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Partizanship covert abortion and election laws big issues for 2021 in the Ohio House.

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

Welcome to the state of Ohio, I'm Karen Kasler.

This week, a conversation with the leaders of the Ohio House, who for the second year in a ro are not in our studio for a joint interview for 15 years before that.

No matter the personalities and Partizan politics, the speaker and the minority leader agreed to appear togethe as Senate President Matt Huffman and Minority Leader Kenny Ugo did earlier this month.

I started my conversation with both leaders on that topic Departing Democratic leader Emilia Sykes is coming up.

But first Republican Speaker Bob Cupp.

first of all, we usually do this interview at the end of the year with both leaders in the studio Senate President Matt Huffman and Minority Leade Kenny Uko were both here earlier this month.

Why did you not want to sit down with for a joint interview with Minority Leader Emilia Sykes?

Well, I think it was a scheduling issue in one part, and on the other hand, I think it's good for each of us to be able to provide the information that we have in our perspective individually Think it works better?

Do you and the leader get along I mean, she's leaving now, but do you and the leader get along I think we have.

For the most part, I would say our styles are very different.

And but I think we have been able to cooperate on most major things during this past year and a half.

Mostly.

Let's talk about a year ago when the first COVID vaccines were being administered where we were at this time of year ago.

Now the Macron variant is in Ohio, where the highest level hospitalizations and ICU use in 2021 thanks to the Delta variant.

one in four patients and one in three in ICU, as are COVID positive.

Last month, Republicans in the House passed a bill to ban public and private entities when setting up their own COVID vaccine mandates, creating broad vaccine exemptions, mandate exemptions and banning so-called vaccine passports.

You had halted the discussion of vaccine bills after a while saying you wanted to move on, but this one went forward.

So I want to ask why?

I mean, you've got medical professionals saying vaccines are the way out of this pandemic, and you've got people who say that vaccine mandates do work.

And polls showing people do support vaccine mandates.

Why this bill now?

Well, first of all, we've had months and months of discussion And as you know, this is an issue in which people are divided on it.

And in spite of what the national polls may say and in different parts of the state, the geography plays a role in this.

And so we've heard they heard their arguments pro and con.

An but if we were able to finally come together with on a consensus and quite frankly, the simplest thing is that our bill would simply codify what the majority of employers were already doing before the Biden mandate attempted to force them to force their employees to have a vaccine.

I believe in the vaccine.

I'm vaccinated and my whole family is vaccinated.

I encourage people to get vaccinated.

But on the end, at the end, it really is something that is a kind of an individual choice and there and it shouldn't be a question of losing your job if you feel genuinely concerned about it, whether the science, you know, supports that or not.

But if you do, many people do.

And so this provides some exemptions for for doing that and going forward.

And so, so so we hope that people will get a vaccine.

And by the way, requiring an employee to get a vaccine is a condition of their employment.

We'll also further contribute to our lack of of staffing in hospitals and health care facilities because a lot of health care individuals are in that group that don't want to be forced to get a vaccine and across the whole employer spectrum .

We do not address the other issue that would prevent employers from looking at other methods to keep their workplaces safe.

Is there a small but vocal minority that is really driving these vaccine bills because public perception seems to be that these bills are out of the mainstream?

I think you would be surprised at the individuals that have approached me and approached their individual members in their district.

These are not irrational people.

These are people that every day people there that are, you know, very engaged, very responsible that have concerns about it.

Whether those concerns, you know, are scientifically legitimate or not is a whole different question.

But they are genuinely concerned about it.

But shouldn't the House be passing things that do have a basis in science?

I mean, if you want to pass something that doesn't stack up to scientific measure, isn't that a problem?

I think we need to provide individuals that individual choice.

Now, keep in mind, this only applies to the COVID 19 vaccines.

It doesn't apply to the measles and the mumps and the meningitis and everything that have been in law for years, although there are a vocal minority that would like to get rid of those.

But there is not support in the house for that, and I don't support it either.

There are two House bills that would change voting and election laws one would create.

Online ballot system request system, rather with two forms of ID, allow ballot drop boxes only boards of elections for ten days before the election and shorten the window to request early ballots.

Another would eliminate those secure ballot drop boxes at board of election sites, cut the early voting period from 28 days, eventually down to six days.

And it would bring back the requirement that you have to have an excuse to early vote, and it would also ban the secretary of state from sending out absentee ballot applications.

Now, the argument has been that this is to crack down on voter fraud.

But the last two secretaries of state, both Republicans, have said voter fraud is not a threat to Ohio's voting system.

Why do these?

Why consider these bills now?

Well, first of all, bills are proposals.

They're not actually the law.

And we've had hearings on the one that one that would sort of update the way you go about getting your absentee ballot and also change some of the timelines because the Postal Service says they cannot deliver absentee ballots within the time that's now in statute and which creates a problem for people who wait to the end.

So we want to avoid that.

Secretary of State has testified in favor of many of those provisions.

So but the really important thing is that here in Ohio, we do a really good job of conducting the elections and it's a bipartisan way.

It's not the way in many states.

So why change it?

Well, because a lot of it is in administrative law or it's practice past practices We should put those into statute so that we can preserve these really good system that we have in Ohio and that in the Republican system, it isn't a Democrat system, it's really a neutral system.

So it's easy to vote, but hard to cheat.

And so the question isn't whether we have fraud.

The question is, do you have the mechanisms in place to prevent it, prevent it in the future, as well as to run good elections where you know, everybody can has the opportunity to to vote?

So that's what that's what the proposals that we'll have support in the House would do.

There are those, though, that see these as attacks on democracy.

Well, some see as attacks on democracy, and some use it just to try to get a Partizan advantage.

It's a it's a message that is it's a national message They're trying to apply to Ohio, but we are different.

We have always had fair elections.

We have procedures in place.

They are bipartisan.

And so I think that is a disservice.

Let's just look at this about what it really does rather than trying to send a political message.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard a case out of Mississippi that may eventually overturn Roe versus Wade or send the regulation of abortion back to the states.

Would you expect that there would be legislation proposed by the House that would ban abortion and is banning abortion?

Is that going to solve the problem?

I mean, we've banned murder in a sense, but there are still murders.

Well, that's not a good thing having murders, is it?

So I don't think we want.

I don't think.

I don't think we want to legalize murders either.

So but we don't know what the Supreme Court will do.

I think they have a difficult question about whether to uphold precedent or whether to look at whether there was any true basi for that precedent, and many people think it was just developed out of whole cloth.

It's not in the Constitution.

The issue really belongs in the states where you can hav a democratic discussion about it and make determinations.

I think there is strong support in the House.

Yes, to be able to protect life when in, but also create protection for the health and the life of the mother.

So I would expect that that there will be legislation dealing with that issue, and I think it will have strong support in the House.

Once again, we're talking about House Bill six and the Legislature has ended some provisions of that nuclear power plant bailout bill.

one lingering issue is the surcharges for the Ohio Valley for of the coal-fired power plants.

Would the house eliminate the rider that help support the OVK coal plants in Ohio and Indiana?

Well, these are there.

This is a multi company, a utility company from multiple states.

It's not just Ohio.

And it was a national security interest to be able to provide electricity for the nuclear.

Processing plants in Ohio, and it's sort of a relic from that, and there is a real debt, you know, from that, and it was already in fact in place before House Bill six.

So the utility customers were already paying that most of them were paying for it And what the House bill six did, was it basically lower those and maybe extend them a little longer?

But but it is a it is a cost to the utility.

They can't get out of it.

And it was it appeared to be reasonable at the time they entered into it.

So it's a much more complicated issue than just saying supporting a coal plant in Ohio, in Indiana, Premiere people.

Who see it in Ohio, as we're paying for a coal plan in Ohio, in Indiana.

And Kentucky and Indiana in a number of other states are paying for a coal plant in Ohio.

Well, let me ask you closing and closing here about partizanship in the Ohio House.

I mean, it seems pretty pronounced in the number of bills that pass along party lines.

There are complaints by Democrats who say they're not involved in the process, for instance, in the legislative and congressional map drawing process, they said they were kind of surprised by the maps that came out.

You're the leader of the House.

What can you do about this or is this just the way it is?

Do Democrats just have to deal because Republicans are in the super majority?

Well, I remember at a time when the leader of the House was a Democrat two years ago in which the Republicans actually put on dog muzzled the on the floor to show that they were not even being able to talk on the floor I allow lots of leeway for members of the opposite party to say things, which kind of upsets members of my party at a lot of times, so we try to do that in a bipartisan way.

In fact, a lot of most of our stuff is bipartisan I know we focus on the part that isn't because that's more interesting and sensational, but most of it is bipartisan.

We've had a number of bills that we ought to have a joint Republican and Democrat sponsor some very significant bills that do significant things.

And most of the 150 bills that we passed had bipartisan support.

But we do need to work on building better relationships.

In the House, I think every legislative body needs to do that.

In one way we reflect the polarization of society.

But but we should be above that.

We're always going to disagree on many things, and that's fine That's the way it should be because we represent very different districts across the state of Ohio.

But we've had a tradition in Ohio on very on core important issues to Ohio to be able to get those done in a bipartisan fashion.

The budget is one and broad support, including a new school funding system and a number of other things.

And but going forward, what I'd like to do is to set up a structure and organize program where Republicans and Democrats can get together in safe zones and have this conversation about what they think without worrying about somebody trying to turn that into a Partizan sword and get to know each other.

So listening sessions?

Well, yeah, listening sessions, developing relationships, get to know each other.

I found when we worked together on a bill, the Republicans and the Democrats do that kind of carries over into the whole thing.

So you're not going to say as many nasty things about somebody who disagrees with you on a bill.

If you know them personally, you know, they came from a come from a good spot, even though you may disagree with their conclusion.

So I'm hoping to get this in place.

And it's one of the things I would like to leave that would goes on, you know, after I am no longer the speaker, no longer in the House, that this would be a mechanism for members to be able to develop those relationships, to respect each other, to work together wherever possible.

But but be appreciative of fact.

There are things that divide us, but we don't need to be nasty about it.

I spoke to Minority Leader Emilia Sykes the next day.

first of all, we usually do this interview in the 17 years I've been here as a joint interview.

You had been amenable to that at the speaker's office wasn't when I asked him why he said it was a scheduling issue, but that he thinks that you've been able to cooperate on most issues.

Is that your perspective?

What is the relationship like?

Well, I would say that we have been able to collaborate on some issues, but ultimately there has been a hesitancy from the majority and the speaker to work with me, work with the members of our caucus to make sure that we are administering the work of the Legislature correctly and efficiently.

And I do find it very troubling that you are unable to carry on this interview the way that you have done for the past 16 years.

So well, quite frankly.

And it is worth it to have a dialog between the legislative leaders so that people can better understand what we are doing on behalf of them.

Not being able to do this conversation together really is a failure of leadership, and it's quite unfortunate to your viewers and to the people of the state who are owed an excellent.

Asian about how we are working together or not working togethe to make sure we're delivering on Ohio's promise.

I want to talk to you about a year ago when we were here, the COVID vaccines at first going out in Ohio.

Now the Omicron variant is here.

So things have changed, but not really changed.

one in four patients, one in three in ICU are COVID positive And yet the House has passed.

A bill that would ban so-called vaccine passports would create such broad exemptions for COVID vaccine mandates that anyone could get one essentially and basically sayin public and private entities, including businesses, couldn't impose their own COVID vaccine mandates.

But you've got the Biden administration's vaccine or tes mandate that's in the court system.

If vaccines work, shouldn't we just trust people to do the right thing and get them?

Well, the unfortunate part about all of this is that a disease was politicized in a way to allow elected officials to remain in power.

And those elected officials who politicized this pandemic have unfortunately allowed the growth and proliferation of diseases and variants to spread across the state and across this country, quite frankly.

We have the tools that are necessary to eliminate and we could have eliminated COVID a very long time ago and not been where we are.

It was just announced in my hometown of Akron that they're bringing in cool trailers as accessible, an additional morgue that is very scary to think about on a holiday season when we're all trying to gather and be joyful and look forward to the next year.

But ultimately, it is a failure of the Republican leadership.

They have decided to fight the people of the state rather than fight the virus.

They're fighting small businesses.

Instead of fighting the virus, they're fighting with Democrats instead of fighting the virus.

And hopefully they get on track and decide that the priorities of the state are to keep people healthy, well employed and in school and make sure that we are using all of the tools available to us, encouraging people to use those tools so that we can get back to a sense of normal where people can thrive and live and grow well here in the state of Ohio.

When I asked the speaker about how he had said that no more vaccine bills would move, and yet this one did move, he had said that there are some reasonable peopl who have come forward with arguments that this isn't just a small but vocal minority, but there are reasonable people who have come forward with arguments for some of these vaccine related bills.

How do you feel?

Do you think that it's reasonable to be talking about some of these pieces of legislation?

I think it's reasonable to talk about things that concern the people in this state, and if people are concerned about vaccines or they want to have more information, we should have those conversations.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

The problem becomes when Republicans and we've basically only seen this from Republicans they use this as an opportunity to score political points.

And this is detrimental and people are literally dying every single day because they would rather win in elections than do what's right on behalf of the people of the state.

And so now they're going to have to ask themselves some serious questions.

Is it worth losing life after life, after life, just so they can be in public office just so they can hold the role of speaker or governor I don't think that it is.

And so at some point people are going to say this is unacceptable and we don't want leaders who are more concerned with their power than they are about our lives and our ability to live, to go to school, to go, to work, to start our business, to keep our businesses.

Because a few people want to remain in power, it's unacceptable.

Speaking of elections, there are two House bills that would change voting and election laws.

one would eliminate secure ballot drop boxes.

A board of election sites cut the 28 day early voting period, eventually down to six days.

It bring back the requirement that was bring back the eliminate the no fault absentee balloting, essentially, and say that the secretary of state doesn't have to send out absentee ballot applications, wh has been happening since 2012.

The other bill created an online ballot request system with two forms of ID would allow ballot drop boxes only at specific board of election sites for ten days before the election.

And I'm just wondering, you clashed with the sponsor of that second bill represented bill sites in a hearing about that.

Republicans have been saying that these are reasonable efforts to try to put into law what they things about ballot drop boxes, for instance, and they're not attacks on democracy, which some people have called them.

What's your view?

So first, I would say that I did not clash with the bill sponsor.

I think the bill's sponsor, I reacted very inappropriately and emotionally to a reasonable question and dialog about his bill to suggest it was a clash.

When it was more like a verbal assault is minimizes the unfortunate way in which many of us who have gone to law school often have heard the adage that once you start to fail with your argument, you attack the person.

They have failed in their arguments with these vote suppression bills.

We know these bills come from the Big Lie, the lie that the former president did not win the election and unfortunately, Ohio decided to be a loser.

And go alongside with these other folks and follow the lead of a losing president, and we could have been a leader here, but they chose not to.

And so now we are faced with these bills that have requirements and policies that no one has asked for.

We know that people want more secure drop boxes.

We know that people want more access after COVID and people had the opportunity to engage i the no fault absentee ballots, people decided we like that.

And so why would the Republicans respond by saying, we're going to take it away?

Well, I know why.

Because they don't have the ideas that when people realize that they've put their power over the people that their policies are harming, in some cases killing people in the state of Ohio, they've got to find another way to win.

And the way to do that is to cheat, and they're doing that at the ballot box.

And so that's why we made such a big deal about these bills because we knew what they were doing.

We've seen this before.

We've seen this from Republicans and rather than stand and face the voters and explain the choices that they have made They'd rather change the rules and make it more difficult for people to vote so that they can stay in power.

Harming the state and our progress.

Do you consider these bills attacks on democracy?

Is that hyperbole to say that?

No, it's not hyperbole to do so because this is all a part of the fruit from the poisonous tree.

These are not the types of policies that Ohioans have asked for.

They have expanded drop boxes.

They have expanded hours, not limiting hours, not getting rid of drop boxes.

And so anything that is counter to that is not helpful.

But again, this bill comes from the fruit of the poisonous tree.

The poisonous tree is the former president and the Big Lie, continuing to give election propaganda that things were not true, that things have been meddled with.

When our own secretary of state has taken a victory lap about how well our elections were in Ohio, yet continues to engage in this misinformatio campaign just to protect the ego of a man who lost an election.

It looks like the US Supreme Court could potentially return the issue of abortion to the states.

And in my conversations with Speaker Cup and President Hoffman, there certainly sound like there coul be some pieces of legislation that would outlaw abortion or at least severely restricted in Ohio, if that's the case.

What are Democrats doing to prepare for that potential reality?

Well, this has been a reality for Ohio for a very long time.

Republicans in the state have continuously show that they do not care about the agency or the ability of pregnant people to make the decisions on their own.

They don't trust doctors to make decisions and help people make decisions about their pregnancies, and this type of assault has been happening for many, many years.

This is not new, so we are prepared for these fights.

We have seen these fights.

But again, the way that Republicans have used the rules to maintain their power, whether through redistricting efforts through a changing the voting voting laws is just a way to continue to push out legislation that is out of touch and extreme and not what Ohioans are asking for.

And it is all about them.

It is not about the people of the state.

And I do hope that at some time they return to what their oath told them to do, which is serve the people of Ohio.

And finally, you're leaving your leadership post at the end of the year.

But staying in the House, though, you are term limited.

Are you leaving this leadership position to run for another job, say, the 13th Congressional District Or is this Partizan partizanship in the House that' really pushing you for this?

Speaker Kopacz said that most of the work that you do is bipartisan.

Most of the bills that are passed are bipartisan, but certainly we've seen a lot of party line votes.

Democrats have said they were left out of a lot of bills in the process, specifically on the legislative and congressional map drawing process.

So why are you leaving this leadership post?

Well, Karen, you know, my middle name is strong and I'm not one to walk away from a fight, especially if it's on behalf of the people of this state.

And there is not a Republican that can scare me out of doing anything.

I keep my faith in my God, and that is how I continue to move forward.

This is a great time for there to be transition.

And I'm happy to ensure that our next leadership team will be able to do so, and this is perfect timing for it.

I am more than proud of the work that we have done it as a caucus.

We have been able to be incredibly successful in passing bills in a bipartisan way, even in spite of the speaker and other members keeping so much of what they do and what is happening away from the Democrats because we're just that good .

We have been able to contact over 115,000 constituents over the last year.

We have helped 12,000 people with unemployment compensation.

We have helped tens of thousands of people with other constituent issues, and that is just because we work for you.

Our caucus works for people, but.

You did lose members of your caucus in the last.

Election.

We absolutely did because gerrymandering is a very, very troubling thing and it makes it very challenging for people to to do these things, to win elections specifically.

But I will share with you.

I am very proud to be the leader of this caucus.

I am proud of the work that we are doing.

We are a front facing group of.

People who are continuously showing and sharing that we work for them and we're showing up every day, that's why we did 93 town halls across the state last year to make sure people continue to understand the work that we are doing .

And though we may be small in numbers, we are very strong in our fight and we will continue to do that and be that that caucus and at least set forth in opposition to what the majority is pushing out.

So what should we look for an announcement on your future plans in the next couple of weeks?

Sure.

And that's it.

For this week, you can follow the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our website at State Newstalk.

Merry Christmas!

And 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 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Med Mutual dot com slash Ohi by the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP, now with eight locations across the country.

Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter Wright 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 OHEA.org