Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medd Mutual dotcom 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, Morad PorterWright.com and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 100 24000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at O H E A dot org.

A stunning week in politics across the country and in Ohio.

And Governor Mike DeWine talks about state lawmakers covid and the situation that led up to the insurrection in Washington, D.C. all this weekend, the state of Ohio.

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

A few hours before a mob of extremists, supporters of President Trump stormed the US Capitol as Congress met to certify President elect Joe Biden's Electoral College win, a couple dozen pro Trump protesters chanted, screamed obscenities and waved Trump banners on Capitol Square in Columbus.

The group included the far right white nationalist proud boys, and it turned violent against a handful of counter protesters.

But unlike in D.C. and other states, the group never tried to take over the statehouse.

As the certification progressed on Wednesday, five Ohio's 12 Republican congressmen were among those who opposed it.

Jim Jordan, Steve Chabot, Warren Davidson, Bob Gibbs and Bill Johnson.

Governor Mike DeWine raised his most pointed criticism of President Trump to date and talking about the insurrection in his news conference Thursday, President Trump's continued refusal to accept the election results.

Without producing credible evidence of a rigged election to start a fire, there's threatened to burn down our democracy.

Two days before Biden's win was certified, after the capital riot, I talked with Republican Governor Mike DeWine and what is typically a year end interview and a preview of the coming year.

That was also the first day of the new legislative session as state lawmakers were taking their oaths of office, including Republican Senate President Matt Huffman, who took his at home because he's been diagnosed with covid-19.

I think the relationship is a good relationship.

I think what sometimes is is is missed.

It's easy to miss.

It is all the things that we did together.

For example, if you look at the last budget that we had, virtually everything that we requested the General Assembly to do, they did aides to Ohio, which was a big change, really a real commitment to Lake Erie.

The legislature approved that approve those those dollars.

That was something that we continued this year when, frankly, some people were advising us, hey, you need to pull back on that.

There's not going to be enough money.

And I said, look, we got to get started on doing what we need for the for the lake.

So another example would be.

Really money that we put out, the Kahrizak act dollars came from the federal government in regard to our how we're dealing with with the coronavirus.

I mean, we've asked them to go into the controlling board to release those dollars for specific things.

And they have done that.

We've listened to them when they came up with ideas about how to how to spend that money.

And that's that's gone very, very smoothly.

Has not got a lot reported a lot because it has not been, you know, has not been contentious.

But we've worked out a lot of things with with the General Assembly.

And, yes, there are some areas where we we disagree.

But I think it's been a constructive relationship.

And frankly, with the new legislature coming in, I'm looking forward to working with them on a lot of different things and moving back to the biggest story, arguably of twenty twenty, of course, the pandemic.

And now we have a vaccine.

I understand that Ohio is administered about one hundred sixty one thousand doses of the vaccine so far.

You said in a press conference last week that we're not moving fast enough, but we're going to get there and we're going to speed this thing up.

You said yesterday or you said Sunday on CNN that we're doing pretty well in Ohio.

So we're actually.

Are we?

Well, you have to understand that I'm pretty impatient person and I look at this when the federal government sends us these vaccines, this is what I describe as a moral imperative that we get them in people's arms just as quickly as we can.

Now, we're also trying to be strategic about it and we are being strategic about it.

And by that, I mean we're we only have a limited supply at first.

And we're trying to save the most lives we can as quickly as we can, and that's why we made the decision.

Let's front load this in regard to our nursing homes.

We now have as of as of this weekend, it's more today.

But sixty one percent of our nursing homes have now been covered with the first shot.

And so we're we're going directly where we're losing the most people.

Over 50 percent of the people who have died in the state of Ohio covid have been in nursing home.

So we're moving we're right on track to get them covered, then to come back for the for the second shot.

So we're happy with where we are there, but it never moves fast enough.

You know, we are seeing some of our hospitals that have done a bang up job.

You see health, for example.

It almost seems as quickly as we get them the vaccine the same day they get it in.

Now, that's not quite true, but they're doing a real good job.

A lot of the hospitals are doing a good job.

You know, my concern has been in some cases, the hospitals were not moving as fast as I want to, but it's coming and I think they're kicking things up.

And I think I think we're moving forward.

Let's talk about nursing homes.

As you just mentioned, more than half the people who've died in Ohio and in many other states have died in nursing homes.

You've also said that the virus is coming into those homes because of staff members who are coming in and out.

Sometimes they're working at more than one facility.

This numbers of staff members, though, who are getting the vaccine are low and in one place potentially is only 30 percent.

The head of the Ohio Health Care Association says that's attributable to misinformation and fear.

So how do you battle that?

And can't the state do something to mandate the vaccine for those who are caring for this vulnerable population that's already had so much loss?

We're running a we think about 80 percent of the people who live in nursing homes, who are residents there are taking it, we think about 40 percent so far of staff is taking it.

And I've talked directly with nursing home owners and people who are involved in nursing homes.

And what they tell me is they think some of the staff is frankly holding back, waiting to see how everything works.

They're going to get another opportunity.

And one of things I would just say to anybody who works in a nursing home this Friday, we will have our first nursing homes get the second shot.

And that really, as you go through that second round, that really is your last opportunity to get it for a while.

So if you're thirty five years old and you work in a nursing home and they give you that opportunity to get it, you need to get it because it's going to be a while before we get to you.

You know, in the population you start with, from here, from the nursing home people, then we're going to move to people over the age of seventy five.

So by the time you get down to that thirty five year old, it's that's going to be a while.

So we just would encourage everyone to do it.

I think that the more people know, the more they learn, the more likely they are to get the vaccine.

The nursing homes that have put on a good education program have a much higher compliance than that 40 percent.

And so that's what you're seeing more and more nursing homes do.

They're putting on a program.

They're putting videos on there explaining to people why the importance of getting this vaccine.

But you're right, it 40 percent is not where we want to be.

We're not satisfied with that.

We've got to get those those numbers up.

Well, the things that we're going to do, we'll announce this in the next few days is really come up with a certification, a certification in the sense just to tell people X number of people in this nursing home, they've hit the goal and we'll set what that goal is.

And they've said they've hit that goal.

And I I think if someone making a decision about a nursing home, they want to know that.

But is there anything the state can do to mandate this?

I mean, you've talked about encouraging people to wear masks and mask.

Compliance is up, but it took a while.

Is there any way to do more than just encourage people to take the vaccine?

Can a state mandate it?

Can you order that?

Well, we're not going to do that, certainly not going to do that at this point.

I think education always works better.

People making their own decisions works works better.

We don't mandate that other vaccines, we give people options in regard to other vaccines.

But the people who own the nursing homes, who run the nursing homes and the people who work there and the residents all have a vested interest in everybody in that building getting that shot.

So, as I said, we're going to start back on Friday.

We're going to hit start hitting nursing homes, some of them for the second time.

Some of them are still getting their first one, but some of them are going to start for the second time on Friday.

And this is really the time for people to step up and to get that vaccine.

Another big story from 20 20 was, of course, the presidential election in Ohio, which President Trump won.

But President elect Joe Biden won the national vote.

The congressional vote to certify President elect Biden's Electoral College win has not happened yet.

But today, Ohio's Republican Senator Rob Portman says he opposed the idea.

He opposed the Democrats who objected to electors from Ohio in 2005.

He says he'll do the same thing this time.

There's also this tape where President Trump is arguably threatening Georgia election officials.

More than one hundred and fifty Republicans in the House and Senate say they will object to the results this time.

As a person who's worked in government for 40 years, you've been an attorney general, you've been up to.

Do you think this is an attack on Americans faith in elections and democracy?

I think we have to look where we are, we are 16 days away from the inauguration of the president of the United States.

All 50 states, all 50 states, and we have to remember that we run these elections state by state and states run their own elections, and that's been the history in this country.

And that's what we've done.

And we're very happy with that.

50 states have all certified their results.

Their electors have met.

Their electors have voted.

And that's where we are today, so unless somebody has some.

New shocking revelation or evidence, we need to move forward, not only have the state certify their elections, but there's been ample opportunity for anyone who saw a problem to go into court.

Our courts function.

The people have had the opportunity in many cases have gone into court and none of this has been overturned.

So we are where we are.

We are a country that respects law.

We are a country that respects our judicial system.

We don't always agree with it.

We don't always win when we go to court.

But we respect the judicial process and we respect the overall constitutional mechanism laid out by our founding fathers to select the president of the United States.

The system works.

And so unless anybody has some great new revelation now, we need to we need to move forward.

I also was in Congress in 2005 and I was in the chamber when objection was made in regard to Ohio's election that what we had done in Ohio and.

We run in elections very well in Ohio, and I opposed I oppose that that challenge then.

Do you oppose the challenge now?

I would not yes, unless there's some new facts that's going to come out, I don't know how, you know, like I said, this has been certified.

People have had the opportunity to go to court.

You have to respect the system.

You have to respect that.

We are a nation of laws and that is where we are today.

Do you think do you worry that people aren't respecting the system because of some of the things that have happened here, because of the lies that President Trump has told, for instance?

Look, there's a mechanism that was set in place, I believe, in in the eighteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds when this law was passed.

That does allow for Congress to play a role.

But historically, it's a very small role.

We have to understand that it's only been challenged, my understanding twice, once I as I said, I was I was there in 2005, only challenged, I think twice.

And no time has Congress moved to intervene and to override the votes of the people of of of a state.

Look, I support also what Senator Portman is proposed, and that is not in relationship to this.

Election, but in relationship to how do we gain people's confidence in our election system, as I said, Ohio does a very, very, very well.

You're talking about a bipartisan commission, that bipartisan commission to take a look at this and say, look, you know, what are the challenges that we face in twenty, twenty one, twenty two coming up?

Do we have technical challenges?

Do we have challenges in regard to a foreign entity coming in and trying to subvert our election?

I mean, these are all things that are very legitimate and that we we can look at and look doesn't mean we're all happy with every every result.

I know as attorney general that sometimes we had courts that came in and we lost a case and the court basically changed things and we didn't like that.

But we have a process and we have the ability to appeal decisions that we do not like.

And that's what we do in this country.

We we let the process play out.

When we see there's a problem, we go back and try to change the law.

We try to change whatever, whatever needs to be changed.

So it's not that this election was perfect.

No election is is perfect.

It is just that there is not been evidence brought forward, no new evidence brought forward that would be of such.

Probative value that would show that the election would be turned over and change.

Looking ahead briefly, looking ahead briefly to twenty twenty one, what are some of your priorities as we go into the second half of your four year term?

You've said lawmakers need to change the law on executions for an execution to happen.

You've said you support the nuclear bailout law, but you wanted repealed and replaced.

You've also got the budget coming up or you added a lot of money for children's programs.

There's not a lot of money now this time around.

What are your priorities?

Well, my priorities remain the same, and that is to make sure every Ohioan, no matter where they're born, I'm not who their parents are as far as the ability to live up to their God given potential.

It's really basic.

It's easy to say.

It's tough to make sure it happens.

But we're going to build on what we have done in the past.

But we also have to recognize that this pandemic has set us back in some areas.

Let's talk about school children.

We have kids who are not in school.

We have kids who are doing it remotely.

Some kids do real well remotely.

Some kids prefer to be remote.

But we also know that there are children who don't do as well.

And we have some evidence that some of these children who maybe already were behind are slipping further and further behind.

And so all of us have to work together to do everything that we can.

So we're deploying the vaccinations with the idea of vaccinating not only teachers, but bus drivers.

And anybody is necessary to make that school run so we can get kids back in school.

We set a goal, an aspirational goal, to have every child in the state of Ohio back in school physically by March one.

That that's very, very important.

We've also done things, worker's compensation, money, this help small business that's been reported that it helps small business.

We put about eight billion dollars back to small businesses because we know they've been hit so hard.

But we also out of that, I think there's like three hundred and thirty six million dollars that went to our schools.

So schools of we've asked a lot of them this year, but we've got to focus on how we get these kids caught up.

One way is to get them all back in school by March one.

The other will be summer school and other ways where we can be of help to to those school districts.

And we can really focus focus on these kids.

Second, we're going to continue a lot of the efforts that we already put into last year's budget and a little preview of this year's budget.

We're going to still have a lot of emphasis on on on our children, for example, the wellness dollars that the legislature put in and our request.

And but they went along with it.

It was great.

They were our true partners on this for our our kids in K through 12 who might need help from a mental health point of view or from some other wellness point of view that's been very well received.

We will keep that money in this year's budget and that will be that will be very important to Ohio.

We will continue moving into our second and third year, fourth year of age to Ohio.

We're going to keep that money in the budget to do that.

It started off very, very well.

But we know this is something we have to do really over over a 10 year period of time.

We've also seen examples where kids, because of the pandemic, we're on a pathway to get a a credential that would enable them to get a job.

We've seen those numbers go down.

We are on a pathway, I think, to get seventy thousand kids to do that.

Looks now like only about fifty thousand.

So you get twenty thousand kids that didn't get that.

So there's a lot of catching up to do in regard to to education.

Despite the great effort.

I want to say this, the great effort that teachers have made and administrators have made and parents have made, they've done a very, very good job.

But this has been a very difficult call year.

And so we'll continue to focus on on on that.

We look at the health department.

We've been trying to build a health department, frankly, build up department up during a time that we're engaged in a war.

And that's not been easy.

But our budget coming up will reflect the priority of public health.

All right, I'm out of time, thank you so much, Governor, I really appreciate it's great to talk to you and happy twenty twenty one.

Didn't mean to cut you short.

You got anything else you need to do?

And the other question, seriously, because I was late, so I guess I guess I really am curious about what you would like to see happen with with the nuclear bailout.

I mean, now charges aren't going forward, but what would you like to see happen with that?

Look, the more we find out about how this bill became law, it just it just smells and.

I've made it very clear my position is that I think it needs to be repealed, but I've also made it because of that fact.

But I've also made it clear that my position has not changed.

That's been for the last few years as we've looked at this issue.

Nuclear energy is important in Ohio and we should continue and find a way to continue to have that nuclear energy if for no other reason.

It's probably eighty five.

Ninety percent of the non carbon energy production in the state today is nuclear.

Plus, you have a lot of jobs at stake.

So, you know, whatever we come up with, I think we need to.

You know, swipe the wipe the slate clean, as you might say, and start all over again.

Well, I think we have to ensure that we do have nuclear energy, at least in the immediate in the immediate future.

I think it's very important.

DeWine was among the Ohio officials condemning the violence in D.C. Later the day of our interview, he signed the so-called Stand Your Ground self-defense bill.

He had supported that in concept.

But I've been critical of lawmakers for not taking up the gun regulations bill he proposed after the Dayton mass shooting in twenty nineteen.

The Ohio Democratic Party will soon have a new chair.

David Pepper resigned last month.

Whoever succeeds him will lead a party that has been in the minority at the state house for most of the last 20 years and in the last decade has not won a state level statewide office, say four new Ohio Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Brunner and two justices elected in twenty eighteen.

State House correspondent Jo Ingles reports.

There are six candidates who have applied to succeed David Peper as Ohio Democratic Party chair Antoinette Wilson recently ran new Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Bruner's campaign.

Wilson, who owns a marketing company, applied to be chair in 2014, the year Peper was chosen.

She says the winning strategy involves working with county chairs.

And I've been very, very adamant on the need for an 88 county strategy that is built from the bottom up.

It incorporates the the strengths of what each county possesses, but more importantly, understanding where their challenges have been and figuring out how to do it differently.

Craig Schwartz is an upper Sandusky resident.

He recently ran an unsuccessful campaign for state Senate.

He says he has an economic blueprint for Ohio.

And I feel that Ohioans, particularly in rural areas, are getting our message.

You just not hearing what we can do for them, not narrow.

Neimann is leader of Ohio Progressive Action Leaders or Obama.

She says she would focus on the long term work of building a voter base that we need to expand the electorate in order to win and which means a different approach as opposed to an election driven cycle that we need to do the harder, slower work of actually engaging with people year round, registering people, knocking on doors.

Gary Josefsson is now retired, but he led a union that waged a strike against Ohio State University two decades ago.

He lost a Democratic primary for the Ohio House last year.

Ohio is like a bombed out country that doesn't have what it had when I was when I was young.

Now let's talk about what we can build, what we can do together.

Vanessa in i has a doctorate in public policy and social change, as well as experience in political strategy.

She is a two time congressional candidate from Butler County.

The fact that I am a nontraditional candidate, I've worked mostly outside of the system, putting pressure on the system for change for the betterment of communities across the state.

Another candidate, Summit County Councilwoman Liz Walters, previously served as the executive director of the state party.

She says she couldn't do an on the record interview at this time.

Whoever gets the job as party chair will have their work cut out for them.

Ohio is whiter than the nation.

It's older than the nation.

Its less educated than the nation.

This is not the formula that Democrats are doing well with right now.

The Democratic Party will choose its new leader on January 14th, Jo Ingles Statehouse News Bureau, the 19 member Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, said it's concerned that the new chair will be elected without its input and added in a letter quoting here, The time of the backroom party picks is over.

We must select a leader who knows our relevance, values, our input and recruits and supports our members.

We would like our next chair to ensure that systemic racism is eliminated in our state party and on down to our local parties.

And that's it for this week.

Please check out the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau website at statenews.org.

And you can follow us and the show on Facebook and Twitter.

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 one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medda Mutual dotcom 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, Morad PorterWright Dotcom and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 100 24000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at O H E A dot org.