(soft music) - [Mike] Ohio's first winner in the Vax-a-Million lottery is a 2016 Shaker Heights High School grad who says, "A used car is still in her future."

President Joe Biden stops in Cleveland to stump for his economic plans.

And Republican lawmakers make a move to expel indicted former Ohio house speaker Larry Householder.

"Ideas" is next.

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(intense music) - Hello and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

As Ohio announces the first winner is in the VAX-a-Million lottery and other states moved to copy Ohio, because vaccination rates are spiking, some state lawmakers seek to stop the drawings and outlaw future lotteries.

President Joe Biden makes a visit to Cleveland to tout his job on the economy and stump for his infrastructure spending plan.

And to stop in old Brooklyn for a sweet treat.

Ohio Republicans make a move to expel former Ohio house speaker Larry Householder from the Ohio house.

More than 10 months after a raid at his house as part of a federal bribery investigation into the passage of house Bill six.

And there's a move in the legislature for Ohio to join a growing list of states prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory in schools.

Joining me this week, "Idea," stream health reporter Anna Huntsman, "Statehouse News Bureau" Chief, Karen Kasler and "WKSU" reporter Kabir Bhatia.

Let's get ready to round table.

A 2016 Shaker Heights High School graduate is the first Vax-a-Millionaire, Abigail Baginski said during a press conference yesterday that she was driving from the Cincinnati area where she now lives, to visit her parents in Shaker Heights and to shop for a used car there, when she received the call from Governor Mike DeWine, she was psyched when she walked in the door.

- [Abigail] Well, I was screaming enough that my parents thought that I was crying and that something was wrong.

And when I started yelling that I won a million dollars and I was gonna be a millionaire they told me to calm down.

- Such a parental reaction.

She's 22, works for GE Aviation, a subsidiary of General Electric in Cincinnati.

She says she has no plans to quit her job, she loves it.

And she believes a used car is still in her future.

Me I'd buy the Lamborghini.

14 year old Joseph Costello of Montgomery county won the first full ride scholarship in a separate drawing for vaccinated Ohio in 17 and under.

His scholarship will include up to four years tuition, room, board and books.

He just finished the eighth grade.

Anna, did you see yourself?

I kinda did, when I saw Abby I thought that she's about Anna's age.

Could you imagine getting that call?

- No.

Look, did I want to get that call?

Absolutely.

- [Mike] Right, everyone did.

- Right.

We all did.

And you know, I was covering it that night as they were getting ready to announce it.

And I had that little nervous feeling of like, "Could it be me?"

And then it was an, A name.

And then it was obviously not me.

But I think it's admirable that she's still gonna stick with the used car.

And she says she wants to maybe donate some to charity.

I mean, you know, I'm wondering, you know, what would other people do?

And I gotta tell you though, that's a big deal.

But if I was Joseph's age, in school, getting a full ride scholarship, I mean, that's, I feel like an even bigger deal than a million dollars.

I mean, that's just...

I feel like that's been a really big incentive for the younger kids.

- Yeah, that's a really good question.

We're sitting here talking about it, Karen.

So clearly it's generated the buzz that the governor had hoped it would.

We see numbers of vaccinations have gone up, so it's doing its job there, but what kind of bump do you get when you have this kind of excitement?

I mean, it's sort of what these lotteries are made to do, but it basically is marketing itself.

- Yeah.

I mean, the numbers went from way down to way up.

I mean, it was about a 40 point swing between where the vaccination numbers were in terms of being down, all the way to being up about 26% in the two weeks since the governor had made this announcement.

And so I think it's got a lot of people talking, but not everybody.

I mean, you've got more than 5 million people who have gotten at least one shot in Ohio and only 2.7 million people registered.

So that does suggest that there are still people who either haven't heard about this, don't wanna be part of this.

I mean, because when you saw what Abby and Joseph did have to go through after this, for a lot of people it's a little scary to have to do national media interviews and have reporters camped out on your lawn, the governor stops by, all these things It may be a little overwhelming, but for a million dollars and a free college experience.

I mean, and that's one thing that came out of this whole press conference here yesterday where DeWine said, "What the state is offering is the dollar value of a full four year Ohio public college or university."

So all the things that go along with that, but you can apparently take that money and take it to any college that you want.

So you could still go on to Harvard if you wanted do, if you wanted to leave Ohio.

And so, you know, I think that it's certainly gotten the buzz.

It's gotten the buzz national, you've got five other states that have now decided they wanna do something similar.

And I know I've been called by international media.

I was on Australian radio in the last week... - [Mike] Listen to you, huh?

- Talking about this very thing.

One of my colleagues got called by the BBC, you know?

So this is getting a lot of attention.

- It certainly is.

And you mentioned five other states and California is trying to best us with a million and a half and 10 different prizes.

But this is something the U.S treasury, Kabir, said it was encouraging states to do.

They want innovations to increase shots.

They actually praised DeWine for this lottery.

And yet he's getting a lot of criticism locally for it too.

- Well, here's being praised nationally.

There's a "New York Times" editorial saying, "That this was a great idea.

And this is coming out of Corona virus relief funds."

But you got people in the state house on both sides, Emilia Sykes from I'm here in Akron saying, "This money would be better spent," in their opinion, "On various recovery things, small business aid and things that were directly going to Corona virus relief."

So the million dollars and the college tuition, which there's gonna be I think four more of these drawings those are going to...

There'll be 10 individuals but there's people in the state house arguing that these funds maybe should be spread around a little bit more.

And I think there's even legislation just trying to say that this is illegal, we shouldn't be doing it.

- Yeah.

What about that, Karen?

The legislation who's behind that?

We've already had a drawing, so it's obviously not gonna stop that one but could it stop future drawings, even in this cycle or outlaw lotteries going forward?

- Well, this is representative Jenna Powell whose district is just above Joseph Costello, the one who won the a college scholarship, just above his district.

So very close to her.

She proposed legislation.

She says, she's been working on it for awhile.

I interviewed her for this week's TV show "The State of Ohio."

And talk to her about, "Why do this now?"

I mean, the drawing... By the time we talked on Monday, the drawing had already happened or at least we thought it had.

And then of course the day the winners were announced on Wednesday.

And I said, you know, there's no way that this is gonna get through the legislature, pass both houses, both chambers, get signed by the governor veto and then there's an override.

You know, there's no way this is gonna happen before the drawing and the announcement on Wednesday.

And she said, "Well, that wasn't the point."

The point was that they'd been working on this for a while.

They're concerned about the use of taxpayer dollars, like Kabir was just saying.

And what's interesting here is, the bill has 29 co-sponsors.

And some of the most conservative members of the Ohio house have joined in to co-sponsor this, including Philip Plummer, who actually represents the district where Joseph Costello, the college graduate, the one who won the...

I'm sorry, the one who won the college scholarship, that is his district.

- Who's soon going to be an eighth grade graduate.

- That's interesting.

Yes, exactly.

- Middle school graduate.

- But it's interesting that the kid who won the college scholarship, his state representative is signed onto this bill to oppose future drawings where other people would win.

But there were Democrats who had come out initially saying that they were concerned about the use of taxpayer dollars.

They didn't like this idea.

No Democrats signed onto this bill.

Now, of course, like I said, some of those conservative Republicans in the house have signed onto it.

There may be a political element here, but certainly, there has been some concern about the use of about $6 million, all told, from the $5 million, the individual $5 million in prizes and then the value of all those college scholarships.

- And that's using money from the COVID 19 economic stimulus bill.

But you think they could also spend it on billboards, television advertisement, those types of things, I mean.

- They were doing all those things though.

I mean, there were PSA's, there were billboards, there were, you know, all sorts of things.

And I think this was the idea, DeWine talked about it yesterday in this call that one of his staff members had come to him with the idea of just, "Hey, what about a lottery?

Would that even work?"

And he started thinking about it and said, "Hey, I think that would work."

And this is money that was appropriated by a panel of lawmakers called the State Controlling Board, for the promotion of the vaccine.

And he said, "What way better to promote the vaccine and get people talking through a lottery."

And then apparently it's worked at least temporarily.

What will be interesting to watch is the numbers over the next couple of weeks and see if more people sign up for the Vax-a-Million and more people sign up to get their vaccination.

- Let's talk about some other efforts here or other tangents of the COVID 19 story as it still relates to Ohio, we're lifting the health orders next week.

Kabir, dropping those state orders doesn't mean businesses can't continue to say, "Require a mask," or those types of things, but you can't point to a sign and say, "Well, the state says so," so now these businesses are pretty much on their own.

It could get really confusing for people.

- Oh, I'm sure it's going to get confusing for people.

And it's going to maybe get contentious.

We've seen these videos where a person comes up and confronts someone at Costco, "Why do I have to wear a mask?"

And if a company like that decides, "We wanna keep masks for customers" and customers say, "I don't want it."

They just want to walk right in.

And there's going to be the honor system of whether you're vaccinated or not.

Not that that's going to impact the rule so much, but for other shoppers, "Well, that person doesn't have a mask.

I don't know, should I get close to them?

Should I reach for that bundle of bananas?

Or should I wait until they move back?

'Cause I don't know if they're vaccinated."

So it's definitely going to get...

I don't know if confusing is the word I would use.

I think contentious is probably what we're going to see, especially after the past year and a half where everything related to masks becomes contentious and even what sort of mask, that sort of thing.

I've had people give me a hard time because of the color of my mask, because I frequently just grab one that's sitting there and my daughter and my wife usually there's a pink and I've had people make comments at me.

- C'mon.

Let's talk about a couple other things that show us sort of the winding down at least of the way Ohio has reacted to the pandemic.

First, Karen, the color-coded advisory map that shows where the hotspots are and something we talked about at the lead of the show, maybe every show for several months, that's the state's not going to be coloring that in anymore.

- Right, the state did a very quick, kind of a surprise call yesterday to announce that yesterday was the last day that we're gonna use these things.

And this is of course the map that shows the intensity and severity of COVID cases by individual counties, going from yellow to orange, to red to purple.

And you know, for a while, it was the biggest indicator of where the worst spread was in the individual parts of the state, because we could see the overall numbers but where it was happening in individual parts of the state turned out to be really important.

And now, you know, the state is saying the numbers are really low.

I mean, we're averaging about 750 confirmed cases per day for the month of may, which brings us down to where we were like last June.

And so that really suggests that maybe this is not something that the state needs to focus on.

The state's gonna now look according to health director, Stephanie McLeod, at vaccination numbers and total averages.

They're gonna look at other things besides this.

Now, of course, any of these things I suppose, could come back.

And any of these tools that the state has built to try to monitor the spread of COVID around Ohio, especially as the mask mandates and other mandates and requirements do lift on June 2nd.

But for right now, the color-coded map has gone.

- One other thing, Anna, the Wolstein Center vaccine shop is winding down, 250,000 plus shots there.

Really universal praise from everybody I know who actually went there, but it's ending.

- It is, yeah.

I mean, remember when it first opened, which by the way, that was a couple months ago, doesn't it feel like... - Yesterday.

- It was not that long ago.

Right.

And I just, anecdotally, it snowed whenever I got my shot there.

So yeah.

So it was a really big success overall, you know, they had the capacity to do 6,000 per day.

So 250,000, that's about, yeah, that's pretty good.

You know, 10 weeks in.

But I think, you know, once we saw it started having walk-ins, I think the interest, this like urgency again was kind of falling to the wayside.

So they're gonna be wrapping it up.

And the key thing to know here is that, if you do get your first dose at the Wolstein on the last week, you can't get your second dose there.

So you'll have to go to a Discount Drug Mart.

So they're coordinating all that too.

So yeah, winding down.

(intense music) - President Joe Biden stopped in Cleveland to pitch his plans to stimulate the economy.

Kabir, Ohio is deeply red, solidly backed former President Trump in two elections.

It's a surprising that this is where Joe Biden would go to pitches economic plans.

- You would think, yeah, on the surface, we've turned very red and that President Trump won here by, what is eight point something like that.

But that was Ohio, President Biden came to Cleveland which has done, especially in the two elections for President Obama, has been very supportive and has not been (indistinct).

They've been at worst, if you're looking at it in that sense of red versus blue, it was purple.

So coming to Cleveland wasn't wasn't as much of a surprise.

Also, Tri-C of course, has the career training and the center where he was speaking at.

So it wasn't the biggest surprise that he would come to that part of the state.

You might've been more surprised if he came to a more rural area or even in a place like say Lordstown.

So coming to Cleveland, I think was a smart move, he's trying to get word out that we need to invest in infrastructure, invest in job training, that sort of thing.

- The real debate, Karen, is what is infrastructure?

And that's what the Republicans are pushing back against.

I mean, infrastructure can be roads and bridges, et cetera.

But the plan that President Biden puts forward covers a whole lot of things that some say are not traditional infrastructure.

So that's the debate.

- Right, absolutely.

I mean the Biden plan includes things like childcare, which Republicans will say, "Hey, that's not infrastructure."

And so there's really been this struggle back and forth.

The Republicans have now put together a compromise or a counter proposal, I guess.

And now the question is whether that will actually go forward.

It interesting though, as this comes, you know, after the hat of the Senate last night, didn't vote on a January six commission to investigate the insurrection of the Capitol and Biden even noted in the speech that there are Republicans who are trying to take credit for what happened in the American Rescue Plan, but didn't vote for the American Rescue Plan.

And they actually had a list where he held it up saying, "I'm not gonna embarrass these people but there are 13 Republicans that voted against the American Rescue Plan and they are now trying to say that there are things that are coming to their district and taking credit for it."

And he said that...

He tried to shame them, basically saying that they have no shame.

- Biden did call out and praise Governor Mike DeWine by name.

So while you're honey hut and you're like, "Awesome, the president stopped by, what kind of great publicity could this be?"

If you're Mike DeWine, I wonder if you're thinking, "Hey, thanks a lot, buddy.

Like maybe don't mention my name here."

- I don't know, because I think that, I mean, DeWine and Biden have talked before and even, you know, DeWine has singled out Biden to thank him for the vaccines that Ohio got initially.

And, you know, there's been a partnership here and they know each other, I mean, they served in the Senate at the same time.

And so there was a call fairly recently with governors from across the country.

And DeWine was included in that call with the president.

So I think there's a relationship there.

And I think that DeWine has, throughout this whole pandemic tried to walk this very fine line of being a Republican who is seeking reelection next year as governor.

And so trying to appeal to that part of the base, because as we just mentioned, Ohio is very Republican, but then also to work with who's in charge.

And I think that there's...

He's trying to walk that line very carefully.

And a lot of times people get frustrated with him over it.

(intense music) - There was a move this week by Ohio lawmakers to expel Larry Householder from the Ohio house, nearly a year after an alleged bribery scheme in which the former speaker was accused of corruption involving the passage of house bill six, the Nuclear Bailout Bill.

Karen, why the move now after so many months of no action?

- Well, this been a topic of discussion for a long time.

And in fact, I think when Speaker Cupp does a gaggle with reporters, a mass interview with reporters after house session, he is asked like every time, "So what's the status of a representative Householder?"

There was a caucus meeting back in March where the Republicans in the house were to decide what was going to happen to representative Householder, were they going to expel him or were they going to keep him as he awaits trial in these federal charges?

And Cupp has continued to say he has nothing to report.

He's not gonna talk about what happened in the caucus.

And meanwhile, people in Householder's district, elected Republicans, have been sending Cupp letters saying, "We want him gone because he doesn't have any committee assignments.

He really doesn't have the gravitas that somebody who is an elected member of the house should have."

And so they've been pressuring him.

Now, you've got these two Republican representatives who have proposed a resolution that would expel him, that has not been introduced yet.

So I can't tell you how many co-sponsors, if any, they have.

Just around this time, three democrats announced they were gonna do the same thing.

They were gonna introduce a resolution that would expel Householder.

And again, I haven't seen the list of sponsors there but the press conference had a lot of Democrats involved.

And of course, Democrats, even though they voted for Householder, many of them do wanna see him gone because it's potentially, you know, it doesn't look good, I guess, the argument could be made.

And it's a campaign issue, of course.

So, right now we're no further along in deciding representative Larry Householder's fate than we were a week ago, other than there are these two resolutions that are being talked.

(intense music) - And Ohio Republican lawmaker crafted legislation that would prevent the state from teaching critical race theory in schools.

The theory underlies the concept that race and inequality are systemic issues in the United States.

Karen, the bill sponsor, Ohio representative, Don Jones of R-Freeport said in a statement announcing the bill that the theory is wrong and in conflict with the nation's founding documents, what does that mean?

- Yeah.

And I had a very long conversation with representative Jones about this and specifically asked him about that, because there is this founding documents curriculum that Ohio has, it teaches the declaration of independence, the state constitution, U.S constitution, all those things, which do mention slavery.

And he has said that he feels that the concept of critical race theory is un-American and conflicts with those documents.

And it's just...

I think part of the problem here is that how to define critical race theory, people who support it and people who oppose it have two very different definitions.

And how do you define it in law is really gonna be the issue because what representative Jones wrote in his statement and rights in the bill is not what people who support critical race theory say it is.

And they say, it's not new, it's been 40 years of teaching about this.

It doesn't teach that any one race is superior to another.

It doesn't teach anybody to hate anybody.

It's just a new way of looking or, well, not new, I guess, if it's been here for 40 years.

It's a way to look at history from a perspective of at least acknowledging that there are policies and issues that really intended to discriminate against people based on race and the people who support a bill like what Don Jones has out here really say that this is not what critical race theory is.

And they pushed back saying it's a Marxist policy.

And they want all the facts to be taught.

But when we're in a world where different people have different things that they call facts, I don't know how you really identify that in law.

So this is gonna be a very interesting and potentially emotional discussion over what this bill actually might do.

- There've been some protests in local school districts too about that, including one in Rocky River, where the administration says, "We're not teaching so-called critical race theory."

And yet there are residents that are protesting against that.

There have been mailers that have been sent to people's homes that are calling it a Marxist theory and those types of things.

Have we gotten to a point where it's simply... Is critical race theory sort of the new target and buzz phrase for a discussion about race and the opposition to doing so?

- I think that you're seeing a lot of these kinds of issues coming out, especially as we approach an election year because they are hot button issues.

I mean, it was not long after Don Jones announced this bill that Jane Timken, who's in the Republican race for U.S Senate said, "This is great."

She's been speaking out against critical race theory for a while.

But once again, the question is, "What is critical race theory?"

And is any school actually teaching this in the way that opponents say it's being taught?

And I still can't get really any concrete examples of something that would be banned under this bill that is currently being taught.

- Anna, the whole conversation that we've been talking about that's been had in the last year, since the George Floyd death, has resulted in a number of cities, Cleveland included, declaring racism a public health crisis.

So it's interesting to hear on one end about this so-called critical race theory and not discussing it.

And yet we have entire cities that are saying, "Yes, we have systemic problems."

They're not one-off individual things.

- Right, this kind of might seem like a relatively new discussion happening in the education world, but it's for many years now, health care institutions have come out and said, you know, "We are focusing on what's called the social determinants of health."

So where you live, the environment you're in, you know, all of those things, whether you have access to healthcare, do you access to healthy food and healthy choices and things like that.

Those all play into your health and your, you know, either good or bad health outcomes.

And many institutions now, especially those that are declaring racism as a public health crisis are saying that is all... A lot of it is due to racism and policies that have happened in our history, take for example, red lining, which is what critical race theory, if taught in schools, it could include redlining.

Which has resulted in where many people live today.

And in these places often there's poor air quality or you might live in a food desert and things like that.

And so healthcare institutions do look at that and are trying to focus on it.

And by declaring racism as a public health crisis, people are trying to hold institutions accountable.

And so kind of what happens in that sense, when a city declares it or something like that, it is this intense focus or so they say, to really hold people accountable and take a critical look at it.

So again, this isn't that new in the healthcare world but I think it's getting a lot of buzz now because of all that's happened in the past year.

- We'll be looking at racism as a public health crisis, as an institution here at "Ideastream," you and your team for the next couple of years.

- Yeah.

We're focused... We're focusing on that.

And we're focusing all our stories with this lens of, you know, racism has impacted health for many years and policies, even though they're in the past, still have a lasting impact to this day, for many, you know, marginalized communities.

- Karen.

- I just think it is interesting that this bill on critical race theory did actually get introduced on the one year anniversary of George Floyd's murder, which is an interesting point there.

When I talked to Don Jones, he said, he thinks, "That teachers need to teach history," and this is a quote, "But whenever we start trying to impress upon our young people in our schools that they should feel guilty because of their situation.

Then that's a hundred percent wrong.

And I hate the fact that we wanna use race or gender or anything to try to figure out or blame race or gender on our own situation or current societal issues."

Again, that's representative Don Jones, direct quote.

That's not what people who support critical race theory say it is, they say, "It's not about trying to make people feel guilty and blame, it's about trying to figure out, how these things happen and how to change them."

- And that's going to wrap up our show, coming up Monday, on "The Sound of Ideas on 90.3 WCPN," we'll bring you a Memorial day, humankind public radio special, "The power of nonviolence: healing the trauma of war."

It's about veterans and how they handle the invisible wounds, emotional and spiritual, sustained in the combat zone.

I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Thanks for watching.

Have a great holiday weekend and please stay safe.

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