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At OAG Georg a split three judge panel says it will implement House and Senate maps previously ruled unconstitutional.

If Republicans who drew them don't draw ones that are upheld, And the Democratic candidates for governor talk about their platforms as that race gets tense.

All this week in the state of Ohio, Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

We're two weeks away from primary election day, and there's still no date set for a primary for Ohio House and Senate candidates who are not on the May 3rd ballot that early voters are seeing now because there are no legal maps for those districts.

If there aren't new maps approved by the Ohio Redistricting Commission and upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court by May 28th.

A panel of three federal judges said this week they would put in place Republican drawn House and Senate maps found unconstitutional.

In March, the two Trump appointed federal judges on the panel on all the PA and Benjamin Beaton said they would grant the request from a group of Republican voters to implement the third set of legislative maps.

The judges wrote, quote, We are acutely aware of its flaws.

Yet with deference to the state in mind, we see it as the best of our bad options.

Those maps split House and Senate districts.

54% Republican 46% Democratic.

But 22 of the Democratic districts lean blue by three points or less.

The other judge, Clinton appointee Alejandra Marbury, mentioned in his dissent the voters who approved the constitutional amendment to take gerrymandering out of the process and wrote that, quote, The practical effect of the majority opinion is to set aside their command.

A fair representation among the races on the May 3rd ballot are the major party contests for governor for the Democrats to Southwest Ohio.

Mayors are facing off.

I'm Nan Whaley, and it's time we had a governor who puts improving the economy for families like ours.

First, two mayors who took over two cities in decline.

Now both are headed in two very different directions under John Cranley.

Cincinnati has made a real comeback.

More jobs, higher wages, a city moving forward.

And this week, it got heated as former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley ran an ad blasting former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley.

Performance in that office.

A group of mayors who support Whaley wrote a letter demanding Cranley recall that ad before that ad hit the airwaves.

I talked to both candidates about their campaigns starting with John Cranley.

Well, I'm running, Karen, for governor because Ohio needs a comeback.

For decades, incomes in Ohio have been shrinking relative to the national economy.

And in my city, incomes have been rising.

The middle class is getting bigger.

Poverty is down.

We grew twice as fast as the state of Ohio.

And I don't believe in Ohio.

You can win without giving people economic hope.

And the fact is that my record is better than Ohio's and my record is better than Dayton.

And Ohio's better than Dayton's record.

And so I don't know how you fire a Republican and replace them with someone who isn't as good as the status quo.

My record is better than the status quo.

And so if Democrats are going to win, I think we need a candidate who, in fact, has a record better than the Republican stewardship of our state.

A key proposal of your campaign is legalizing marijuana, taxing it to fund 30,000 broadband and clean energy jobs will pay an average of $60,000 a year.

How will you get that done?

Unless the legislature is on board with that and have any other states legalize and tax marijuana with the taxes going to a specific goal like this?

Well, a couple of things.

First is that virtually every Democrat supports legal marijuana.

And now we have Republicans introducing legislation to decriminalize.

But Mike DeWine has promised to veto it.

So you need a veto proof majority if he is the governor.

But if I'm the governor, we only need 51% with the maps that are going to be fairer.

We're going to get more Democrats, most likely, and we only need probably 10% or 12% of the Republicans to get to the votes that we need Having said that, if that fails, I intend to take it to a vote of the people.

And, you know, being governor gives you the ability to kind of organize a campaign like that.

And what I've seen in just like Michigan and Pennsylvania, this is a movement whose time has come.

You would be responsible as governor for coming up to your state budget policy matters.

Ohio's as in the last six years, changes in tax legislation have led to 60% of Ohio households with the lowest incomes paying more annual taxes on average.

The richest 1% of Ohio households with an average income of almost $1.5 million now paying less.

I mean $51,000 less per year than they once did.

So these budgets are also included tax cuts, but increases in certain things like the state sales tax, tax on gasoline, cigarets and tobacco products.

What would you do differently when it comes to taxes in the state budget?

Well, look, it's certainly the case and you just made the argument very effectively just by recent taping.

The facts that Mike DeWine and the Republicans who have governed our state for decades have shrunk the middle class and they have made it more expensive to live in Ohio and Cincinnati.

I led tax cuts.

And the fact is that we were still able to invest in education and clean energy and infrastructure and wages are up.

And so at a big picture level, they have made the average Ohioans poorer to the average American, whereas in Cincinnati, the opposite is true.

Look, I picked issues that I know can garner bipartisan support, clean water, high speed broadband, Wi-Fi is the number one issue in small town rural Ohio, which are disproportionately represented by Republicans.

These are things people want.

And then, of course, my energy dividend will put literally money in people's pockets similar to what they do in Alaska and North Dakota to states, by the way, run by Republicans.

And if it's good enough for their people, why wouldn't it be good for good enough for our people?

If you are elected, you'll be dealing with perhaps the biggest development in the history of Ohio, the Intel Project.

What are your plans to push that project forward?

Well, there are some concerns, for instance, about state incentives in that.

And how will you measure the success that project and make sure that it's on track to where where the state wants it to go?

Look, of course, we're glad that Intel's coming to Ohio, but we still don't know the transparency on how many billions of our money is being spent.

And remember that money's coming from Cincinnati.

It's coming from Youngstown.

It's coming from Toledo.

Is coming from Cleveland.

Coming from Akron.

It's a corporate welfare model that is not replicable.

We can't keep doing it.

You run out of other people's money.

And so we need a totally different economic growth strategy that democratizes opportunity in the state.

Not that every job has to go to Columbus.

People in Dayton, people in Toledo, people in Akron are saying, where is our next deal?

The research shows that the only sustainable way to grow an economy is to invest in education and infrastructure.

So upgrade our research and development capacities at our state universities.

This is how Carnegie Mellon revitalized Pittsburgh.

This is how Stanford created literally created the Silicon Valley.

We have state universities in every corner of the state.

We can upgrade the research and development to attract small businesses, but they've got to have good infrastructure of high speed Wi-Fi, etc.. And that that spreads out opportunities into not just everyone having to move to Columbus, but having nodes of activity throughout the state for different types of lifestyles that are great diverse state offers in different parts of the state.

And you've also said that you would temporarily suspend the gas tax, is that correct?

Yeah.

Temporarily reduce it, yes.

To provide relief to inflation goes down for how long and how do you make up for the money that is going to be lost that can go to road construction, which people will say is desperately needed?

Of course it's needed.

We would do it by replacing with legalizing marijuana taxing and putting the taxes into infrastructure.

And so I think that's what the Republicans should do now.

They have the power to do it.

They can do it now.

And that would provide meaningful relief.

Recreational marijuana is a luxury tax.

It's not necess.

You know, using it is not a necessity to function.

But getting in a car or getting in a bus to get to and from your job is a necessity.

And so the gas tax is inherently regressive.

And, of course, we need it when when gas prices come down.

But I would replace it with legalizing marijuana taxing and using those taxes instead.

How much do you think the state can bring in from legalizing marijuana?

Well, if you look at Michigan, which is already at 280 million annually, and that's just from an excise tax at the source of growth of of marijuana, they sort of on the production side does not include the sales tax paid at the retail side.

On a on a population basis alone.

Ohio should get to 350 million annually just on the on this excise tax, but then another several hundreds of millions of dollars from the additional sales tax which is more than enough money to borrow the $8 billion that I intended borrowed to build the Wi-Fi and the cell phone coverage across the state and fix the roads and bridges and to expand clean energy projects across Ohio.

Are you too much of a conservative for Democrats and too much of a liberal for Republicans?

Can you really reach those populations?

Look, I mean, I'm running a campaign that is about provide legal marijuana.

No governors leaned into it the way I have.

I have a commercial running right now that talks about legalizing marijuana.

I'm proposing the first ever basic income for the people of Ohio through an energy dividend like they have in Alaska and North Dakota, Republican states, by the way.

So I don't know how you characterize all that, but what I do know is that people in Ohio need a comeback.

And if we're going to fire a Republican in a state that Trump won twice, we need a candidate who's got a record better than what the Republicans have done to our state.

My record is better.

Dayton's record is worse.

This is not a question of anything other for Democrats than who can beat Mike DeWine.

And that is the critical question, because there are so many things that we as Democrats care about women's rights gay rights, civil rights, voting rights, all of which are deeply under threat right now.

And the only way we can stop a Republican legislature is to veto those attacks.

And the only way to get a veto stamp is to win.

And I believe that Chris and I have a winning message and record that is credible and gives us our best chance of winning in November.

And finally, on that note, if you're elected, you'll have to deal with, most likely a Republican dominated state legislature that not only has not embraced Democratic ideas but has been openly hostile in some cases to some of these ideas.

It's easy to say that you'll work across the aisle, but how can you make these promises on guns and abortion and some of these other issues you just talked about when this is what you might be up against?

Well, look, when it comes to individual constitutional rights, there's no compromise The agenda that I'm running on to get done, I'm going to try to stop some of their attacks on freedom, but I'm going to pursue an agenda that I believe has bipartisan support And I would not have succeeded in turning Cincinnati around and it being the fastest growing part of the state if I wasn't able to get things done in a bipartisan fashion.

All of my budgets were bipartisan.

I convinced Tom Brinkman and Bill Seitz to support a tax levy to expand public transit in Hamilton County.

I have a long history of working in a bipartisan manner.

But beyond that, I've picked issues that I know are deeply popular across the aisle.

Fixing roads and bridges is popular.

High speed Wi-Fi for the whole state is popular in the most conservative parts of the state.

Clean water initiatives is critical to many rural parts of the state.

There's a huge sea change on legalization of marijuana.

It is now supported by 65% of the people of Ohio.

So there is been a move in the direction of the agenda that I'm running on.

And so I think that will find us the ability to do common cause.

But there'll be many other areas where I will stand up for individual freedom and rights and never compromise, in fact.

As mayor of Cincinnati, I vetoed more bills than all of my predecessors combined.

And so I have no problem standing up when I think that legislate has gone too far in a direction.

And so I'll have no problem saying no to them when they attack individual rights and freedom.

But I will work with them to bring jobs to Ohio.

Well, look, I think the people of Ohio deserve better.

And what we've seen for the past three decades is the same guys in charge.

And they've gotten richer and lined their political pockets.

And Ohio families and Ohio communities have gotten further behind.

And I think, you know, I'm the best candidate as a Democrat to change that.

And we really want to make sure that folks pay goes up their bills go down and we finally have a state government that's actually working for them.

And how do you make people's pay go up and bills go down?

How specifically what are you looking at that specifically relates to that?

Well, certainly.

And you can head to Nan Whaley dot com and check us out.

We have our policies online, but particularly on pay go up.

We want to make sure we invest in small business.

We want to invest in the future technologies like renewable energy, something the state's not doing, and also battery technology.

We make all of the car parts right now.

We want to make sure we make the auto parts of the future.

And then we also have got to raise the wage, including raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

So we think those things could significantly make folks pay go up.

At the same time, we know we got to get bills down.

And so, you know, making sure that we go after price gouging, which we've seen both in pharmaceuticals and in, you know, the oil costs, which is drive driving gas prices up.

We're one of the few states that don't have a price gouging, you know, law on the books.

It's been introduced and it sits there probably because it doesn't have some big donor that's moving it.

And then we also want to make sure, you know, we're dealing with prescription drug prices.

We just announced our prescription drug price plan or, you know, we call on capping insulin at $30 a month, something the state of Kentucky has done.

We can do that in Ohio.

And then finally, we think we really need to invest in child care like high quality universal preschool for every three and four year old.

We know there have been millions of American women that have opted out of the workforce and it has mostly to do that.

They just cannot pencil out the costs of child care, which is as much as a year of tuition today.

And and that's only if they can find it, Karen, because it's so scarce in Ohio, So we think these two things, you know, getting pay up and then really working on the cost of bills for folks is the way that the state can really move forward.

But the only way we're going to really get there and that's the reason why, you know, a year ago you mentioned I announced the first thing I did was announce an anti-corruption plan because, you know, when the FBI is called your state house the most corrupt in the country, these aren't the issues that these guys are paying attention to.

And we need to make sure that we get back to what Ohio and Ohio communities really need.

And we can't do that unless we clean up this place.

Your opponent, John Cranley, has proposed legalizing marijuana and taxing it to fund 30,000 broadband and clean energy jobs, paying an average $60,000 a year.

How do you feel about legalizing marijuana?

And about this proposal?

Well, I'm certainly in favor of legalizing.

Dating was one of the first cities to decriminalize marijuana.

And I said at the time that if we could legalize it as a city, we would But, you know, look, I mean, the only person that believes these numbers are is John Cranley.

Like, no one agrees that that's the kind of funding that's going to come out of taxing taxing marijuana.

If that was the case, Michigan would have no problems in Colorado would be in great shape.

But certainly we need to make sure we're getting our fair share of that funding.

And we also need to make sure that we're, you know, legalizing something that most people are doing right now since they're acting illegally.

And then secondly, when we do it, we need to make sure it's done in a fair way, particularly that gives opportunities to black entrepreneurs.

Since the black community has been the community that has been, you know, really attacked the most on this issue, it's been disproportionately enforced in black communities rather than white communities.

And so when we do it, I think we need to make sure we have an equity lens in that work.

And then finally, I think this is a social justice issue.

We also need to expunge all marijuana cases once it is legalized.

You'd be responsible for coming up at the state budget if you were elected governor.

Policy matters.

Ohio says in the last 16 years, changes in tax legislation has led to 60% of the lowest of households, making the lowest income, paying more and the top 1% paying less.

So these budgets have also included tax cuts but also tax increases on the state sales tax cigarets tobacco products, gasoline.

So what would you do differently as governor when it comes to the budget to try to change that?

Well, policy matters has done a great job of identifying a failed policy since John Hughes said was Speaker of the House.

Right.

This idea that if we cut taxes on the wealthy, cut taxes on lobbyists, cut taxes on big corporations, and move the tax burden to people who work for a living, that suddenly we would grow as a state.

And look, if that were the case, Karen, I wouldn't be running for governor.

It's a failed policy.

We see our numbers in the state continue to go down, the population continue to go down where we are just in general of any good list where we're nearing the bottom in any bad list, we're nearing the top as a state.

So this is a failed policy.

We need to invest in our communities and invest in our people.

And in to do that, we need the wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share.

I'm just asking to pay, you know, the same rate that people who work for a living in the state pay.

And I think that would be a much better way and a much, much more fair policy too.

In addition, I think it will actually make our state grow and and bring opportunity to communities because they'll have services if you're elected.

You'll also be dealing with perhaps the biggest development in the history of Ohio, the Intel Project.

What are your plans to push that project forward when there are some concerns about the state incentives and investments in that, and how would you measure it?

Success and make sure that it stays on track toward where you want it to go?

Well, I think, you know, look, we're always excited when there's a big investment of good paying jobs into the state.

And, you know, with a $2 billion investment from Ohio citizens, you know, from Portsmouth to Toledo.

So not just the Columbus Metro.

We are all paying in this.

And so we have, I think, a responsibility as governor in the state house to be really transparent on what the agreement is and make sure the intel holds up to their fair share of that.

So we make sure not only that it's built with good union paying jobs, but also that it's cleaned with good paying jobs.

You know, we need to make sure that across the board we're getting what we need out of that development because it's about what it's what's in it for Ohio when you do a $2 billion investment and what's in it for Ohio's families.

Now, look, this administration's been pretty terrible at this.

Like Governor Mike DeWine loves to come to the ribbon cuttings and they're really big ribbons when they're these kind of projects and then just pays no attention to the after point.

That's really the important part for Ohio families.

Case in point, the same couple of weeks that this this announcement was done in northwest Ohio, he had already cut the ribbon for Peloton and would county and they backed out of the 2000 jobs they were supposed to provide for that county.

So, I mean, that's what's so key about this work.

I think too often at this with this leadership, they want the fast answer with the fast schmaltz and they don't do the work that is really required to make sure it's providing for Ohio families.

The final, final thing I'll say one thing, when the intel announcement was made, I can say from every single region, a local leader said, where is my intel?

And that's what we've seen over and over is that this this administration will go to places that are easy, which is typically the Columbus Metro that is already growing at a fast pace.

And they really haven't paid attention to the rest of the state.

Places like Dayton, for example, we've all had to do it on our own.

I've traveled every single county.

This is a story I hear over and over again.

And we need a real partner at the statehouse That's not what they're interested in doing here over and over again, is what we see.

One criticism I think I've heard between you and John Cranley is that he has more specific proposals than you do.

Do you think that that's fair?

Do you have.

Do you bring specific proposals to the table or are you talking more Big-Picture stuff?

I completely disagree with that assessment.

And I think you should check out our websites like do go, you know, go and look at both of them.

But, you know, we're the only campaign that has a veterans plan, the only campaign that has an Appalachian plan.

I think that's why we've been endorsed by 250 local elected officials and the best U.S. senator in the country, Senator Sherrod Brown, because we know the work that needs to be done.

And we've shown it, I think a lot of times you know, when someone throws out numbers that are sometimes half baked, no pun intended, you know, I think people just assume those are real good policies.

But we have policies that are really backed up and you can see them on our website at Noon Way Wycombe.

And finally, if you're elected, you're going to have to deal with a Republican dominated legislature.

Most likely that is not only not embraced, Democratic ideas, but has been openly hostile to them at times.

So it's easy to say you work across the aisle, but how would you be able to get some of the things that you've specifically talked about with abortion access and guns and things like that?

How would you get that done with the legislature?

That might.

That almost certainly would be on the opposite side.

So look, I think all the issues that I've talked about, I'm always I'm I'm always in the majority with regard with everyday Ohioans rates.

65% of Ohioans are pro-choice.

Nine out of ten Ohioans want common sense gun safety You know, these are not wild ideas.

They may be to the radical legislature, but is pretty much where Ohioans are is where I sit and look.

I'm hopeful that we will get redistricting for fair districts and we'll actually have, you know, Ohio Constitution followed where voters get to pick their elected officials instead of the other way around.

Right.

And if their decisions are made in generals rather than primaries, then the spirit of bipartisanship suddenly opens up a lot more.

And that's why this is such a key issue.

You know, when we have more people included in the process and it'll be a lot easier to have bipartisan work if the decisions for our state legislatures are made in generals like the governor's races.

Right.

So I think that that's a huge opportunity.

So I'm hopeful.

You know, even though we have two primaries, which is wild, you know, that that that will be fruitful for fair more fair districts.

But say that doesn't happen because, you know, typically here, you know, the worst always happens because, you know, it's pretty much bought and sold right now.

You know, the the key for us is that the governor's position is a powerful position and we've had a weak governor that won't use the power of the governor's position to really work with the people and use the bully pulpit.

But that's something that I know how to do.

It's been witnessed nationally that that is what I do.

And if we can't get the bipartisanship that we so richly deserve at the statehouse, we'll go to the people next week.

We hope to bring you some background on the Republican candidates for governor.

You can always check out our coverage of these races and the US Senate races, including last week's endorsement of J.D.

Vance by former President Trump, who is in Ohio this weekend.

At State News Talk.

That's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

For our support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutuel, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Right Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Right is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter right dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OGA dawg.