in his state of the city speech Wednesday saying safety is his number one priority.

And community spread of COVID-19 is low right now, but case numbers are starting to tick up.

Are we in a lull or can we put it in the rear view?

We'll talk about those stories and other news this week on the reporter's round table right now.

Joining me this week, Marlene Harris-Taylor, managing producer for Health, Ideastream Public Media, supervising producer for Newscasts, Glenn Forbes, and in Columbus, news editor, Andy Chow of the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau.

Let's get ready to round table.

For a fourth time, the Ohio Supreme Court has rejected maps for the state's legislative districts.

In a four to three decision handed down Thursday, the court said the latest maps were unconstitutional and did not meet the anti gerrymandering reforms passed by voters.

Andy, not a surprise to maps were struck for a fourth time, 'cause basically they were the same as the third maps.

Even though these guys were in there, we watched them, I know it was Musty TV putting together the new map, and then the Redistricting Commission said, "Nope, we're tweaking the old one with our own staff."

It got rejected, now there's a May 6th deadline, what is that about?

- So as of right now, the Supreme Court is saying, listen, this fourth attempt at New Ohio House and Ohio Senate District maps is basically the same thing as the third attempt that they struck down earlier in March as being unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court just to remind everybody is using these benchmarks that were created in a constitutional amendment that voters approved in 2015.

So when Ohio went to the polls in 2015, they said, hey, we want a new way of creating these districts and put it in the constitution.

And the Supreme court evaluating these latest maps say, hey, these maps do not follow the rules that voters passed in that 2015 amendment.

So time and time again, we've seen that these maps have been struck down these maps that have been approved by the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

So at this point, we really are in this strange saga where the Ohio Supreme Court has really drawn a line in the sand, the Ohio Redistricting Commission, the Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission has drawn a line in the sand.

And now this battle has been taken to Federal Court.

And the Federal Court has said, if these state officials cannot get their act together, if they are unable or unwilling, that's in legal precedent.

If they are unable and unwilling to pass a map, then the Federal Court does have the power to step in and implement a map.

But some questions are still out there, what map could, if they did?

What map could the Federal Court implement?

Republican voters who were the original plaintiffs in the case that filed this case in Federal Court, say that they want this latest map that was just rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court, they want that map to go forward.

And that gives Republicans about a 54 to 46% advantage in the house and in the Senate.

Now that does break down along party preference in Ohio, among voters, but the voting rights activists and the people who have been saying that these maps are unconstitutional, say that the real argument here is in the amount of tossup districts that are created in those maps, and the amount of those tossup districts are all democratic districts.

So while on paper, Democrats could win about 46% of the seats in the house in the Senate, about a third of those districts are tossup districts, so it really could swing to another super majority in the Republican side.

So that's what the argument is over all this stuff.

And right now we have a couple of deadlines.

The Supreme court said, "Hey, Ohio Redistricting Commission, "you need to get your act together, "go back to the table and draw a fifth set of maps."

The Federal Court says, "May 6th is too long, "we need to take action, "or we might consider taking action by April 20th."

So you have these two deadlines, April 20th, where the Federal Court might take action, and May 6th where the Ohio Redistricting Commission is supposed to draw another round of maps.

- And the Supreme court is not in favor of the Federal Court stepping in.

In fact it said, that April 20th deadline, it's a little hanky, like you're basing it on when we might be able to do a primary, and the latest we could do it as early August, but there are some that do primaries even after that, so there's some discussion and disagreement between the two courts as well.

- That's right, and the argument here mainly among the Republican voters and Federal Court and something that's been explained by the Secretary of State Republican Franklin Rose, is that local boards of elections already have August 2nd marked out as a date that can be used for special elections.

And if you were to hold a primary for the state legislative races on August 2nd, then 90 days before that would be the filing deadline.

I'm gonna throw a lot of numbers out here and dates, 90 days before August 2nd is May 4th, and so to be able to get ready for a filing deadline by May 4th, the Secretary of State's office says they need to have a map solidified by April 20th.

So even though it seems like it's a long way away, there's actually a lot of different deadlines and a lot of different things that need to happen administratively to be able a pull off in August 2nd election primary.

- It's real interesting to read the rulings by the Ohio Supreme Court, because it's not just the majority ruling, but you'll see a number of side rulings and comments.

And when you look at that, you can see what kind of division, partisan division and bickering that's happening on the court.

- There is a definite partisan division, and it's been clear through these past couple of rulings that it's been the three Democrats who's a Republican.

Those are the four in the majority right now against the three other Republican Supreme Court Justices who have been saying that the majority is abusing its power as the judicial branch of government and over defining their authority through the constitutional amendment that was passed in 2015.

Now, remember, even though this was passed in 2015, right now in the year 2022, this is the first time Ohio has implemented this new redistricting process, so all the decisions that the Republican legislators and leaders have made, all the decisions that the Democratic Redistricting Commissioners have made, and all the decisions that the Supreme Court has made, it's all new.

Everybody has said, it's uncharted territory at this point.

So we're really seeing everything play out that could create legal precedent for four years down the road to 10 years down the road for these new maps.

But what we are seeing with the Republicans, both on the Redistricting Commission and on the Supreme Court, other than Maureen O'Connor, is that they really want to make it known that it should be the power of the Redistricting Commission to follow these specific rules, and they have the very strict definition of what they believe they need to follow, and they believe that the majority on the Supreme Court is going past that definition.

(upbeat music) - Former President Donald Trump announced plans for a rally Delaware county next week to boost Republican candidates heading into the primary.

Will he also endorse in the Republican US Senate primary?

The reports are that he's chosen.

- The reports are he's chosen JD Vance.

The latest report from the Associated Press is that dozens of Republican leaders in Ohio are urging him to not make an endorsement.

So think about this, if you're Jane Timkin, former Ohio, GOP chair.

- [Mike] Who by the way helped Trump to be elected.

- Right, if you're Josh Mandel, who commercial says pro-God, pro-gun, pro-Trump, if your, you know, not necessarily, you mentioned there.

- [Mike] You're Mike Gibbons.

- If you're Mike Gibbons.

If you're those three.

- [Mike] Trump's strong, I think it is.

- Yeah.

- [Mike] One of them.

- You're going to be very upset.

The interesting thing about this is that the criticism from conservative circles of JD Vance was that he was a never Trumper in 2016.

He made these comments about maybe voting for Hillary Clinton.

He called President Trump, comparing the former president to another opioid.

So there are these comments that JD Vance made in 2016, when he had not quite warmed up to the Trump campaign yet.

And I think basically what they're saying is you've got all these loyal supporters for all these years, they've been with you from the beginning, and now you're going to endorse the guy who, you know, was slow to come around to you.

I think President Trump or his people, I don't know if President Trump feels any heat necessarily, but I think the people around President Trump might be feeling a little bit of heat from his recent endorsement of Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania.

There were some conservatives that were upset with that because some of the views he has on lockdowns and things of that nature.

- [Mike] And abortion.

- And abortion.

But I also feel like this is what Trump really enjoys.

Like we heard the stories about when Bernie Marino was still on the race, Timken, Mandel, they all went down to Mar-a-Lago, and it kind of became like this little competition.

And, you know, Trump likes the chaos, he likes people kind of fighting over his endorsement and things like that.

This is something that he enjoys.

And I also think he's going to like this suspense, right?

Of leading up to this rally in Delaware County, April, 23rd, what's he gonna do?

Is he gonna endorse Vance?

Is he gonna endorse somebody else?

Is he gonna badmouth Governor Mike DeWine?

Who would rather celebrate Ulysses S. Grant birthday in Georgetown (panelists laughing) than go to the, I mean, that is one of the funniest.

- [Mike] Yeah.

- [Marlene] That's hilarious.

- And then one of the things on Twitter is, you know, somebody says, "I too will be celebrating Ulysses S. Grant birthday rather than attending the Trump in Delaware County on April 25th.

- [Marlene] Well, he's a showman, right?

- Yeah.

- [Marlene] So he's got a gen up and that's the excitement around his rally, 'cause I've heard that, you know, some of his other rallies haven't been as well attended, right?

- This is like the apprentice, right?

And here's the cliff hanger, and here's the tease, and here's the, so this all kind of fits in with the Trump stick, if you wanna call it that, or the Trump MO, but an interesting report yesterday.

I think NBC News had it first, now the AP says, "We've obtained this letter "from all these Ohio Republican leaders who are saying, "'please don't do this.

(Marlene laughing) - Andy, I wonder if we can source out why JD Vance and maybe it's part of what Glenn has been saying, which is JD Vance is a famous author.

He's a wall street guy, so maybe that sort of fits in.

Maybe that's one of the reasons, but you know, you're seeing these ads, every one of 'em seems to make a case for why they're Donald Trump's best friend.

- Yeah, so a couple of things going on, and as we mentioned earlier, voting has already started.

So to make an endorsement now, when people have already cast their ballots would be kind of an interesting move.

But if the writing's on the wall and people are seeing certain polling information that says that Vance has the upper edge over other people, then maybe it might be helpful for somebody like Donald Trump to pick the winner who is already leading and make it seem like, this is the person I picked and sort of attached themselves to this endorsement.

What we've seen over these past couple of months is that former President Donald Trump has been very selective when it comes to endorsing because he does not want to endorse somebody too early, have that person lose and make it seem like, Trump's power and his influence is waning.

And so the fact that he's coming in now, of course, he's going to show his endorsement for people like Max Miller and other candidates who seem like they have a pretty easy road ahead, but is he going to really, you know, put his foot down and say, this is the person I want to win in the us Senate race.

The other question is, is Donald Trump going to make an endorsement in the governor's race?

And you know, based on what we've been hearing from certain campaigns, that's not a, you know, that's a decision that hasn't been made yet either.

So that's something that we're kind of keeping an eye on.

I think the appeal for Vance is especially because he's had so much air time on cable news outlets, especially Fox News.

And because that can be such a big influential part of a campaign in a Republican primary, I think that that could be going in his favor as well.

- One thing to think about is even though Ohio is clearly a red state now, if the Republicans pick someone who is too extreme, they could be opening up a lane for the Democrat, Tim Ryan to actually come in and win in this state.

- Conventional political wisdom says, "You go further to your side, "you go further to the extreme during the primary, "you come back toward the middle."

I don't know if that applies anymore.

- Right.

- Tim Ryan, a pretty popular guy, pretty well known guy.

I would say as a somewhat impartial observer, JD Vance has probably acquitted himself the best.

The other candidates seem to be kind of slogan machines.

JD Vance talks a little more substance, a little more red meat for the base.

The governor's race is very interesting to me because if Joe Blystone, let's say if Joe Blystone were to drop and he would support Jim Renacci, and then Trump would support Jim Renacci, I think that makes a difference in the primary.

I really do, there are a lot of people on the conservative side who are very upset with Governor DeWine for the way he handled the pandemic.

And I think there's a potential upset there if those two things happen.

(upbeat music) - With big events like the home opener and the CADs playoff game, as well as holiday celebrations, people are gathering together more frequently and in bigger numbers.

The pandemic is still in the background, but with low community spread in much lower death numbers, this is a far different environment than the past two years.

So, there's good news, still some concern though, Marlene.

So it's like, it seems like we do this all the time.

When we start to get a little bit of good news, we sort of act like there is no such thing as COVID.

- [Marlene] Right.

- But it is good news.

- We're in a break right now we could say, and it's wonderful that it's happening over this Easter holiday weekend when folks are gonna gather anyway and they can get together with a little less worry.

Of course, you still have people who are immunocompromised.

People who have small children who have not been able to be vaccinated.

You still see those folks for the most part wearing masks, so you still see masks here and there, but I doubt we'll see many masks, you know, in downtown Cleveland this weekend, at a lot of holiday day gatherings.

But from what we heard from our Cuyahoga County officials this week, it's pretty safe right now in our area.

- Many people are vaccinated and boosted, that seems to be one of the things health officials say are helping us during this particular wave.

- Yes, absolutely, being vaccinated, being boosted, maybe even think out getting a second booster shot because they do kind of wear off after a few months after four or five months.

I got a new booster shot this week.

You know, because I'm planning some travel in a couple weeks, so I wanted to be, you know, extra careful, but yeah, so boosting, and also there is some natural immunity that can help as well.

If you had COVID like back in December when everybody had COVID, they said that.

- Wait, I didn't have it.

(laughing) - I never had it.

- You never had COVID?

- Never had it.

Okay, well, many, many people had COVID back in December around the Christmas holiday and they say, if you had COVID and you have a booster, then you're really, really protecting yourself.

- Now I'm jealous that I didn't have COVID.

- And that's kind of the interesting thing, about, I wanna go back to something that Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said, Ohio Department of Health director several weeks ago, when the BA two variant was coming out.

Says is the cousin to BA one, the Omicron, and basically that if you had, this is kind of like a cleanup hitter, right?

Like if you didn't get it in December, this one might get you.

But of course the good news is that the symptoms are not any more severe than the BA one variant.

I would be surprised though, if the numbers in Cuyahoga County did not tick up in the next week or two, anecdotally, I'm just hearing about more and more cases.

Although the briefing earlier this week, they said it's been on the down trend for 10 straight weeks now.

The positivity rate is way down, it just seems like what I'm hearing from schools and things like that, some cases are picking back up other illnesses too.

Marlene, it just seems like.

- Yeah, because people.

- There's stuff going around now.

- Well, if we're not wearing masks.

- Yeah.

- Remember, and that's the other benefit of mask is it keeps other stuff from passing around, but I think you're right, Glenn.

I mean, we see that on the east coast in particular, things are shutting down again.

My son is in school in Washington DC, and his school has gone.

- [Mike] At Howard University.

- At Howard University, thank you, Mike.

But his school has gone back to remote classes for three weeks because the numbers have ticked up so high there.

- [Mike] Philadelphia has indoor mask mandate.

- Philadelphia has the mask mandate, so usually this is how it goes.

It starts in New York, DC, and it eventually makes its way over to Ohio, so I agree with you, Glenn, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a tick up again.

- And you're traveling, you said Marlene, the government has extended the federal mask mandate for planes, trains, and buses.

They were supposed to expire next week, but it's been extended.

- Thank God, I'm so happy to hear that because we, to Glenn's point, things are not done.

Things are ticking up in different areas of the country, so it doesn't seem like the time to say, "Hey, let's get rid of mask in airport "where you have all these people "gathered together on planes."

And one of the reasons I decided to get the booster is I wasn't sure what the government was going to do about that.

Whether I was gonna be on a plane with people with no mask, I said, well, I might as well go ahead and get this booster shot.

- Right, now the mask mandates back in place so that we can have at least 15 more viral videos of someone going crazy on an airplane.

- [Marlene] Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that's gonna happen.

(Marlene laughing) They have been cracking down on folks so people have been getting some really heavy fines.

- [Glenn] Those flight attendants gotta be getting hazard payer, right?

- Yeah.

- It's tough.

- Well, it's the airlines they're pushing to get rid of these mask mandates because they're tired of their staff having to police this.

(upbeat music) - The push to drop former US Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall's name from Cleveland State University's Law School is getting a boost from the National Action Network, a civil rights organization founded by the Reverend Al Sharpton.

Marshall was a slave owner.

Marlene, Cleveland State is considering the request, but what we heard last night is, you know, let's move, the students want this done by the end of the spring semester, there was a student last night that Gabriel Kramer interviewed, who said, "I don't want his name on my diploma.

"I just won't, I can't."

- Yeah.

- In fact, a Howard grad, by the way.

- Yeah, I mean, I understand their feeling.

It looks like the law school is gonna study and study and study this to death because it's been going on for quite a while.

And I understand why the students are impatient because this campaign didn't start yesterday, it's been going on a while, but we're not getting any indications from the board over there that they plan to move before the end of this semester.

So I don't know if the students are gonna get their wish, I mean, it gave them a boost to have this national organization recognize the fight that's going on there.

But we see this all over the country, not just at this law school, what do we do about people who were so important in our history, but they were slave owners?

What do we do about that?

And that's something we're wrestling with as a country.

- Cleveland Metropolitan School District doing the same thing with a number of problematic historical figures.

And this is happening as you said all over the country too.

I guess my thing would be like what New York City does, you know, just number the schools.

Like why do we name after anybody?

'Cause I don't know what we're gonna find out 15 years from now, 20 years from now.

- That's a good point, and one of the students that Gabriel Kramer talked to last night, I thought the quote was interesting, "Like I have to look at that diploma "with the name, John Marshall on it, "how can I love my school if my school doesn't love me."

And I thought that was an interesting line.

I mean, you can interpret that, obviously that's how she feels, right?

She feels like the school isn't supporting her by not changing the name.

She doesn't want that name on her degree.

And, you know, we can play that game like you said, Mike, with a lot of different institutions, but if you've got a number of students feeling that way, boy, that's a tough one.

(upbeat music) - Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb delivered his first state of the city speech Wednesday night, echoing themes from his campaign, Bibb made change a focal point.

Marlene, this was not, it is what it is.

- It was not.

Let me turn my mic on here.

He was not, he is definitely, what's the word?

Embracing his change agenda, but he did.

One thing he did talk about from the previous administration was the lead paint initiative that was started under Jackson.

That that's gonna be a big focal point.

And if he is successful with that, that will be huge for the city to remove the lead paint from all the houses.

He talked about public safety, higher more police officers, like many other cities, the cities facing retirements.

And he has to replace those officers because safety has to be a priority for any big city mayor right now.

- Safety was his number one priority, but Glenn, he touched on a whole lot of other things as Marlene mentioned, lead paint, he talked about the west side market and the efforts there, he took the hit on snow removal and said, "We're fixing that system."

And talked a lot about the neighborhoods in downtown and all of it.

So it's one of those, I mean, it was a politician type of speech, it was a, he actually echoes kind of some of the national state of the union speeches, where he had guests in the audience to point to, but in terms of a first performance and a highlight of his first 100 days, thoughts.

- It was nice to hear him except fault, right?

I mean to say, "Hey, I mean, we kind of got caught.

"I never said I'd be perfect, "I said, I'd be the best I can be."

I mean, it was what?

He was in office for a week, and then that massive snowstorm hit, trying to, you know, come up with that interactive snowplow route map and things like that.

The rent stuff is interesting, he's gonna introduce some legislation to council, with pay to stay legislation and also protecting those with housing vouchers from any sort of discrimination from their landlords.

You just talk about politicians one of my favorite phrases from politicians is we'll have to see what's in the bill, right?

We'll have to see exactly what the language of this legislation is, but those will be two key components of it.

You know, public safety as Marlene mentioned, the retirements coming up, there's still a little short staffed with the policing.

They've got budget for more police officers, there's council members who would want to go above and beyond even what they have budgeted.

We'll have to see how all that plays out, but yeah, interesting first 100 days, and he's certainly sticking with that change mantra.

(upbeat music) - Former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Steve Dettelbach is president Joe Biden's choice to lead the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Andy is there any reaction downstate to the appointment of Dettelbach and the idea that he then has to be approved by the US Senate confirmed?

- Not much of a big reaction other than the consistent reaction you hear from Republicans here in the capital, that they disagree with the decisions that President Joe Biden is making, and that includes the appointments that he makes to his administration.

And that also includes the policies that he's trying to carry out such as an extension on some gun regulations that he is hoping for Steve Dettelbach to carry out if he were to be approved as the ATF director.

We are also seeing that there are other people who usually work in the capital and at the State House who are now being kind of plucked by the Joe Biden administration for other jobs.

So state representative Janine Boyd who represents the Northeast Ohio area is leaving the legislature to go work for the administration, and I doubt that she's gonna be the last.

- Monday on the sound of ideas on 897 WKSU, we'll hear from some of the essay winners in the Stop the Hate Contest put on by the Malt Museum for Jewish Heritage.

And we will talk about the health of lake Erie with the makers of the documentary, "An Erie Situation" about harmful algal blooms that impact the lake mostly in the Western basin.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks so much for watching and stay safe.

(upbeat music)