Rotunda Rumblings
All in a name: Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, the campaign backing the abortion rights amendment, delivered over 710,000 signatures from U-Haul vans carrying 422 boxes to the Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. Now, LaRose and county elections officials will check each signature to ensure the name is a registered Ohio voter and is not a duplicate signature, among other verifications, Laura Hancock reports. The campaign also announced it anticipates it will cost $35 million to purchase advertising and get its message across the state.
Going for green: The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which is backing a recreational initiated statute proposal for Ohioans ages 21 and older, submitted over 222,000 signatures Wednesday afternoon to LaRose’s office, just shy of 100,000 signatures over the 124,000 valid signatures needed to get on the Nov. 7 ballot. The proposed law is different than the constitutional amendment in that the legislature would be allowed to repeal it if passed. The campaign, however, is confident that it’ll pass with such high margins that the legislature won’t touch it, Hancock reports.
Veto pen: Gov. Mike DeWine signed a new two-year state budget on Monday night, but not before he issued 44 line-item vetoes. Jeremy Pelzer has more on what the governor struck out from the budget, and what he praised about the 6,198-page legislation.
Big (sentence) Larry: How does ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s 20-year prison sentence compare to other public officials who went down for corruption? Way harsher, Jake Zuckerman reports. Of cases given to the judge by the parties to compare, only Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora’s and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s 28-year sentences outdid Householder. After Householder comes former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, convicted of trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat and shake down a children’s hospital for campaign contributions.
Work it: Ohio will once again apply to the federal government to impose a 20-hour per week work or study requirement on those obtaining health insurance via Medicaid, Zuckerman reports. Language in the state budget requires Ohio to apply in 2025. President Donald Trump’s administration approved Ohio’s initial attempt, but the pandemic delayed its implementation and President Joe Biden’s administration later reversed the decision.
By the numbers: Through June, considerably more Ohioans have sought to vote early in the Aug. 8 special election compared to the equivalent time a year ago. Per Andrew Tobias, through last Friday, voters in a sampling of 15 counties had requested 29,336 absentee mail ballots, compared to 4,820 at the same time on the election calendar ahead of the state’s primary election in August 2022. Much of the increase is due to Cuyahoga County, where voters through last Friday had filed 15,400 requests for absentee ballots, compared to the 1,899 voters had requested at the equivalent time in 2022. Elections officials generally think the increase in requests reflects greater voter interest than for last year’s August election, which saw record-low turnout, although it’s hard to say for sure.
Asked and answered: Tobias also has compiled answers to a list of questions about State Issue 1, which voters will decide on Aug. 8. The guide includes state constitutional amendment rules for other states and historical results for amendment campaigns in Ohio.
PAC-Man: Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Rocky River filed paperwork at the Federal Election Commission on Thursday to use the remaining money in his reelection account to form a political action committee called AEG PAC. Gonzalez, who announced he wouldn’t seek reelection after facing blowback from his fellow Republicans over his vote to impeach ex-President Donald Trump for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot, had almost $600,000 left in his campaign coffers when he filed his last FEC report in April.
Sneak peak: In a not-so-subtle Independence Day tweet, Secretary of State Frank LaRose strongly hinted he will be announcing his candidacy for U.S. Senate soon. LaRose shared a photo of the federal paperwork Senate campaigns file to form new candidate committees, with the form including a link to his website. The form was dated July 15, the filing deadline for federal candidates to file their federal campaign finance reports detailing financial activity for the second quarter of 2023.
Adios: House Taco, the lone restaurant in the Ohio Statehouse, will move out of the Statehouse basement in September to a new location a block east, according to a sign posted in front of the establishment. House Taco’s new digs, located at 79 S. Fourth St. at the space that was previously home to The Dry Mill, will include a patio and bar, according to the sign. Columbus restaurateur Zach Martin started House Taco in late 2021, replacing Milo’s Café. There’s no word yet on what might take House Taco’s place, according to Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board spokesman Mike Rupert.
Two new dispensaries: The Ohio Board of Pharmacy announced Wednesday that two new medical marijuana dispensaries have been cleared to open to patients. Trulieve Medical Marijuana Dispensary is located at 8295 Sancus Blvd. in Columbus. Shangri-La Dispensary is at 100 Clarence F. Warner Drive in Monroe, outside of Cincinnati. There are now 94 dispensaries that have received certificates of operation from the state.
Behind bars: A Columbus man was sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years to life in prison for raping a 10-year-old girl last year, Jordan Laird writes for the Columbus Dispatch. The case drew national attention last year after the rape victim traveled to Indiana to obtain an abortion, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June. An Indiana doctor said she was denied one in Ohio. Following Gerson Fuentes’s arrest, several Ohio Republicans, including Rep. Jim Jordan and Attorney General Dave Yost, faced public backlash for previously suggesting the incident never occurred.
This is (a) fine: Toledo Rep. Marcy Kaptur paid a $200 fine for being six months late in disclosing a stock sale. Per Mike Brice of the Toledo Blade, Kaptur, a Democrat, sold $1,280.03 in Andersons stock on Oct. 21, 2022, but failed to report it until May 15, 2023, exceeding the 45-day reporting requirement, according to the periodic transaction report. A spokesperson called the delayed filing an oversight, and said Kaptur does not plan to buy or sell individual stocks in the future.
Full Disclosure
Five things we learned from the May 11, 2023 financial disclosure of state Sen. George Lang, a Cincinnati-area Republican.
1. In addition to his $77,074.20 legislative salary in 2022, last year Lang received more than $100,000 each from three sources: his financial services agency; Lincoln Investment, where he works as a financial advisor representative and supervisor; and from serving as president of Second Call Defense, which provides legal and financial help to people involved in Second Amendment-related self-defense cases.
2. He also received somewhere between $25,000 and $49,999 last year from an LLC that owns a commercial property in West Chester Township and somewhere between $10,000 and $24,999 from Guardian Protector Holdings LLC.
3. Lang’s investments include stock in Procter & Gamble, Nokia and First Financial Bank, American International Group, and Aegon (an insurance company). He also has a number of funds with the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and Ohio Deferred Compensation, an exchanged-traded fund with Stive Asset Management, money market and mutual funds with Lincoln Investments and MassMutual Life Insurance, and a certificate of deposit with First Financial Bank.
4. Besides the West Chester property, he also owns a condo in Columbus.
5. The Ohio Senate reimbursed Lang $3,922.10 in 2022 for mileage between his home and Columbus.
On The Move
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will visit Akron Children’s Hospital, and Cleveland’s Lincoln-West School of Science & Health and Broadway Pharmacy on Thursday for events to highlight the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to tackle food insecurity, bolster the health workforce pipeline, and lower prescription drug costs.
Tick-Tock
The countdown is on for the special election to decide State Issue 1, a state constitutional amendment that would make it harder to pass future amendments. Here are some key dates to remember.
Voter registration deadline… 4 days (July 10)
Start of early voting… 5 days (July 11)
Election Day… 33 days (Aug. 8)
Birthdays
Allie Harris, legislative liaison for the Ohio Department of Administrative Services
Ramona Ragland, Ohio House Democrats’ personnel officer
Straight From The Source
“Any time you have a supermajority, whether it’s Republicans or Democrats, and industries that are based on passing laws like marijuana or sports gambling or energy, it’s a formula for corruption.”
– Former U.S. Attorney David DeVillers, speaking with Trip Gabriel of the New York Times about how enormous contributions to dark-money groups were central to the House Bill 6 scandal.
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