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At OHEA.org Lawmakers made quick work of a new congressional map and suddenly move an anti vaccine mandate bill.

Families make plans for a second holiday season with the threat of COVID as an unwelcome party crasher, and 25 years ago, the Ohio State House made its debut after a multi-year big money makeover.

We look back on what this place looked like before the reveal this weekend the state of Ohio.

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

State lawmakers have approved a Republican drawing congressional district map that creates only two districts where a Democrat was strongly favored to win out of a total of 15 districts.

This has stirred outrage among voter rights advocates who pushed for the 2018 anti gerrymandering reforms that voters overwhelmingly approved, State House correspondent Andy Chow reports.

The new congressional map draws twelve districts that either lean or heavily favor Republicans.

That's 80% of the districts for the GOP and a state where Republican candidates average about 54% of the vote in statewide elections.

According to Days Redistricting, a national analytical tool, the Congressional District Map creates five districts where Republican voters outnumber Democratic voters by more than 20% and two districts where Republican voters outnumber Democratic voters by more than 10%.

There are six districts where the margin between registered Republicans and Democrats is below 10% of those districts.

five lean in favor of Republicans.

That leaves only two districts in the congressional map approved by the Ohio Senate and House that heavily favored Democrats.

Those districts are in Franklin County and Cuyahoga County.

The Cleveland Area Congressional District has 78% to 19% split for Democrats.

The Columbus Area Congressional District gives Democratic voters a 68% to 29% advantage over Republican voters.

That's very similar to the margins by which Democrats in those districts were elected in 2016 and 2020.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, another national effort tracking redistricting around the U.S., gives the Ohio map an f for Partizan fairness and sees for competitiveness and features such as compact districts and counties splits.

Katie Shanahan is Ohio State director for All on the Line, a group funded by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Shanahan says Republican leaders failed to follow the anti gerrymandering reforms passed by voters in 2018.

When Ohioans went to the ballot.

In 2018, we sent a clear message on redistricting that we wanted an open, transparent redistricting process that ultimately ended in a fair congressional map.

Unfortunately, the Republicans have throughout the entirety of this process sent Ohioans a much different message.

They don't care.

They don't care about our reform.

They don't care about our constitution.

They don't care what any of us have to say in our testimony, and they certainly don't care about our democracy.

Republican Senator Rob McCauley counters by saying Republican leaders did not set out to create an even split of safe districts for Republicans or Democrats.

I don't think that's what the voters wanted when they approved the issue in the election to make this constitutional amendment.

They want competitive districts.

They want districts that are responsive to what's going on out in society and what's going on in our country.

This map gives competitive districts.

But the redistricting reforms put provisions in the Constitution, saying the Ohio House and Senate could not pass a new congressional map that unduly favors or disfavor a political party or its incumbents.

Voter rights groups are challenging the new state legislative district maps, which retain a Republican supermajority for the Ohio House and Senate.

It would only be good for four years without Democratic support.

That was supposed to be one of the incentives to get majority party lawmakers to work with the minority party on a longer lasting ten year map.

The League of Women Voters says another court challenge to the congressional map is also on the table.

Andy Chao, Statehouse News Bureau.

That map got final legislative approval on Thursday in the same session as a bill that would ban schools and employers from requiring vaccines that don't have full FDA approval.

Obviously, targeting the two COVID vaccines that are still under emergency use authorization.

It also creates very broad COVID vaccine exemptions.

Basically, anyone who wants one can get one without explanation, though there are no vaccine exemptions for people working in children's hospitals and ICU units.

But those health care facilities would have to make a good faith effort to reassign employees who aren't vaccinated, and it would ban requiring proof of vaccine status or so-called vaccine passports by public and private entities.

Democrats say Republicans pull a fast one to get this bill on the floor.

All the elements of the original bill, which exempted bars from statewide curfews, were stripped out and replaced with that language, banning vaccine passports from another bill and also wording from a bill that came up for votes twice in the House last month.

Those votes were stalled after thunderous objection from more than 100 groups, including the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Manufacturers Association, the Ohio Hospital Association and the major health care systems.

After that, House Speaker Bob Cupp said his chamber was quote, moving on from vaccine mandate bills.

But Karp, the bill's sponsor, Alka Trona and other Republicans have said there's no connection with the timing of the critical vote on the congressional map to the sudden addition of a vaccine mandate bill to the legislative schedule.

But Ohio Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Steve Stivers, a former Republican member of Congress, said he'd heard of that and he called it quote, threatening the congressional map and called the move quote an act of legislative terrorism to force this bill to the floor.

Just over 60% of the state's population over five is vaccinated against COVID, but the Ohio Department of Health says the Delta variant of the coronavirus has gotten a second wind in Ohio.

The daily confirmed case number is around 2850.

Consider that in May, six months ago, confirmed cases were around 500 to 700 each day and deaths remain high.

An average of 63 deaths reported from Koven each day since September first, a total of 5060 in the last 77 days, and health officials fear it could worsen as families get together indoors for the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays.

State House correspondent Joe Ingles reports on how families are trying to safely celebrate Thanksgiving.

A year ago, Ohio's COVID case numbers were soaring and hospitalizations hitting record numbers every day.

A few weeks later, the first vaccines arrived in Ohio.

Now, COVID.

Adobe shots are available for anyone over five in the last few weeks.

Deaths are still high and even though case numbers were down, they're starting to tick back up again.

So before the family gets together over turkey and pumpkin pie, Ohio's health leaders say it's important to think about who is gathered around the table.

If we're going into a high risk environment, perhaps one where they're going to be many unvaccinated people.

And we're particularly at risk for the unvaccinated versus I do think we need to ask is, is that really the right thing to do?

Some Ohioans have already made it clear that in-person family gatherings are limited to those who are vaccinated.

I think we've been very lucky that none of our relatives have been sucked into the politics that seems to be the issue with the vaccine.

None.

None of our relatives are hesitant to get the vaccine, so everyone got vaccinated.

And you know, when everybody got vaccinated, we had a huge Father's Day bash at our house and we were all vaccinated and it felt so good to just be able to gather and not worry.

Nobody comes into the house unless they've been vaccinated, and it's not because.

Of us best sort of.

Delaware is fully vaccinated, so is her husband and kids.

But she's worried about inviting her 78 year old mom, who isn't to Thanksgiving dinner.

We're around people all the time, and I don't want to be the one that feels the guilt.

If mom ends up.

Being sick, you know, not even be me, but, you know, I don't want to have.

To carry that for the Sanford family, this Thanksgiving will mark a difficult day.

It's going to be a very tough day because it was Thanksgiving morning that I had to call yams and have Dave taken to the hospital due to difficulty in breathing.

We had already planned a Zoom Thanksgiving that day and.

He didn't want the kids to know he had COVID and then he was forced to tell them so he sent out a beautiful joint text.

All three kids and said, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to do the Zoom Thanksgiving.

I don't want you all to worry.

I'm being treated for COVID, but I'm OK.

But it wasn't OK. Seifert, an otherwise healthy 68 year old man, passed away on December 17th.

My husband died before he could get the vaccine.

We can't let this happen to our family again.

You know, everybody has a right to their own opinions, but it makes me extremely sad.

When people choose not to get the vaccination.

I've known a lot of friends that chose not to.

three of them are now deceased because they didn't get the vaccination.

Patti Houston home is vaccinated, but she's not getting together with human family and friends.

I lost my mom earlier this year, so holidays are a bit tough.

So that said, Thanksgiving this year, 2021 is going to be stress free.

No drama, no virus, no criticism about what my husband and I have or don't have on the table to eat because we are our only guests or two amazing dogs for two families so they can travel and be with their family members.

Medical professionals say this holiday season is about managing risk because no gathering will be 100% safe.

Vander Hoff says families who do get together should open windows if possible and wear masks.

And anyone who is sneezing or coughing should stay away.

Joe Ingles Statehouse News Bureau.

Also in the house this week, nearly all Republicans voted to change the law, requiring more than 700 hours of peace officer training or 20 years law enforcement experience for teachers and staff who want to be armed in schools.

Under this bill, required training for teachers and armed staff would be dropped to 20 hours.

The school districts could require more training, and House Republicans alone passed another bill, allowing anyone over 21 legally permitted to carry a concealed weapon to do so without getting a concealed carry license, which requires eight hours of training.

It also removes the obligation for people to tell law enforcement they are carrying a concealed weapon.

Democrats and most law enforcement groups opposed both bills, which now go on to the Ohio Senate.

A quarter century ago, the building we work at record this show in didn't look much like it does now.

And it's hard to describe just how dramatically different the Ohio State House was in 1990, when a six year, 120 million dollar renovation project began and what it looked like in 1996, when the building was fully reopened and spaces like the rotunda and the atrium were unveiled to the public.

Fortunately, we have pictures.

That renovation project celebrated its 25th year anniversary this week.

I talked to two key figures in the renovation project former Senate President Richard Fine and a Republican from the Cincinnati area and former governor Richard Celeste, a Democrat who served from 1983 to 1991.

It was a dump, and a lot of people said it should have been scraped and build a new one, but we chose not to do that.

I used to come when I came here in 73, and I used to have a little office down in the basement of the Senate building and a little furry creatures used to run across your shoes at night.

Rats.

Rats at night.

But I would come up here and I'd see those torches right outside the door and I'd say.

This can be a better place.

This can be something nice, and if I ever get the power, we're going to change it.

And later in life I got the power, so we had several budget constraints and so forth and so on.

But we got it done and it was six, six, seven years of of hard work.

Well, I think I actually I arrived here before Senator Findin as a state legislator and it was dump.

I mean, it was more than that.

It was it was a fire trap and it was rat infested.

And I don't think any of us really fully appreciated the dangerous work we were living in until we began to dismantle it.

I mean, we're talking about you said rats, asbestos, all sorts of rooms that were crowded in.

What had happened is that over time, the legislative staff grew.

We had to make office space.

All of the House members, all of the Senate members and all the staff were in this building.

We didn't have a RIF tower.

We didn't have the Senate annex.

And so you had over time, you know what had been 53 rooms had been turned into 353 rooms.

And that was that was.

And people got lost in their own quarters.

I think we were beginning to think about the importance of kind of recycling a building rather than tearing it down.

I mean, there's no way that we could have dismantled this building and put something in its place for the same amount of money.

It would have cost more and it wouldn't have been as it wouldn't have been as beautiful.

It wouldn't have been as historic.

It wouldn't have been as welcoming.

But still a six year, 120 million dollar project.

It's kind of a hard sell, isn't it?

Well, you know, you don't get you never started out at 20, and we honestly thought that 60 million would do it.

But then there were enhancements like this atrium, which was something that the architects recommended, and we had to go through a challenge because we had to preserve the historic nature of the State House.

But it became a huge additional public amenity.

And of course, if we were to try to redo the, you know, do this, undertake this project today, we wouldn't be talking $120 million.

We'd probably be talking half a billion dollars.

So it was really a good deal for the taxpayers of Ohio.

The first thing they had to do is come in and measure the building.

Nobody knew there was no plans the way the building was built.

And as you know, it doesn't have any steel in it.

It's all built on stone.

It was very vulnerable in that type of situation, so they had a lot of work to do to get it before they could even start working.

And you had to build the RIF tower to get the House members over out of this building.

And you had to build the the space that we're standing in the atrium as part of this whole thing to connect these two.

Built while the RIF tower was done by the time we started the building.

And the discussion was should the Senate move to the RIF tower as the House had done?

And so we had three votes on that.

Republicans and Democrats unanimously, we were going to stay here.

So we went through 56 years of torture here when everybody moved out of the Senate building and came over to this to the State House then and we're on little cubbyhole offices.

But they all survived.

And now when we got done, they thought very highly of it.

What has happened in 25 years with technology has been enormous and all the advances, did you think about technology or just the space when you were trying to put the thing together?

Technology was on our minds at that time.

You know, we were just beginning to to realize the benefits of computers.

We did not have smartphones, we did not have Zoom meetings.

But we understood that it was important when we redid the building to accommodate technology as it came in.

So my guess is they haven't had to go in and drill through walls to put in, you know, the latest fiber cable that they can run it through conduits that were imagined 25 years ago.

Very, very presciently for folks.

From what you've seen of Ohio politics 25 years later.

Could a renovation like this be done now?

Well, it was tried four times before we got it done.

I don't know that they would be willing to spend the money today to do it.

It might be when I first got involved in the thing.

Senator Aronoff and I flew around to various state houses and we looked at one of them was Michigan, and it had been partially restored.

And we talked to the senator up there, and he he his advice was somebody has to be in charge, you can't do it by committee.

And so we're flying back on the airplane and Senator Aronoff turns to me and he said, Well, fine, and I think you should be in charge.

I said, OK, but what's your reasoning?

He said, Well, my reasoning is number one, you really care for it.

You really care about the space.

Number two, it's going to be a lot of slings and arrows.

And there were from the press they hog.

They were on us all the time about spending the money.

And number three, you got a damn state safe district to get reelected in.

But it wasn't just you and Stan Aronoff who are Republicans.

This was a bipartisan effort.

It brought in Democratic Governor Dick Celeste and also Speaker Vern Wright.

Speaker Rice was very, very important to this.

We had one of the tranches of money we needed in the budget.

The capital bill was on the table and I remember the the Department of Administrative Services.

I think it was and they came over and we went to his big office over there in the House of Representatives side .

And we're all sitting around the table, rifles a little late and they've got their slides in their boar all set up as to how we're going to what we're going to do with the money.

And Vern walks in and he sits down and he before anybody said a word.

He turns to me and he says, Senator, do we need this to finish the job?

I said, Absolutely, yes, sneaker.

We need it.

It's all I need to know.

And he got up, walked out and he was totally supportive.

And Aronoff and Gilmore and all of them.

What is your favorite renovation project here?

What's one now that it's 25 years since it's been done?

What's your favorite thing to look at, the thing that you're proudest of, the thing you like the most?

I think this atrium connector is one that really appeals to me the most.

It's used for all kinds of events, weddings, even.

It's really turned out very well.

And the Ohio is the not Ohio the Federal Historical Society.

They threatened to pull our historical designation over that, and that's why you have the glass pieces in between there.

So that it was it was a separation between the atrium connector and the two buildings.

And that's the only way they would let it go.

But they they threatened this and I said, we're going to do it anyway.

So they did.

With all the accolades this building has gotten as being one of the most beautiful state houses in the country.

Do you feel vindicated that you pushed as hard as you did for this?

Oh yeah, I mean, 25 years ago it was on July seventh.

I remember it well, because that was my 40th wedding anniversary at the same time.

So we were out there on that on the statehouse grounds and it was all done and we were in black tie.

And it was just a great, great feeling for all the people, the workers.

We had very talented workers who worked here and they not only came from the United States, they came from Europe as well to put this paintings and stuff on.

So.

It was very gratifying.

What was your favorite part of the project?

What's the thing that has astounded you the most?

That is your favorite space?

Well, first place, I think just feeling this space, the fact that you could have hearing rooms for the public that were really accessible, you could find your way around in a pretty simple way.

All of that was a plus.

But I love the visitor center and I love the fact that we really tell our story about state government there that we couldn't before.

And I love this atrium.

I mean, this is this is a place where you can come and appreciate the out of the building and still be inside the building.

That's pretty spectacular.

And there were some uncovered treasures here, like the state seal found in the closet, all sorts of documents.

I mean, there was a lot that you found even during the course of this project that you didn't expect.

Well, I was, you know, I was around for the beginning of the project and then and then I handed it over to others.

And so there were ongoing discoveries that are still news to me.

Besides the atrium are there are any places in this building that people who tour this building and thousands of people tour this building every year that they really should see a place that you would recommend that they need to see to really get a sense of how beautiful this building is.

Well, I think the museum is one place that they should go to.

We now have the historic constitutions of the state of Ohio there, and that was a big I couldn't do that.

They did it after I left here.

I think that's a place that they should go and just the the history of the two legislative rooms, the House and the Senate.

I think they're spectacular.

And they were really done to the architects as best we could determine.

What they had look like originally, except for the gas lights.

And gas lights, reminds me that there are a lot of things historic treasures that were found in this building.

You talk about the founding documents.

There was a state seal that was kind of locked off next to a men's restroom.

I mean, there were a lot of really beautiful things that were just hidden away because this was an office building that didn't have places for them.

That's right.

The state seal is a good example.

It was found, I think, in a cloak closet someplace.

It was in pieces and they removed all it out, put it together, and now it resides in the museum center, down downstairs and the back wall.

And it's very, very historic.

Fine and credits what he calls the State House's caretakers of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board for how well the building is held up, saying quote, these things can fall into disrepair very, very quickly.

And so that said, he is not thrilled about the addition of metal detectors and the shutting off of some State House entrances .

But he says again, quoting this has sadly become, I think, an aspect of our public life.

And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State News dot 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 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Med Mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of 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.

Moore and 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