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.

Maude 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.

The state marks a somber and historic anniversary at its maximum security prison.

Lawmakers are still away from the office, but there was apparently some work still going on.

And a talk with the head of the Ohio Republican Party about supporting the first former president to ever be indicted as he runs again next year.

And now some big and controversial issues match up against things most voters are worried about.

This weekend, the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

It was 30 years ago this week that one of the longest prison riots ever in U.S. history started at the southern Ohio Correctional Facility, the maximum security prison in Lucasville.

400 inmates from three different gangs began a siege on Easter Sunday, 1993.

11 days later, nine inmates and one guard were dead.

Statehouse correspondent Joe Ingles has talked with some of the key figures from this moment in history.

And we'll have more next week on what this anniversary means and what's changed since then.

Lawmakers are still on spring break with hearings starting again next week on the two year state budget and also the plan to require 60% voter approval to change Ohio's constitution, which Republicans want to put before voters in an August special election.

They would have to recreate, since the law signed in January, banning August special elections.

In most circumstances took effect last week.

But the war over who will control the Ohio House Republicans campaign arm is apparently over.

Speaker Jason Stevens announced that Representatives Phil Plummer and Jeff Luray will co-chair the Ohio House Republican Alliance, and the group has hired a chief political director who is a veteran of the campaigns of former President Trump, newly elected Congressman Max Miller and former state treasurer Josh Mandel, who's lost both of his runs for U.S. Senate.

Stevens disputed Plumber's claim that he controlled the campaign account because he was among a majority of House Republicans in supporting Representative Derek Barron for speaker and the 22 Republicans who voted for Stevens, including Larry, were censured by the state Republican Party.

But this seems to settle whether Marion supporters would sue over the account and potentially launch primary challenges against those who voted for Stevens.

That situation is one of the things I wanted to discuss with the head of one of Ohio's two major political parties, along with lots of other matters.

I talked this week with newly elected Ohio Republican Party chair Alex Orient, a fellow about that along with former President Trump.

The upcoming races for president and US Senate and the serious concerns about that plan to change the way the Constitution is amended three months before a vote on a constitutional guarantee for reproductive rights and abortion access.

Let me start with former President Trump.

He seems to be the leading contender for the 2024 Republican nomination.

The Ohio Republican Party is still standing behind former President Trump.

Are you concerned at all about legal problems?

His record in the last few elections in other states besides Ohio?

Are you still behind him?

So, you know, we haven't taken an official position on the 2024 primary.

That would be up to the state central Committee to ultimately decide if we do take a position.

But there's no doubt that President Trump has a lot of support in Ohio, has a lot of support in the Republican Party all around the state.

I hear a lot of support for him despite some of what maybe is going on.

You know, in one small part of New York City for us as Republicans, we'll stand behind whoever the nominee is if it's President Trump.

You know, we'll be fine with that.

He won Ohio twice.

I think he's poised to win Ohio again.

Now, critics have been either saying that Trump is innocent and this is a politically motivated prosecution or that these charges simply aren't serious enough to warrant the kind of attention and concern that is around this.

Republicans often talk about being the party of law and order.

You're you're a lawyer in fact.

So no one is above the law.

But why not let the legal system play out in this?

Why have all this criticism around this case?

Yeah, I certainly the legal system will play out.

I think there's little doubt about that.

I'll say this, though, in total fairness, if a small town prosecutor in red ruby red Alabama had indicted President Obama or indicted Anthony Fauci, for instance, somebody unpopular within my party ranks, I feel like, frankly, the messaging would be very different nationally.

That's what's going on here.

This is a highly partizan bureau level prosecutor, not a federal prosecutor, not the Department of Justice, who has, you know, brought charges that seem highly politically motivated to a lot of us.

And I think I've heard that from, frankly, across the political spectrum.

I have spent my life in the law passionate about the law.

I've been a prosecutor.

I've been a judge in my life.

This this, this one just doesn't feel right.

To a lot of us, it feels highly political.

And, you know, again, we haven't taken a position on President Trump.

But when the the potential nominee of the opposing party finds themselves up charged criminally at the state level in the way that this happened here, especially given the timing, the presidential campaigns are just about to get going.

We've got one or two candidates on our side, on the Republican side, who have announced President Biden gets asked every time he gets a chance.

Are you announcing the timing of this, the type of charges that we're talking about, Who is bringing those charges again, in the location where they're bringing them?

Leaves a lot of us suspect.

I know that there have been a lot of charges on the Republican side of, you know, Hillary Clinton should be locked up and the ongoing investigation into President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, who is a private citizen.

House Judiciary Committee chair, Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio is scheduled a field hearing in New York to look into some of what he calls the victims of Manhattan D.A.

Alvin Bragg's actions there.

And he's even now Alvin Bragg has there's been subpoenas back and forth here and everything.

So why is this prosecution of Trump political?

But these other things aren't political.

Wherever they can be.

Just talked about actually has not been the indictment of a former president of the United States, certainly not the indictment of what is in the polls, the leading contender on the other side.

So it is significantly different.

I mean, having a hearing, investigating, you know, even the rhetoric around somebody like Hunter Biden is very, very different than, you know, a county level prosecutor in Ohio, for instance, bringing charges against Hunter Biden or Joe Biden, for that matter.

So, you know, the rhetoric can be one thing.

And the rhetoric, frankly, in my view, we ought to calm down on all of it from my perspective.

But once you actually bring a criminal indictment against a former president, United States, and by the way, of a potential future president, a person who's one of three or four people in the country, really that have a realistic probability be elected president, I think you've taken it to a whole new level.

And for that reason, you know, I think that it should be largely condemned.

What's going on with President Trump.

And I believe that we all can should come together on the condemnation of that.

And we should have let the voters decide whether or not he ought to be the nominee of the Republican Party, first of all, and present second of all.

And I know that you mentioned that the party is not taking a stand on who they're going to support.

Let's talk about some other candidates here that are also being talked about.

For instance, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is visiting Ohio.

He has Ohio ties.

What about him?

What about Vivek Ramaswamy, who is a Columbus based tech entrepreneur?

He's been a conservative author and speaker.

What about some of these other candidates that are out there?

Well, I would say that I'm as a Republican leader, I'm pleased we have some really good candidates.

Vivek Ramaswamy, frankly, is someone I've known since he was a high school student in Cincinnati.

I'm quite familiar with him on a personal and professional level.

You know.

Governor DeSantis will be in Ohio tomorrow.

Again, I'm not sure when we'll be airing, but I can tell you that he'll be in in Ohio here in the next few days.

I intend to see him and Ohio will be welcome to all these candidates.

You know, we want to get to having the best nominee.

The one thing we feel very confident about is we have a very, very good opportunity to defeat President Biden.

His approval rating in Ohio hovers in the mid-thirties nationally.

Even the latest polling, CNN just put out a poll a couple of days ago showing his approval rating hovering in the low forties.

This is not a popular American president.

The American people know what's happening when they go to the grocery store.

They see gas prices ticking up yet again.

So, you know, we have a real opportunity to offer the American people a better choice.

So the few candidates that you mentioned, I think all of them, frankly, would be better than the current choice.

Let's look ahead to next year as well with the U.S. Senate race, which is one of the reasons that you actually got into the chairmanship role, was that you said you wanted to focus on the race to unseat Democratic U.S.

Senator Sherrod Brown.

He's easily the best known and most popular Democrat in Ohio at this point.

He ran against a relatively unknown Republican at the time, Jim Hennessy last time.

He beat him by eight points, some might say only eight points.

There's already some jostling among Republicans who want to try for that job.

You've got State Senator Matt Dolan and Cleveland businessman Bernie Marino, who almost ran last time, likely candidate, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, also Congressman Warren Davidson.

How do you avoid another huge field of primary candidates like you had in 2022?

Or do you feel that that helped J.D.

Vance and to go on to beat Tim Ryan and so it might help next year's nominee?

Well, yeah, there's a bit of a myth that exists among a lot of people in politics that the parties have some ability to control at the primary level.

I've done this a long time in my county.

I've been a member of the state Central Committee for a decade.

You know, our ability to actually influence who enters and doesn't enter the primary very, very limited.

The candidates that you've mentioned, all of them, I think very qualified, frankly, all of them have a different story to tell.

The primary ultimately will will, I think, sharpen candidates.

You know, obviously, you don't like to see a lot of the money that's spent on TV bashing one another.

But again, it worked out for us in 2022.

You know, Sherrod Brown's been in elected office 47 years.

His voting record looks more like someone like former Senator Kamala Harris than it does Joe Manchin.

He's had some decisions to make as a senator.

He's always kind of sided more with the far left of his party than he has with sort of the working class Democrats that used to make up part of their coalition.

So we like our chances there.

And I am motivated by that's one of the reasons I'm here.

I think we have a real opportunity to make that change here in Ohio.

Given how the state has gone for Republicans, I think our chances of defeating Senator Brown are solid.

But I also know we have a lot of work to do before we get there.

It's going to be an expensive campaign, certainly.

And you just ran an expensive campaign in 2022.

Well, there's no doubt about it.

These campaigns get more expensive by the year.

The numbers are staggering.

I've been involved in politics at some level for more than 20 years.

And, you know, hey, $1,000,000 isn't what it used to be.

As I jokingly tell some of our party faithful.

But yeah, these are expensive races and, you know, that's just a part of it.

Yeah.

The move to make it harder to amend Ohio's Constitution by requiring 60% voter approval.

Republicans who supported it made the argument that it should be hard to change Ohio's founding document, that there are too many times that, for instance, the specific plots of land casinos were sited on are in the Constitution.

There's also plenty of criticism from Democrats are saying that this is silencing voters who have already been silenced by gerrymandering.

And it all is pretty clearly timed toward a possible reproductive rights amendment that could be before voters in November.

And if this is passed, there would have to be a special election in August to vote on it, even though special elections were just eliminated in a law that just passed or that just took effect this month.

How do you defend all of this against charges that this is undemocratic and hypocritical?

Well, I think what you need to understand is what the role of the Constitution is in our system of government.

You know, we've amended our federal Constitution only 20 something times, right, in the history of the country.

The Constitution should not be so easy to amend.

And I would have had this very same position if you asked me this five months or five years ago.

I think amending our state constitution is entirely, entirely too easy and we shouldn't legislate that way.

We should legislate to the people that we elect to pass legislation.

If you don't like a piece of legislation that's passed, you can unelect or defeat or campaign against those people who passed it.

Once you enshrine something in the Constitution, you've got to go back to the voters and you end up this sort of government by referendum that I don't think works and I don't think that's the structure of government that we have who have served our country well.

Even here in Ohio, it's served us well.

So I'm in favor of of making it harder to amend our state constitution.

When and how we do that, I think ultimately will be up to the people who work in this building, who aren't just in it for the, you know, as I am to support Republicans day to day.

So I'll leave it to them.

But ultimately, I'm in favor of it.

I think most Republicans are.

And I'll I'll I'll just say that people who've done this have said that getting 414,000 signatures and going through the whole process is not easy.

And they'll push back and say, hey, the representatives, because of gerrymandering, people aren't being heard.

Well, look, big money special interests have been involved in getting those 414,000 signatures.

We've seen it time and again, whether it's casinos, whether it's marijuana, you know, again, we've seen big money, special interest litter our state constitution.

I want to I want to get us past that.

I think that the people who ought to be passing laws ought to be responsive to the people in an election every two years or every four years if you're on the Senate side of things.

And I think that's a better way just to run our government.

If Ohio is indeed a pro-life state, which a lot of Republicans have claimed it is, why not just let this reproductive rights and abortion Access Amendment go to the ballot and let people people show that the state is is a pro-life state?

Well, look, I mean, our representatives have spoken on this topic and they face the voters in the interim.

Right.

We passed a heartbeat bill in this state.

It's been a pro-life state in the state house.

And, you know, people have had a chance to vote on their representatives in that interim period.

Our majorities as Republicans have only grown.

So, again, I think having the Constitution amended with less than 60% just allows for the kind of things that we've seen that I've already discussed.

So that's where I am on the topic.

I'll let the people in this building sort through how and when that happens.

But I think as a general matter of governance, we ought to do that.

And if the voters of Ohio speak differently, we'll listen to them.

Speaking of that, the idea of abortion as a political campaign issue, obviously it's a big one on both sides.

Is it still a winning issue for Republicans with what we've seen in other states?

And how do you advise candidates how to handle that?

Well, I think some of the messaging from my party needs adjustment.

And I think it's important that we remind voters of every political stripe that the Democratic Party position right now is to allow an abortion even in the third trimester, in the final weeks of a pregnancy.

We think that's the wrong message.

We think that's absolutely right.

Democrats are going to disagree with you, Right?

I mean, I can tell you now that that that is that I've not heard that I've not heard President Biden asked if a woman if we should restrict abortion in the third trimester, if he's answered that question and he suggests that we ought to restrict it, then at least we have some common ground to talk about.

If Democrats are in favor of some restrictions on abortion, let's have a conversation.

That's not what I ever hear.

All I hear is about abortion rights and reproductive rights and all the other rights language that they so prefer.

But the Ohioans, I can tell you, the American people really are not in favor of a very barbaric procedure in the eighth month of a pregnancy to terminate a pregnancy.

So if we can get to a conversation about we agree that there ought to be restrictions, then maybe we find some common ground.

The Democrats have never met us, even a quarter of the way on that question.

So we're going to point out and I'm going to point out every chance I get to point out that their position is the extremist one.

Despite some of what we're hearing generally in this conversation, their position is extreme.

Our position is to try to find a place to save as many children as we can.

I think.

This is still a winning issue.

For well, I think this I think we've got it.

We've got to message it in the right way.

And I think there's an avenue for it.

I'm also going to say this.

I can't not say this.

It's an issue that is at the core foundation of what so many Republicans believe.

And I don't think as Republicans, we can walk away from that issue because it may feel at the moment to be politically expedient.

I'm not suggesting it is or isn't, but I can tell you that as someone who believes strongly in this issue myself, it's something we should fight about.

And I think the voters will respect that.

We have a core set of moral principles that we're willing to fight for.

On that kind of cultural issues.

Area here you've got bans on trans athletes and girls, sports, abortion, so called critical race theory in schools.

Some of these issues that Republicans have made, key issues and talking points, are these really the most important issues that impact affect people's lives?

I mean, are they taking time away from issues related to education, the economy, the state budget, other things?

Well, I mean, you know, we should be able to walk and chew gum, you know, to be flip about it.

You know that when I'm out talking to people across Ohio, I'm talking about things like a $7 carton of eggs.

I'm talking about gas creeping up near $4 a gallon.

I'm talking about shrinking paychecks.

This is one of the reasons I think you see President Biden hovering at 40% approval rating nationally in the mid thirties here in Ohio because people understand all the sort of the hot button issues that you just referenced.

You tick them all off.

I think we as Republicans should stay focused on the things that matter to Ohio families and that are the things that we've talked about inflation, cost of gasoline, jobs and the economy.

I mean, we're looking at a potential recession.

These are the kind of things we should be talking about.

I think we did a better job and I think we're doing a better job here in Ohio on these topics of economics and kitchen table issues.

But if we stay focused on those things, we'll continue to win.

We've won well in Ohio.

I think we'll continue to do that nationally if we stay on topic.

But these are the topics that have come up as bills that are being proposed as priority bills in the House and the Senate here.

Well, I mean, look, we passed the transportation budget in the state, which passed with a, you know, an overwhelming number of votes, over 90 votes.

Other good things have come out that really, frankly, aren't as exciting or as headline worthy to your general public.

Some of these other questions that you've asked.

Certainly those are more hot button issues because of what's being driven in the news and the culture.

But I think we've done some really good work in this state, even in a bipartisan way, to advance things a lot of Republicans care about.

I want to talk about the House and the Senate here and specifically the House.

There's been a battle over leadership.

It seems to have been settled this week with a deal over the Ohio House Republican campaign account.

But you had Speaker Jason Stevens and who look to be speaker elect Representative Derek Baron had this pretty public display of struggle over leadership at the meeting where you were elected chair.

The 22 Republicans who voted for Jason Stevens for speaker were censured by the Ohio Republican Party.

Why?

Why was that?

Why weren't they free to pick the candidate that they thought would be the best candidate?

Well, I mean, you know, the lawyer me is going to pick on the language.

Well, but they were free to do what they want to do.

ALTMIRE You know, but the Republican Party spoke out about how we felt about that issue.

Look, I inherited that that issue.

And I as a state party leader, I'm trying to talk to all of our represents across the spectrum to get them back focused on the issues I think that Ohioans care about.

Frankly, Karen, I don't know that if you're you know, you're sitting at home in Ashtabula County tonight, whether you care about who the speaker of the Ohio House is or whether 22 people were or were not for him, what you care about is, you know, sending your kids to a safe school, getting, you know, your taxes paid this time of year.

You know what your budget looks like at home.

We ought to really get off of some of these internal inside baseball issues, as people of my age say, and focus on kitchen table issues that's been my message.

Everyone and the people that you've named from Representative Marin to Speaker Stevens, same message from the state GOP chairman is let's get focused on what Ohioans care about.

And that's how we'll continue to grow our majorities.

When you mentioned safe schools, I got to ask, what about the position on guns?

I mean, overwhelmingly, polls show that people want some sort of reasonable restrictions on guns.

Why are Republicans not working for that?

Well, what we ought to do is we ought to fortify the schools and protect our kids.

We've done this in airports.

We've done you know, we reacted to terrorist attacks by creating TSA.

We absolutely need to fortify and protect the schools.

Second Amendment is in place in our Constitution.

I'm not an expert, frankly, on how to best protect the schools.

I know we need to do more and I think Republicans need to do more.

If I'm ever elected a legislature, I would do that.

But I can tell you from a Republican perspective, we've got to respecting Tyer Constitution.

The Second Amendment is an important component of our Constitution.

And, you know, again, Republicans are in a place where some level of normal restriction we've been for we've been for background checks, we've been for other things like that.

But the Democrats immediately pivot to attacking Republicans every time there's a tragedy.

We ought to be talking more about mental health.

That's an issue that, you know, have all day.

But I can tell you, it's near and dear to my heart.

I've been active in the mental health community.

We don't treat adult mental illness effectively enough.

There's just more things we could do.

And those areas as Republicans and even at the state level to talk more about what mental illness means, how we identify it, how we treat it, how we avoid these dark souls from going in and committing these awful acts.

But immediately we get into a debate about guns.

We never really solve the problem.

You're for background checks.

Oh, I'm saying some Republicans have been for background checks, by the way.

Background checks are the law of the land.

I just bought a firearm two weeks ago and I had to have a background check.

Let me ask you to kind of conclude things here.

What would you tell when we're in such a partizan environment here?

What would you tell voters who are opposed and vocal in their opposition to the Republican Party about the Republican Party?

What would you want them to know that you think might make them change their mind?

The first thing I would tell them with all respect to you is to get your messaging from a variety of different sources.

Hear what we're about.

I'm fine with that, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, and I appreciate that.

But, you know, for our party, we want to be about helping American families, helping your common, everyday citizen, you know, save for their retirement, have a better grocery budget, get a better job.

Frankly, it's the kind of things that President Trump and Republicans, I think did very well, which was the message people and say, we want to grow our economy to lift you up.

That's ultimately we're about some of the noise that we hear, frankly, on both sides and the extremes.

There are extremes in both parties.

I'll be the first to recognize that.

But the Republican Party is going to be focused on your pocketbook, your well-being, your job and your family and improving your life.

If you give us a look and look at our record on those issues.

One cannot debate that the economy was better three years ago than it is today.

And I think President Biden hasn't done a good enough job.

I think that's why his approval rating is where it is.

So I think if you just give us another look as Republicans and get past some of the noise and and get your messaging from places other than just what you're getting at every single morning, for instance, on on your morning show television and others, just give us an outlook.

Do you think there's a possibility, though, that candidates are talking too much about these issues?

Candidates are focusing on these talking point extremist issues and it's turning people away.

I mean, I don't know about that.

It depends on the candidate, depends on where they're running.

I mean, this isn't it's not so automatic.

I think, you know, it'd probably be a much longer conversation about how some of this emanates.

But my message to our candidates is they're running is to stay focused on these issues because we've seen it work for us.

We've seen it work.

I mean, look, President Trump, Donald Trump, frankly shocked the political universe in 2016.

I think a lot of us who thought we knew politics would have, you know, would have been were certain in the summer of 2016 you'd never be elected president.

United States.

He thought again then I know a lot of people feel a lot of angst about him.

But there's a political lesson there.

What he did is he went around all of that and just talked about key issues that people cared about, kitchen table related issues.

I think that can work for us regardless who the messenger is that can work for us.

You can see my conversation with Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters from last month or rewatch this interview in our archive at State News dot org or at ideastream dot org.

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 Web site at State News talk and 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 more at 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.