CLEVELAND, Ohio — Ohio’s entry into recreational marijuana will launch in coming weeks with long lines, high prices and limited supply for customer.

We’re expecting Ohio adults to flood the retail businesses on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.

You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.

You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.

Here’s what else we’re asking about today:

Sherrod Brown’s first attack ad on Bernie Moreno in the U.S. Senate race calls Moreno a car dealer. Why is that upsetting some car dealers, albeit car dealers who are Republicans who have donated to Moreno and have a vested interest in being offended?

When Ohio finally can buy recreational marijuana, which we keep hearing will be this summer, why should we expect prices to be high? Can’t we just go to competing Michigan dispensaries if prices are out of line?

Congresswoman Shontel Brown went public with what sounds like an excruciating health condition so she can help others. What was her condition, and what is she doing to bring aid to other people suffering from it?

Did a dark money group work to help Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman or not?

Cleveland’s population stayed flat in the latest census estimate, which is the first time in many years it has not dropped significantly. What are some saying is the clear way to increase the city’s population quickly?

We marvel that Cuyahoga County could pay big bucks for a contract after it had been ended, and Lucas Daprile did the work to find out. What did he find out?

A Cleveland Starbucks has been whacked by a court for how it handled a union effort. Which store, and what happened?

The end of the park that was supposed to welcome the neighborhood to the new MetroHealth campus was an abrupt and distressing decision for many when the news broke. Steve Litt has taken a look at how that came to be. What did he tell us in his piece over the weekend?

Cher said about a year ago that she would never attend a Rock Hall induction ceremony if she were inducted, because of all the years she was passed over. Has she changed her mind?

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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

chris (00:03.621)

It’s time to start talking seriously about the Senate race in Ohio. It’s the first story up on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland .com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here on a Monday with Lisa Garvin, Lara Johnston and Leila Tasi and Lara, you start us out. Sherrod Brown’s first attack ad on Bernie Moreno in the US Senate race calls Moreno a car dealer. Why is that upsetting some car dealers albeit

who are Republicans, who have been donating to Moreno and have a vested interest in being offended.

laura (00:39.216)

Because they say it plays to this stereotype and the ad that we’re talking about intersperses clips of Bernie Moreno, who’s obviously the Republican running against Jared Brown. He appears in commercials promoting his former network of Cleveland car dealerships with news headlines that describe Moreno stretching the truth. You couldn’t trust him as a car dealer. So why would you trust him as a senator? And there’s this cheesy promotional audio backdrop. I’m just picturing like.

the used car, usually it’s a used car salesman get these bad rap where it’s like cars, cars, cars, right? And they’re never what they promise. And that’s what this ad is playing on. But three auto dealers are really mad. And I’ve got to give Sabrina Eaton for credit for her puns in this story. She says, the dealers say the ad traffics and exhausted stereotypes about cars, tailsmans called for Brown to shift gears from his tireless attacks on the industry.

chris (01:34.437)

I’m going to do a little speculation here because I don’t think this is what it seems on the surface. I think as they headed into the campaign, Bernie Moreno has done some research to find out what his downsides would be. And one of them is that really all he is is a former car dealer. And knowing that that would be a point of Sherrod’s attack, Sherrod’s been around a long time, dealt with lots of big issues. He doesn’t just have one dimension. They got, they got a plan together to attack that.

So of course, these are Republican card dealers. And of course, they’re offended that anyone might call Bernie Moreno a card dealer. He is a former card dealer. And I think this whole thing was orchestrated. Where do we learn about it from? The Bernie Moreno campaign. They brought forth these people to us to say, look, look, these guys are offended that Sherrod Brown would just disdain their whole profession.

laura (02:05.392)

Mm -hmm.

laura (02:19.536)

Right.

chris (02:28.005)

But I don’t believe this was as spontaneous as we’re being led to believe.

laura (02:32.752)

And it’s funny because Sherrod Brown has been the blue collar, stick up for the little guy, manufacturing senator for how long, right? Because they’re saying you’re attacking our entire industry. But Sherrod Brown has been very stalwart about protecting jobs in the automotive industry throughout Ohio throughout his career.

chris (02:53.797)

And look, we’re talking about a guy who sold high end cars. I mean, you know, probably most of them not even made by American car companies. This thing seems like a big dodge. This is something that Bernie Marino has to run against. If you’re a voter, do you want to put a guy who’s really done nothing more than make a lot of money selling cars? New York Times destroyed his rags to riches story in a couple of weeks ago.

laura (02:58.32)

Right, not blue collar.

laura (03:19.728)

Mm -hmm.

chris (03:21.637)

with a piece that looked at him coming to America. He paints this picture, they came and they lived in almost squalid conditions. It’s not really true. I think he’s trying to figure out a way to overcome his, well, he’s got two huge problems. One, he’s just a puppet for Donald Trump. Two, his only background is selling cars. So I’m not surprised that they’re trying to neutralize this because Sherrod has something that he can repeatedly emphasize.

I don’t think this is going to work. I think you’re going to see more references to card dealers in future ads.

laura (03:56.4)

Well, it’s funny because you say that he’s just a car dealer. Well, they’re attacking Brown and being like, he’s just a government worker. He’s never done anything outside the government. It’s like, well, he’s quite a track record inside government. But you’re right. This is just the beginning. Obviously, we’ve been through the primary, lots of negative ads there. This is the beginning of the general. And we’re going to see tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and dark money from these 401C4s.

chris (04:03.749)

hahahaha

laura (04:26.672)

Using negative attack ads. I mean, we’re just just get ready for the ride.

chris (04:31.813)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. When Ohio residents finally can buy recreational marijuana, which we keep hearing will be this summer, why should we expect prices to be high and possible long lines at the dispensaries? Can’t we just go to competing Michigan dispensaries if prices are out of line, Lisa?

Lisa (04:51.131)

Well, it’s the old supply and demand question. Long lines are expected as recreational pot becomes available in mid -June, which they’re still saying is going to happen. And flour is the most popular form of marijuana for both medical patients and recreational users. So production has to ramp up to meet demand. It takes three months to…

grow marijuana so it’s ready to be harvested. And then you have a curing process, which varies from processor to processor. So cultivators are maximizing grow operations now. Many medical growers aren’t at full capacity, but it still takes time to ramp up. We talked with Kapal Patel, who’s president of Shangri -La Dispensaries. He owns four dispensaries in Ohio, including one in Cleveland.

And he says, edibles and oils are gonna be more available for about the first three to six months. So that’s gonna lead to higher prices at first for flour, but he expects a significant price drop as more flour arrives at dispensaries. He says, for now, purchases may be capped so they can keep up with the demand. We also talked to Tripp McDermott, who’s the CEO of Verano, which owns five Ohio dispensaries under the Zen Leaf name.

and also a cultivating facility in Canton. He says that flour is generally king and medical sales are the highest in flour. So he says dispensaries will probably have to have policies to ensure that medical patients go to the front of the line or have a medical patient only line to ensure availability for people with medical marijuana cards.

chris (06:28.197)

My thought on this is that it’s taking so long to get to the sales that they could be growing it right now. We did stories back in the fall about how long it takes to grow a crop. They’ve had plenty of time to get ready. I’m surprised there’s going to be a shortage because this is seeming to take forever.

Lisa (06:45.467)

Well, but there are states, I think New York is one of them, where they actually have a huge oversupply. So I think that they were worried maybe about that. They wanted to kind of test the market. But I think that it’s going to be so novel to be able to buy recreational marijuana. People are going to line up on the first day, I’m sure. And it sounds like they might walk away empty handed.

chris (07:05.413)

Yeah, I have no doubt this is going to prove to be true just based on the interest in these stories on our site. There was one day last week where four of our top five stories were all about marijuana. People are fascinated by this subject. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Congresswoman Shantel Brown with public with what sounds like an excruciating health condition so she can help others. Laila, what was her condition and what is she doing to bring aid to other people who are suffering from it?

Leila (07:35.054)

Chantelle Brown said that she suffered with uterine fibroids that were so terrible it felt as though her body had been invaded by an unwanted guest month after month. And this condition had become so excruciating for her that she eventually had to get a hysterectomy. And about 40 to 80 % of women develop these non -cancerous uterine tumors that they call fibroids. And it’s a condition that disproportionately affects black women. Brown said that…

Black women are three times more likely to be hospitalized for fibroids than white women and three times more likely to need a hysterectomy. So Chantal Brown has gone public with her story now because she’s introduced legislation that she’s calling the You Fight Act, the Uterine Fibroid Intervention and Gynecological Health and Treatment Act. It would authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants to increase early detection of an intervention for uterine fibroids.

and education and awareness programs and research too. So the grants would also address another uterine condition called Asherman’s syndrome, which is the buildup of uterine scar tissue after surgery. And also it will address other disparities in pain control and management as it relates to uterine fibroids. Brown has so far about 50 co -sponsors in the House and she’s working on getting similar legislation introduced in the Senate.

and the bill is being backed by a number of organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and all three of our big hospital systems here in Northeast Ohio.

chris (09:08.005)

It’s never easy to go public with something that’s so personal. And so you’ve got to give her a lot of credit for doing that in the interest of improving the lives of others. I’m sure she had a struggle with this decision for a while before she made it.

Leila (09:11.534)

Mm -hmm.

Leila (09:21.774)

Yeah, it sounds… Go ahead, I’m sorry.

Lisa (09:21.891)

I had a uterine fibroid that was about grapefruit size. They said it was about the size of a five -month pregnancy. So I had to have a hysterectomy at 41. So that ended my reproductive saga right there. But yeah, it’s something you just, you know, and they weren’t back in the late 90s. It wasn’t really a big thing. They weren’t really focused on it.

Leila (09:28.878)

Wow. my gosh.

chris (09:36.389)

Wow.

chris (09:49.125)

Wow, okay. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Did a dark money group work to help Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman or not, Laura?

laura (09:58.128)

Well, we’re going to leave it to the readers to connect some dots here, I guess listeners, but it’s a pretty easy puzzle. So there are new internal records that obtained by Cleveland .com and the Plain Dealer from Andrew Tobias. They show that Liberty Ohio, which is a dark money group, raised nearly $1 .4 million from First Energy and other companies in 2019 and 2020. Then it spent about the same amount it raised in that period. $136 ‚000 went to Highbridge Consulting. That’s a Republican political firm in Columbus.

$500 ‚000 went to two out -of -state firms. That’s Ring Limited and Right Point. All three firms did work for Senate President Matt Huffman once he became the Ohio Senate president. And a first energy lobbyist described Liberty Ohio in an email in 2019 as Huffman’s C4. So do the work here. One of the other large funders was a political nonprofit arm of a trade group that represents for -profit

profit nursing homes and that’s called 55 Green Meadows.

chris (11:02.149)

If you read the correspondence, it’s clear they’re working on behalf of him. He can say, as he has, I’ve got nothing to do with that. It’s actually illegal to coordinate with them and I don’t. But to pretend that they’re not helping them is kind of silly. I was surprised to see some of the other contributors, like the owner of Spectrum News, which covers news in this state.

laura (11:21.232)

Mm -hmm.

chris (11:27.109)

was a significant donor to this dark money fund, which really raises questions about objectivity.

laura (11:33.392)

Yeah, there’s Charter Communications, there’s a cable company that’s right. There’s Empower Ohio, that’s a nonprofit child, do American Electric Power, think about all the issues we have with energy companies in the state, Nationwide Insurance, Giant Eagle, Miller Coors, Juul Labs, which I believe that’s the, like the vaping, Pharma, which represents the pharmaceutical industry, and the US Justice Action Network. And…

chris (11:36.069)

That’s the one I’m talking about.

laura (12:00.336)

They got an interview, Andrew got an interview with Pete Van Runkel, who is the executive director of that 55 Green Meadows, the nursing home industry. And we know how much power the nursing home industry has in Ohio. And he said they gave to Liberty Ohio under the understanding that it existed to support Hoffman. And when we say support Hoffman, to be Senate president, you have to be elected by your colleagues in the Senate. So some of his allies could get help from this group. He said he had no specific idea how the money was going to be spent, but…

They laugh about the names of these dark money groups. They say, OK, which one is this? They’re all apple pie and motherhood.

chris (12:39.621)

Yeah, let’s not stray from the key point though. He says, I donated to that because it helps Matt Hoffman. And there is clearly an expectation then, if I help Matt Hoffman, my industry gets help, which it has. The legislature gave a big smooch to them in the past year with some big help. So even though Matt Hoffman says, I got nothing to do with this, clearly there are people donating to it.

laura (12:47.568)

Mm -hmm.

laura (12:55.44)

Right.

chris (13:07.813)

thinking that he’s going to reward them as a result.

laura (13:12.24)

Well, it does feel very wink wink nudge nudge.

chris (13:15.333)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cleveland’s population stayed flat in the latest census estimate, which is the first time in many years it has not dropped significantly. Lisa, what are some saying is the clear way to increase the city’s population quickly?

Lisa (13:31.227)

According to global Cleveland president Joe Simperman, he says, attracting and retaining international students and legal immigrants is key to reducing the population decline in Northeast Ohio. He says it’s an economic imperative, not political. The area can’t grow if there’s no talent to fill the jobs. There are 53 ‚000 open jobs in Northeast Ohio right now.

But unfortunately, many businesses don’t accept international student resumes. They fear a long, complicated process with a lot of paperwork. We also talked to Greater Cleveland Partnership CEO, Baiju Shah. He says that they’ve hired a Detroit -based consultant to help find ways to attract and settle immigrants with an initial focus on refugees. It’s part of a bigger effort by the Cleveland Talent Alliance, which was established in 2022 by 14 member organizations.

They have three areas of focus. They want to convert more Northeast Ohio college students to permanent residents. They want to increase the working age population of people willing to move to Cleveland and improving our reputation as a tech city. In the past decade, the foreign born population went up 8 ‚000 people in Northeast Ohio as the overall population decreased by 2%.

In 2023, there were 4 ,804 foreign born people who came to Cleveland. Columbus had way more at 10 ,271. Cincinnati at 6 ,596 and Detroit 13 ,785 and in Chicago over 34 ,000. So Simperman says Cleveland really can’t afford another population decline. He said, even if everybody who was born here stayed, it would still not be enough.

And he says, unfortunately, the illegal immigration debate is clouding legal migration benefits. And he said, he pointed out that most international students are in STEM fields here.

chris (15:26.181)

Yeah, that’s the problem is he’s making this argument at a time when the polarization of illegal immigration is just determining the course of the presidential race. So it’s going to be a tough argument to make. He’s been very successful in bringing people here, but in the numbers he’s talking about, I think it might be more challenging.

Lisa (15:47.739)

Well, there’s an interesting object lesson. We talked to Shili Khandewal, who came here from India in 2022 and a business grad student at Case. She just earned her master’s in finance just this last weekend. She said she tried and failed to get a job in Cleveland. So she had to return to Salt Lake City to work at a bank there. She didn’t want to leave Cleveland. She says it’s her home, but local banks were not hiring international grads, partially because of the added paperwork.

chris (16:14.981)

Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. We marvel that Cuyahoga County could pay big bucks for a contract after it had ended and Lucas DiPrile went and looked at how that could happen. Lalo, what did he find out?

Leila (16:28.75)

this was just an unmitigated disaster, it seems. So the backstory here is that the county had signed a contract with this company called Securis to provide services so that jail inmates could make phone calls. But they were also invited to submit a bonus proposal to provide the county with a jail management system. And the idea was that the way this was structured is that the county would make a percentage of the money that was collected on the phone calls and Securis would

send them that money minus the cost of running the jail management system, which was called ex -jail. But as we’ve said in our past coverage of this, Securis never got ex -jail up and running, yet they collected monthly fees for it. And then five years after the county had signed that contract with Securis announcing that they announced that they were going to sunset ex -jail, it was becoming obsolete and they had never even implemented it. Then they continued taking money from the county for that program for months after that point.

until the county’s inspector general, Alexa Beeler, finally caught it and the county put an end to it. So, Lucas de Prilly took a look at Beeler’s full report on this issue. And he said that it reads like an autopsy of government dysfunction. This deal was a total mess from the very beginning. When county council heard this proposal, it didn’t even mention ex -jail. So, council wasn’t aware at all that that was a part of the deal that they were getting from Securus.

The county never specified in its request for proposals what it was looking for in a jail management system. So it turned out that ex -jail was actually never a product that could have really been scaled up to meet the needs of such a big jail, at least not easily. And that was probably part of the whole delay in getting it up and running. Then one of the wildest parts of the story was that then county executive Armin Budish and his administrators seemed kind of obsessed.

with getting this $2 million signing bonus that Securus was offering. That seemed to be a driving factor in how Securus ended up with this contract, according to the emails that were included in Beeler’s investigation. And that was all during a time when Budish was also focused on regionalizing the jail and turning it into a money -making operation, which turned out to be at the expense of its conditions and the people who were living there. And then finally, perhaps what I think is one of the most outrageous,

Leila (18:49.358)

parts of this whole story was that there was this moment when the county could have recouped dollars for this boondoggle. When it became clear that Exxio was going to become obsolete in a few years, Securis gave the county options to compensate the county for all its trouble. Those included refunds and things like that, but the county never responded to those offers. So Securis just went on charging the county those monthly fees. So a total disaster. Nobody was steering the ship.

Nobody was managing this at all or keeping an eye on it. And thank goodness for Alexa Bieler’s office. I don’t know what else to say about it.

chris (19:28.837)

We’ve had a couple of lessons in the past week that make you realize just how desperate Armin Budish was to get cash in hand to do things with. It’s this where, and we’ve talked at length about how he tried to turn the jail into a profit center, which was ridiculous. You can’t think about profit over the people. And this was another example. He wanted that $2 million so he could play with it. And we also have…

the overage of the collection of the quarter cent sales tax that was paying for the convention center and the Hilton hotel, millions and millions of dollars that they had in what should have been a capital improvements fund that they just sucked into their budget and spent. And this is why people don’t trust government because that shouldn’t happen. This shouldn’t happen. This isn’t about, let me see how much money I can get so I can throw it around to peddle my influence. It should be about how I’m serving.

Leila (20:13.454)

right.

chris (20:25.317)

this community and this is a distressing distressing story because they they just did a huge disservice to the taxpayer in search of some ready cash to throw around and play with.

Leila (20:40.462)

Right. Even Alexa Beeler said to Lucas in their interview, this just seemed like it was being viewed as a giant moneymaker and not really at all considering what’s in the best interest for jail operations at all.

chris (20:54.181)

And people are burnt out of all of this profligate spending. And so when they hear things like this, they just don’t trust government. Eventually, I think you’re going to see some sort of tax revolt and people are just going to go on to start saying no, because of examples like this. Think about if we had taken all that overage money from the capital fund and put it away, how much we would have on hand today when it’s desperately needed to build a new jail and renovate the justice center and instead.

Leila (21:18.894)

Mm -hmm.

chris (21:23.525)

It was a squandering of it. I don’t even know if the Chris Ronan administration was aware of this going on. It’s a shocker that this kind of thing happened. And again, it brings up the whole question of whether we should keep charter government. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. A Cleveland Starbucks has been whacked by a court for how it handled the union effort. Which store, Lisa, and what happened?

Lisa (21:51.771)

The National Labor Relations Board in a report found that the Starbucks and University Circle wrongfully fired an employee who organized a union vote and that employee who is not identified should be reinstated and given back pay. So this worker requested a transfer to the University Circle store from another Cleveland location when he heard they were organizing at University Circle.

management at his first store called him a troublemaker, but approved the transfer in November of 2021. Then University Circle Starbucks workers announced union formation in March of 2022 and voted to approve it in July of that year. The employee was disciplined several times, but he was never written up before the union efforts became known. They discussed reducing his hours. They called him by derogatory names and mocked him for calling the union vote.

and he was fired before that vote took place, a couple of weeks before it took place. Also in the report, the Labor Relations Board that found that management was doing stricter enforcement of work rules in response to union activity, which is prohibited. They also falsely told workers they would lose benefits if they joined the union. They also stopped union pro -union workers on social media, which the board found as a form of surveillance.

chris (23:11.429)

It’s not really a big penalty though for Starbucks. So I think probably in the Starbucks mind, this was all worth it because they’re fighting the unions without much of a penalty. They have to bring them back. They have to pay them some back pay. But there’s not really a serious penalty for violating all those rules.

Lisa (23:28.411)

I would agree and I hope that this fella takes his job back. I mean, he may not want to go back to work there, but he’s entitled to his back pay. So I hope he doesn’t just blow them off because then they win.

chris (23:38.917)

All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. The end of the park that was supposed to welcome the neighborhood to the new Metro Health campus was an abrupt and distressing decision for many when the news broke. Wayla Steve Litt has taken a look at how this all came to be. What did he tell us in his piece over the weekend?

Leila (23:56.494)

Yeah, this hospital in a park idea was very energizing to the community. And in fact, many members of the community were engaged in the creation of this plan. It became the centerpiece of the new Clark Fulton Together master plan. But now the hospital is saying they’ve reassessed their needs, they’re not going to be moving forward with that, and they’re going to be keeping this aging building that was going to be demolished to make way for green space and using it instead for office space and then…

They’re rethinking the use of the Apex building, which was in the midst of construction, to house offices, but now it’ll be redesigned for outpatient services. So that’s where that stands. And Metro Health CEO Erica Steed, who accepted her position after this campus transformation plan had already been set into motion by her predecessor, Akram Boutros, she denies that the community was blindsided by her decision to change the plan. But frankly, it seems the news about this was…

I mean, it was never announced in a transparent way. It came out during a random committee meeting that Steve Litt had caught wind of and tuned into, and it set off a lot of consternation in the community. Steve talked to many folks for this story who say they were absolutely blindsided by this and feel as though the community’s trust in MetroHealth has been badly bruised on account of it. Emily Lee, the executive director of the MetroWest Community Development Organization, which worked with MetroHealth and the Clark Fulton Plan said,

She and her organization were surprised. Bob Garden, a member of the Near West Design Review Committee, which advises the City Planning Commission on local development plans, he said the same. County council members were caught off guard. And meanwhile, the campus is just kind of a mess. The green spaces look pretty terrible, very un -park -like. There’s one area where they kind of greened over an old parking lot and you still see the…

the poles, the light poles sticking up as if the parking lot, like the phantom of the parking lot that once was. No one really knows about what’s going to happen with the apex building. They’re reconfiguring that. We don’t know what the cost of that’s going to be. So Steve just says in this analysis that now the hospital system faces these two overlapping issues. One is whether they’re going to, they could have done a better job of delivering bad news when their plans were in flux.

Leila (26:16.078)

And the second is how they’re going to deliver as much of their original vision for the main campus as possible while still meeting the primary mission of providing high quality health care.

chris (26:27.749)

My question on this is, where’s the board? Where’s the board been? The board was in the hot seat when Akram Butros left and all the controversy, which doesn’t have anything to do with this. And now this is hugely controversial. Where are they? Why aren’t they issuing a statement? Was there a big deliberative process by the board on this behind closed doors or something? I mean, we ought to hear from them because right now,

Leila (26:45.326)

Yeah.

chris (26:54.757)

What Akron Boutros did in planning the park is a textbook lesson on how to do everything right. You bring everybody to the table, you get everybody buying in, you take it to the planning commission, you get great excitement. What’s happened since is the textbook lesson in how to do everything wrong. It’s been secretive, it’s been hidden, it’s hugely disappointing to the community. And Metro Health is saying, well, give us time, give us time. Well, you’ve blown it to this point badly.

Leila (27:11.534)

Yeah.

chris (27:24.357)

Where are you? Where are the board members? Where is the real justification? I don’t think the community is quite accepting the idea that this building should stay. I think they want more discussion. Is there another way? Can we get this to be the central neighborhood asset that we had hoped it would be? Right now, that place is a mess. Parking is a mess. The campus is all closed off. And they opened that thing, the big fanfare, when they opened it. But it’s pretty much a disaster for anybody who goes over there.

Leila (27:50.318)

Mm -hmm.

Right. And we had heard of different community groups that were really, really anticipating that park -like setting, hoping to stage events there and things like that that have now been, the rug has been pulled out from under them. And MetroHealth has said, well, we’re planning on having community meetings about this, but then they ended up scooping themselves with the committee meeting.

chris (28:03.205)

Right.

Leila (28:17.518)

And I don’t know that they expected Steve Lit to be there. I don’t know what the idea was, but it seems like a bungled rollout of this announcement and absolutely no engagement with the community before doing so.

chris (28:22.981)

Yeah, but…

chris (28:32.613)

They were so cognizant of the community as they designed it. And then they just seemed to forget it all. Even the county council mostly expressed alarm. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Let’s end on something light. Cher said about a year ago that she would never attend a Rock Hall induction ceremony if she were inducted because of all the decades she was passed over. Laura, has she changed her mind? And this ceremony is in Cleveland this year, so it matters to us.

laura (28:59.984)

Right. And I’m not sure how light the story is because I’m not sure what Sharer has to say is going to be good for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. She says she’s got things she wants to say. She dropped this bombshell to E .T. as she walked the red carpet on Monday in the premiere of the documentary Bob Mackie Naked Illusion. She said, quote, Well, I can thank David Geffen, my friend and most wonderful person ever, and John Sykes, who’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation chairman. I’m going to have some words to say.

I’m going to accept it as me.” So she’s been eligible since 1991, consistently overlooked, and she had told Kelly Clarkson she wouldn’t be in it now if they gave them a million dollars. So maybe they gave her a million dollars. I’m not, no, they didn’t. But she is going to come. She’s going to have quite a speech prepared, sounds like.

chris (29:47.653)

And really, it doesn’t matter what she says, it’s good for the rock hall if she comes. Her not coming, no matter what she’s going to say, I mean, it’s the rock hall. People say all sorts of rock and stuff, but her being here will make that a more interesting induction ceremony for the people who attend it later this year.

laura (29:51.984)

That’s true. You’re right, you’re right.

laura (30:04.56)

And for anyone watching at home, you know, it’ll be all good. Yeah.

chris (30:08.677)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Monday episode. Thanks for being with us. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Leila. Tuesday, we’ll be back talking about the news.

President Joe Biden might not appear on the November 2024 presidential ballot in Ohio. Ohio law requires that presidential candidates be certified – that is, the state must be notified that presidential candidates have been officially nominated – 90 days before the general election in order to get on the ballot. That is the earliest deadline of any state.

But the Democratic National Convention that will formally nominate Biden won’t open until nearly two weeks after Ohio’s Aug. 7 deadline. The Republican National Convention will wrap up nearly three weeks before the deadline, so Donald Trump won’t have a problem getting on the ballot.

The 90-day deadline has often caused trouble since its adoption in 2010. Only in 2016 did both parties’ conventions take place before the Ohio cutoff date. Both conventions took place after the deadline in 2012 and 2020, and legislators extended the deadline both times. This is the first time that only one convention comes too late, but Republicans could well be affected in the future.

There are ways to resolve this problem, as two other states with early deadlines have already done. Washington state officials said they will accept a provisional certification of Biden’s nomination before the convention. And Alabama’s Legislature shortened its deadline so that Biden could qualify for the ballot there.

Neither solution seems likely in Ohio, where Republicans may be seeking to make life harder for the Democrats’ presidential nominee. The attorney general says the state can’t accept a provisional certification. And the Legislature couldn’t come up with a timely fix to the law.

Ohio laws generally take effect 90 days after passage. So a change to the deadline had to pass by May 9, but the Legislature wound up doing nothing. Here’s how that played out.

Divided GOP controls Statehouse

Republicans have supermajorities in both houses of the Ohio Legislature, yet they couldn’t agree on how to proceed.

The Ohio Senate passed a bill, but only after adding what Democrats viewed as a poison pill that would have banned foreign nationals from contributing to campaigns for or against ballot measures. Republicans objected to a Swiss national’s rumored contributions to a successful campaign last year in which voters approved a reproductive-rights amendment to the state constitution.

The House had planned to consider a different proposal but never voted on anything before leaving town on May 8 for two weeks.

This reflects the Ohio GOP’s bitter divisions. The House speaker won his position with support from only a minority of his caucus. The Senate president will switch to the House next year because of term limits and has hinted he will challenge the speaker.

The Legislature could still pass an emergency law to change the deadline, but emergency laws require a two-thirds vote in both houses. The chances of that happening are uncertain at best.

So, Democrats might have to file a lawsuit to get Biden on the ballot.

What’s the precedent?

As a constitutional law scholar, I believe Democrats would have a strong argument that using an arbitrary and unusually long deadline to bar a major-party presidential candidate violates voting and associational rights under the First and 14th amendments. But success is not guaranteed.

Such a lawsuit would rely on two U.S. Supreme Court cases that rejected state efforts to bar presidential candidates from the ballot.

A 1983 decision struck down Ohio’s old law that required independent candidates to qualify more than six months before the election. And a March 2024 ruling rejected Colorado’s effort to exclude former President Donald Trump from its primary ballot.

Those cases may be helpful in making the Democrats’ case, but they don’t dictate a win. The 1983 decision overturned a law that treated independent presidential candidates much less favorably than party candidates. Ohio’s 90-day deadline treats all candidates the same.

And the Colorado case involved the state’s unilateral determination that Trump was ineligible for office as an insurrectionist under the 14th Amendment. Ohio’s 90-day rule says nothing about whether a candidate is constitutionally disqualified.

‘Nobody seems to know why’

Those differences might not matter. Even if they do, a lawsuit still could win.

Ohio’s 90-day deadline is not only arbitrary, I believe that it is irrational. Nobody seems to know why the state extended the deadline from 60 to 90 days in 2010. The change came in an obscure provision of a 341-page bill.

The 90-day deadline has been a problem in almost every presidential election since then. The Legislature waived the deadline in 2012 and 2020, when both parties’ conventions fell after the cutoff date, and those elections ran smoothly. So the state can’t justify sticking with the 90-day rule this year when only one party is holding its convention after the deadline.

Biden probably won’t carry Ohio in any event. But having both major-party candidates on the ballot is necessary for a fair presidential election.

Everyone involved keeps saying that Biden will appear on the November ballot. But, at least for now, the law says otherwise.

Jonathan Entin, Professor Emeritus of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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NOACA said the air quality levels in the affected counties are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
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