Ohio
Federal judge blocks Ohio’s ban on foreign political donations
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A federal judge blocked Ohio’s new law limiting who can participate in the political process just hours before it was set to go into effect. The controversial legislation would have prevented lawful permanent residents, known as green card holders, from contributing to campaigns.
House Bill 1, passed during Ohio’s special session in May, was meant to stop foreign donations to state and local ballot-issue campaigns. This could be by directly donating from outside the country or by donating to an entity, like a political action committee (PAC).
But it did much more than that.
It would have prohibited lawful permanent residents (LPRs) or green card holders from making contributions or expenditures regarding ballot issues or candidates. It would also prevent campaigns from accepting donations from them.
“These are people who pay taxes, these are people who work here and contribute to society,” state Rep. Michele Grim (D-Toledo) told me Monday. “[The law] is really undermining the voice of Ohio voters and telling them that their voice doesn’t matter.”
U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson, a Republican appointed by former President George W. Bush, has temporarily stopped this major provision — thus effectively blocking the entirety of the law.
“I think the judge did make the correct ruling in this decision,” state Rep. Michele Grim (D-Toledo) said. “Green card holders can participate in the political process.”
Ohio Republicans are being accused of, once again, attempting to make it harder for citizens to have their voices heard. The GOP denies this, as they did the previous three times. This story is from May 29, the day before the final proposal was unveiled, which didn’t include some of the provisions the House said were unconstitutional.
Ohio GOP again attempts to go around voters, this time on redistricting and minimum wage
Ohio GOP again attempts to go around voters, this time on redistricting and minimum wage
Grim fought against it during the committee process but was glad when the fight continued in court.
“Defendants ask this Court to hold that individual LPRs—who the Federal Government allows to fight and die in the U.S. Armed Forces—present such a high risk of ‘foreign influence’ on Ohio’s political processes that Ohio may prohibit them from speaking on Ohio politics,” Watson wrote in a rare Saturday opinion. “The Court declines to do so.”
The judge said the law was “likely unconstitutional” since federal law allows permanent residents to use their First Amendment rights to political speech.
Many Statehouse Republicans have argued that this legislation is about more than just green card holders and would help protect the state.
“Most Ohioans would agree that we shouldn’t have foreign dollars affecting our ballot initiatives,” Senate President Matt Huffman said back during special session.
In early March, Republican senators passed S.B. 215, which is similar to H.B. 1.
This bill is stemmed from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a dark money group that contributes to progressive causes, state Sen. Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) explained.
Ohio Senate passes bill to stop foreign donations on ballot campaigns
Ohio Senate passes bill to stop foreign donations on ballot campaigns
Data from the state’s campaign finance disclosure portal shows the 501(c)(4) spent about $11.5 million on the groups advocating for abortion access and keeping majority rule on ballot issues in elections. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights and the organization’s prior name, Ohioans For Reproductive Freedom, received about $6.4 million. One Person One Vote got around $5.1 million.
The fund, although it doesn’t have to disclose its donors, has received over $200 million from Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss since 2016, according to the Associated Press.
Foreign money in elections is already illegal federally. But Huffman explained that H.B. 1 would have given a way for Ohio officials to enforce criminal penalties, including felony charges and prison time.
“The local actors who are taking that money and knowing that it’s against the law, if there’s no recompense from them, if there’s no penalty for doing anything — then it will continue,” the president continued.
According to Ohio law and numerous nonpartisan prosecutors we reached out to, Attorney General Dave Yost could petition a court to freeze a campaign account in order to conduct his investigation into “foreign interference.”
Democrats say that the Republicans who introduced this measure are just mad about their losses.
“They are sore losers from last year and they’re trying to make it more difficult again,” state Sen. Bill DeMora (D-Columbus) said.
Supporters of Ohio abortion rights amendment far outraising opponents
All three ballot proposals that passed in 2023 were started because voters weren’t happy with the state legislature, and didn’t feel like their voices were being heard. The August special election was proposed by lawmakers because they didn’t want abortion to become legal — a direct result of the angry voices of citizens.
This alleged “foreign money” ban is directly to stop the anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment from passing, Grim said.
“It was really about undermining the voice of voters last year,” she said. “And now the Citizens Not Politicians ballot initiative.”
Who is funding Ohio’s redistricting amendment?
Warnings
This ruling isn’t a complete shock. A dozen House and one Senate Republican tried to prevent this aspect of the law.
House Majority Floor Leader and attorney state Rep. Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) predicted this would happen. The H.B. 1 that he had worked on didn’t have this provision in it. Seitz said this was a last-minute floor amendment.
“The General Assembly, whenever they try to push the envelope too hard and try to go swing for the fences, go for broke, hit the home run — whenever that happens, it generally blows up in our faces,” Seitz said during his floor speech, attempting to convince his colleagues to table the amendment.
Both Seitz and state Sen. Niraj Antani (R-Miamisburg) urged their caucus to drop it, taking jabs at amendment proposer state Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) and original bill sponsor McColley.
Seitz, talking to me on Monday, explained his frustration that the GOP didn’t listen to him — although noting that it is always nice to say “‘I told you so.’”
“I worried that it was going to poison the bill, and that’s exactly what Judge Watson found,” he said.
Although Watson didn’t completely strike down the entirety of the bill, he might as well have, Seitz said, adding that it was effectively unenforceable.
“He went beyond invalidating it as to green card holders, finding that certain other parts of the bill were, so shall we say, infected by the green card holder amendment, that they too had to be enjoined,” the representative said.
Despite his pleas, he was only joined in throwing out the amendment by 11 others — including House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill), who noted concerns about legality.
Something the Republicans should have paid attention to was the fact that all the Democrats voted to keep the amendment in, Seitz said.
“They wanted this to be put into the bill, thereby rendering it constitutionally suspect,” he said. “At the point where the motion to table failed so dismally, the proponents of the amendment should have realized that they were riding into a trap.”
I reached out to Stewart for comment but didn’t hear back. That being said, Monday was Labor Day, a holiday that lawmakers have off.
In the other chamber, Antani struggled to even get lawmakers to listen to him. After this story aired, I spoke with Antani. He slammed Senate GOP leadership, with whom he has a contentious relationship already.
“I think that the competence of leadership is really under question here,” Antani said, insulting McColley at length. “It’s really just unfathomable incompetence.”
McColley, the Senate majority floor leader, is expected to be the next Senate president, which Antani has a problem with.
“[He] can’t understand simple constitutional concepts — that is certainly a problem,” Antani said.
Ignoring Antani’s insults, McColley sent a response about the legal steps moving forward.
“Our multi-tiered judicial system is built on the premise that reasonable minds can differ on a legal conclusion. Accordingly, parties can exercise their right to appeal a lower court decision. I am confident in the extensive legal analysis that went into the crafting of House Bill 1. I expect the decision of the trial court to be appealed shortly. The appeal will remain focused on the principle that non-citizens who are barred to voting are also barred from directly influencing elections through monetary contributions,” McColley told me.
Seitz believes that the lawmakers need to try again next General Assembly.
“Our Democratic friends played it like a Stradivarius violin,” Seitz said.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — A critically acclaimed name in Cleveland’s food scene is making a comeback of sorts and entering a new era in the food and restaurant business.
After the official closure of Melt Bar and Grilled locations across the area in late 2024, founder Matt Fish is stepping back into the restaurant business with a brand-new concept in Ohio City.
More Melts close
Fish is preparing to open “Proof Public House” inside the former Proof BBQ space along Lorain Avenue.
The new restaurant and bar is expected to officially open in mid-June after recently obtaining its food service license.
The announcement was just made on the restaurant’s official Instagram page this week.
But Fish says this project is very different from Melt’s previous projects, with more than a dozen locations across Ohio.
“I’m starting from scratch. Brand new concept. Brand new feeling, brand new attitude,” Fish said. “I wanna get back to basics.”
Fish describes Proof Public House as a punk rock-inspired neighborhood bar and restaurant with elevated comfort food, craft drinks, and an evolving seasonal menu.
“I’ve always wanted to get back to my roots,” Fish said. “I’ve always wanted to get back to a small place and recapture that magic of what Melt Bar and Grilled was when it first opened up.”
The longtime chef and restaurateur says music and creativity will help define the atmosphere and capture the essence.
Fish grew up on punk rock music and is also a drummer.
He says Cleveland’s history and punk rock roots make this latest project feel even more special.
The menu, he says, will feature chef-driven comfort food with rotating seasonal dishes and a specialized beverage program.
“Just have fun with the menu,” Fish said. “The beverage program will be very seasonal. It’s gonna be very evolving.”
Although many fans still associate Fish with the iconic grilled cheese sandwiches that helped make Melt Bar and Grilled a Northeast Ohio staple after opening in 2006, he says this new chapter is about moving forward.
“That part of my life is over and gone, but it was something special to so many of us,” Fish said.
Still, longtime Melt fans may notice subtle nods to the past.
Fish hinted there would be occasional “odes to Melt” appearing on the menu in the future, in some capacity.
He also credits former Proof BBQ and current Visible Voice Books owner Dave Ferrante for encouraging him to jump back into the hospitality business.
Fish quietly consulted on projects behind the scenes after Melt’s closure, including work connected to Visible Voice.
“I want to do something for myself, do something for the City of Cleveland, do something for my family and friends,” Fish said.
Proof Public House is expected to announce an official opening date soon.
News 5 promises to Follow-Through.
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Ohio, one of the nation’s data center destination hot spots, is suspending a tax break that has been critical to its competition with other states to attract the massive new facilities that power and train artificial intelligence chatbots.
The move Wednesday by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine comes as tax breaks for energy-hungry AI data centers are increasingly playing a role in state budgets and the industry is under pressure to pay the full costs of the vast network of its computing warehouses needed to power AI.
The size of Ohio’s tax break skyrocketed, dwarfing previous projections, as opposition to data centers is sweeping through cities, suburbs and towns there and prompting lawmakers to form a committee to study the impact.
In the meantime, residents are trying to bypass the GOP-controlled Legislature and get a referendum on November’s midterm election ballot that’s designed to permanently ban hyperscale data centers, likely the strictest such statewide ban under consideration in the U.S.
DeWine’s office cited the rising utilization of the tax break and the state Legislature’s new research undertaking to declare a “pause” in granting it to new applicants.
“The governor felt it was the right time to let the citizens know, let businesses know that we’re going to pause on new offers of this tax incentive while that process plays out,” DeWine’s spokesperson, Dan Tierney, said Thursday.
DeWine has stressed that he supports data centers — calling them a critical component in today’s economy — and that the roughly $37 billion in data center-related investments in 2024 and 2025 in the state has been worthwhile.
The state, in 2024, had used previous history in projecting that the exemption would total $136 million in fiscal 2025 and $142 million in fiscal 2026. It was $554 million in 2024 and nearly $1.6 billion in 2025, the state reported.
The resumption of Ohio’s tax break — should it resume — could happen under a new governor: DeWine is term-limited and the race is on to replace him. The Republican nominee, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy — an Ivy League-educated biotech billionaire — likes to talk about turning the Ohio River Valley into the next Silicon Valley.
However, Ramaswamy and Democratic nominee Amy Acton could share the midterm ballot in November with the citizen-led drive to ban the construction of data centers across Ohio. It faces a July 1 deadline to gather more than 400,000 voter signatures.
State tax breaks for the massive data center industry are facing growing criticism by governors and lawmakers.
The cost is likely rising as data center and AI-related investments drive higher consumer spending in the U.S. and tech giants keep boosting their spending commitment to hyperscale data centers.
In Virginia, negotiations between the state House and Senate have been hung up for months on a bid by Senate Democrats to eliminate the roughly $1.6 billion annual tax break.
Thirty-eight states have some form of a sales tax break for data centers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Many were approved more than five years ago, when data centers were a small, but growing part of the economy, and well before the late 2022 debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched an intensifying buildout of increasingly large data centers.
Ohio’s exemption is fairly broad, applying not only to construction materials, but to the expensive equipment — such as server racks and cooling systems — used in data centers. Operators might buy new server racks every couple of years as the technology improves.
DeWine’s order was a surprise.
Dorsey Hager, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, where union members spend much of their time on data center projects, said he was upset with DeWine and trying to understand the governor’s reasons.
He worried, he said, that developers that were in the midst of trying to finalize plans or permits for a project might have second thoughts.
Lawmakers acknowledged the opposition in announcing their joint data center committee on May 13.
“We’re well aware of initiatives to limit Ohio data center development during this critical point in America’s history,” state Rep. Adam Holmes told a news conference. “This public concern has become a priority issue for us and could have dramatic impact on Ohio and American’s future.”
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Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter
Ohio
After months of traffic headaches, Ohio, Ontario bridges in and out of Chicago to finally reopen
After more than a year of major congestion, lane closures and traffic bottlenecks in and out of downtown Chicago from the Kennedy Expressway, two major connecting ramps from the Kennedy to River North are finally set to reopen.
Lanes on the Ohio and Ontario Street feeder bridges, which bring Kennedy drivers into the city at Ohio and out of the city at Ontario, started reopening with three lanes each Thursday morning, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. That’s up from the narrow two that has caused major traffic headaches since Nov. 2024.
As of 5:30 a.m. Thursday, IDOT was still working to finish its final overnight “punch list” for the Ohio Street bridge going east, NBC 5 traffic reporter Kye Martin said. By 6 a.m., things were clear, with new pavement markings set and traffic barricades removed.
“Haven’t been able to say that since November 2024,” Martin said.
Thursday night, Ontario street will be closed from Orleans to the Kennedy Expressway in order to finish final work westbound. By 5 a.m. Friday, the Ontario Street feeder to the outbound Kennedy was expected to fully reopen, IDOT said.
The end of the construction means drivers on Thursday will have three lanes eastbound on Ohio open from the Kennedy to Orleans. Friday morning, three lanes open westbound on Ontario between Orleans and the Kennedy.
“This will ease the bottleneck that was caused by having only 2 lanes and off-peak closures during the duration of this effort,” Martin said.
“The public can expect delays and should allow extra time for trips through this area,” IDOT said, as the closures come to an end and reopening begins. “Alternate routes are encouraged. Drivers are urged to pay close attention to flaggers and signs in the work zones, obey the posted speed limits and be on the alert for workers and equipment.”
The $15.4 million project “replaced bridge expansion joints, structural steel and deck repairs along with the installation of a new deck overlay and resurfacing on the elevated bridges,” IDOT said. It was a separate project from the three-year rehabilitation of the Kennedy Expressway that concluded last fall.
As the highly anticipated reopening comes, more work on the bridges is still needed, IDOT said, with concrete paving patching to repair both ramps to each bridge set to occur later this summer. That work will require a “full closure” over three weekends, alternating between Ohio and Ontario streets between the Kennedy and Orleans.
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