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Every child deserves more at OHEA.org It's been a long and busy year in the state House with a lot of activity centered on the House.

The leaders of that chamber talk about 2023 this week in the state of Ohio.

And welcome to the state of ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

While 2023 is on track to have the fewest bills passed of the Ohio legislature in decades, it's also been a busy year with two statewide elections, a new set of legislative district maps continued fallout after an unexpected result in the vote for House Speaker and several controversial bills.

I invited the leaders of the Ohio House for a joint interview, as the Senate leaders did here last week.

Republican Speaker Jason Stevens requested solo conversations.

I asked him about that and more, starting with what changes might be coming to the recreational marijuana law.

Approved with issue two last month.

Issue two is, you know, it was passed by 57% of the people plus.

And you know, I think it's very important that we respect the will of the voters.

And I think it's in a lot of ways, it's a very complex issue.

It's, you know, the I kind of break it down into three different areas.

It's the consumer side, which is, you know, the THC advertising, that sort of thing.

Then you have the actual business model which has the, you know, who's going to sell it, who gets a license, where is it going to be?

And then the third thing is the tax.

Distribution.

What kind of programs and where does that go?

So trying to do that has been, you know, it takes a while.

And we've tried to be very deliberative in the house.

You know, we've had hearings or I think there's a hearing today and there will be other hearings.

So we understand what the issue is.

And I think that's as I've said before, we don't want to let the urgent get in the way of the important.

And we also want to respect the will of the voter.

It's kind of similar to a school levy.

You know, voters, when you pass a school levy to build a building, not everybody votes for it, but the voter doesn't really pick out the color of the of the furniture.

Right.

So that's kind of what we want to make sure we're staying in that lane of this is what the voters voted for.

We need to maybe put some guardrails around some of these, you know, depending on which bucket of the issue is so that the industry is there, you know, that the vulnerable people in our society are protected and that the, you know, the tax revenues go to fund things that will, you know, that everybody can agree on.

Voters also approved issue one in November.

That was the Abortion Access Reproductive Rights amendment.

This was after voters rejected issue one in August, which would have made it harder to end the Constitution by requiring 60% voter approval.

There was a lot of pressure on the House to pass a resolution to put that before voters in August.

At one point you said you weren't interested in doing that because the legislator had just passed a law banning most August special elections.

Do you regret the decision to put Issue one before voters in August?

Yeah, not really.

I mean, it's you know, that's I don't think it would have mattered when that election would have been August, July, September, you know, when you have those two results.

You know, you let the people speak and it's time to move on and, you know, figure out, you know, things that we can do.

It's hard to Monday morning quarterback, you know, in elections, you know.

But yeah, I mean that was there was a lot of pressure and, you know, ultimately, you know, we had to have the votes to put on there in August.

So we did.

And, you know, the voters spoke you know, some of the concern was turnout.

But Ohioans turned out in record numbers.

And, you know, when that many people turn out to vote again, you have to respect the will of the voter.

That's a that's a very important thing.

Doesn't mean, you know, you may not necessarily agree with it.

I voted no on both of those issues.

But, you know, at the end of the day, that's what how our system works.

So you voted yes in August and no.

No.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah.

Sorry.

We've got to change the numbering on that so we don't have repeat issues.

So.

Former Public Utilities Commission chair Sam Randazzo was indicted last week on 11 counts related to the House Bill six nuclear power plant bailout law.

I want to ask you about that law.

The nuclear subsidies in that law have been repealed, but the rest of the law remains, including subsidies to to coal fired power plants, one of which is in your district.

Should House Bill six be repealed?

Yeah.

So first of all, I was not here when the original House Bill six was passed.

I didn't even know what it was.

People were asking me about it.

I was like, I don't know.

I was the county auditor stuff at that time.

But whenever, you know, the first arrest happened and you know, all of the things happened in 2020.

Speaker Cupp, at the time put me on the special committee that went through line by line of every part of House Bill six that was chaired by Representative Jim Hoopes and we went through all of those issues.

Then in the following G.A., which was last year, we passed, I believe it was House Bill 28, 128 and went through every provision of the original House Bill six.

The House voted, the Senate voted, the governor signed it.

It has been put into law.

And so, in my opinion, we have reviewed that well before.

You know, any news comes out of this in the future.

And what really is important for for I think Ohioans to understand is the electric grid in Ohio is something we need to pay attention to because we are a net importer of electricity.

And when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, or if the wind blows too much like it did last summer and the transmission lines blow over, you have a city like Columbus that doesn't have electricity.

So anything we can do to have that baseload power and to do those types of things is important because if not, we're not going to be able to grow our economy.

And I think we need to continue to look for ways to do that in a way that, you know, the public can see exactly what's going on.

And because it's it's so big of an issue and so important for our economy and for for all the things that, you know, we need to get past and look forward to that.

But House Bill six, no repeal.

Well, like I said, we've already looked at all that repealed the things that were, you know, not good.

And we went through every single line and and did that.

And it's it was done, you know, almost three or four years ago now.

So there's been a lot of time to go through.

So there's a bill that seeks to address concerns that conservatives have about higher education.

Senate Bill 83, it passed a committee but won't be voted on in the House by the end of this year.

According to what you've said.

You said it doesn't have the votes.

The sponsor, Senator Jerry Serino, says he changed it to make sure that it would have the votes when he dropped the ban on faculty strikes.

Representative Gale Manning said that she would support it.

Serino also says if it doesn't pass this time, he's prepared to play the long game and introduce it again next.

So does the bill have the Republican votes to pass?

Well.

You know, these are the types of bills.

It's a very extensive piece of legislation which touches a lot of different things.

And so when you have a piece of legislation that touches a lot of different areas, it can find it's easier, it is more difficult to get through the entire process.

So I think that is where that bill is.

And this is part of being deliberative in thinking through and looking at now, I think it's important that our universities in Ohio and colleges are doing their number one goal, which is, you know, training our workforce.

And that is that is why we are seeing the growth in Ohio that we are.

So we don't want to mess up that workforce training.

We actually want to improve and build upon it.

So when our kids, you know, are going here in Ohio, they're where they want to stay and come back to Ohio.

So, you know, those are the types of discussions we're going to have continually in the House and I would like to see us get to something that addresses the concerns on that issue from the universities, too, to make sure that that is their number one focus and that they don't.

The universities are places where you can learn and be challenged intellectually, but also you feel safe.

But, you know, we cannot we cannot abide by, you know, threats of harm just because of what you look like or where you you know, where you're from.

So those are the things that hopefully we can get addressed.

And there are bills in the House and Senate committees.

I think there there are bills that you listed as priorities.

The ban on trans athletes and girls, sports ban on gender transition treatment for minors, one that would protect parents rights.

But opponents say it could result in teachers outing students to their parents.

Why focus on these anti LGBTQ bills right now when there are other issues are shoring up the Unemployment Compensation fund, for instance, property tax changes, which you've talked about.

Why?

Why the focus on the.

So at the core of those issues are two things.

Number one, it's about protecting kids.

And number two, it's about empowering parents.

And that's how we see these issues not as anti anything so much as it is making sure that, you know, children are protected and that parents know what's going on.

Those are the two fundamental issues and how we see those.

And I you know, I think a lot of a lot of people think that those are important issues.

So that's how we see those issues.

The big three in state government are the governor, you, the speaker and Senate president.

It's widely thought the Senate president, Matt Hoffman, intends to challenge you as speaker if you're both elected to the House next year.

How does that affect your working relationship?

You know, I've been in local politics for 25 years calling the state politics.

And, you know, politics is politics.

I don't really get distracted.

There's always distractions.

There's always, well, what if this or what if that I've found if you stay focused on doing your job after a while, people are like, you know what?

That you can you can do this job.

So I'm not concerned about it.

I think there's a lot of things that we've done with the Senate in the House and the governor that have been very good for Ohio.

And when you look at the scoreboard, if you will, you know, our transportation budget, the operating budget, all of these things that have been really productive for our state.

You know, I'm really proud of the record that we have done, you know, with the big three, if you will, together, regardless of what political stuff talk there may be.

On the subject of politics, the election for speaker almost a year ago seems to run as an undercurrent to a lot of conversations around legislation.

Most recently, supporters of Derek Marin have been saying that Senate Bill 83 had the votes to pass in the House.

And you've said that you want more discussion on that.

Why is there still so much division among the Republican caucus?

Do you expect to be challenged by Marin supporters throughout your speakership?

Yeah, I mean, there is there's always distractions.

There's always noise.

And again, I think if we stay focused on what the legislation is, you know, with relationships with people, people who have put in positivity and people who, you know, representatives who are working, whatever their issue is, you know, they've had the opportunity to do a lot of really good things for Ohio.

And I think people who put in negativity and cynicism get exactly that back.

So I don't let the distractions bother me too much and we just keep rolling forward.

So it's been reported that the legislature is on track to pass the fewest bills since 1955, according to Jake.

Sacramento Cleveland.com Why so few bills?

Why such?

I think why this.

Is so I've had a lot of people tell me that's really good news.

But it you know if you look at it, I would probably and I don't know if they've done the statistics on how many pages were in the operating budget.

It was probably one of the largest budgets from a word for word.

So a lot of our priority bills, for example, and the sentence were put into the operating budget.

So, you know, I'm not that concerned about not getting so many bills passed.

I would rather have the quality, you know, in the deliberative nature of making sure what we do pass is well vetted and makes sense and people can understand exactly what it is, whether they like it or love it or hate it or kind of don't like it.

You know, that's that's what we want to try to be able to do.

You'd requested this one on one interview instead of a joint interview with Minority Leader Alison Russo.

You became speaker with the support of House Democrats.

So why didn't you want to do an interview with your counterpart across the aisle like Senate leaders did?

Like, Well, you know, we we get along fine.

And, you know, Leader Russo can hold her own.

And, you know, I think it's one on one.

It's kind of nice from where we spoke last.

I guess it was February almost ten months ago.

Time flies.

But no, I think our house is you know, it's functioning very well.

And I think it's you know, we have different ways of looking at the world.

But what I have found is if we listen, it doesn't cost anything to listen maybe a little bit of time.

But if we can find out, you know, most of us really 80, 85% of the things we could find a way to agree on, and we can work together to make that happen.

So that's that's the way I've always tried to do things.

And, you know, I think that's the way we've been able to do so far.

I also spoke with House Minority Leader Alisyn Russo, and as with Stevens, I started by asking her about possible changes to issue two.

Well, I think that there are certainly opportunities for some clarifications and opportunities to refine, for example, some of the safety measures there.

But I don't think that there's going to be agreement with the Senate version of that bill.

If you talk to both Democrats and Republicans and where in the House and where we are in comparison to where the Senate bill is, there's still quite a bit of difference there.

So I think more conversations forthcoming.

And, you know, I anticipate by January maybe we will be at a place to be able to pass something that I think can get through both chambers.

Voters also approved issue one in November.

That was the Abortion Access and Reproductive Rights Amendment.

This was after voters rejected issue one in August that would have made it harder to amend the Constitution by requiring a 60% voter approval threshold.

Do you think issue one's defeat in August, which you supported?

That defeat helped issue one win in November, which you wanted to see?

Absolutely.

I think it was very clear to voters in August that issue one, which would have raised the threshold and essentially eliminated all citizen led constitutional initiatives.

They saw very clearly that that was about abortion.

And in fact, the secretary of state, La Rose, said that it was about abortion.

And so we knew that this was to bite of the apple, to try to make sure that we got abortion access and rights enshrined in the state constitution.

Is there any conversation at all in the House about legislation to implement issue one?

Or are all these laws that are likely unconstitutional, including some that Attorney General Dave Yost noted in his legal analysis of Issue one?

Are they just going to have to be hashed out in court?

Do you think voters will be okay with that or angry with that?

Well, you know, so there are multiple laws right now in the revised code that are in violation of what was passed issue one in the constitutional right to abortion.

Democrats, we have offered the Reproductive Care Act that goes back and it repeals many of these laws.

And there are a wide variety that have been passed over the last two decades, essentially.

Unfortunately, I don't think that that is going to get very far in this General Assembly under this Republican supermajority.

So what that means for the citizens of Ohio is that they actually will have to get this right through court cases.

And I think many people think it is just fundamentally wrong that a right in our Constitution can only be gained through going through the legal process.

And we should be repealing many of those laws that are on the books.

Speaking of repealing, I want to ask you about House Bill six.

In the last couple of weeks, former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chair Sam Randazzo was indicted on 11 counts.

This comes after former Republican former speaker Larry Householder and the former chair of the Ohio Republican Party, Matt Burgess, were both sentenced to federal prison for their roles in the House Bill six nuclear power plant bailout scandal.

Now, the nuclear power plant subsidies of House Bill six have been repealed.

But what about the rest of the law?

What do you want to see happen with that?

Well, you know, there are still components of that law that are in existence.

And I forget the latest figure, but, you know, a couple of hundred million dollars, I'm getting close to $300 million that Ohio ratepayers have paid because of this corruption tax that still exist on our utility bills.

You know, the thing that is astounding to me, not only about the policy itself and how we're still paying for that corrupt piece of legislation, but here we are two and a half years later since the arrest of Larry Householder and not a single reform to our campaign finance laws, to our ethics laws have happened as a result of the largest public corruption scandal in our state's history.

And what that says to me is we still have a Republican supermajority that is unchecked, and we also still have all of the makings for yet another corruption scandal.

It's just a matter of time.

You do have some Republicans, though, who want to see some of those changes.

I mean, Derek Baron has proposed some of these changes.

Why can't why aren't these moving forward?

Well, I think, you know, certainly our caucus is on board.

We have 32 votes.

We can't do it by ourselves.

And, you know, Representative Baron, while he has said publicly he would like to do something, the reality is when we've asked him to deliver those votes and count those votes, you have to have 50 votes to pass a piece of legislation.

So when they are able to deliver those votes, you know, we will work with them on things like ethics reforms, repealing some components of House Bill six that are still in existence.

But again, you have to have 50 votes.

We can't do it by ourselves.

The bill that seeks to address concerns that conservatives have about higher education, Senate Bill 83 has passed in committee, but it will not be voted on by the end of this year.

The speaker has said it doesn't have the votes to pass the sponsor.

Senator Jerry Serino has said he changed it to make sure it would pass in the House.

For instance, dropping the ban on faculty strikes.

But Serino also says if it doesn't pass this session, he's prepared to come back again with it and won't make the same kind of concessions, implying that it could be tougher for universities.

Would you be willing to support Senate Bill 83 as it is right now because of fears of what it might look like in the next session?

No, absolutely.

I mean, Senate Bill 83, they made some very small changes to it, but the major concern still exists.

There are still restrictions on collective bargaining.

But by faculty and staff, there are still limitations that put us at risk for losing federal grants and economic development opportunities.

And it's just a very bad strategically for our long term economic growth and attracting the best talent to the state.

It is a bad piece of legislation.

And listen, I don't make decisions based on fear of someone, you know, threatening to make it worse in the future.

The reality is you have to have the votes to get a bill across the finish line.

If you don't have the votes and you don't have the support, you don't have it.

And, you know, every time we begin a new General Assembly, we get to start these bills ever again.

And I suspect he will still encounter the same challenges that he has this General Assembly.

It seems likely that anti gerrymandering activists will get the signatures they need to put another proposal on the ballot next year to deal with redistricting.

And this would replace the Ohio Redistricting Commission with a 50 member citizen's panel of equally Republicans, Democrats and independents.

You were on the Ohio Redistricting Commission and it approved maps this year that show a 62% Republican majority in the House and nearly 70% Republican majority in the Senate.

You and Senate Minority Leader Nikki Antonio voted for those maps and they the unanimous support they got was cited by the Ohio Supreme Court in upholding those maps.

Do you regret making that choice and voting for those maps?

Well, listen, I said that was the hardest vote that have had to take since I've been in the General Assembly.

But to be clear, and we we made this point both when we made the vote as well as for the court proceedings, that our vote is not because we think that those maps are fair or meet the intent of what the Constitution says and what the voters said.

The reason that we took that vote and yes, it was to remove the pen from the hands of the redistricting commission, because as as I have sat through, I think, seven different iterations between the congressional maps and the state legislative maps and have seen the Republicans on that commission absolutely not uphold the Constitution.

It was very clear that allowing them to do that over and over again was not going to change the outcome.

And so by removing the pen right now, I'm very hopeful for this citizen led redistricting commission.

I think that ultimately that is how we solve the gerrymandering issue in the state, because it has become clear that when you put politicians in charge of the process, which is what the current process is, that putting aside those partizan interests, particularly when you hold a supermajority and getting rid of that gerrymander means that you have to not have seats and you have to give up power, that this has proven to be impossible.

And so I think a citizen led commission is the best way forward, and I'm hopeful for that effort.

Democrats helped elect Jason Stevens as speaker over Derek Marin back in January, and because of the Fair School funding plan, that was one of the things that was cited and also because of concerns about universal school vouchers, the 60% voter approval threshold that we just talked about.

And I think maybe there was a thought that Stevens was seen as more somebody Democrats could work with over Derek Marin.

But the school funding plan was in the budget.

You got that.

But so were universal vouchers.

The 60% voter approval thing went to the voters as issue one in August, though it was rejected.

Do Democrats regrets backing Stevens?

So, listen, I don't regret the decision that our caucus members made at the beginning of this General Assembly.

And, you know, we started this process saying that what we were really looking for was someone who we could work with on a variety of issues.

The speaker and I do not agree on everything.

I know a lot of people want to say he is moderate.

I refer to him as measured in some cases and not necessarily moderate.

Know, certainly there have been things that got across the finish line that we didn't want to.

But then there are a lot of things that haven't gotten across the finish line as of now.

So it's a lot of give and take.

It's not perfect, but I value having open communication and a highly professional atmosphere to work in in the State House.

And I think that's reflected in how I've navigated and we've navigated this relationship with the current.

Speaker in past year.

In interviews, the speaker, the minority leader, have been here together and the Senate leaders, we're here together.

Jason Stevens requested a one on one interview saying that he prefers this format, but you two get along fine and the House is functioning very well.

It sounds like you seem to agree with that.

Yeah, I mean, listen again, we there are a lot of things that get across the finish line that we are not supportive of.

And I certainly let the speaker know when I am not happy about those things.

But we maintain a very open line of communication.

And, you know, that's when you've got a super majority and a super minority relationship and dynamic.

That's the best that you can hope for.

And there are things that we have found that we can absolutely work together on in the case of public education funding, in the case of things like rail safety, that we were able to get through increased funding for public transportation, some more attention and funding to child care.

So there have been a variety of things that we've been able to make progress on.

But, you know, it's certainly not a Democratic agenda.

And, you know, that's that's how it is at the current moment.

Last week, the leaders of the Ohio Senate were on the show.

You can find that in our archive.

And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the state House.

News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our Web site at State News dot org or find us online by searching the state of Ohio show.

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

Support for the state House news bureau comes from medical mutual dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans offering health insurance plans as well as dental vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

More at Med Mutual AECOM the law offices of Porter.

Right.

Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Right.

Is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at Porter recom Porter Right inspired every day.

The Ohio Education Association representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at OHEA.org.