Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medda Mutual dotcom slash Ohio by the law offices of PorterWright Morris and Arthur LLP.

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So our covid case numbers, all of Ohio's elected lawmakers are eligible to get shots, along with anyone over 16 in Ohio.

But how many have or will?

And the Republican leader of the Ohio Senate talks about the bill to overturn the governor's health orders.

What's next for the nuclear bailout law now that the nuclear bailout is gone?

And more all this weekend, the state of Ohio.

Welcome to The State of Ohio, I'm Karen Kasler Ohio was going the wrong way with case numbers, according to Governor Mike DeWine, who has said once the state reaches 50 cases for one hundred thousand residents, all existing health orders will drop off.

For the past two Thursdays, our statewide averages were just under one hundred and fifty cases per 100000.

Two week cash rate has risen, unfortunately, to one hundred and sixty seven cases per hundred thousand.

New cases have been relatively flat throughout the month of March.

But as we mentioned earlier and Dr. Vanderhoff talked about, we're starting to see these numbers creep back up.

So we were headed in the right direction for a long time, but now they've started to go back up.

This week's overall incident number is more than three times Dwayne's target number.

And DeWine says there have been case increases in 56 of 88 counties.

But DeWine said there are some positive developments.

Ohio will be offering the vaccine to every college student in the state who wants it next week.

And starting April 12, employers with large workforces will be able to host vaccination sites for their employees.

And why?

Instead of the 56 six nursing homes and one hundred and fifty eight assisted living facilities that had not told the state the vaccination status of their staff and residents last week, that's now dropped only two nursing homes and six assisted living facilities that have yet to report.

While case numbers are rising, so are the numbers of people getting covid vaccines with more than three million Ohioans having at least gotten a first dose in June.

State lawmakers will have the power to overturn twines health orders since they overrode his veto of the bill, giving them that authority.

So how many of the one hundred and thirty two members of the Ohio House and Senate have gotten shots?

State House correspondent Jo Ingles asked them.

More than a quarter of Ohio's population have received at least one covid-19 shot.

But what about Ohio's lawmakers?

House Minority Leader Emilia Psych's says she and the thirty four other Democratic representatives have gotten or will get shots.

So it's pretty much unbranded in line with what we have been saying for a very long time, that the science of vaccinations is to be trusted.

It can be trusted.

And we have decided to lead by example and show our constituents in our communities that vaccination is a very positive way in order to get us out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Of the sixty four Republicans in the Ohio House, 20 responded to my request on where they stood on vaccines.

Of those, four said they wouldn't get the vaccine at all, or at least any time soon.

Among them, Representative Tom Brinkman.

I currently have no intention to get one, but I just kind of a wait and see why are you kind of waiting and seeing here?

Because I'm typically not an early adapter on anything.

I don't go to the first run movies.

I don't get the first computer.

I just don't do that stuff.

The flu bad vaccines have been around for some would say one hundred years.

But, you know, these eight years, I didn't start getting into about 10, 12 years ago.

Other Republican lawmakers say they'll wait until more data is available or until more Ohioans have had an opportunity to get it.

But Jeff Luray says he cannot get it yet because he just had covid-19.

I got to wait 90 days because I just got out of quarantine from having coronavirus.

Freshman Republican Ron Ferguson says he's not getting the shot after consultation with his doctor.

I was advised personally in my situation not to get the vaccine.

And it's not because I'm against the vaccine or anything else.

A lot of my family has both.

My grandmothers have all for it.

And it's a conditional had any medical decision.

It's conditional, but there are Republican House members who have already gotten the vaccine.

Representative Don Jones was among the first.

I'm still an active EMT on my local volunteer emergency squad.

So I had the opportunity early and I took advantage of it.

Freshman Sharon Rae says it was the right decision for her because as a lawmaker, she's around a lot of people and she says it allows her to be around some of her favorite people.

I want to hug and kiss my grandchildren again.

New Representative Adam Bird says he's on the fence when it comes to vaccines.

I'm definitely considering it.

And I would call the chance of me getting a vaccine pretty likely that Scott Wiggum, the leading voice in the House on a bill that would allow lawmakers to overturn Governor Mike DeWine s health orders, says he hasn't gotten the shot and may not get it.

I have not taken it.

I don't plan to at this particular time.

But it's only because I'm looking at my own risk tolerances, talking to my own doctor and deciding that if I were 70 and I had comorbidities, I might be the first one in the door.

OK, but I'm not so.

So this is the question is, is, is, is is is it allowable for people to say, yeah, I mean, I make this one out?

I think that's the real question that we should we should be able to to ask and follow up with.

Over in the Senate, all but one of eight Democrats have gone on record saying they'll get the vaccine.

Senator Sandra Williams says she hasn't decided yet because she has an autoimmune condition and will be making that decision with her doctor.

But there's no hesitation where Senator Tina Musharraf is concerned.

She's had her first dose of the vaccines.

Despite my age and despite the fact that I've already had covid twice.

It's the people around me that I'm more concerned about.

Mihara says 50 of her family members have had the illness and some died.

Senator Teresa Fedor says she's happy she had the option to get a vaccine and resume some sense of normalcy.

Again, this is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm thrilled.

On the Republican side, there's a mix of opinions.

Senator Christina Romer says in a written statement that she wants more data before making the decision.

New Senator Jerry Sarino says he recently had an antibody treatment when he had covid.

So he's waiting on the advice of his doctor.

You cannot have the vaccine for something around 90 days.

We are told by the doctors.

Steve Huffman is one of two Republican doctors in the Ohio Senate.

Huffman says he's already had his shots practicing medicine for 25 years.

I've seen the good things, you know, that vaccines can do, and so I believe in the start.

His fellow Republican, Jay Pottinger, says he also believes in the science.

So he got his vaccine as soon as he could.

Of course, you know, there are a gazillion conspiracy theories out there that I can tell you.

I just don't adhere to.

The only reservation I had was is, you know, is it going to be effective?

And, you know, will it do what it what it needed to do?

And those conspiracy theories, hot anger mentions tensions are running rampant in some circles.

A recent NPR PBS NewsHour Marist poll shows Republican men and supporters of former President Donald Trump are leery of getting the vaccines, but Ohio's top Republican officeholders are proving they're vaccinated.

Governor Mike DeWine and Lieutenant Governor Husted got their shots before news cameras.

And some of the state's top leaders have also posted messages encouraging others to do the same.

One thing is clear.

There's no appetite among Ohio lawmakers for mandating the vaccine.

Republican Representative Tom Patton has been in the legislature since 2003 and he says he's vaccinated.

I can never imagine that The State of Ohio ever mandates that we just, you know, are going to do that.

Jo Ingles Statehouse News Bureau, one of the vaccinated members of the legislature is Republican Senate President Matt Huffman, who got his second shot this week.

I sat down with him for a socially distanced interview before that.

So let's start with the covid vaccine.

And I just want to ask if you don't mind.

Have you had the vaccine?

I did.

I had the the first part of it about three or four weeks ago.

And part two is tomorrow.

And I'm happy to you know, I I was trying to figure out when's the best time to do it.

And the best time I was told by my wife Cheryl is immediately and when I actually called my local family practice, Doc Ed Tremolos and I went down to the Bradfield Center and one of RFQ, she's run by a friend of mine.

They set it up.

And so I think I got the second day that I was eligible as my age.

I want to ask you about Sentebale.

Twenty two, which would allow state lawmakers to make the choice to override Governor Dwayne's health orders.

If you make that choice and also prevent county boards from instituting similar orders if and when the law becomes law in June, do you have any plans for lawmakers to come back and overturn any of those health orders?

Yeah, well, first of all, I don't think we'd have to come back.

It'll probably be before the end of the budget season.

So we'll probably be here maybe every day, those two weeks.

That's right.

That runs right into the budget deadline of June 30th.

Right.

And so probably plans might be too strong of a word.

I think it's likely that if the emergency has not been declared to be over by the governor, that both houses and the legislature would pass the resolution called for for that to end.

But if that doesn't happen by terms of this bill, the emergency will end anyway 30 days after its effect, the effect of which I think is June twenty fourth or twenty fifth.

So if nothing happens, this emergency will be over on its own after by July twenty fourth or twenty fifth as you're under.

Standing there at the emergency is over, then all the health orders, the mask mandate, any existing health orders, limits on people gathering, all those will be gone.

Not technically, because remember the for example, the mask mandate was actually a rule through the Bureau of Workers Compensation.

It wasn't a health order.

The order for bars to close by 10 o'clock, that was a rule the Department of Liquor, and that was part of the problem.

Those those had to be appealed to the Franklin County Common Pleas Court, health orders to these other courts.

And that was part of the clarity of making sure how are these things?

Where are these things going to be determined?

So it's not all just part of the health orders in the emergency, but Senate Bill 22 would give you the ability to overturn any of those that would still be in place.

Yeah, that is Senate bill.

Twenty two, among other things, says the legislature can end an emergency and also take specific action regarding health orders both at the state and local level.

But to be clear, a governor can still declare an emergency.

The health department can still put orders in.

It's the simple I think the most simple explanation is at some point up 30 days or during that process, the legislature can step in and say, are these things necessary?

And that's part of that study committee where we we have a smaller group of legislators come in and advise the rest of the legislature.

And that's your plan to do that, to step in if this happens again.

But as I said, under the terms of this bill, this emergency will end on its own if we did nothing by 30 days after the effective date of the bill, which is probably July twenty fourth or twenty fifth, whatever that date is.

Let me turn to the budget here.

And there's a lot of attention on the House when it comes to school funding.

When Speaker Copp was obviously heavily involved in the Cut Patterson plan that passed the House last year, it didn't really have a whole lot of time in the Senate.

But we're also concerns about how that plan would be paid for.

So what will school funding look like when it comes over to the Senate?

Well, I don't know when the when it comes to the Senate, I guess I don't have a very good idea about that.

My view of it is we have increased funding spending on K-12 education, about 50 percent adjusted for inflation, and we actually have fewer children in the last twenty five years.

We have fewer children in our schools.

So we're spending a lot more money in the last twenty five years.

It's also true that we're requiring our schools to do a whole lot more where the legislature says in others the administration is now the school is the place for this activity to happen.

Schools figure out how to pay for it.

And that's where a lot of the increase is coming from.

The however, there are the basic inequity with six hundred and eight or so school districts are there are some school districts that have way more money than they need.

And there are some schools that are underfunded.

And that's really where how we've gotten to this point where there has to be increased for everybody to make sure these school districts at the at the lower end of the economic scale get funded, which means we end up giving a lot of money to schools that don't need more money.

And and when you see a school district increase their salaries 20 percent in one year.

Well, if I'm a superintendent and I've got the money, I'm going to spend it.

I'm not going to say, well, we really don't need this.

So so I think it's really incumbent upon us not simply to say to ask those who are receiving the money, how much do you think you need?

Because it's a collective answer.

It's not an answer of, well, the school district needs more funding.

This one does it.

So and that's essentially what House bill one has done, is say how much money do you think you need?

A funding plan isn't just about spending, it's also about revenue.

And I think that's the missing piece.

And I think that's the piece that we've been working on in the Senate for about a year now.

You've been a strong supporter of vouchers.

Do you expect to expand vouchers in whatever you put together on school funding?

I don't think there's going to be an expansion on the eligibility version of the voucher scholarship program.

That was a pretty substantial increase in the bill that we passed in November.

On the ED choice part, I do think that there are the concept of the state directly funding not only the five scholarship programs, only one of which is directly funded by the state right now, but also charter schools and other school choice type programs, I think is a good idea because we truly can.

And again, there are different arguments about money, local tax money being used.

That's not actually true, but it's an argument that's often been made.

So I think it allows the state and school districts to better plan the other items, at least in terms of of the scholarship programs, are those amounts have not been adjusted, I think, in five years.

And so, of course, increases in private schools, although not as great in public schools, has increased.

There probably needs to be an increase in those amounts.

I know the Cleveland folks have been almost got it done in the last one, but really all those scholarship amounts need to be looked at.

You and your colleagues voted to end a billion dollars in subsidies for two nuclear power plants.

That was part of House Bill six.

There's a lot more in House Bill six, though there are subsidies for two coal-fired power plants.

There's also cutbacks in energy efficiency programs run by utilities, changes in renewable energy requirements for them.

Are you folks done with House Bill six in terms of pulling back or changing some of the things in that?

You know, a great question, Karen.

I think the first answer is we're done with the easy part.

But there the the Auvi-Q and that's the coal fire.

That's the coal fired right in the solar panels.

Those bills are introduced.

We're now going to have discussion.

That's not as easy on those, I think in the Energy Committee, those have been introduced the subsidy to various companies for energy efficiency programs or other kinds of energy.

In my mind.

And this is in the mind of Man Huffman, those things are not coming back.

That was a bill that I voted for in 2008 in the in my first term, I think, in the House of Representatives.

And it's a bill that I've regretted, a vote that I've regretted, frankly, since then.

And that kind of goes in the category of I think I'm against this, but smart people are telling me I should be if it was almost unanimous, too.

It was.

And it was going to be there's only going to be one vote in the House floor vote.

And that was going to be on the Republican side.

And that was going to be me.

And wise people said I should vote for it, and I did.

And it was a bad idea.

But I don't think that that's the end of energy efficiency programs part of this program.

The problem was that it was energy efficiency, but only on paper.

In many cases, people were buying credits and using them, but when things actually weren't being done.

And so in many cases, this was a moving around of paper and a saving of money for a particular company, but it had nothing to do with using less energy.

So we should continue to talk about that.

But in my mind, that program isn't coming back as it is.

I want to move on to sports gambling.

And here's another sports gambling bill will be proposed starting in the Senate.

What are the chances that it'll go forward this time?

And you have some critics who are already saying that Ohio's missed the boat because Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana have already legalized sports gambling online.

Well, I think when people figure out that they can bet in Ohio, then they'll bet in Ohio.

I mean, that's the simple answer to that.

And I I've always been dubious about the fact that if somebody wants to be able to gamble, they can do it.

But I think it's an inevitability that it's going to happen here in Ohio.

It's just a question of how to regulate it, how local entities and governmental entities can benefit and what we do with the money.

Kirk Suring, long time very smart legislator who's been through the process many times, really.

He should be credited, not me, with coming up with the idea of the select Senate committee.

We actually put a couple of other gambling issues.

I'm supposed to say gaming, but to me it's gambling.

By the way, gaming issues in this, including the veteran fraternal bingo issue, the lottery issue.

And it's my expectation that the committee there will be a bill introduced for that committee to hear right after we come back after the Easter break.

So the week of April 19th, I don't know what's in the bill because I haven't had a meeting with Senator Suring to talk about that.

But I would like to get that issue resolved before we're done on June 30th, because, as you mentioned, it's these are things that are happening in other states and we're going to have to get a program in place.

Your colleague, Republican Senator Tim Schaefers, proposed a bill that would add more restrictions to staff with the food stamp program, including more eligibility checks, raising the age to avoid work requirements from 65 to 55 or lowering that age, actually, and the bill would affect about a quarter of recipients, he says.

Advocates say there's been a massive caseload increase and not enough funding to handle that and that this would punish people who really need that program.

And there's, of course, a real debate on whether it will save money or will cost more money to implement.

So let me ask you, as the Bush administration has pulled back on work requirements and said that they're not.

Going to approve them, is this the right time during a pandemic, but the economy, the way it is to talk about this bill?

Yeah, I think, first of all, we sort of break out those different things as it relates to the work requirements.

What happened when the work requirement, the age went up is people who in some cases who were working because they got medical benefits as a result of their work when they became eligible.

If you're fifty eight and you were working and the age was raised to sixty four, people could say, well, look, I'm not I don't need to work anymore because now I'm covered by Medicaid.

And so a lot of people left the workforce.

And if you're trying to to run a nursing home and you need people there to do various jobs that there's a lot of, they can't find the folks to do those jobs because of that.

And I think there's a basic unfairness.

I'm sixty one years old.

I worked two jobs.

I got two bad shoulders.

Not the kind of jobs where you work in a nursing home, admittedly, but folks who are working say, well, look, we're OK if you're on Medicaid.

But, you know, there should be some requirements.

And again, there's exceptions if you're disabled or taking care of a disabled person and all of that on on the checks on the other side, we have a strange system.

You know, when people have to go into a nursing home, if they have a house, they have to sell the house before they're eligible for that bill to be paid.

Medicaid setting in the nursing homes apart.

Medicaid is based on your income.

So you can have a lot of assets and no income and be eligible for Medicaid.

You don't have to sell all your assets to be eligible for Medicaid.

Right.

And so because you qualify for Medicaid, you then qualify for other programs.

So you may have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets, a 401k and all of that.

But you're getting these other benefits.

And so and sometimes it's easier with the paperwork to qualify for this and therefore qualify for these other programs.

So that part of Tim Schaffer's bill is, look, if you're able to pay for all of these bills, then the Medicaid and some of the other programs, those are for people who can't afford to pay.

They're not for people who can afford to pay, but somehow qualify through some other eligibility.

That's what that bill is about.

I want to ask you about the introduction of resolutions about the House and the Senate to declare racism a public health crisis.

Last year in the Senate, there were two big hearings that brought a lot of emotional testimony, but ultimately these resolutions didn't move.

What's the future of these resolutions this time?

Well, I think the first question is, what does that mean?

Because it's sort of a a holistic statement.

I don't think there's any question that various communities suffer from either a lack of health care or disparate treatment or whatever the reasons may be for that to happen.

But I think there seems to be a national plan to have this particular phrase ingrained in law.

And my concern is that it's going to mean something someday that is not apparent to everyone right now.

So and, you know, I think every General Assembly, there's a variety of resolutions and bills to to do a number of things.

I think ultimately we should and will have hearings on not only the resolution you mentioned, but some of these other things.

I don't think there's the bandwidth to do that in the next three months, because not only the budget, but the gambling bill and the variety of the other things that we're talking about right now.

Hoffman also says he's against eliminating the death penalty, though his fellow Republican colleague and cousin, Senator Steve Huffman, is a co-sponsor of a repeal bill.

Matt Hoffman says he would vote against that repeal and says House Speaker Bob Kopp feels the same way as he does.

But Hoffman says he supports having hearings on the concept.

And that's it for this week.

Please check out the Ohio Public Radio and Television, the Statehouse News Bureau website at statenews.org.

And you can follow us and the show on Facebook and Twitter.

Jo Ingles will be in this chair next week.

Please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medd Mutual dotcom slash Ohio by the law offices of PorterWright Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, PorterWright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community, Morad PorterWright Dotcom and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 100 24000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at O H E A dot org.