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Tag: Ohio Capital Journal

Possible TikTok ban could restrict how many Ohio small businesses connect with customers

The TikTok app is displayed on an Apple iPhone. (Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

By: Megan Henry – Ohio Capital Journal

TikTok could be banned in the United States on Sunday, which could impact how many Ohio small businesses reach customers.

Hoggy’s BBQ, which opened in 1991, has been using TikTok since 2020 and posts daily videos that gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the restaurant. Their videos range from breaking down their recipes to going through various items on the menu.

“We’ve worked really hard on it,” said Kyle Turner, the restaurant’s director of marketing and business. “It’s not the end of the world. We will survive and we’re on the other platforms, which will help with marketing, but it will limit our reach. It’ll definitely hurt our marketing capacity a little bit.”

Small businesses have used TikTok to connect with customers in new ways.

“To have (TikTok) just sort of taken away all of a sudden could feel very alarming and just be a really difficult pill for many businesses to swallow, having built their following … and a real connection with those people on that platform,” said Alexa Fox, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Akron who teaches a social media marketing class.

President Joe Biden signed legislation into law last year that requires TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok or the social media platform will be banned out of concern that ByteDance would share user data with the Chinese government or push propaganda and misinformation.

TikTok argues the ban would violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment free speech protection.

The United States Supreme Court heard arguments on banning TikTok last week and can make a decision at any moment. President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated on Monday and he recently called on the court to pause the ban from taking effect.

If the ban goes through over the weekend, new users would be unable to download TikTok. Current users would still have the app on their smartphones, but the app would eventually become not usable over time.

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TikTok was released in 2016 and has grown to more than 1 billion monthly active users, including more than 170 million users in the U.S. — making it one of the most popular social media platforms. Other platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube Shorts also promote short-form videos, but that doesn’t necessarily mean accounts will have the same success they currently do on TikTok.

“To say it’s going to be a one-to-one comparison is probably not very accurate,” Fox said. “Other social media platforms have not been very successful at replicating the environment that TikTok offers in order to really build a large following and connect with people using the features that the platform offers.”

Hoggy’s BBQ

Hoggy’s BBQ has more than 27,600 followers on their TikTok account and they have posted a video every day for the past three and a half years.

“(TikTok) increased our visibility,” Turner said. “It introduced us to a lot of different ideas, different people, and it definitely played a major role in the success and the growth we’ve had the last five years.”

They didn’t want the restaurant’s TikTok account to be like a television commercial, he said.

“The main goal is just to have a face to the place, be authentic, and don’t be overly corporate,” Turner said.

Their TikTok has garnered national attention and even caught the eye of Texas Monthly’s BBQ Editor Daniel Vaughn, who paid a visit to Hoggy’s BBQ. People from Indianapolis, Detroit and Philadelphia have come to Columbus just to eat at Hoggy’s, Turner said.

“They literally drove from those places to come to eat Hoggy’s and drive back, which was pretty crazy to me, but really cool,” he said. “Before TikTok, we didn’t really have that.”

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky.

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Megan Henry

Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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January 17, 2025
Ohio Republicans start the year by throwing public education under the school bus

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gets off a school bus as part of the first Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group meeting at the Ohio Department of Public Safety Atrium on Sept. 11, 2023. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal).

Commentary

by Marilou Johanek – Ohio Capital Journal

It didn’t take long. The new legislative session began in Columbus with Republican chieftains in the state throwing the future of public education in Ohio under the school bus.

First it was the billion-dollar voucher king, Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, to hedge his bets on giving Ohio’s 611 school districts what they need to provide a quality education to the 1.7 million students they serve.

Then it was Huffman’s patsy in the executive branch, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who added his two cents worth of wishy-washy about how a leaner state budget ahead means something’s gotta give — like fully funding the education system used by the vast majority of Ohio families and their children. “Sometimes these are very, very difficult, difficult choices,” said the gutless wonder. What leadership.

Educating future generations of Ohioans with high-quality public schools is your job, governor. It’s the No. 1 responsibility of the state to ensure a thorough and efficient system of funding for public schools. ‘Says so right in the Ohio Constitution. It also says, “no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, control of, any part of the school funds of this state.” But DeWine and his puppet master in the Ohio House ignored that part years ago when the state began diverting hundreds of millions of education funds to private and mostly religious schools.

Clearly, the politicians calling the shots in state government have no regard for the state constitution. Adhering to the rule of law is optional when political power is absolute. Huffman, who thumbed his nose at the Ohio Constitution on fair redistricting (to pull off even more egregious gerrymandering in legislative and congressional districts) is doing the same thing on adequately funding public education.

He’s looking to cut revenue to public schools while spending a ton of tax dollars on private school vouchers — with aspirations to fund more private school facilities to increase demand for those vouchers. Call it the Great GOP Phase-out of Public Education. Last week, Huffman dropped a calculated bombshell to prepare Ohio’s public-school districts for another financial hit from the state.

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The Lima Republican said the state couldn’t afford to fully fund public schools or finally fix a school funding formula ruled unconstitutional nearly three decades ago. The Ohio Supreme Court’s 1997 ruling said the state’s failure to provide and distribute sufficient resources for public education and its over-reliance on local property taxes to cover that shortcoming violated the law.

Yet Ohio lawmakers never remedied the problem. School districts had to keep going back to voters just to maintain and operate local schools. Homeowners carried the weight of school funding, not the state. They were/are understandably tapped out on school levies, especially as changes in property evaluations jack up tax bills.

But in 2021, after years of collaboration between former Republican Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp, former Democratic state Rep. John Patterson and scores of public education stakeholders, Ohio came close to meeting its constitutional obligation of ensuring a thorough and efficient system of funding for public schools. “What we really wanted to do was figure out what it really costs to educate a student and then what a district can really do to support its fair share, and then the state would compensate with the rest,” said Patterson.

The Cupp-Patterson spending formula, known as the Fair School Funding Plan, was enacted as part of the 2021-23 state budget. The new system weighed a district’s expenses to come up with the base per-pupil funding amount — instead of a blanket amount of state funding for all schools — and changed the way the local community’s share was measured depending on property tax value and the income of local residents.

That was a big deal and a significant step forward to address the long-running inequities of an unconstitutional school funding system that had failed generations of K-12 students. The quality of their education often depended on where they lived. Wealthy school districts in Ohio had every advantage over high poverty districts that struggled to pay for even basics in the classroom.

The Fair School Funding Plan initiated a level of fairness and reliability in state support that past spending programs lacked. Complete state funding of the FSFP (around $2 billion altogether) was to be phased in over a six-year period through two-year budget cycles. The goal was to continue expanding state funding for districts in successive biennial state budgets until the Fair School Funding Plan was fully funded.

The last installation, or third phase, was to be paid in full in the upcoming 2026-2027 operating budget. But that expectation hit a wall when Huffman nixed increased spending to public schools as “unsustainable.”

His excuses for not making good on fully funding Cupp-Patterson — less state revenue to work with, less federal pandemic relief money, more scrutiny needed for school money already allocate — don’t apply to his expansive voucher outlays to religious schools that reached $966.2 million for the 2023-2024 school year. Enough to fully fund Fair School Funding Plan.

But Huffman is laying the ground to shave more off the FSFP and showing his utter indifference to the acute financial challenges facing countless districts. Tough luck for the nearly 90% of Ohio students who attend public schools with slashed opportunities. It didn’t take long.

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Marilou Johanek

Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist.

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January 15, 2025
Ohio Gov. DeWine approves firearm privacy, insurance prohibitions

Potential buyers try out guns which are displayed on an exhibitor’s table during the Nation’s Gun Show. (Photo by Alex Wong, Getty Images)

The measures provide protections from requirements gun owners were unlikely to face

By: Nick Evans – Ohio Capital Journal

Last week Gov. Mike DeWine signed a measure into law prohibiting Ohio financial institutions from using a separate merchant code for gun shops or requiring gun owners to purchase liability insurance. The measure also prohibits governments or agencies from maintaining a list of gun owners.

Similar merchant code prohibitions have passed in more than 15 other states. But notably, the bill’s sponsors did not identify a single Ohio entity considering an insurance requirement or ownership list. As such, the proposal’s purpose appears geared toward burnishing lawmakers’ pro-gun bona fides.

And it offers a potential answer for where messaging legislation goes when state leaders have already embraced almost every policy firearm enthusiasts could ask for. With state law already endorsing stand your ground, arming teachers, and permitless carry, lawmakers are left to chase hypothetical threats to the Second Amendment.

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Last minute amendments

The measure Gov. DeWine signed brought together two standalone pieces of firearm legislation late in the session. After those bills were combined House lawmakers proposed tacking on another piece legislation known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act.

Furious at restrictions imposed by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, sponsors proposed stripping out all reference to federal firearm provisions in state law in a bid to bar local police forces from assisting federal agencies. They pitched the proposal as an “anti-commandeering” bill — i.e. prohibiting federal officials from using local authorities to enforce federal laws.

But the measure went a few steps further. The initial version sought to inscribe the sponsors’ interpretation of the Second Amendment in state law, a task typically reserved for the courts. With those “infringements” codified, local police departments could face stiff fines for any purported violations. Departments could even be fined for hiring someone who previously worked for a federal agency.

Opponents warned the proposal would cripple task forces fighting drug and human trafficking and undermine tools like the ballistics database authorities rely on in gun violence cases. The Missouri law on which it’s modeled was struck down in federal court, and last year a federal appeals court unanimously upheld that decision.

The House floor amendment adding those provisions to the bill failed.

What now?

Dean Rieck who heads up the Buckeye Firearms Association praised DeWine for signing the measure prohibiting liability insurance and tracking ownership.

He framed the underlying provisions as “fight(ing) recent efforts by gun control advocates to make gun ownership more expensive and less private for law-abiding gun owners instead of cracking down on the actual criminal misuse of firearms.”

As for his organization’s priorities going forward, he said they’d fight “against Second Amendment infringements” and urge both parties to prioritize measures holding violent criminals accountable.

The Second Amendment Preservation Act was a major priority for the organization Ohio Gun Owners. On social media, the group’s president Chris Dorr argued the Republican members who voted against the amendment should face primary challenges. The group later made member-specific thank you posts for the 32 Republicans who wanted to pass the provisions.

A central premise of the measure was that state law can be leveraged to blunt the impact of federal firearm regulations by depriving agencies of local assistance. But even with a conservative, gun-friendly administration taking office, Dorr said it’s just as important to pass the bill.

“It is critical that the General Assembly pass the Ohio Second Amendment Protection Act during the Trump Administration years so that, with a Second-Amendment-friendly Department of Justice, that law can get on the books and stay on the books long after President Trump is gone from the White House,” he argued.

Dorr said they’re expecting to run it back in the coming General Assembly and although he declined to name them, said they’ve got a sponsor. As for their other priorities, he described even greater “stand your ground” protections and the right to “carry, transport or possess any lawful weapon” an Ohioan owns, rather than just handguns.

But for the time being, he emphasized their happiness with DeWine signing any firearm legislation.

“Legislation like this is exactly the kind of legislation the Ohio General Assembly should be putting on his desk in response to the attacks big corporations have leveled against conservative America,” he said.

What opponents think

For organizers pushing for greater gun restrictions, lawmakers eventually balking at the most sweeping proposal doesn’t get chalked up as a win.

During the past session, Democrats proposed a handful of measures exerting a modicum of control over gun sales or promoting gun safety. One bill proposed a 10-day waiting period for gun sales. Another would’ve eliminated taxes on gun locks and other safety devices. The most sweeping proposal would’ve rolled back the law allowing Ohioans to carry concealed weapons without a permit. None of them passed.

Everytown for Gun Safety Senior Counsel Alison Shih criticized the bill DeWine approved last week and derided lawmakers’ months-long debate over the Second Amendment Preservation Act.

“This is a perfect example of what gun rights extremists in Ohio, led by Governor DeWine, love doing,” she argued. “Instead of taking action to end the gun violence crisis — which is killing children and teens more than anything else in this country — in pushing bills like a Second Amendment Preservation Act, lawmakers are creating a culture of fear by inventing some nonsensical ominous boogeyman coming to steal their rights.”

“These lawmakers seem more interested in protecting violence than victims,” she added. “Instead of creating even a moderate culture of responsible gun ownership, these gun extremist lawmakers are sacrificing Ohioan family lives.”

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Nick Evans

Nick Evans has spent the past seven years reporting for NPR member stations in Florida and Ohio. He got his start in Tallahassee, covering issues like redistricting, same sex marriage and medical marijuana. Since arriving in Columbus in 2018, he has covered everything from city council to football. His work on Ohio politics and local policing have been featured numerous times on NPR.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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January 13, 2025
Public school advocates take issue with new Ohio Speaker’s claim that funding model ‘unsustainable’

(Stock photo from Getty Images)

By: Susan Tebben – Ohio Capital Journal

As Ohio’s 136th General Assembly begins, the newly minted House Speaker has already taken a stand on education, saying spending for the state’s public school funding model is “unsustainable.”

Priorities (and for that matter, legislative committees) have yet to be formally established, but comments by Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, have already brought criticism from public school advocates across the state.

Speaking to reporters after the first official meeting of the Ohio House under his leadership, Huffman was asked about the Cupp-Patterson public school funding plan, also called the Fair School Funding Plan by supporters.

The funding model for state support of public schools has been through most of its six-year phase-in, seeing funding through the last two budget cycles. This year was set to be the last phase-in for the funding, but Huffman said there is no such thing as a “three-generation roll-out” and pointed to his comments when Cupp-Patterson was first considered by the legislature. Back then, he did not support funding the full measure all at once, because he said it would tie down future state legislatures with a funding method they may or may not be able to afford.

“I don’t think there is a third phase to Cupp-Patterson,” Huffman said this week. “I guess the clearest statement I can say is that I think those increases in spending are unsustainable.”

The new speaker went on to say the state needs to look at “whether these dollars are being spent wisely in some districts, we know they are in many.”

Public school advocates have fought for the funding model, a model that focuses on real-time costs from district to district, rather than a blanket amount of state funding for all schools. While the comments from Huffman were criticized by advocates, they didn’t necessarily come as a surprise.

“It’s certainly disappointing, but it doesn’t change anything for us,” said Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association. “Implementing the Fair School Funding Plan is still our top priority.”

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Without the funding, public schools will have to reach further into the pockets of taxpayers with levy-increase requests, something that shouldn’t have to happen under a system that constitutionally supports public schools.

” If the speaker thinks there isn’t enough education funding to go around, Ohio law is very clear,” Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, told the Capital Journal. “The legislature must fund public schools and make cuts to the costly and ineffective universal private school vouchers that were put in place by Speaker Huffman (as an Ohio senator) and other legislators,” said Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

Those who support the funding model pointed to the $1 billion that went to scholarship funds including the EdChoice private school voucher program in 2023, which the legislature approved to give Ohio students near-universal eligibility to move to private schools of their choosing if they live in public school districts considered under-performing.

“If the speaker wants to talk about sustainability, you have to start with those numbers,” DiMauro said.

Late last year, the legislature also removed provisions of a bill that would have added accountability measures to the private school voucher program, despite education advocates asking that accountability measures for private schools match those of public schools.

That demand for accountability includes an ongoing lawsuit that seeks to eliminate EdChoice from the state’s educational portfolio. The group Vouchers Hurt Ohio is leading the effort in a court battle that has specifically targeted Huffman for answers on the process of passing legislative measures that support and fund EdChoice.

Eric Brown, former Ohio Supreme Court chief justice and chair of the steering committee for Vouchers Hurt Ohio, said the group “never trusted that state lawmakers would fully fund public schools.”

“Instead they are intent on giving refunds and rebates to wealthy families to pay for private schools and forcing homeowners and taxpayers to pay more for their local public schools,” Brown said in a statement. “We believe this system is unsustainable and unconstitutional.”

DiMauro acknowledged that the Fair School Funding Plan will require inputting the real costs on an ongoing basis to account for inflation, and having the funding method keep up with those costs, but to do so would only be keeping up with what the constitution asks of state leaders, he said.

“It means finally having a system that will meet the requirements of the constitution and serve the needs of the nearly 90% of students who are in our public schools,” DiMauro said.

Aaron Churchill, Ohio research director for charter school advocates The Fordham Institute, said the cost of the Cupp-Patterson plan is “something that the legislature is just going to have to grapple with over the longterm.”

Charter schools in Ohio have “long been underfunded,” Churchill said, and the fact that public school enrollment has seen a decline in recent years shows that public schools “should have less need for funding” but also more focus on putting the funding “where the needs are the greatest.”

“Our school funding should be driven by enrollment and head counts,” Churchill said. “There’s a lot of money going to our public schools, so the dollars are going even further than they would if our state had a growing student population.”

The enrollment in public schools has gone down slightly over the past few years, though some experts attribute that to a national decline in birth rates more than participation choices. The National Center for Education Statistics sets projections for enrollment, and estimates Ohio’s public school student enrollment will go down by 7.6% by 2031, a loss of more than 127,000 students.

The most recent data from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce showed more than 1.75 million students in public schools, versus 173,156 students in the state’s non-public schools.

The public school numbers showed a loss of 5,400 students compared to numbers reported by the ODEW in fiscal year 2023. That’s down from 2022 as well, but public schools saw an increase of nearly 18,000 students between 2021 and 2022, according to state data.

Non-public schools have seen gradual increases since fiscal year 2021, when enrollment was reported at 162,917.

Still, in the 2022-2023 school year, the ODEW reported 88% of schools in Ohio were traditional public schools, followed by community schools at 9.4% and vocational schools at 2.1%.

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_________________

Susan Tebben

Susan Tebben is an award-winning journalist with a decade of experience covering Ohio news, including courts and crime, Appalachian social issues, government, education, diversity and culture. She has worked for The Newark Advocate, The Glasgow (KY) Daily Times, The Athens Messenger, and WOUB Public Media. She has also had work featured on National Public Radio.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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January 11, 2025
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs forced-outing, mandated religious release time policy bill into law

By: Megan Henry – Ohio Capital Journal

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill into law that will require school districts to create a mandatory religious instruction release time policy and require educators to out a students’ sexuality to their parents.

The law will take effect 90 days after DeWine signed the bill.

Ohio lawmakers passed House Bill 8 during the final day of the lame duck session in 2024 and LGBTQ advocates called on DeWine to veto the bill.

State Reps. D.J. Swearingen, R-Huron, and Sara Carruthers, R-Hamilton, introduced H.B. 8. Supporters called the bill the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” while opponents called it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, due to its similar language to Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law that passed in 2022.

The bill requires public schools to let parents know about sexuality content materials ahead of time so they can request alternative instructions.

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It also prohibits any sexuality content from being taught to students in kindergarten through third grade. H.B. 8 defines sexuality content as “oral or written instruction, presentation, image or description of sexual concepts or gender ideology.”

This bill is one of a few anti-LGBTQ bills that became law during the most recent General Assembly.

This new law strengthens Ohio’s existing law around religious release time by creating a mandate. Currently, Ohio allows school district boards of education to make a policy to let students go to a course in religious instruction during the school day, but this now becomes a requirement for Ohio school boards.

“Parents, not government bureaucrats, should be making healthcare and education decisions for their kids,” Center for Christian Virtue President Aaron Baer said in a statement. “H.B. 8 protects children by safeguarding parents’ rights to make important decisions for their children.”

The United States Supreme Court upheld religious released time laws during the 1952 Zorach v. Clauson case, which allowed a school district to have students leave school for part of the day to receive religious instruction.

Religious release time instruction must meet three criteria: the courses must take place off school property, be privately funded, and students must have parental permission.

LifeWise Academy, a Hilliard-based religious instruction program, already enrolls students in about 160 Ohio school districts and celebrated the governor’s signing.

“All Ohio families have the freedom to choose off-campus religious instruction during school hours for their students,” LifeWise said in a statement.

Two central Ohio school districts, Westerville and Worthington, rescinded their religious release time policy last year. Both districts formerly allowed LifeWise Academy to take public school students off-campus for Bible classes during school hours.

“We are especially grateful that any local programs that had been put on hold will be able to resume their growing programs and that communities will now have the clarity they need to provide families with the opportunity to choose Bible-based character education for their child,” LifeWise said in a statement.

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Megan Henry

Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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January 8, 2025
Dr. Amy Acton is running for Ohio governor

Dr. Amy Acton addresses reporters at a news conference in 2020. (Ohio Capital Journal photo by Jake Zuckerman.)

By: Megan Henry – Oho Capital Journal

Former Ohio Health Department Director Dr. Amy Acton announced on Tuesday that she is running for Ohio governor in 2026.

“Today, I filed papers to run for Governor because I refuse to look away from Ohioans who are struggling while self-serving politicians and special interests take our state in the wrong direction,” she said in a statement. “It’s time to give power back to the people and our communities. It’s time for a change.”

Acton is running as a Democrat while Ohio has become increasingly more Republican in recent years. Ohio Supreme Court Judge Jennifer Brunner is the only Democrat in statewide office in Ohio. Acton first hinted at a run for governor during the summer at the Democratic National Convention.

“I’m a doctor, not a politician,” Acton said in her statement. “I solve problems by bringing people together regardless of party to find solutions. So unlike most of our leaders I know the answer to moving our state forward isn’t giving politicians more power, it’s giving people more freedom.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is term-limited. On the Republican side, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost plans on running for governor. Former Republican Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is also a potential GOP contender. Lt. Gov. Jon Husted has also expressed interest in running for governor, but he currently appears to be the front-runner to be appointed to fill J.D. Vance’s soon-to-be-open U.S. Senate seat. DeWine has yet to announce his pick, a task he must do before the Jan. 20 inauguration.

For the Democrats, there is speculation about whether Ohio Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, will also run for governor.

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DeWine appointed Acton to be ODH director in 2019 and she quickly became a household name in Ohio during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. She accompanied DeWine during his daily afternoon press conferences in the spring of 2020, donning her white lab coat, and helped translate complex medical terminology into plain English.

She received a mix of praise and criticism during this time, and protesters even showed up to her Bexley house. Acton resigned as ODH Director in June 2020 — months after Ohio’s first confirmed COVID-19 case.

After her time on DeWine’s cabinet, she went back to work at the Columbus Foundation and helped found the Center for HumanKindness.

“My entire career I’ve been listening to Ohioans … and I’ve developed a deep connection with people across our state,” Acton said in her statement. “People share their struggles with me and how hard they work to keep up with the cost of groceries, childcare, healthcare, and other expenses. They feel left behind and like no one cares.”

Acton grew up in Youngstown — experiencing homelessness at one point.

“I remember what it was like to feel hungry, worry about where I would sleep, and how I would stay warm,” Acton said. “At times I felt invisible–and I know that so many Ohioans feel the same way.”

She went on to earn a medical degree from what was formerly called the Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine and received a master’s degree in public health from Ohio State University.

“I believe we can build an Ohio where our people have a little breathing room–an Ohio where your zip code doesn’t determine success,” Acton said. “An Ohio that empowers local communities, not politicians. An Ohio with good-paying jobs, safe neighborhoods and thriving businesses where people can raise their families, age with dignity, and lead a happy and healthy life.”

Acton lives in Bexley with her husband Eric, who is a teacher and coach in Bexley City Schools. Together they have six children.

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Megan Henry

Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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January 8, 2025
After a year of voter fraud concerns Ohio’s election audit lands north of 99%, again

Getty Image

By: Nick Evans – Ohio Capital Journal

Throughout 2024, Republican officials in Ohio and around the country raised alarms about potential voter fraud ahead of November’s election. But Election Day came and went without a hiccup and a post-election audit released late last month reiterated what many advocates have been saying all along — Ohio’s election system is extremely safe and accurate.

“Ohioans deserve to know that their elections are transparent, accessible, and accountable,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a press release. “As 2024 comes to a close, I am proud to announce yet another 99.9% audit accuracy rate and am grateful for the hard work and dedication of Ohio’s bipartisan election officials who make it happen.”

LaRose went on to note that for the Presidential race in particular all 88 counties reported a 100% accuracy rate.

How it works

County boards have to audit three races — whatever is at the top of the ticket, another statewide race selected by the secretary and a local race selected by the county board. The review has to include at least 5% of the total votes cast in the county.

In addition to the presidential race, in the latest audit counties reviewed the U.S. Senate race and a range of local contests like county commissioner or prosecutor. The Senate race accuracy rate was 99.997% and local races came in at 99.998%.

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Those figures align with the results officials have turned in following every election in recent memory. Secretary LaRose bragged that since taking office, he has required a post-election audit after every election and thanked state lawmakers for codifying that practice going forward.

Reality and rhetoric

Those strong audit results are a big reason why LaRose and other officials routinely describe Ohio as “the gold standard” for election integrity. But LaRose himself spent much of the past year fanning suspicions about election fraud.

In May, LaRose identified 137 potential noncitizens in the statewide voter registration database as part of an annual audit. Although his announcement acknowledged the registrations could be “the result of an honest mistake,” he took the opportunity to share his findings in conservative media as an example of his efforts to fight fraud and the recalcitrance of federal agencies for not giving him access to certain databases.

LaRose’s allegations got quoted as fact by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson in lobbying for a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote. A handful of state lawmakers in Ohio have recently floated the same idea.

As it happens, LaRose’s audit wound up sweeping in a handful of recently naturalized citizens. Some of them argued the secretary was taking shortcuts to include individuals who hadn’t met the specific statutory requirements for getting flagged.

Still, in the run up to last year’s election, those concerns resulted in some Ohio counties fielding thousands of voter registration challenges — sometimes over discrepancies as trivial as an extra space in their name.

Just two weeks before the election, Attorney General Dave Yost announced his office had investigated the hundreds of cases flagged by LaRose and turned up six cases of illegal voting. Yost grumbled about being asked to investigate several cases that amounted to simple registration errors, and it turned out one of the people they indicted was already dead. The other cases, meanwhile, read like honest misunderstandings rather than willful fraud.

In addition, LaRose got into a running battle over access to ballot drop boxes. After a federal court ruled that people with disabilities must be allowed to get assistance from a broader range of people than the list of close family laid out in state law, he instituted a new policy requiring those assisting others sign a form stating they’re doing so in compliance with state law. In the name of fighting “ballot harvesting” those changes took access to drop boxes off the table for anyone not dropping their own ballot — whether they were assisting someone with disabilities or one of the close family members specifically outlined in state law.

LaRose went to so far as to send a letter to state lawmakers encouraging them to scrap drop boxes altogether. A pair of state lawmakers have included that provision in a measure requiring proof of citizenship to vote.

Reactions

In response to the latest election audit, Ohio Association of Election Officials executive director Aaron Ockerman said, “Once again Ohio election officials have risen to the occasion and provided an efficient, trustworthy and fair election.”

“The post-election audits of the 2024 Presidential election confirm what we have known to be true for many years,” he added. “Ohioans can trust their election results.”

Jen Miller, who heads up the League of Women Voters of Ohio praised the work of election officials.

“We commend Ohio’s diligent elections officials for once again running secure, accurate elections,” she said. “They are public servants who deserve raises in Ohio’s next budget.”

Miller went on to underscore the implications of yet another sterling audit.

“The audit results prove that fraud is exceedingly rare in Ohio, and we caution Secretary LaRose and lawmakers against changing voting laws, which would likely decrease access without improving security at all.”

Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter.

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__________

Nick Evans

Nick Evans has spent the past seven years reporting for NPR member stations in Florida and Ohio. He got his start in Tallahassee, covering issues like redistricting, same sex marriage and medical marijuana. Since arriving in Columbus in 2018, he has covered everything from city council to football. His work on Ohio politics and local policing have been featured numerous times on NPR.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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January 7, 2025
Trump to be sentenced in hush money case but avoid jail time

President-elect Donald Trump prepares to speak at the conservative gathering AmericaFest in Phoenix on Dec. 29, 2024. (Photo by Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0)

By: Ashley Murray – Ohio Capital Journal

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in New York on 34 felony convictions on Jan. 10, just days ahead of his presidential inauguration, according to an order issued Friday by New York Justice Juan Merchan.

Merchan wrote he won’t seek incarceration for Trump but rather an “unconditional discharge” that would leave Trump with a criminal record in New York but avoids any serious penalties. A Trump spokesperson on Friday indicated the president-elect would fight the sentencing.

Trump, who is set to be sworn in as the 47th president on Jan. 20, has all but seen his multiple criminal cases go quiet after winning the 2024 presidential election in November.

Trump made history in May as the first former president to become a convicted felon after a jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to hide a hush-money scheme involving his personal lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Trump’s New York sentencing date was delayed multiple times, including shortly after Trump’s win on Nov. 5 prompted Merchan to pause and examine moving forward with sentencing a president-elect.

Trump’s attorneys also held up their client’s sentencing as they fought evidence presented in the case after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents are shielded from criminal prosecution for official acts.

Merchan ultimately ruled on Dec. 16 that the majority of Trump’s case “related entirely to unofficial conduct entitled to no immunity protection.”

No jail time for Trump

In his Friday order, Merchan said the complex situation involving Trump likely will never be seen again.

“Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognizing that Presidential immunity will likely attach once Defendant takes his Oath of Office, it is incumbent upon this Court to set this matter down for the imposition of sentence prior to January 20, 2025,” Merchan wrote, adding that all further avenues have been exhausted “in what is an unprecedented, and likely never to be repeated legal scenario.”

“This Court must sentence Defendant within a reasonable time following verdict; and Defendant must be permitted to avail himself of every available appeal, a path he has made clear he intends to pursue but which only becomes fully available upon sentencing,” Merchan continued.

Merchan has given Trump the option to appear in person or virtually for the sentencing.

Merchan’s order comes as the U.S. Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, citing a longstanding protocol of not prosecuting sitting presidents, closed Trump’s two federal cases — one alleging election interference in the 2020 presidential election, and the other focused on classified documents illegally stashed at Trump’s Florida resort after his first presidency.

‘Witch Hunt’

Steven Cheung, Trump communications director, issued a statement Friday criticizing Merchan as “deeply conflicted” and alleging the judge is in “direct violation of the Supreme Court’s Immunity decision and other longstanding jurisprudence.”

“This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung continued. “President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the Witch Hunts. There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead.”

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Ashley Murray

Ashley Murray covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Her coverage areas include domestic policy and appropriations.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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January 4, 2025
Ohio coal plant said to be nation’s most deadly. New owners seem likely to keep it open

By: Marty Schladen – Ohio Capital Journal

Environmental activists have been pressing the company buying an Ohio coal plant said to be the nation’s deadliest to retire the facility. But that seems unlikely, given statements it made in a regulatory filing that it provided to the Ohio Capital Journal.

The buyer, Energy Capital Partners, has boasted of helping plants make the transition away from coal. It hasn’t answered questions about its plans for Gavin, but in a Dec. 11 filing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, it expressed no such plans for the Gavin Plant.

“As with any electric generation facility, (Energy Capital Partners) and Javelin expect that the Gavin facility… will continue to operate for so long as they are legally able to do so on an economic basis,” it said.

Energy Capital Partners, or ECP, and Javelin are private-equity firms that are in the process of buying the 50-year-old plant from another private-equity firm, Blackstone. The 2,600 megawatt plant along the Ohio River near Cheshire has stirred controversy for years.

To settle lawsuits in 2002, a former owner, American Electric Power, bought out residents around the plant for more than three times the value of their property.

The generating facility had been dumping toxic coal ash into unlined pits, creating worries that it would contaminate groundwater. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2022 ordered it to stop, and now its owners face a $40 million cleanup liability.

And a 2023 analysis by the Sierra Club looked at coal-plant emissions and weather patterns. It concluded that because it sends a plume of toxins over populous areas in the eastern United States, the Gavin plant is the deadliest in the country, killing an estimated 244 people a year.

Many investors have been turning away from fossil fuels — and especially coal — as a method of powering electricity generation. But private-equity investors have been taking up some of the slack, with nearly 80% of their power plant investments being in those fueled by coal or gas.

Private equity has been stigmatized over claims that it practices one of the harshest forms of capitalism. They often buy assets in deals that quickly recoup their investments, then frequently sell off the most valuable parts of an enterprise, and then walk away either by selling or declaring bankruptcy. Whether people needlessly lose jobs or consumers lose choices is not a consideration, critics say.

That has left environmentalists and private-equity critics worried that Gavin’s owners will continue to operate it as a polluting coal plant, then close it, and find a way to stick taxpayers with any cleanup costs.

However, Energy Capital Partners bills itself as a company that helps utilities convert from using coal.

“Energy Capital Partners (ECP) is a leading credit and equity investor across energy transition infrastructure, with a focus on investing in electricity and sustainability infrastructure, providing reliable, affordable clean energy,” its website says.

The company last week declined to respond to questions, other than to send the Dec. 11 filing it made in a FERC proceeding. In it, ECP made several statements that seem to indicate the company plans to keep the Gavin plant operating as it is.

“Notably, the Gavin facility has an existing long-term contract for coal supply with a supplier unaffiliated with Javelin, and ECP and Javelin have no intention of altering those arrangements,” it says.

The filing also said that it’s just speculation that the new owners plan to retire the plant.

“… regarding a secondhand, unnamed source’s speculation regarding plans to retire the Gavin facility, ECP and Javelin confirm that there are no such plans,” it said. “Notably, even the post cited by the Joint Protesters for the proposition that Gavin may be retired ‘in the coming years’ simply states (again, based on an unnamed source) that the facility may close or be converted to run on a different fuel by 2031, which is well outside of the forward-looking view on which the Commission relies in reviewing Section 203 applications.”

A group critical of the practices of private-equity investors asked what it would take to close the Gavin Plant

“Whether owned by Blackstone or ECP, every day that private equity firms continue to operate the deadly Gavin coal plant is another day that private equity executives are choosing to put communities at greater health risk,” Alissa Jean Schafer, Climate Director of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project said in a statement. “Gavin is one of the worst polluting power plants in the nation, and as emission plumes travel downwind, these negative health impacts reach far beyond Ohio. How many more premature deaths will be linked to Gavin before this plant is shut down?”

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Marty Schladen

Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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January 4, 2025
Government watchdogs, Black lawmakers urge DeWine to veto police video changes

(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images.)

By: Nick Evans – Ohio Capital Journal

Among the dozens of measures sitting on Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk, is one proposal that would allow police departments to charge $75 per hour of body camera footage with a cap of $750.

The provision showed up late as part of House Bill 315 — a measure originally meant to revise Ohio Township laws, like allowing public notices to be published digitally or for trustees to establish preservation commissions. But in the last-minute rush, that bill wound up as a lifeboat for only loosely connected proposals unlikely to pass on their own.

The township bill, for instance, includes a provision defining antisemitism and another giving the Secretary of State greater latitude in disciplining notaries. Both changes crib from similar measures that didn’t quite make it.

The public records changes, however, came out of left field. No previous piece of legislation sought to codify the right of law enforcement agencies to take their time reviewing, redacting and producing video footage or specifying the cost those agencies could charge for their efforts.

Gov. Mike DeWine has yet to take action on the bill, but in a press conference he expressed sympathy for small police agencies. Pressed on the potential ramifications of making it more costly and time consuming to get video after incidents like police shootings, DeWine insisted he has yet to decide on the bill. But he argued the changes aren’t a question of whether and how fast the public can access records, but rather “as a matter of public policy, are we going to require some reimbursement for that?”

What the changes look like

The proposal gives cover to law enforcement agencies in terms of the time and cost of producing video records.

Gov. DeWine’s concerns about reimbursement notwithstanding, Ohio law already allows agencies to charge requesters the “actual cost” of copying and mailing public records. What current law doesn’t allow is for agencies to bill requesters for staff time.

The latest proposal changes that.

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House Bill 315Under the measure, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to charge the cost of “reviewing, blurring or otherwise obscuring, redacting, uploading, or producing” video records up to $75 for each hour of video provided. The measure also places an overall cap of $750 per request.

Additionally, the bill directs courts to weigh the time involved in preparing video for release when considering whether an agency is providing records in a “reasonable” amount of time as required by law.

There are a handful of other administrative hurdles built in, too. Like current law, agencies can ask for payment of actual costs up front, but under the current proposal agencies can demand prepayment of an estimate before beginning work on a request. If the actual cost is higher they can charge as much as 20% more. The bill is silent on what happens if the actual cost is less.

The provision also gives agencies extra time to act. They could take as much as five business days simply to produce the cost estimate.

Pushback

The Ohio Legislative Black Caucus issued a statement urging the governor to use a line-item veto on the police video provisions.

Rep. Terrence Upchurch, D-Cleveland, argued “Taxpayers have already funded these cameras and footage. Charging additional fees for access is wrong and undermines transparency.”

The OLBC president insisted the changes would disproportionately affect Black and minority communities.

“When families seek answers or communities demand accountability, these records provide clarity,” Upchurch said. “Charging the public for access erodes trust and justice.”

Several government watchdog groups including the Ohio branches of the ACLU, Common Cause and the NAACP sent DeWine a letter urging him to veto the changes. In addition to opposing the policy, they criticized the measure on procedural grounds too.

They argued it was amended into the bill “at the very end of the legislative session with zero notice to the public.”

“As a result,” the letter continued, “Ohioans had no opportunity to air concerns, to discuss these changes with lawmakers and other stakeholders, or to formally appear as witnesses before a committee(s), as would happen during the normal legislative process.”

The groups argued vetoing the provisions wouldn’t necessarily close the door on the issue either.

“Your veto will still allow legislators, if they wish, to pursue these changes,” they wrote, “but instead with an open, deliberative, and cooperative process. This would allow Ohioans to properly express their opinions and concerns without such sudden and secretive changes with huge impacts on policing and the public’s right to know.”

Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter.

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

______________

Nick Evans

Nick Evans has spent the past seven years reporting for NPR member stations in Florida and Ohio. He got his start in Tallahassee, covering issues like redistricting, same sex marriage and medical marijuana. Since arriving in Columbus in 2018, he has covered everything from city council to football. His work on Ohio politics and local policing have been featured numerous times on NPR.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

MORE FROM AUTHOR

January 1, 2025