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Redistricting, abortion and education were just some of the many issues tackled by the Ohio Senate in 2022.

I sit down with the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate to talk about the year's biggest headlines and to look ahead at what's to come in 2023.

It's all this week on the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Andy Chow sitting in for Karen Kasler.

Most of the bills that move through the Ohio Senate in 2022 were bipartisan, but the chamber had deep divides on several issues.

We sat down with Republican Senate President Matt Huffman and Senate Minority Leader Kenny Yuko to talk about the year's biggest headlines from abortion to education reform.

We started with what dominated the beginning of the year, redistricting.

Well, those conversations, the lawmaking, as we say, they involve a lot of discussion, a lot of discovery, if you will, about what the facts are trying to reach a consensus that takes a lot of time.

And really, starting in January of this year, you know, through through the first three or four months, our time was really dominated by redistricting.

So a lot of things did not get done this year that ordinarily would have been done.

And, you know, those are there's there's other crises or other things that happen from time to time.

So to that extent, that was disappointing, that it took up all of our time that we had from September until January where we were doing other things.

And that issue was not.

The Supreme Court hadn't decided yet.

So.

But I think, you know, we're trying to make up for it now in the fall and in here in December and getting a few of those things done.

Knowing what you know now about what how much time goes into that process when mapmaking starts up again?

Do you want to tackle it from a different angle?

Do you have any other lessons you've learned from the past to put into the future?

Well, I think the first thing to keep in mind is it will be different because we will not not only be waiting for census information, we have it.

So and it's my thought that we should you know, if we have what we've been having the March primary in 24, folks need to file by December.

We need to have these maps done by at least September so that people can get that done.

So we're already in much better shape because we have the data and in that sense, we're ready to go.

So there's a sense of urgency for the next time around.

Yeah, I think I think frankly, I think we need to get the budget done and then start having hearings, which doesn't mean we're not doing anything about it.

I think all four caucuses will be doing their due diligence, but we should be having meetings in July and August and trying to come to a resolution.

Leader Yuko, how would you describe how everything played out in the redistricting process?

Well, in one word, disappointing.

I mean, we took we worked hard back in 2015 to discuss the discussion of drawing new maps for Senate races and House races.

We took it to a vote of the people and over 72% voted that they wanted fair districts.

That's just not all Democrats voting.

That's a lot of Republicans voting as well.

2018, we we worked extremely hard on getting the congressional maps redrawn.

And we worked right up to the very last Super Bowl.

Sunday, I was with President Huffman and President Hobb off and our legal counsel, myself and Senator Sykes and our legal counsel.

And we spent most of the following Monday in President Obama's office working on something which we passed unanimously out of both caucuses and on the Senate floor.

Give me a little spirit of optimism.

Let's put it that way.

We knew the people voted on it over 77%.

And I would really anticipating I mean, in a fantasy world, we were going to get 50 members after serving with only eight.

That was remarkable.

I would been happy with obviously less than that, but not that I would never tell him that.

But I was hoping that, you know, we would see an improvement in our numbers and it didn't happen.

And the one thing I have heard from privately, even from some Republican members that, you know, the new maps might be favorable for voting purposes, but geographically, they're kind of not what they had in mind.

They're being introduced in the new neighborhoods, no new people.

It's going to create new challenges, new relationship building.

It's a lot of work and we know that we're going to go into a new year.

And as President Huffman pointed out with the early primary, he's saying by September, I think even earlier than that.

But again, we have we had the budget.

We're going to work on at the same time, work on redistricting.

And at the same time, when we get said and done, I won't be here.

But people wanting to run for different seats.

What what would you suggest be some sort of what changes would you suggest going forward in the next process?

Well, I would like to see more of what we saw in what we voted on in 2015 and 17.

Let's make a better effort to draw fairer maps.

Let's make make good things happen.

But again, I want to caution, we can't rush this thing, but we can't delay at the same.

Time, if, you know, I mean, because people are counting on us to do the right thing.

President Huffman, did the 2022 redistricting process reflect the language that was passed in 2015?

No, I don't think it did.

And I'm I think I would agree with Ken is one word assessment.

It was disappointing.

And part of that was circumstances beyond our control, where we really should have been redrawing these maps beginning in July of 2021.

And because we didn't get the data until mid-September, there really wasn't the time for the back and forth negotiation.

These are negotiations.

And so we we passed a map in September which, you know, it was it was passed by the majority only.

And we saw it reflected what happened.

The Supreme Court didn't make a decision about that for four months.

And then ten days before the filing deadline said draw new map.

And here's some new criteria.

We did that.

We passed a map according to the new criteria.

They said we don't like that either.

Here's some new criteria.

And we ended up with the third map, which ultimately the federal court imposed, which I don't like the federal court, but we were essentially at loggerheads because we were using criteria that weren't in the Constitution imposed by the Supreme Court.

So the Ohio Supreme Court, in my mind, shouldn't have done what they did.

They can say it unconstitutional or not, but they can't give us new criteria that's almost expressly forbidden in the Constitution.

Let's move on to education, an issue that both of you have been very vocal on.

There are several education issues that have gone through the Senate, but more recently, is this big overhaul to the way the state approaches education policy?

Overhauling the State Department of Education leader?

You know, supporters say that this bill, Senate Bill 178, would increase accountability.

Do you think that the changes that are being proposed here would increase accountability to the state's education department?

No, not really.

And I think that we had an opportunity to do some good things.

We did some good things with the budget last year as far as school funding goes.

I think we're on the right track.

I think we've attracted some very capable candidates to run for state school board positions and they've got the experience, they've got the background, they've got the passion to get the job done.

I have maintained since I started campaigning for State Rep in 2003 that our schoolchildren make up 30% of our population, yet they're one 2% of our future.

And the people that we've elected to office are more than capable of making sure that that happens.

President Huffman, you said that this can increase accountability and create some transparency.

You fought for reforms for a while now.

What do you think of this bill and where do you see the legislature going when it comes to the next steps for education reform?

Yeah.

So the one of the points that I've tried to make during this discussion is whether there are the elected members.

The appointed members is there the way this system is currently structured is the inability of the school board to really have an effect on Department of Education.

And it's not because of the individuals are on there you could have 19 can Yukos great legislator understands the issues and all of that but these school board members don't have a staff and the elected members, they represent about a million people.

But Kenny and I, in our roles we have we have chiefs of staff, we have communication people.

A lot of senators have district offices where people can come and visit them.

The school board members get paid.

It's basically a volunteer job, frankly, and they have no staff.

And we're asking them to hold accountable a entity, Department of Education, that spending about $12 billion a year.

That's an impossible task.

And I've watched this play out for 15 years over and over the same way.

Now, this is going to be structured much like the state medical board is.

They discipline doctors, they do some other things.

But the Ohio Department of Health and the state legislature make the policy and implement the policy on medical issues.

So it's really going to run the same way.

So I'm optimistic.

On the second part of your question about future education, because I think it's going to be more responsive directly to the people.

I've had one of the bills I worked in when I first came to the Senate was the Public School Deregulation Act.

That was all brought to me by public superintendents saying, Here are these things that the bureaucrats O.D.

are making us do.

And some superintendents, public school superintendents don't like me because of my support of Ed choice.

And I don't mean personally, but well, maybe because of my support of their choice.

But they were delighted that we got this thing done.

I.

Was sort of fighting back against O.D..

I think we need to do more of that.

I'll just take 20 seconds.

More, Andy.

Education in the way our society and humankind is developed is starts with the parents in the larger family, aunts and uncles, grandparents, you know, older siblings, cousins.

And then we have a community of people who live together and pass down their values and their knowledge and all that.

We get to a point where some expert can come in and teach our child math or science.

But once the real decision making gets away from that intergroup, then that's where we have problems.

And certainly the federal government has no business in K-12 education.

And if we can get back to families in their communities making these decisions, it's it's going to be a an easier road, I think, for everybody.

Let's move on to abortion.

The states ban that can go into effect as early as six weeks into a pregnancy went into effect when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.

Now it's on hold again.

President Huffman, you've talked about future bills.

There are possible legislation coming up where it could be a total ban and then there's clarifying language.

Where do you see lawmaking going on the issue of abortion in 2023?

And so so the couple of members of the Senate where, you know, a couple medical doctors and we began working after the Dobbs decision in the summer.

And part of that effort was to clarify a lot of the definitions.

And we have these really difficult cases.

We want to make sure that doctors knew what the law was.

And we you know, we don't want anybody surprised or tricked or anything like that.

And then, you know, we did a number of other things possibly with legislation, including, you know, helping folks are going through adoptions, especially if it's a foster child or disabled child.

There's, you know, on both sides of these issues, this issue, you know, there's an array of opinions about exactly what should look like.

And those discussions really didn't happen until after the election, really till after Thanksgiving.

And there really wasn't consensus this year on exactly what that should all look like.

We are going forward with the help with adoptions and things like that and another bill.

So I think that can come back after the first of the year and we can see how those discussions proceed.

And we understand, of course, there's a ballot initiative that might dominate the discussion next year, but this is always a difficult decision.

You know, since the abortion law went into effect or the decision in 1973, there's been a huge demographic change in the United States.

There's that pop, that generation or now two generations that were not born, 50 million people.

It's now affected our ability to run the economy.

We don't have staff.

And so you can see this on either side of the pro-abortion or pro-life issue.

But you can't, I don't think, intellectually justify or deny the demographic devastation and pain in the Social Security, all of the other things that happen as a result of this lost generations because of Roe v Wade leader.

You know, it seems like there's a lot of possible legislation coming through the state house when it comes to abortion.

Like President Huffman said, there's also a citizens initiative that could also be coming down the pipeline.

Where do you see this issue going in 2010?

I see the only way to address this is through a citizens initiative, and I think that's why we're having conversations about changing what it's going to take to get that citizens initiative to the table.

We we spend an awful lot of time and money discussing Roe versus Wade for years and years and years.

But you know what?

It withstood the test of time.

And, you know, as president of Huffman has alluded to, he's got some doctors in his caucus.

Okay.

And we've got some moms in ours.

And it's a woman's choice.

And we can't take away that woman's choice.

It was hers and hers alone to make it's not certainly not a legislature.

If she wants to consult with their doctor, I would certainly advise it and get their professional opinion and work together on what to what they might want to do.

And and it's very simple.

If you if you don't believe in abortions, don't get one.

If you think there may be common times, especially when you when you hear of this story, horrendous story about the ten year old girl who got raped and pregnant at the same time and she had to leave the state of Ohio to get an abortion.

You know, to me, that just appalling to me.

And it shows us that we've lost touch of reality of what this is all about.

And, you know, so when you when you not only take away a woman's choice, but when you when you include it doesn't matter if you were raped or if there's incest involved.

What have we become?

Okay.

I want to be the legislature that represents the voice of the people, the people that I have spoken to in my Senate district and others, because I'm not another stranger.

Other Senate districts, I get all, all around the place is that we need to do better here.

And that's what I'm hoping for it.

I'm hoping that we can.

We can, despite the fact that we're probably going to be addressing some new challenges to get signatures that they're going to overcome.

Those challenges you saw with the redistricting, we had, what, 41 member group working together to make sure that we had had a strong voice.

I think we're going to see even a stronger conviction when it comes to further discussions of Roe versus Wade and what we need to do.

And you're seeing other states reverse what they did in the United States Supreme Court level.

So I think it's just a matter of time before the people of Ohio wake up, and I think they're in the process of waking up real quickly.

What we saw in the election.

Republicans swept most of the statewide races.

It does seem like Ohio is leaning more and more conservative.

Do you think that a citizen's initiative, if were if it were to be put on the ballot, would it have enough support to pass?

You know, people talk to me about this all the time about are we are returning.

More and more Republicans are returning more and more conservative.

Are we spending more and more money?

And what did that money go for?

I mean, the commercials I thought were absolutely horrendous and atrocious, but it sent a message that this is our guy, this is a guy we want everyone to vote for.

And if you have to have an hour after his name, it was going to continue.

Same thing with the statewide.

You know, we had a Republican agenda from top to bottom, but it was able to spend an awful lot of money.

And like I said, the quality of commercials.

I love the one where Tim Ryan kissed his wife and his kids go, ooh, you know, you kissed your wife, you know?

But I love that because that brought something that you and I do other ways and a family values that you and I represent.

And I want this represented in not only all of our legislators, but all what we do.

Okay.

We have to bring that back.

As I stated when we went to Israel, we weren't Democrats or Republicans.

We were Ohioans.

We were working together.

And it was delightful.

And I'll never forget those memories.

President Huffman, where do you see the state going politically?

Is it getting more conservative?

Well, just to kind of expand your question, I mean, I think most folks like to think of more conservative.

I'm going left and right as I see it, by the way, here.

And to be honest with you, to just use those terms is not very descriptive of what goes on.

So it's not really matter of left or right.

And you can add another line on the graph and go up and down.

I would go three dimensional.

There's these issues are not they rotate around based on what the particular issue is.

So if you're a union member in Lima, Ohio, for example, or maybe in Youngstown, Ohio, you may be very conservative as we want to label it on issues of abortion, maybe pro-life.

You may be pro-Second Amendment, a number of other things on workplace issues.

Well, we're going to, you know, label that moderate or liberal and those those things really do it, I think an injustice, the labels that we all try to put on, because it's easy to do that in moment.

They do really an injustice to what actually making policy.

And that's why a lot of things that come out of the state house, the legislature, they reflect all of those discussions.

And so we have advocacy groups that are well, I like 90% of the bill, but don't pass it because I don't like 10% of the bill.

Well, that's not what legislators do.

We're trying to accomplish certain tasks.

And to more directly answer your question.

Political parties are vessels they're in.

What is in that vessel shifts from time to time.

And so you have private sector labor unions, not the public ones, were heavily Democratic in the seventies.

Many of those are now heavily Republican.

So that's changed.

And the difference in the parties are that the Republican Party simply has become the party for the most part of middle class workers, and that that is the change.

So when those folks come from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party doesn't mean we're getting more conservative.

It means the Republican Party is reflecting those things.

So, you know, in 20 years, there'll be a different set of factions making up each of the parties, as there always have been with political parties.

If I may add one thing and part to part of that area where what we had, we had strong representation from our supporters in the seventies and eighties.

And this wavering to the Republican side, they're being very frank with me.

They're saying, leader, the Republicans represent all the state whites and have for quite a while.

They have a super majority in the Senate.

They have a super majority in House.

We would love to support you, but they control everything.

It's where it comes down to.

And this is a fact.

And, you know, if I were in their position.

I'd be looking at that as well, because that's what we need to do.

I don't think it's that their beliefs are what they want and desires from us are being met.

I think it's just a matter of fact that if you're going invest money, invest it where they think it has the most area to gain, and that's where it's happening right now.

Well, let's talk about that.

Supermajority in the Senate has picked up another seat for the Republicans, have picked up another seat in the Senate, leaving the Democrats with very little members, very little represent.

How how will the Democratic caucus move forward?

I'm guessing each member will have to be serving on a lot of different committees.

They're going to have their work cut out for them.

Well, I will not be here.

President Hoffman will be it'll be his decision as to how many committees we have, how many people are going to be serving on each committee.

Scheduling is going to be a nightmare.

It's okay.

I'm glad.

I'm glad he has that responsibility, not me.

It's going to be challenging.

But what I like about it is the fact that we have shown an ability for some time now to add majority, a majority of issues because like President Hoffman indicated, there is so much more to this scenario than just abortions, our election law, our education, there's so much more.

And whether you're passing a bill to take care of an animal concern, you know, you might think that's insignificant, maybe not that important.

We're going to pass one today, hopefully in the House through Senator Harry Reid.

And I got four phone calls yesterday from people saying thank you, thank you for making that happen because I'm a joint sponsor at them on that bill.

So something where you think is insignificant, it's very significant to other people, animal lovers, and you can take the list and go all the way down the line.

And we work very well together on that.

And the fact that you know better than I do the number of bills that are jointly sponsored by Democrats and Republicans.

But when I started in 2005, it wasn't anywhere near what we have right now, but it's the willingness to and I know I can walk into his office and say, hey, listen, can I ask you for a favor?

Can we talk about this?

Or we have a chance to move in this bill forward or whatnot?

He's always willing to listen.

And that's we've got to have that and we have to maintain that.

And we have actually it improving a little bit.

We can.

How are you going to manage all these new changes?

Well, I think one thing that I've since I've been in the present the last two years is to reflect that every state senator without regard to party, is entitled to certain privileges.

And I've said to Kenny, there's something I can do for you.

I'm going to do it.

And I'll just tell this little story without giving away too much because it's it's in deference to Kenny.

But there was a particular vote that we were trying to take, and one of my senators kind of went missing, wouldn't respond to phone calls, and we needed 22 votes to pass it as an emergency.

And because of other senators being gone, we needed to get it passed.

And and senator really would have had to shut his store in Youngstown to come down to be the 22nd vote.

This is a last minute thing.

I called Kenny.

Kenny said, look, I don't want Michael to have to miss a day at the store.

I will be your 22nd vote if you need it.

Now, that doesn't always happen.

And anyway, the other senator mysteriously showed up.

So Kenny, Kenny, I think ended up voting against it.

But that's the kind of of camaraderie among leaders that I think you have to have.

So and I think I'll have the same thing with Nikki Antonio.

We had a meeting the other day to talk about 23.

She is great to work with.

And you know, the fact that the Senate passed our budget 32 to 1, that really reflects discussions that we had.

If if the Cleveland, Ohio senator says, here's things that we need for Cleveland.

And I worked with Kenny and Sandra, Nikki and Matt Dolan on that.

You know, even if I'm Senate president, what's a guy in Lima know more about Cleveland?

And so you try to do those things.

We're going to continue to do those things.

We'll still have disagreements about policy.

They'll still be votes where all the Republicans vote one way and the Democrats the other way.

But when it comes to these consensus issues, there should be consensus issues about making Ohio a better state.

We're usually on the same page and I think I think that'll continue.

Thank you to both leaders for sitting down with us.

We also asked Leader Uco for any parting words.

As he leaves the Senate, you can find his comments on our social media accounts.

That's it for us this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau.

Thanks for watching.

Please check us out at statenews.org.

You can follow the show Karen Kasler, Jo Ingles and myself on Facebook and Twitter.

Be sure to 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 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 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.

More at PorterWright.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 O H E A dot org.