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The former head of the state's utility regulator is indicted in the nuclear power plant bailout corruption scandal.

Abortion and reproductive rights are constitutionally guaranteed and recreational marijuana is legal as issues one and two go into effect.

And the leaders of the Ohio Senate look back on this big year all this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler, the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

The state entity charged with regulating utilities has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of bribery, wire fraud and other charges in connection with the nuclear bailout scandal involving the energy law known as House Bill six.

Sam Randazzo turned himself in to federal authorities in Cincinnati on Monday.

He was shackled when he appeared in court that afternoon, but was released under specific conditions.

First Energy admitted to bribing Randazzo and Republican former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder.

Randazzo's indictment comes a little over five months after Householder and former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Burgess were sentenced to 20 and five years in prison, respectively, on racketeering charges related to that case.

For the first time, Ohioans over 21 can buy, possess, use and grow marijuana legally.

But though this week the recreational marijuana law approved an issue, too, took effect just as voters passed it last month.

It likely won't stay that way.

After two days of talks, senators passed a bill allowing home grow of six plants per residents, down from a dozen.

A strict THC content limit and a 15% tax up from 10%.

The bill also changed where the excise tax money goes and added in a process for immediate expungement of marijuana possession convictions and medical dispensaries will be able to sell to nonmedical adult use customers within 90 days while the full regulatory system gets geared up.

Governor Mike DeWine encouraged the House to pass those changes quickly, which could happen next week.

Abortion access and reproductive rights are also guaranteed in the Ohio Constitution as of issue one taking effect on Thursday.

I asked about that when I sat down with the two longtime lawmakers who lead the Senate for our annual year end interview.

I started my conversation with Republican President Matt Huffman and Democratic Minority Leader Nikki Antonio with issue two.

But in just a day, that chat was outdated.

But there is still plenty more to discuss.

ISSUE one both the ISSUE one in August and the issue one in November.

Issue one in November was the Abortion Access and Reproductive Rights Amendment.

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

Supporters of the issue one amendment in August, including U. Senate president, said it was needed to protect the Constitution because the Constitution is too easy to amend and needs to be protected.

So will you put that idea before voters again to protect the Constitution?

Well, only if there's a, I suppose, momentum or enough folks who are willing to back that idea.

A lot of the people who were opposed to that in August this year were in favor of the idea when it came out of the modernization committee ten years ago.

And, of course, people have to be in favor of it, and people have to also be willing to campaign for it.

So I think the dust has to settle and probably there have to be additional constitutional amendments that come in, maybe put in the Constitution, are defeated where people scratch their heads and say, maybe this isn't such a good idea.

I do think that there are folks both Republicans and Democrats, who voted against it for a variety of reasons.

There are Republicans or folks from the right, if you will, who want to put in a I can have my gun wherever I want, whenever I want, and then want to put that in the ballot and a number of other things.

And so, you know, our Constitution, it can be changed very easily.

Much more difficult than most of the states and certainly the United States Constitution.

And I think you'll continue to just to see a lot more of these things coming on the ballot probably.

And a lot of times it's done, frankly, as part of a election tactic anyway.

Do you regret putting issue one before voters in August?

No, I don't, because we've we now have the issue addressed.

It's something that, you know, you sort of see the folks true colors when they come out.

It's fine if it is all very ethereal and things like that.

But oh, if it affects my issue, then I'm against it.

So it's it's these are, you know, probably going back to a lot of discussions I had about constitutions and things like that when it when you try to put them in practical application, people change what they think later.

Antonio Democrats worked to both oppose issue one in August and pass issue one in November.

They won both times, but next year is expected to be a difficult one for Democrats.

Even Senator Sherrod Brown has said it's going to be his toughest race yet.

The Democrats learned anything from those statewide votes in August and November to do better in 2024 than they did in 2016 and 2018.

Well, I think what we learned is that there's a broad swath of Ohioans that when it comes to an issue, I'll find agreement regardless of party affiliation.

And so if we've learned anything, we need to talk to all kinds of people as we try to advance our candidates next year from the top of the ticket all the way down to the legislative races as well.

Do you feel like you have candidates who can speak to those?

I do.

Very much.

Democrats have struggled, though.

I mean, look at the results last year with even the governor's race where the Democratic candidate won only three counties.

Right.

I think what Ohioans told us in both of those issues is really first of all, they want us to talk to them, come meet them where they are.

We haven't.

Democrats haven't always done that.

I'll admit that We're definitely going to meet folks where they are.

We're going to come and visit their communities and talk to them.

The other thing is we're going to listen and then we're going to have candidates that agree with them on fundamental issues.

I think too often we get far afield of our core mission, and we're going to stick to that this time.

From this election to next year's election.

We're already starting to talk about that.

It seems likely that anti gerrymandering activists will get the signatures they need to put another proposal about redistricting before voters.

This would replace the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which you both have served on at one point or another with a 15 member citizen's panel composed of equal parts Republicans, Democrats and independents.

No politicians on that one.

The maps.

I know you're laughing, but that's the proposal.

The maps the commission approved in September that give a 62% majority to Republicans in the House and nearly 70% to Republicans in the Senate have been upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court.

One reason being they got unanimous bipartisan support.

So leader Antonio, I want to ask you.

One of those votes was yours.

Do you regret that vote?

No, not for a minute.

I had to be pragmatic and present at the time.

Play the hand that was dealt to me in the moment, which was to get the best map we could in the moment.

But in general, the process is definitely flawed, and I believe we need to get us policymakers, politicians, whatever you want to call us, those that are elected legislature haters out of the equation, and they have people who do not have the self-interest of making sure that their colleagues or themselves are included in the next map.

I think having an independent commission is incredibly important to really having fair maps in the future.

Those maps, though, that you voted for last for ten years, that's a long time.

Unless there's a ballot initiative that changes things.

Yes.

Well, President Huffman, I want to ask you, you were a critical part of both the 2015 and 2018 constitutional amendments that created the Ohio Redistricting Commission and its role in drawing the legislative and congressional maps.

What was that?

What's happening with the Ohio Redistricting Commission in the last year or so with all the Supreme Court decisions, all of them striking down the legislative maps and then taking the congressional maps to federal court?

Was this what you envisioned when you helped put this together?

Is this what you wanted?

And how is it how is it okay that there's a 62% Republican majority in the House and nearly 70% in the Senate in these maps?

Well, the 2015 and 2018 initiatives were supported by the Republican and Democratic Party and over 70% of the voters.

So if we want to do the people's will, we won't go in and try to change what the people have already were higher than 57% have already chosen.

So that's one thing.

The second thing is one of the key provisions in in the state General Assembly districts was that the Supreme Court could not draw a map like they do in other states.

Well, essentially, what four members of the Supreme Court tried to do was back into it.

We can't draw the map, but we're going to keep changing the thing.

So we do, in fact, draw the map.

Well, you weren't going to get for members of the commission to agree to that.

And it was the insertion of the court into the process which corrupted the process.

So when the process was allowed to act and in fact, we have a series of incentives and rewards for people to act.

It got a unanimous vote so opposed to the public.

Name me one highly charged political issue anywhere in the United States where all the Republicans and Democrats agree.

In this day and age, it doesn't happen.

So it did work.

Now people can use the terms politician and all of that.

There are no dissenters and citizens.

Anybody who is interested enough to serve on this commission is interested enough in politics to do it.

I think it's better that one we abide by the overwhelming support of the voters and two, that we have people on the commission who are responsible to the voters as through an election.

And by the way, we had Supreme Court elections in 2022.

And the voters spoke clearly on that.

And the maps, though, that just passed, again, with bipartisan support.

Again, 62% supermajority in the House, nearly 70% in the Senate.

Is that okay?

Well, 62% in a state that is pretty heavily Republican.

You know, I think our governor won with 68% of the vote.

Several other folks.

And if you want to just draw percentages, you're disregarding the candidates, the campaigns that they run, how hard these people work.

If it's simply a matter of percentages, well, we don't care what people think.

We don't care about what they're going to do.

There are Republicans, as Senator Antone just said, who agree with her on marijuana.

Well, are they part of the 62%?

I think they are right.

Want to move on to House Bill six this week.

Former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chair Salman Daza was indicted on 11 counts related to the House bill Six nuclear power plant bailout scandal, which put Republican former House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Borges in prison in the last year.

The nuclear plant subsidies in House Bill six have been repealed.

But what about the rest of that law?

And I'll start with you, Leader Antonio.

Should it be repealed?

You did not vote for it in the first place, so I presume that you want to see it repealed.

I would like to see it repealed.

I mean, the people of Ohio are still paying every month on their monthly bill for things that were negotiated during that bill, and they should not.

Are you opposed to all of the bill or do you think that parts of the bill should be introduced in different ways?

I think at this point, the best thing we can do is repeal the bill in its entirety and frankly, start over looking at the entire energy portfolio.

Part of my problem with the bill back then was that it didn't include any of the consideration for energy savings.

Those were all taken out.

There were a lot of elements to this that really didn't serve the people everyday Ohioans well at all that I think we could do a better job.

But I think first we should repeal the entire thing.

President Huffman, you voted for House Bill six.

Do you think it should be repealed?

Yeah, well, I agree with Leader Antonio that we should always be looking at the totality of energy policy because it's a it's really an esoteric issue, especially to the public.

That's why we have the Puco, which is separate from the legislature and makes decisions and frankly, with term limits, it's hard to get expert legislators to, you know, understand that and go through that.

Maybe the Constitution could change some time, since it's now easier to change the Constitution.

It will be for a while.

But as it relates to House Bill six, one of the reasons I voted for that, besides keeping the nuclear power plants, as you mentioned, that was that subsidies been repealed.

Is the 2000 creation of this energy savings project.

Well, what that in fact ended up being was a bit of a paper trading scheme between various companies.

And we'll buy this credit and we won't really save energy, but will buy what you did.

And it all kind of moved around a little bit and there wasn't really any energy being saved, but there were people making a lot of money off of it.

That was a also I voted for that in 2008 and probably one of four or five bills that I really regret voting in favor of.

We make mistakes sometimes, and so I was happy that.

So I don't think the House Bill six repeal of the 2008 law should be repealed.

I wouldn't you know, as it relates to this subsidy for these coal plants, the explanation is that that was done as part of a multi-state effort and that that's an ongoing effort and that the companies can't get out of it unless they all agree.

As I said, I think several months ago, I think that should be examined.

And if the subsidies are no longer needed, then we should repeal.

I want to move on to vouchers.

The state is estimated to be spending $412 million for the expanded Ed Choice voucher program.

It's 15 million more than was budgeted.

Vouchers have been expanded by 70% a numbers and about 60%, 65% in cost.

This year.

Vouchers are available to almost any family who wants.

And that's something that you wanted.

President Hoffman, including people who have never sent their kids to public schools.

You told me a few months ago that no one should be concerned about these costs because the state has the money in the short term.

And in the long term, taxpayers are better off if most of these voucher students were not previously attending public schools.

How can the state possibly be saving money?

How is this sustainable?

Sure.

By the way, they they are available to everybody, not almost everybo I.

Mean, the higher income folks don't get very much money.

But there is, in fact, our universal Ed Choice scholarships.

And so the answer to your question is there's there's sort of a couple of things going forward.

One is who who's eligible and more people are eligible.

But the second thing is then what is the capacity?

And globally, if you look at the amount of income that is coming in to a private school, if there's more money, they're going to be able to expand capacity.

The high school where I went in 1974 had a thousand kids in it.

Now they've got about 290 and it's twice the size as it was before.

They could take a lot more kids.

But they're going to need more money to hire administrators and teachers and things like that.

So this is a changing a changing world when it comes to education.

The taxpayers should know that on average it costs about $14,000 per student in the public schools.

Now, many school districts are in the 20 and $30,000 per student.

School districts that are in the lower range.

Oh, yeah, Where I come from, it's about nine or $10,000.

Things aren't as expensive in western Ohio.

That's why everybody should move there.

But the private schools and the scholarships are on average about 6000 to $7000.

So you're saving money with every person.

You make a good point.

Well, what about the people who are already paying for their kids?

Well, in fact, what that means is it's making more assets available to schools so they can grow, they can expand programs, they can take on more kids.

And I think you're going to see more expansion.

So, Leader Antonio, I want to bring you into this, too.

Some of the biggest districts in the state have some of the lowest scores on report cards, which, of course, charter schools also have really low scores on report cards.

But what can be done about all this besides putting more money into those?

I mean, vouchers were positioned as an option to help people not have to send their kids to failing schools.

All right.

And it started in Greater Cleveland and I represent Cleveland.

It's a big part of my district.

Things have improved in Cleveland.

I think the bottom line for all of this, whether someone is making the decision to send their two children to a religious based school or a public school is that there's a level playing field for all of our kids.

And in order to accomplish that, we have to make sure, no matter how much we put into these vouchers, that we don't shortchange our public schools.

It cannot be at their expense.

And so things like making sure we have mental health services and the other we've talked about these things before, wraparound services with our with our kids.

And there is more of a need.

It is more expensive to educate kids in greater Cleveland, especially in the city of Cleveland and some of the other challenged communities, because kids are living in poverty, because they have other socioeconomic needs that enter into what we need to do to lift them up, to be able to bring them to a level place.

But if we're for all of our children, preparing them for the jobs of the future, then we have to also make sure the resources are there for them, including in the public schools.

There are bills in the House that are now in Senate committees that would ban trans athletes from girls sports, ban gender transition treatment for minors, and one that would protect parents rights but could result in teachers outing students to their parents.

Now, leader Antonio, last year you said that was a win for Democrats.

If these bills had not been passed, they had been proposed, but it had not been passed last year.

If they've been proposed again, they haven't been defeated.

There are some LGBTQ activists who say Democrats are ineffective here and they're concerned that these bills are going to get passed.

Well, a couple of things.

One is, with all due respect, I love you, but it wasn't a win for Democrats.

It was a win for for the parents and the kids and the members of the community that felt like their lives, their very existence was being challenged and that they were they were feeling unsafe.

They were feeling basically bullied by all of the rhetoric that was that was going on around these bills.

So fast forward to now.

Look, part of the reason why I support non gerrymandered districts, why is support us trying to get back to some kind of a balanced which you've indicated we are out of balance in the legislature.

We've just had two votes that showed that the legislature is out of step with a majority of Ohioans on a couple of issues.

The second one being around health care and private personal decisions made by health care and so around health care that they don't want policy makers, politicians, whatever you want to call us, those who affect policy to be the ones making those kinds of decisions.

I find it ironic that a bill that protects parents when they identify whether or not their children identify as LGBTQ also takes away parental rights from parents who are trying to affirm their children in what their children are telling them.

And look, as a member of the LGBT community myself.

It's exhausting.

It's exhausting to be constantly under under this spotlight, under this tension of having to having to actually explain your very existence.

And and so the folks who are transgender or the folks who are the parents of kids are exhausted but continue to advocate for their children.

One of the things that's happening right now, there's going to be more discussion on these two bills this week in committee tomorrow.

The medical community is trying to clarify what is and isn't real.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation in that legislation as well.

President Huffman, why why these bills?

Why not other proposals like on the economy or the unemployment compensation Fund, which has been talked about for a decade, or property tax changes?

Why focus on these bills?

Well, we're.

Passing a bill and property tax changes next week, I believe.

We've dealt with massive budgets in tax cuts in the budget.

We have dealt with all of those.

These are just what some people want to talk about.

If they want to, then that's fine.

I think on the on the protect Girls sports or women's sports, that's overwhelmingly supported by the public.

It's just not fair.

I understand the individuals who want to participate in this way.

But, you know, sports aren't the be all end all of the world there.

And there are other ways to participate in that.

But it's basically a fairness issue for girls and young women.

So that's what that's about.

On on the treatment issue, I think and I'm going to be speak very generally, most medical folks in Ohio say we don't do surgery, So now they don't want to ban it, but they said we don't do it anyway.

But so most people agree that's one category.

The second category are is are chemicals of some kind.

And then the third category is counseling.

We're not trying to ban counseling, as I understand it.

But the bill simply says both parents should be consenting to this, not just one, even though other treatment, whether mental health or physical, only requires one person.

So there's some nuances on how to treat this.

That's why, you know, we go through the committee process and, you know, it's amazing when people will say as well, why is the Republican Party dealing with social issues, except I want you to deal with my social issues.

And so we have lots of folks in the business community who want to, you know, pass laws regarding making it easier to sue them for LGBT issues.

Was that a social issue?

Well, maybe, maybe not.

So everybody gets to pick what it is they think the general saying.

Even though it's not a debate and.

The elected officials know when people don't like what you're doing, you're a politician.

When they like what you're doing, you're an elected official.

So you get to pick which title you get So.

Well, even though it's not a debate, there's a couple of things there.

One is that not everyone has two parents.

And I think that that's something that needs to be addressed because when we're so clear in legislation, I grew up in a single parent household.

My dad was around but not there to sign papers.

So that's why.

The other is that, you know, wanting, wanting economic fairness and non bias in the workplace is is not necessarily tee up for litigation.

I just want to throw that in.

Well, that's why you say you can sue somebody.

That's litigation.

Not that this is a debate mediation first.

Yeah that's mediation for.

Huffman and Antonio agree that a priority for the next year is child care.

Antonio wants more public funding, and Huffman wants to overhaul the step up to quality rating program.

Huffman says his priorities for the next year, his last year in the Senate, also include the capital budget and the $700 million one time Strategic Community Investments Fund that was set up in this year's two year budget.

Antonio says she wants to encourage more good paying jobs and to end the death penalty, a proposal she's sponsored in each of the seven two year sessions of the General Assembly since she first took office in 2011.

Next week, the leaders of the Ohio House.

And that's it for this week.

My colleagues at the Statehouse 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 state of Ohio show.

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

Support for the statehouse 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 Wright Morrison, Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright 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.