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Senate Republicans pass a bathroom bill that began as legislation to make changes in the college credit program.

And why do Republicans keep winning in Ohio and Democrats keep losing?

Two experts share their thoughts this weekend.

The state of Ohio welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

A bill requiring transgender students use bathrooms that match the gender on their birth certificates is headed to governor Mike DeWine after the Senate voted along party lines to approve it in their first session since last week's election.

The bill started in the Senate as a plan to make operational changes to the state's College Credit Plus program.

One of its original sponsors, Republican Senator Jerry Serino, said the bathroom bill provision added by Republicans in the House in a late night session in June, was common sense.

And it revolves around the safety, security, and I think common sense, it protects our children and grandchildren in private spaces where they are most vulnerable, using it is us using our legislative authority to ensure schools are, in fact, safe environments.

After all, bathrooms, showers, changing rooms should all be safe places for our students.

The bill covers students in primary and secondary education in public and private schools.

Democratic Senator Bill Dimora was among the original sponsors and said a good bipartisan bill was ruined with what he called hateful, toxic amendments.

this bill will create suspicion and paranoia and fear in public spaces that affect both children and adults.

And all the experts, doctors, advocates are.

My colleagues and I have tried to forum all of you that these bills that bully children and take away lifesaving care are bad from a pure science standpoint, a morality standpoint and a fiscal standpoint.

But that doesn't even mattered.

The truth has never mattered.

Facts have never matter.

With these bills the legislature so whipped up into your fury that they can't stop attacking trans kids.

Republican Senate President Matt Huffman said the bill was taken up so quickly after the election, not because of a message that voters sent with Republican wins, but because there's a lot to do before the two year session ends next month.

I don't think that there's, a lack of knowledge or lack of discussion on this issue, publicly or legislative.

These are things that we've all been talking about for, for several weeks and, well, actually now few years.

So I think the timing is we're trying, you know, we've we still only have about, a month or so before the end of this session.

There's a lot of other legislation we're trying to get through in the Senate.

What we what I wanted to do today, and I think, the majority of the Senate wanted to do was to get the things done that we can get done right now, Senate Minority Leader Nikki Antonio, who is the first openly gay leader in the Ohio legislature, said she'd like to work on issues such as property tax reform and funding for public and nonpublic schools instead of a bill she believes will result in a lawsuit.

it's so all encompassing, I think.

I think that part of it would be difficult.

I think I do believe it'll end up in litigation on a number of levels.

The public, private, that there's all kinds of problems with it.

Ohio joins 11 other states that have some form of a bathroom bill and five of them.

The laws have been challenged in court.

DeWine, who vetoed the ban on gender transition treatment for minors last year and was quickly overridden by Republican state lawmakers, suggested earlier this year that he's likely to sign this bill.

Ohio is a red state and arguably has been for decades.

In the last 30 years, Republicans have won just over 83% of statewide elections for president, U.S. Senate, Ohio's Supreme Court, and the executive offices of governor, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state, and treasurer.

With Democrats winning just under 17%.

That total includes this month's elections, when Republicans swept the statewide races, leaving Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Brunner as the lone Democrat elected statewide.

So how did Republicans keep their streak going, and what's happened to Democrats in Ohio?

My statehouse news Bureau colleague, Joe Ingles, sat down with two political science professors to review the results of the election last week.

I think the biggest message, that voters were sending to Ohio as a whole was that the for the Democratic Party, that they no longer recognize the Democratic Party as being the party that represents issues for working class folks or for blue collar folks?

And I think that was clearly seen in, Sherrod Brown's defeat.

I was shocked.

But now that, you know, the dust has settled.

I am not surprised.

Because it seems that Sherrod Brown's playbook was far too similar, if not the same as Tim Ryan's in 2022.

And seeing I can't remember the name of the county that's in the Ohio Valley that Tim Ryan formerly represented, you know, formerly Mahoning.

Mahoning that allegedly it went even redder this time around than in 2022, I think is the final nail in the coffin for Democrats representing working class issues or blue collar workers.

And to tie it back to the canary in the mines, that was Sherrod Brown's pin.

That bird is dead.

What do you think, Paul?

Yeah I agree.

I for a long time resisted the idea that Ohio was a red state.

And of course, Sherrod Brown was an example of how Democrats could win in Ohio.

But now I think it's it's very, very clear.

It's a red state.

In fact, Trump, who had gotten 8% of the vote in his preceding two runs for the white House, got well upwards of 12% of the vote.

That's an astounding.

That is huge.

And whether it's a red state Republican or a red state, Trump will be determined in the future.

I think Trump is more popular than the Republicans.

He runs ahead of most of them.

Bernie.

Marino, I think only won by 4%, whereas Trump won by 12%.

And so Sherrod Brown was able to cut into that margin, but it was just too hard, too large to overcome.

And I think it also, you know, the Democrats in the past were able to win on sort of New Deal issues.

Labor was part of their coalition for a long time.

I think we now are seeing more and more cultural issues making their way into elections in a way that voters maybe don't talk so much about, because they don't think of it in that way.

But I think there are a lot of voters who, particularly in rural areas, but but really everywhere who think this whole world is changing in ways they don't like.

We have black president.

We have, women who are being more assertive.

We have transgender.

We have, gay rights that are more substantial.

We have a Democratic Party that is appealing to minorities.

These are all things that I think people don't like very well.

One of the biggest divides, both in Ohio and nationwide, was between the evangelicals, who are a substantial share of the population around 20% nationwide, higher than that in Ohio.

Evangelicals went heavily for Donald Trump and for Republican Senate candidates.

So Trump's war, you know, his argument that there's this war on religion is one that I think really hits home for many of these voters.

What do you think, Brianna?

I absolutely agree.

I was telling students today that it was really weird finally acknowledging that the Democratic Party, especially even here in Ohio, had made this shift and abandoned its historical base, focusing on economic issues and representing working class folks, and pivoted to focusing on identity politics.

And so, you know, since I had been in grad school and now as a professor, I had heard this, you know, reoccurring argument from the Republican Party that the Democrats are focusing on identity, making it about identity politics, identity, identity, identity.

But to see it so clearly play out in this past election, and when you're thinking about, you know, demographics for Lgbtiq, skew, for people of color, for women and things of that sort.

Those numbers that exist or even identify with the Democratic Party are not enough to keep the party competitive enough to to be able to afford the loss of working class people.

And I think that there needs to be a really hard in difficult conversation for not only the National Party, but for Ohio State.

The state party as well, because there is even this disconnect between the national and the state party.

That could also explain why there has just been historically, apparently, as long as I've been alive, just a minority representation of Democrats in the Legislative Assembly here in Ohio.

Yeah.

And that's what I want to get to next, is can the Democratic Party in Ohio recover from this?

And what does it need to do to recover, Paul?

Well, gerrymandering is the big problem as long as Republicans are the ones who are creating the district lines.

It's going to be very difficult for the Democrats to make inroads.

And of course, the one thing about gerrymandering is, particularly if it's controlled by the legislature, is that it perpetuates itself.

It'll be the same legislature in 2026 that will be realigning the lines for the congressional election.

And they need to do that in 2026.

And then the legislative lines will be several years later.

But again, it'll be the same legislature doing that.

And one thing we know about legislators, and it's perfectly understandable, is that they want to create district lines in a way that serves them, serve their party, but beyond their party themselves as representatives or senators.

And they don't want to change things.

I remember overhearing a conversation between one of our local members of Congress, and her husband talking that, it was a Columbus Metropolitan Club, dinner, or lunch.

And her husband was saying, I don't care what they do in the legislature.

They just need to keep my wife's lines the same to protect her.

Wow.

What do you think, Brianna?

I mean, so I guess my biggest frustration was the, realization that issue one failed because in light of these larger conversations that have been had, you know, over the years about, you know, the lines being drawn, the same in this perpetuating, the same reelection of folks and, you know, essentially locking out any type of competitiveness for the Democratic Party.

It makes me wonder why did it fail and whether or not it could be because there was, you know, there was a bipartisan effort.

There were these former, you know, Republican leaning judges that came out in support of it.

There were people for issue one that did a lot of canvasing across college campuses everywhere.

Right?

But it still failed.

And why do you think, perhaps that the ballot language, what people saw on the ballot that was adopted by the Republican dominated Ohio ballot Board, do you think that that played, any part in the defeat of the issue on the language was confusing?

I will admit that.

So when I looked at the language myself, I had to whip out my phone and pull up Google just to make sure that I understood it.

Right.

And I have a PhD.

And so I will admit that it was confusing, but I believed that the, Fair District folks were doing decent grassroots campaigns and at least a media campaign that tried to tell would be supporters.

Hey, we recognize that the language is weird.

We can't really get into the politics behind that.

But no matter what, you should vote yes.

This is why you should vote yes.

I promise to vote yes.

As I was explaining to my husband, just vote yes.

Don't think too deeply about it.

Vote yes because it is purposefully confusing.

I do think the ballot language sowed confusion in voters when they're confused about a ballot.

Issues on something so important as amending the Constitution are going to say, well, my only recourse to vote no and let them come back again and try now, they probably won't come back again and try because what do they do next?

The commission idea that they had pushed in in issue one has been tried in other states fairly successfully.

But that's an alternative to legislators basically drawing their own district lines, which strikes people should strike people as really unfair.

On the other hand, they've got to have a choice that is attractive to them before they're going to pull the plug and go to another way of doing it.

So now Republicans have control here in Ohio and pretty much nationally.

What issues do you think are the first things that they'll tackle?

Well, they're trying to poke at abortion again.

And they're driven, I think, by more extreme members of the legislature and certainly interest groups to try to overcome what voters voted for back a year or two ago.

Whether they're going to be successful in that or not.

We we don't know yet.

DeWine has been marginalized by his own party, in a way, because they have overcome his his vetoes in some important cases.

We'll see going forward.

So they'll try that.

What else would they do?

They may be driven by the Trump faction in the party.

The party has a problem, I think, you know, one of the one of the problems you face when you are so dominant is that there's a lot of factional infighting that goes on.

And we'll see this in the upcoming gubernatorial election.

There are several really ambitious statewide politicians who want to be the next governor, and they will duke it out with each other.

Maybe one of them thinking, well, maybe I should run for the Vance seat in the U.S. Senate.

But the others are going to fight within the party.

They will determined be determined the the nominee by Trump and by Trump's endorsement.

And so they're going to be trying to seek his endorsement going forward.

And I think that all that started yesterday and we'll see it continue over the next two years.

I you know, I wanted to make one other point about the party coalitions.

The Democrats have a problem.

And the problem is, once the base of your party changes, you then are sort of locked into that base, and you don't want to defy them when you are nominating candidates or running for reelection.

And so they they have, I think, a lot of conversation, internal conversation they're going to have to engage in.

But how do you tell women that?

Well, we're not going to be as strongly supportive of freedom of choice than we've been in the past.

I don't think that'll wash. Or how do you tell African Americans that we no longer want to have you have such a prominent place in our party because it's hurt us electorally.

That, again, is not going to wash so that we're, in a way, trapped, just as the Republicans, I think, are trapped by Trump.

And there may be a number of Republican legislators who would rather just kind of go on beyond Trump and go to a new world, in effect, without Trump.

But he's not gonna let them do that.

And if he adopts extreme measures, there could be blowback.

And we need to remember that in 2018, again in 2020, again in 2022, there was more Democratic success, really, as a reaction to Trump.

And will there be in 2026 a similar reaction?

I think it depends on what he does in the white House.

And I think that that there probably will be a reaction to that.

And the Democrats need to position themselves to take advantage of that.

But again, they have to be careful with their base.

Do you think?

I agree, but I don't think that the Democratic Party, you know, telling women that, you know, we're not going to prioritize reproductive rights or telling African Americans that, you know, we kind of want you to play second fiddle at this point because, you know, I can get into all of that.

That's national.

Okay.

But the issue is, is that ultimately, I think that folks would be more tolerant or more patient with the party if they get back to the basics of economics.

And so what are you going to do about the price of eggs in milk besides remaining silent?

Because that is not going to work.

And I also think that there is a educational or political awareness or interest gap between, folks who, supported the Republican Party and folks who support the Democratic Party, because, you know, on college campuses and even on my social media, which are, you know, surrounded by a lot of people who at minimum attended college, right, that there was this, you know, confusion and bewilderment over the number, just the massive numbers of people who voted red as opposed to blue.

And they were like, why would you do that when they were, you know, the Republicans were the ones that were behind that.

But not if, you know, you didn't take any political classes and understand how policies work and how long they take to be implemented.

If you're a low information voter or low political interest voter.

The only thing that you know is that your eggs are $3.

Now, when they used to be a dollar and 54 years ago, and that the Democrats have said absolutely nothing about this.

The Republicans have.

And I vividly remember when eggs were cheaper under the Trump administration.

So I want to go back to that.

And so until the Democrats have this, you know, coming to Jesus moment about their abandonment of economic stances and, you know, returning to that base and if not returning to that base, trying to figure out how to pivot.

And I don't think it is possible to pivot.

There is no pivoting.

You have to go back to the bases because while there, I can see there being pause from like, socialists or from even more progressive parts like AOC or even Bernie Sanders.

I still don't think it would be enough to appeal to the folks that have now went to the Republican side, but those same people will will undoubtedly be upset in 2026, because the Republican Party is not going to be able to do something about the price of eggs in six months.

Yeah.

So it comes down to to very basic things, like things you put on your table and, you know, you you both of you are dealing with college students who traditionally they've been kind of ideological ideology.

I can't say that word.

They've they've bought into ideologies and they've voted that way.

But this time around, it seems like it's a little different.

Maybe.

Well, in both Ohio and nationwide, young people didn't vote Democratic at the levels that they had voted in the past.

And I think that it was probably what Brianna was talking about, the that the economic situation doesn't appear to be as good coming out of the Biden administration as it was four years ago when they were 14 or whatever.

And the problem with inflation is, and I think the Democrats have it handled the issue very well, is that once there is inflation that causes rising prices, they get locked in.

At that point, you could stop the rise or you can hold the rise down.

But those prices are still higher.

And presidents don't control the, the what do I want to say the decrease in prices.

And companies that manufacture goods and sell to the stars aren't going to cut their prices unless they have to.

And they don't really have to.

And you seem to be chomping at the bit to add something to that, cause, like, I'm agreeing because, like, four students at my campus and what I've been seeing talked about online, there appears to be like these three sets of people, three types of young voters.

You had, you know, your ideologues who are issue voters, and for them, their wedge issue was Gaza and Palestine.

And those were folks who said, you know what?

Neither party is adopting a position in that I support.

And so either I'm going to vote third party or I'm not going to vote at all.

Right.

And then you had young folks who were really excited about the possibility of having a woman president, and they voted for Harris.

But that margin was really small.

That was a tiny proportion of young voters.

And then you had this largest vote, this largest proportion, which were folks who voted based on their understanding of their parents pocketbooks or their own pocketbooks and said, you know what?

I think we can tolerate a lot of the problematic things that we've seen in the Trump campaign or, you know, what it is actually funny if we just decide to ignore it and we're going to support the Republican Party, because at least they're trying to address this issue.

And even with students today, they were just talking like seeing those three groups of people talk about how they feel now, in light of the election result was really eye opening and that everyone chose not to agree to disagree.

But everyone agreed that it was the Democrats fault.

Like everyone today was talking about.

This was a massive failure for the Democratic Party.

And that is it for this week from my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Media.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State News Talk or find us online by searching State of Ohio Show.

You can also hear more from the Bureau on our podcast, The Ohio State House scoop.

Look for it every Monday morning wherever you get your podcasts, and please join us again next time for the State of Ohio.

You.

Just.

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.com.

The law offices of Porter, right, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at porterwright.com.

Porter Wright inspired Every day in 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.