Ohio
Jason Stephens has the extreme-right reined in. But how choppy will the waters get?
![Jason Stephens has the extreme-right reined in. But how choppy will the waters get?](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2023/05/10/NCOD/254849b8-1aba-4666-af77-78203b645edc-a544188e-146b-4ca5-8bc0-df9200f419a4_thumbnail.png?auto=webp&crop=849,478,x0,y0&format=pjpg&width=1200)
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com
In what looks as if it were the final few days of legislating before a long, slow, summer off, the Ohio General Assembly was in a frenzy last week, passing measures, big and small, that by right should have been resolved long ago.
Still, as a pure study of human nature, there’s nothing like watching the legislature try to squeeze what should have been six months of lawmaking into a few frantic late-June sessions timed to end before Independence Day, to allow for state legislators’ appearances in hometown parades.
Ohio passes bills in special session: Ohio Senate passes Biden ballot fix, foreign campaign money ban. Here’s what it means
People have sometimes likened the “process” to sausage-making. That’s grossly unfair to sausage-makers, whose products, unlike the legislature’s, must at least pass inspection.
As others have eloquently reported, perhaps no General Assembly in decades has been less productive than the one now in session.
Reining in the extreme-right – for now
Part of that is structural.
Although the House is composed of 67 Republicans and 32 Democrats, Democrats have clout out of proportion to their numbers.
The Reason: There’s a split among the 67 Republican between intra-GOP-caucus foes and allies of Republican Speaker Jason Stephens, of Lawrence County’s Kitts Hill, who won the House’s gavel with the help of House Democrats’ votes.
And to keep the gavel, and to avoid riling his de facto Democratic allies, Stephens, it appears, has reined in House Republicans’ extreme-right faction, a noisy group that isn’t enthused about much of anything except the past.
Meanwhile, the Senate, led by President Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, has tended to be more conservative, its Republicans are for the most part united, because in the Senate, what Matt Huffman wants, Matt Huffman often seems to get — a fact not lost on the Statehouse’s teeming corporate lobbies, always pushing for bills or amendments to advance private interests, and who prefer results to promises when it comes to legislation in Columbus.
(That’s so in a state whose per capita personal income last matched the nation’s in 1969 and, as noted here before, has been declining ever since.
Voters get distracted from that fact by the General Assembly’s politically convenient practice of pitting Ohioans against once another — on such topics as abortion, sexuality and gender identity.)
And now Huffman, who’s being term-limited out of the Senate, will be returning to the House in January, vying to wrest its speakership from fellow Republican Stephens.
Anti-Stephens House Republicans have gained control of the House GOP caucus’s campaign fund, what there is of it, in a legal fight the House’s anti-faction Stephens faction won, and which he lost.
What is Stephens facing? Judge strips control of campaign funds from Ohio House speaker ahead of November election
If you’re Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, with 30 months left in your governorship, you can expect to be navigating in at best choppy waters in the state Senate and Ohio’s House in 2025 and 2026, no matter how the Huffman-Stephens contest turns out.
Pitting Ohioans against each other instead of tackling real issues
At the same time, intra-party clawing and knifing over the 2026 statewide Ohio tickets of both the Republican and Democratic parties, will distract Statehouse attention from issues that continue to demand attention – school funding, property taxes and utility rates, gerrymandering of General Assembly districts – to sensation-of-the-day “issues” and policy gimmicks.
The creation of an Ohio culture war: Ohio lawmaker waging nasty war on educators, librarians and drag queens despite real problems
As things stand today on Capitol Square, even the most jaded Statehouse bystander likely longs for the era when the aim of the game was to get things done, not just score points to win headlines and attract talk-show invites.
Not to worry, though, before it went home, the General Assembly was preparing to give Ohio’s voters billions of dollars in gifts in the form of local construction projects – “gifts” the recipients, not the donors, will pay for long after today’s General Assembly has retired with nice pensions and no regrets.
On the eve of Independence Day 2024, and what’s likely to be the most momentous presidential election since Lincoln’s in 1860, that’s the wonderful world of Ohio politics today: Nostalgia for the past, indifference to the future and devotion to the status quo.
It’s a great life – if you know the right people.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com
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Ohio
Campaign to get new political mapmaking system on Ohio’s ballot submits more than 700,000 signatures
![Campaign to get new political mapmaking system on Ohio’s ballot submits more than 700,000 signatures](https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/66e52fc/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4032x2117+0+907/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fewscripps-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc8%2Fba%2Fd97dc1c74d78a329bfaea34d5b09%2Fap24183550842782.jpg)
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Backers of a proposal to change Ohio’s troubled political mapmaking system delivered hundreds of thousands of signatures on Monday as they work to qualify for the statewide ballot this fall.
Citizens Not Politicians dropped off more than 700,000 petition signatures to Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office in downtown Columbus, according to Jen Miller, director of League of Women Voters. LaRose now will work with local election boards to determine that at least 413,446 signatures are valid, which would get the proposal onto the Nov. 5 ballot.
The group’s amendment aims to replace the current Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of three statewide officeholders and four state lawmakers, with an independent body selected directly by citizens. The new panel’s members would be diversified by party affiliation and geography.
Their effort to make the ballot was plagued by early delays. Republican Attorney General Dave Yost raised two rounds of objections to their petition language before the wording was initially certified. Then, after the Ohio Ballot Board unanimously cleared the measure in October 2023, organizers were forced to resubmit their petitions due to a single-digit typo in a date.
“It’s just a great day for Ohio and Ohio’s democracy,” Miller said. “Citizens across the state came together to make sure we could get on the ballot this fall and finally end gerrymandering.”
The effort follows the existing structure’s repeated failure to produce constitutional maps. During the protracted process for redrawing district boundaries to account for the results of the 2020 Census, challenges filed in court resulted in two congressional maps and five sets of Statehouse maps being rejected as unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
A month after the ballot campaign was announced, the bipartisan Ohio Redistricting Commission voted unanimously to approve new Statehouse maps, with minority Democrats conceding to “better, fairer” maps that nonetheless continued to deliver the state’s ruling Republicans a robust political advantage.
That same September, congressional district maps favoring Republicans were put in place, too, after the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed a group of legal challenges at the request of the voting rights groups that had brought them. The groups told the court that continuing to pursue the lawsuits against the GOP-drawn maps brought turmoil not in the best interests of Ohio voters.
Ohio
Ohio State Buckeyes Land Top Recruit Dorian Jones
![Ohio State Buckeyes Land Top Recruit Dorian Jones](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_4962,h_2791,x_0,y_508/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/buckeyes_now/01j1qzpq5kq3h8vqyba4.jpg)
The Ohio State Buckeyes have landed four-star recruit Dorian Jones, a source told 247 Sports.
Jones will be staying local with his decision to join the Buckeyes.
The 6-foot-4 shooting guard played his high-school basketball at Richmond Heights and was the No. 2-ranked player in Ohio.
“They were the first program to start recruiting me when I was a freshman,” Jones recently said of Ohio State. “They have been there since day one. They talk about building their program around me.”
Jones also had offers from the likes of Syracuse, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois and Michigan, but ultimately chose to stay home.
The Buckeyes are trying to recover after missing the NCAA Tournament each of the last two years.
Ohio State got off to a 14-11 start this past season, resulting in the firing of head coach Chris Holtmann. Jake Diebler took the reins the rest of the way and went a respectable 8-3.
It certainly represented a better campaign for the Buckeyes than 2022-23, when they went just 16-19. That marks Ohio State’s only losing record since going 14-16 in 2003-04.
Since 2006, the Buckeyes have made the Big Dance 13 times, with their deepest run coming in 2011-12 when Jared Sullinger led the squad all the way to the Final Four before losing to Kansas.
Ohio State has not made it past the second round of the NCAA Tournament in any of its last four appearances.
We’ll see if Jones and a potentially tantalizing recruiting class overall can help bring Buckeyes basketball back to prominence.
Ohio
Ohio State Buckeyes Key 2025 Defensive Target Sets Commitment Date
![Ohio State Buckeyes Key 2025 Defensive Target Sets Commitment Date](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_6207,h_3491,x_0,y_176/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/buckeyes_now/01j1pdtxxj75ef9wt81v.jpg)
The Ohio State Buckeyes are still hoping to gain a commitment from a key pass-rusher target in the 2025 recruiting class.
While the Buckeyes have already earned the No. 1 ranking by many for their 2025 class, they are still looking to get better. Damien Shanklin is a name that they are still waiting to get a decision from.
Shanklin has now announced when he will announce his commitment.
Ohio State will not have to wait much longer. Shanklin has stated that he will be making his commitment announcement on July 5th.
I will be committing on Instagram live
July 5th @5:30 EST
IG: Damegotfanz_
— Damien “Dame” Shanklin (@D_shanklin42) June 30, 2024
Standing in at 6-foot-5 and 235 pounds, the four-star edge rusher from Warren Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana has tremendous potential. He could end up developing into a legitimate NFL talent if he reaches his ceiling.
While the Buckeyes feel that they have a good shot at landing a commitment from Shanklin and are in his top three final schools, the other two schools involved are massive threats.
He is considering offers from both Alabama and LSU. Shanklin is picking from three legitimate teams that could offer him a chance to compete for a National Championship and give him a good chance to develop into an NFL talent.
All of that being said, it will be interesting to see what decisions Shanklin makes. He would be a great addition to the Ohio State recruiting class.
Make sure to stay tuned on July 5th at 5:30 p.m. EST. All Buckeyes fans are going to be waiting anxiously to see what the young pass-rusher decides.
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