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The six week abortion ban could end up legally dead soon following the passage of Issue one.

And we revisit a talk with two longtime public servants who are retiring next month.

All this week in the state of Ohio, welcome to the state of Ohio, I'm Karen Kasler.

As lawmakers discuss what, if anything, to do to implement the reproductive rights and abortion Access Amendment that voters approved this month, the Ohio Supreme Court is asking the parties involved in a lawsuit over Ohio's law banning abortion after six weeks to submit arguments on what effect, if any, that amendment approved in issue one has on that case.

And it's looking like Attorney General Dave Yost, who is the state's lawyer in the lawsuit over the ban, is going to have to make an argument he said he personally disagrees with.

Yost has not filed those arguments yet, but said this to a group at Ohio Republican Party headquarters just before early voting started in October.

I've been surprised because as I've gone around and I talk to lots of people, I hear things like, well, I'm not really worried about issue one because somebody actually said this.

I'm not really worried about issue one because we'll still have the heartbeat Bill.

No, we won't.

That goes along with the legal analysis his office conducted of the expected effect of issue one on some abortion related laws, including the six week ban, which also includes no exceptions for rape or incest.

Yost was asked during a press conference this week about the argument he will present to the court.

The Supreme Court has ordered the parties to file supplemental briefs by December 7th.

My office will do that and we will be responding through our court brief.

The amendment, approved by nearly 57% of voters, guarantees abortion access, but says it can be prohibited after fetal viability.

Ohio Right to Life President Mike Goddard aka said on this show last week he believes the six week ban will be unconstitutional under the new amendment and that he thinks the current law allowing abortion until viability, the so-called Pain Cable Act, which he helped draft in 2016, will stand.

The state's abortion report for last year shows nearly all abortions happen before 20 weeks, and there were none after 24 weeks.

The leader of Democrats in the Ohio House has taken an unusual step of disciplining a member for his behavior.

But Representative Elliott Forehand is pushing back.

Forehand was stripped of committee assignments, had his building access badge suspended, and his legislative aide reassigned for what Minority Leader Alyssa Russo called, quote, your history of increasingly hostile and inappropriate behavior and quote.

Forehand has recently been criticized for social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war and for aggressive interactions with fellow Democratic Representative Munir Abdullahi and other people.

But Forehand says the discipline has gone too far.

You know, nobody suspended the adjectives, reassigned the legislative aide or requested any special counsel appointment in connection with the alleged conduct by former representative Young.

Forehand also said that in a letter to Republican House Speaker Jason Stevens and added that, quote, The House should not, in my view, waste resources on what seems to be a politicized matter within the Democratic forehand was on the state ballot board.

He was replaced by Representative Terrence Upchurch for this week's meeting on the amendment for next year's ballot.

On another revamp of the redistricting process.

The proposal from citizens, not politicians, would create a 15 member commission of Republicans, Democrats and independents to draw up a congressional and legislative maps that are now approved by the Republican dominated Ohio Redistricting Commission.

Current and former politicians would be banned from serving on the new panel.

Citizens, not politicians, include Republican former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, who joined the court's three Democrats in ruling all the maps put forward by the Ohio Redistricting Commission in 2021 and 2022 were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

The proposal was approved a few weeks ago by both the attorney general and the ballot board.

But the group found a typo and had to resubmit the whole thing, missing a critical signature gathering opportunity on Election Day.

We've used this time to continue to organize our volunteers and get all of the necessary paperwork in place and organizational structure in place.

And in the coming week we will have volunteers hitting the streets all across Ohio collecting these signatures.

They have until July to get more than 413,000 valid signatures on this Thanksgiving weekend.

We're bringing back a conversation with two state policy veterans who have the gratitude of many Ohioans.

Ohio Association of Foodbanks Executive Director Lisa Hamler Fugate has been in that position for two decades, moving into the director emeritus role in July.

John Collette is the president and executive director of the Center for Community Solutions, where he's worked for 18 years after serving as the state's Medicaid director and at the MetroHealth system in Cleveland.

They're both retiring at the end of this year.

My Statehouse news bureau colleague, Joe Ingles, sat down with them in September to talk about the timing of their departures.

I think it's time for new people, new blood, new energy, and maybe a new way of thinking and acting.

Certainly we've seen a lot of changes around Capitol Square, and it's for those of us that have been around through multiple administrations, for me, it's been five in some 14 different general assemblies.

I really think it's time to step aside and let our young, youthful leaders lead our organizations.

John, what about you?

Yeah, I think the same thing.

You know, the other thing is, you know, both Lisa and I, I think, have over those.

We both worked for the same number of administrations, have always sort of partnered really well with whomever is here.

Like, you know, that's that's the thing I think about, like all the Republicans I've worked with over the years.

I mean, I think about people like Bob Nazli, Joan Lawrence, Meryl Kearns, you know, all those people.

We've always worked so well with them.

And I think that's how we what we figured out how to do is how to thread that needle and get stuff done that'll benefit the citizens of Ohio.

You've both had to deal with a lot of challenges through the years.

So let me ask you, John, let you start.

What was your greatest challenge?

You know, I think the greatest challenge was when I was working at MetroHealth, it was after I had left Step Down, a state Medicaid director, and we came up with this idea to expand Medicaid a year early in Cuyahoga County through a medicaid waiver.

So first, I had to go to the Medicaid agency.

First, I had to go to my county government and get them to save to say, okay.

And then I had to go to the state Medicaid director, John McCarthy.

And he said, okay.

And the governor's office said, okay.

And then we had to go to the Obama administration.

They had to say, okay.

And all those things happened.

And the result was that, you know, 38,000 people had health care coverage in Cuyahoga County a year earlier.

And I think we also showed the state that it was possible to expand in a responsible way because we were under budget and, you know, covered more people than we expected.

So I think that was both the biggest challenge I think I faced.

But also for me, it's one of the things I'm proudest of.

Lisa, what about you?

What's your greatest challenge?

You know, making programs work for people, reaching them where they work, live, play and pray, and to be able to take really complicated programs and get relatively inexperienced legislators to understand the role of these programs in how they work.

I'm with John.

The fact that we were able to expand Medicaid in the state, and I think we thought 275,000 people would gain access.

But what we saw is it was so much bigger than that.

And then leading an organization that served not once but now is in our second term of the state, slowly navigate her to the Affordable Care Act, connecting people to a health care home, and hopefully on a path to wellness.

My other is being able to work with Ohio farmers, growers and commodity producers and creating and expanding the Ohio Food Program, an agriculture clearance program that started under the Voinovich administration.

Those two key nutrition programs now provide one out of every four meals that our food banks distribute.

And it's just critically important to us being able to do the work that we do.

Right.

I mean, I just you know, I think that was just genius, Lisa, on your part that you sort of brought the farmers of Ohio together with people, mainly citizens of our cities and rural areas, who needed access to that food.

And nobody had done that before.

And you really thought that up.

Well, thank you, John.

And John has served on our Cleveland Food Bank board for a couple of terms now and has led the leadership.

But, you know, Ohio is an agricultural state.

And to be able to make those linkages and to bring farmers and growers and commodity producers to the state house to lobby side by side with this, that, you know, it's it's hard for somebody to say, you know, I really don't like your social programs, but I really do like those farmers.

So, yeah, it's a it's a great public private partnership.

But the other thing, Joe, is that we are very fortunate in the state of Ohio to have very dedicated public servants that work within our state agencies.

And I think through my years of being able to, to partner with multiple state agencies, but to really get to know the state employees who come to every day to work and work really hard for the betterment of the citizens of state of Ohio, and we're blessed for that.

Was there ever a time when either one of you had challenges that you just couldn't see your way through?

You didn't know how you were going to deal with them?

Lisa I'm sure you.

Probably did, right?

Oh yeah.

And I think leaving now, that's probably continues to be one of my biggest disappointments is that we failed even when we when the state of Ohio had very strong balances, as we do now, that we have failed to enact a refundable state earned income tax credit to make work pay for the one in three Ohio families who work every day but just don't earn enough to be able to meet their basic needs.

And we have tried and seen legislation enacted and a small expansion, I think, under the Kasich administration.

But as I said to him, refundable.

He is important.

It's a bag of groceries.

So that I think is is a challenge.

But again, it's about education.

It's continuing to educate our elected leaders to understand that public policy can really move and bring about tremendous change, including a reduction in poverty, not about you, John.

I think for me, the the the piece that I've been sort of most worried about over the last several years has been the growth in poverty among older adults in the state.

I mean, child poverty has actually come down since Lisa and I started this work, and that's a good thing.

But poverty among older adults is rising.

And I think, you know, as pensions have disappeared and sort of retirement savings have kind of disappeared, that's the group that I'm most worried about.

And because we're an older state, too, we tend to be older than other states.

And so I think that's an area where we need probably renewed focus is on older adults and trying to sort of improve their economic security.

So on the flip side, what do you think has been your greatest success, John?

Well, I mentioned, you know, working on the Medicaid expansion.

I think, you know, my greatest success has actually been the ability to work with so many advocates over these past 40 years and watch people sort of grow into amazing leaders to sort of take organizations and tackle issues.

You know, I think about a lot of people that I've worked with who've gone on to make a lot of differences, you know, for the people of Ohio and across the country, too.

So I think that's for me is sort of bringing that next generation along of advocates and teaching them and coaching them and encouraging them and encouraging people not to get discouraged.

And I think the other thing is also, you know, I think sometimes it's real easy to judge somebody because of the letter after their name.

And I think that is my greatest learning is that you can't do that because, you know, I think I would not have predicted, for example, that Governor Kasich would have expanded Medicaid, but he did it and he became a champion for it.

And I don't think it would have happened without him, without his leadership.

And so, you know, I think we have to sort of, you know, take people at face value and trust their intentions and go from there.

Lisa, what about you?

I'm with John.

I mean, right now I am really worried about the the grain of our state, a lack of comprehensive services that we're seeing that are going to allow the greatest generation to age with a little bit of dignity in their own homes instead of nursing homes.

I think this idea is that there's only a one size fits all approach.

Maybe being able to take full advantage of federal as well as state opportunities to expand programs.

And I really would like to see a revisiting of term limits.

I think that term limits have been to the detriment of the state of Ohio and that legislators and by the time they've served eight years, they really understand how things work.

And we end up losing them.

So I long for the days of people like Representative Bob Netley, who was the cave that was the king of the caveman caucus who served on the Welfare Reform Oversight Committee and went out and really investigated how things were done.

And he did that with state represent by report from Cleveland Heights.

So very, you know, unlikely sort of work mates because their ideologies were separate, but they were both interested in a better program.

I think.

And better outcomes for the citizens of the state of Ohio.

Yeah, because ultimately that's who is going to lead us into the future.

It is the future workforce.

It's the future leadership.

Yeah.

Is there something that you're leaving unfinished that.

You wish you could have finished?

Lisa Hmm.

Boy, that's tough.

Maybe a more durable disaster response.

And I think learning and learning on the fly out of COVID that we have to bring the whole of government to respond.

I think we set a real trend in leadership, but we need to build the redundancy.

It's not it's not if but it's when the next disaster comes.

And I want to make sure that we're hardened off and we have those assets.

And certainly that's something that we're focused on.

The changes with climate change, the adaptability that we have to be prepared for.

So I would say that that's one, including the term limits.

And I'd like to see a revisiting of the state minimum wage, which we worked on in 2006 as well.

So ensuring that no Ohioan is left behind.

What about you, John?

You know, the one thing I've been really interested lately, because it's a new opportunity at the federal level, is using Medicaid to improve health care services for people who are leaving correctional facilities.

And there's you know, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that if we do a better job, particularly with people's behavioral health and substance use disorders and getting them health care, we can keep them out of these places in the first place.

And so it's both sort of a crime reduction sort of initiative and a health improvement initiative as well, and really would help address some of the equity issues that I think we face in our state prisons.

But it's a new opportunity and it's sort of like, oh, I want to work on that, but someone else can have to do that.

So yeah, you're the king of the 1115 ladies, right?

Well, I think you've kind of alluded to this, but both of you have had to work with various governors and lawmakers on different sides of the aisle.

And maybe some of them you can't even guess what side of the aisle they're on.

How do you how do you balance all that?

How did you do that?

You know, I've always said that, you know, I never want to surprise anybody.

You know, if we're going to be critical of somebody, they're going to know it ahead of time.

We're not they're not going to hear it on this program first or read about it in the newspaper first.

We're going to talk to them first and let them know how we feel and then also see if we have something wrong because we don't always get it right.

And so it's good to know if there's mitigating factors.

I think I have a lot more patience here.

Having served as state Medicaid director, I know how difficult it is to get things done, to actually get things finished in government.

And so I'm much more patient about that and much more open to hearing, you know, the explanations of our state employees, the folks who help keep this place running.

What about you, Lisa?

It's about relationships.

It's getting to know them as people, getting to know their families, their interest, always providing an opportunity to to meet, have them come out, meet with our members, the people that are in our food lines.

We all want to be on the winning team and to make it as a win win situation.

I have been so blessed and honored to work with really great leaders and also their staffs who really have a good grasp of the issues and are always willing to roll up their sleeves.

And again, I would say that the COVID response that Governor DeWine did, he was the first governor to deploy the Ohio National Guard that allowed us to continue to feed literally millions of Ohioans as they lost their job through no fault of their own.

And that was because he saw the threat out there in didn't waver.

And that's what leaders do.

They lead.

Do you have.

Any fun kind of lighthearted, inspiring stories about bipartisanship or about people you've worked with through the years.

Here?

Well, I think it's interesting, Joe, that, you know, when I stepped down as state Medicaid director, I got two letters of thanks, one from Bill Batchelder and the other from Bill Seitz, and not people that I was sort of ideologically matched up with or whatever.

But it really saved them because I was like, well, I might not get these again.

But I you know, I, I just enjoyed working with people down here.

I have a lot of respect for people, these folks who serve in this legislature and this administration, because no matter their party or their beliefs, you know, they're public servants.

And when I became Medicaid director, I, I finally understood what public service was.

And I, I believe in it.

And I you know, it's just that there are a lot of fun to hang out with, too.

So.

Yeah, I think one of my fondest memories and we talked about Bob Metzler, who served for some 40 years, I think he was on his second or third hip replacement when he took us out in welfare reform.

And we visited some 20 counties.

But as he was closing up his office, he asked me to come over and handed me the first bill that he had ever introduced around family planning.

Oh, right.

And I'll never forget that, because he said, you know, this is about people being able to make informed decisions for themselves and their families and again, talk about the opposite sides of the spectrum.

But again, that's an example, I think packing hearing rooms around controversial bills and having members really understand that this is the power of the people.

So, again, it's been interesting.

I would certainly say that that, you know, we could have more of that bipartisanship if legislators were able to grow into the positions and get to know one another.

I think we're fortunate that we see them come and we see them go.

And a lot of times it's just really sad because we lose the the really great ones who understand the programs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is there any situation that sticks with you and you think, Man, I wish I would have done that just a little differently.

Something that if you could turn back the hands of time, would you do differently?

Maybe.

I guess I would maybe go back to what I referenced before, Joe, is that, you know, I think, you know, when I was younger and doing this work, I tended to pay more attention to those letters behind people's names and sort of thought, well, I only talked to the Democrats or only talk to the Republicans or whatever.

And it took a while to sort of like kind of shake that.

And I don't feel that way anymore.

And so I think that's probably the one thing I wish, you know, maybe when I was started doing this work, maybe had been a little bit more open minded about, you know, other people sort of views because neither side has sort of the the hold on good ideas.

You know, all sides have good ideas.

And so I don't think I was open to that when I started this.

Oh, that's a that's a really good one.

You know, it's it's difficult to say if there's any one thing.

I mean, I think being able to thank somebody who you don't agree with, who has opposed your position or who has tried to advance some really destructive legislation to be able to go back in knowing full well that the fight goes on.

But to have respect, that is the most important thing.

When we lose respect for the institution, the process.

I think with with age comes patience.

I guess.

You know, the other thing I just thought of Joe, too, is one thing I should have done differently.

Back during the Taft administration, we planned a rally here at the state House around the budget, and I told the people in Cleveland that I will we will pay the Center for Committee Solutions, will pay for any bus that you can fill, will tow busses later and $20,000.

I was like, I will never make that offer again to pay for any bus, all the busses that somebody could fill.

Because I learned from that that when you give that to people, they're going to take it and run with it.

So it was a good thing that all those folks came to Columbus but was also expensive.

Both John Corlett and Lisa Hammond, if you could say they plan to continue to serve in volunteer roles after they retire.

And finally, for the 11th consecutive year, Ohio retailers are predicted to see a slight boost in spending over last year's holiday season.

The 7500 member Ohio Council of Retail Merchants once again hired the University of Cincinnati Economics Center to do the forecast.

Research director Brad Evans says spending should total $32.2 billion, an increase of 0.7% over last year.

Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus again will account for more than half of the relevant retail spending in Ohio during this holiday season.

And we are expecting growth in seven of the nine metro regions across Ohio that we analyzed.

The only two areas expected to decline are Cleveland and Dayton, with Youngstown getting the strongest growth.

Last year, Ohio saw a 4% increase in holiday spending over the previous year.

But Evans says a large part of that was because of inflation, which he says is now moderating.

And that is 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 find us online by searching the state of Ohio show.

Happy Thanksgiving 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 com the law offices of Porter right Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Right.

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.