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More at OHEA.org Gas prices drop as the state suspends its fuel tax.

And an overview of issue three.

The only one on the statewide ballot.

That's this weekend.

The state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler back home in our state house studio.

Ohioans are paying less for gasoline and diesel.

Now that governor Mike DeWine has signed the bill, state lawmakers approved on Wednesday instituting a 90 day holiday for those state taxes.

The suspension of the 38.5 cent tax on gas and 47 cent tax on diesel happened during an election year break.

In an unexpected session convened last week by Republican leaders following the call for a gas tax holiday by their candidate for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy.

He had issued his plan not long after Democratic candidate Amy Acton had said in a statement that a gas tax holiday was needed to offer Ohio's working families some relief, end quote.

though.

There were two bills introduced to create the gas tax holiday to move it quickly.

The three month suspension and the $726 million in general revenue funds to support it were added to a bill seeking to crack down on car thefts that pass the house in November.

So the vote started in the Senate, where Minority Leader Nikki Antonio had formally requested a recusal from Senate President Robert Hawley, whose Swami's running mate that was shot down.

And then a motion to end debate on the bill was approved before Democrats could speak or offer amendments.

McCauley explained.

Why we came in here saying that we made $725 million cost relief for Ohioans at a time when they need it the most.

Democrats, through some of the they were trying to call, were trying to make it about anything other than that, which would be it very well jeopardized what we were trying to do here today.

And our caucus thought it was important to get in, get the job done on behalf of Ohioans across the state, and desperately.

Senator Bill Mora had said he had at least one amendment to introduce.

He has been one of the most vocal critics of the plan, saying that Acton was wrong to embrace the gas tax holiday idea.

This is funny money they're playing with.

It was a gimmick the entire time.

And I guarantee you that if if any actors like the governor, somehow this money is not going to be there, and we're going to be the shortfalls that they're playing games because they can because they control all branches of government.

And this is what they do.

This is what unchecked power looks like at their state house.

They do whatever they want to whenever they want to do it, and they make up money.

Again, this is the money that we don't know.

I mean, they say we have a we have a we have windfall, we have the extra money.

That's Pontypool until the fiscal year is over.

How do we know we have much money coming in?

The bill passed the Senate 26 to 5, with three Democrats joining all but one Republican in voting for it.

Then it went to the House.

Republican Andrea White was a sponsor of both the gas tax suspension bill and the legislation that it was added to.

We need to act now because it's in our power to do so.

We can control state taxes, and by taking this action now and having an emergency clause, we will bring that relief within days and people will be able to see this tax holiday through the holidays and have money back in their pockets.

Democratic representative bride Rose Sweeney spoke for over a half an hour about her concerns, including comparing the hundreds of millions of dollars granted to the Cleveland Browns domed stadium project in Brook Park, to the savings that drivers will get.

I think the one thing that everyone agrees on is that Ohioans are hurting, and one of the ways they are hurting is at the gas pump.

No one disagrees with that.

The only disagreement we have is how we should provide that relief.

And let's be very clear, Democrats don't get to set the agenda, and we don't get to pick what we vote on.

The only choice we have before us that all of us have before us, is to allow a get sale, a gas tax holiday that has currently written, on average, will save Ohioans $3 a week.

In the House, the vote was only to concur with the Senate's changes so Democrats couldn't offer any amendments.

But several lawmakers took the opportunity to speak about the bill, including Republican Representative Bob Peterson, who's a farmer, and Democratic Representative Desiree Timms.

So while we have to pay the increased cost of diesel fuel, we don't pay taxes on those because they're not used on the road.

But to haul that crop in, you know, in our farm we've got four semis running every day.

We have four pickup trucks running every day.

We're burning 100 gallons of diesel fuel and gas every day.

And so that's looking at $50 savings per day for our farm, $50 savings today, $50 tomorrow, $50 next day for the next 6 to 8 weeks.

It truly is beneficial to us now.

We still have to pay the increased cost of fuel, like all Ohioans and all this country, but the savings are very significant.

If the body truly wanted to say, well, hyenas money, then we would spend $726 million lowering electric bills while gas prices lay at the feet of the president.

We can do something more meaningful with the money.

The original gas tax holiday bill, like other Democratic affordability bills, are still sitting in committee.

So let's call this what it is.

It's a political opportunity.

And vulnerable Highlands who are struggling at the gas pump don't deserve to be political ponds.

Democrats blasted the process that brought the bill to the floor in this sudden session and brought up President Trump's war in Iran and polls showing a close race between Acton and Ramaswami.

All were reminded by Speaker Matt Huffman to confine their comments only to the bill.

Among those who were admonished for straying from talking only about the bill was House Minority Leader Donny Isaacson, who joined most House Democrats in voting for it.

we were not willing to take the bait to play politics with this, of course.

Do we think more could have been done?

Yes, we made that very clear.

We introduced a bill to that effect.

Do we think this bill was well designed and well written?

No, it wasn't, because we know that the emergency on cost did not start when Vivek Ramaswami got a bad poll result.

The emergency on cost has been there for Ohioans for months and years, but we will not miss an opportunity to provide some relief for the people of the state.

But we're also not going to pretend like they don't deserve so much more.

Huffman conceded.

It was a fair point to ask why there was no movement in the spring on the gas tax suspension bill that had been introduced in May, when gas prices were higher.

But he said now is the right time.

and I will say, and I think most people would say is, well, we thought gas prices were going to go down.

Something will happen right after after September, people are traveling less.

We did hear a lot of suggestions that, you know, the war was under control and people were doing things that perhaps Russia was suing for peace against Ukraine.

There have been, I think, some more activity with drilling in eastern Ohio, getting all and all those things might happen.

But at some point you have to make a decision.

And as I said, if we said, well, we're not going to we're not going to do it because it'll look too political.

That's a terrible reason not to do The bill passed the House 78 to 16, and governor Mike DeWine signed it the next morning.

So it went into effect immediately.

DeWine had said taking funds from the Ohio Department of Transportation for the gas tax suspension was quoting here a very, very bad idea.

But he had also said he hoped lawmakers would find another way to fund the holiday.

By the way, there is no relief in this bill specifically for owners of electric or hybrid vehicles.

Voters will see a constitutional amendment on their ballots that would add a photo ID requirement for in-person voters to the Ohio Constitution.

Issue three also defines the identification that can be used.

An unexpired Ohio driver's license or state ID card, a US passport or passport card, an Ohio National Guard ID card, or a veteran's ID card issued by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs this week.

Two views of issue three, starting with Republican Representative Brian Stewart, who strongly supports it.

So why is issue three important since photo ID is already in state law?

Why is issue three necessary to put it in the Constitution?

Well, Ohioans are serious about election integrity.

They believe that, you know, every poll we've ever seen shows that not only both parties, but independents as well, by extremely high margins, believe that requiring photo ID to vote is a very reasonable policy.

Folks are used to showing their ID a whole host of places far less important than the ballot box.

And so we have had a statute and people believe it works.

I was talking to a Democrat a couple of weeks ago, and they said, you know, we have photo ID in Ohio.

I've showed my ID to vote for 20 years.

So.

So why are you doing this?

I said, it does work and it is a good thing.

The problem is Democrats are entirely against it.

They want to get rid of it.

And so by putting it in the Constitution, we insulate that from the sort of, you know, whims of the day.

And, you know, I think our Democratic legislators are not speaking to the mainstream of their party.

They're catering to kind of a fringe and opposing voter ID.

And so we're going to protect in the Constitution.

We're just going to make clear that if the legislature swings by a seat or two, one way or another, we're not just going to toss the most important election integrity mechanism that we have in the trash.

Issue three lets us put that in the Constitution and make sure that we have voter ID for many years to come.

Why do you say Democrats want to get rid of photo ID?

Because they've all voted against issue putting issue three on the ballot.

They have routinely voted against every voter ID protection and photo ID requirement we've ever had.

It's been pretty state of dogma.

They're against On the Secretary of State's website, there are the official arguments for and against issue three and the argument against it, which is written by Democrats who voted against putting it on the ballot.

There's the sentence issue three tries to address an issue that does not exist.

Voter impersonation is essentially nonexistent.

Ohio's elections are safe and secure.

How do you respond to that?

The Secretary of state last year referred 1200 cases of election fraud to the Department of Justice.

He identified, I believe, almost 170 instances of non-citizens voting in our elections.

And that's just the that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg in some respects.

We have secure elections because we currently have photo ID.

It's a bit bizarre to say, to look at the product and ignore all of the things we did to get there.

Our elections are secure because we have photo ID, so it's reasonable that we would make sure that we continue to have it.

But back to that idea of voter fraud being rare.

I mean, we're talking about cases 0.0005% in 2020 of voter fraud.

So why is this necessary when voter fraud while it exists?

But it's just this little bit?

I'm always amazed when the media minimizes voter fraud, when we have so many elections that are decided by one vote to vote a handful of votes.

You know, this is the only issue on the planet where the media says, well, there's not that many folks cheating us, so it's not that big of a deal in every other respects, but it doesn't matter.

It hasn't affected major elections.

I mean, it affects local elections occasionally, one vote or the other, but it hasn't had an effect on a presidential election, a gubernatorial election.

I don't think it's remotely persuasive to say, well, we're only cheating at your county commissioner race.

We're only cheating in your state legislator race.

And we haven't had a United State Senate race cheated yet.

That's a silly argument.

Voter fraud, whether it's in a local race and frankly, local races mean a lot more to people's daily lives in some respects than who your statewide official is, if we're being honest.

So this, this, this idea.

Well, it's only a little bit of cheating, and it only matters in the races that occur in your community.

I don't think that's a good argument.

Another argument against it is that it locks out forms of ID that are issued by government entities.

For instance, county issued veterans IDs, military IDs, and that it will actually lock Ohio into a form of ID that may become obsolete at some point.

There are multiple forms of ID in the amendment that are permissible not only your passport, your driver's license, your veteran's identification card from the VA administration.

There are multiple different forms of ID that all qualify.

I think Democrats have tried to focus on, you know, they found one form of ID that not that many people have and said, oh my gosh, you're not going to be able to use that one.

You can get a free state ID card if you are low income, if you're elderly, if you have any sorts of those problems.

Getting an ID is incredibly easy.

And by the way, Karen, since we've had photo ID, voter participation has gone up.

So voter ID is common sense and it is not in any way inhibiting people's ability to vote.

One criticism that's come not only from Democrats, but also from Republicans, is that this only addresses in-person voters and not voters who cast ballots by mail.

Well, we've addressed that through statute, and we did it on the same day that we voted to put issue three on the ballot.

There's a statute now in place to say that if you are registering, if you are going to vote absentee, then you need to verify your identity with a photo ID you can do that by stopping into the office.

You've got to, you know, a lengthy period of time to do so.

You can do it on your phone.

You can do it on your computer.

We've made it very easy.

So we are addressing both in the law.

But in terms of the constitutional amendment, simpler is always better.

And we're we're addressing in-person voting.

Do you expect at some point that the mail in voter part of this would have to go to the constitutional, would have to go into the Constitution as well?

If you're arguing that this does have to be in the Constitution, I don't necessarily think so.

I mean, I think that we have set with this amendment a floor, but the amendment contemplates that there is a ceiling.

It specifically says the legislature can continue to legislate in this area and require photo ID.

I think there's a technological aspect to when somebody is voting remote, is voting by mail and trying to prove their identity, you know, remotely.

We should have some, some, some flexibility to kind of keep up with technology and adjust with the times.

But the basic concept of prove who you are before you cast a ballot, Ohioans agree with that overwhelmingly.

And if they do, I think they should vote yes on issue three.

We've seen a constitutional amendment before voters in a big election, for instance, the non-citizens voting where citizens cannot cast ballots in Ohio.

That was a constitutional amendment while there was a big election happening.

There's criticism here that this is only being put out there because you're trying to drive out Republican voters to the ballot.

And Republican candidate for governor, Vivek Ramaswami, really kind of started this ball rolling.

Is this just an effort to bring in Republican voters in this election?

It's not.

And all that criticism is coming from Democrats.

You know, we have had constitutional amendments and ballot initiatives on the ballot alongside general elections.

For as long as I can remember being as long as I've been alive.

So, you know, Democrats have in the most recent years as well, said, hey, we should have more constitutional amendments.

We should be enshrining in the Constitution these things that we think are important.

And so they have had that message each and every year that I have in the legislature.

This will be the first time that Democrats now believe that something that's really important and a lot of people think should be protected, should not be in our Constitution.

I think that's the folks that are playing politics on this, not that Republicans.

On that note, do you want to see that 60% voter approval for citizen initiated amendments come back?

And I mean, that was what voters rejected in 2023.

Do you think it should be back?

Well, look, I carried the bill.

I certainly myself believe that all constitutional amendments, whether they are initiated by the legislature or outside special interest groups, I think they should all have to get 60% of the vote to pass.

But at the moment we lost that race.

Okay.

And so what we took from that is Ohioans said, no, we're comfortable with 50%, and we're comfortable having made the case that all of these constitutional amendments that are constantly being put before the voters, you know, at the time, I think we should have less of that.

But Ohioans have spoken, so we're listening to that.

If if Ohioans believe that some of these important issues, like voter ID, should be litigated in our Constitution, then we're giving them the opportunity to to follow through and do that.

Many Democrats, including Representative Veronica Simms, are opposed to issue three let's just talk about just.

Overall, why is issue three a bad idea?

This is already in state law.

Why is it a bad idea to put it in the Constitution?

I mean, I think it it subjects us to really confusing the voters first and foremost, and it just doesn't go far enough.

You know, if we're really concerned about the unabridged access to the ballot, there's more that we should have.

We could have done and should have done.

And so I think to to to that end, it's just not the right thing to do.

And I mean, as everyone has said time and time again, we already have this in law.

It's already law.

We have the strongest voting rights in the in the country.

I would I would venture to say.

And so it just was not necessary when you talk about it doesn't go far enough.

I presume you're talking about that it only covers in-person voters.

It doesn't cover mail in voters.

But that law was passed the same time.

Yeah.

So I'm also talking about how narrow its focus is.

And in a in a time where there's so much advancement in technology, it narrowed it to two different types of ID that that means if we if we wanted to add an additional one, say they wanted to use retina, I don't know, maybe we want to use fingerprints or what.

Maybe I don't know what the technology is.

This happened so fast.

We would literally the General Assembly would have no authority to add that as an ID.

Now, when I asked Representative Brian Stewart about that, he said that anybody can get a free state ID card if they're low income or whatever.

And that argument that you just made there is, is not a good argument.

So if in fact, this was the case and and we wanted to ensure that this is where I was saying the law doesn't go far enough, you should have been trying that in the in the Constitution.

You should have inside, making sure that we still always have access to mail and ballots, because that is important to many of our, our seniors.

And, and those are kind of the amendments that we try to add and to no avail.

And so he is if it's that important that he would say it again, we should have enshrined those things as well.

In the official argument on the Secretary of State's website for and against issue three and the official argument for it, which was written by four Republican lawmakers who voted for putting this on the ballot.

There's this sentence, this common sense requirement will protect Ohio's elections, and it's the standard to obtain a job, rent an apartment, board a plane, or drive a car.

What do you what do you think when you hear that?

It's so, so, so they tickle me pink.

Sometimes I get a bunch of hogwash.

You know, I have a bill to expand, and this may be a little off course to expand the jury pool to use to also include BMV rosters so that we can, you know, make sure that we get more people in the pool to, to, to for jury duty.

And they're always telling me how reliable the license are.

And so now all of a sudden, I mean, the bottom line is this state has no fraud issue.

We're confusing voters.

And the intent is this continuous erosion to the access to the ballot.

And we must push back on that.

At the end of the day, this is just unnecessary.

These things already exist.

And if we're really serious about doing this, take the time to see, you know, take the time to go through the process and, and add those things that we've omitted.

Because when you think about it, the cost of, you know, renewing a license that, say, an elder who lives in rural Hale doesn't need any longer sturdy bucks, you know, to get an ID people who already have fixed incomes, if we're really thinking about those folks, enshrine that to.

And there are a lot of Democrats who would also say that obtaining a job, renting an apartment, boarding a plane, or driving a car are not fundamental rights, whereas voting is a right.

That's exactly right.

You could not have.

I could not have said that better.

I don't want to.

I'm not trying to speak for anybody here.

I mean, you know, I don't I don't know necessarily.

You need to have an ID to a driver's license to get a job.

You know what I mean?

I didn't know that was a prerequisite.

Okay.

You know, so when you talk about voter fraud, which is another argument that's been brought up because our voter fraud in 2020 was like 0.0000 5%.

When I asked Republicans about this, they basically said, well, at what level is it okay to cheat?

I mean, because it's okay to cheat in these elections, which are smaller elections that are decided by 1 or 2 votes as opposed to larger elections?

I mean, what do you what do you feel?

I would say that, you know, I can't believe they're putting this much energy into trying to find a needle in a haystack.

I wish they put this much energy towards making sure that every kid had a meal to eat at school, or that they had a safe place to call home, or every senior can stay in their home because they can afford to do the repairs.

Put energy there.

Again, this there's no fraud in Ohio.

I mean, if you know what you say you found amounts to nothing.

And so, you know, this search for a needle in a haystack.

Again, an unnecessary it's a not necessary charter amendment.

You know, opening our charter to do this was unnecessary, and we should not be doing it.

This is a very popular idea, though, House Speaker Matt Huffman told reporters.

There's been some polling that shows it's about 75% of voters support this.

But do you feel this is the right time for this issue, or is this, as some people have suggested, a an attempt to try to drive out more Republican voters to cast ballots this year?

Yeah, I'm sure when they were begging that question, they didn't say, oh, by the way, we already have this, you know what I mean?

Do you think?

Well, of course, I mean, there's lots of people that didn't know that our laws already require that.

So, you know, I question, you know, you know, what was the phrasing of the question?

You know, most people yes, I think we all agree to that.

You know, we agree even right now, but we're saying it already exists.

It's unnecessary.

Do you feel it's an election year gimmick?

I do, I do, I do, I just wish we just put more energy, this kind of energy again, looking for a needle in a haystack and some of these really important issues that really matter to Ohioans, that really change their material conditions and help them live and be better.

I've heard some criticism about Democrats putting too much emphasis on people being disenfranchized because they don't have a driver's license when most people have a driver's license that Democrats have spent too much time and energy on that.

Do you feel that that's the case?

This this is this goes back to the privilege that so many of them have who don't know, can't even begin to know what it feels like to be disenfranchized so you can't recognize it when it happens?

I think we as Democrats speak to that issue because we know it all too well, because we have we live, work, breathe, and interface with constituents that, that, that, that that's their everyday experience.

Notably, one Democrat who is not opposed to issue three is candidate for governor, Amy Acton, who has said it has overwhelming support and doesn't change what's already in state law.

Next week, we begin a series of conversations with the major party candidates for the four executive offices besides governor, starting with the contenders for Secretary of State.

Democrat Alison Rousseau and Republican Robert Sprague.

And that is it for this week.

My colleagues at the state House News Bureau of Ohio Public Media.

Thanks for watching.

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Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

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

More at Porter Wright.com.

Porter Wright.

inspired every day.

And from 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