Ohio legislature’s lame-duck plans: What to expect and not expect by the end of 2022

COLUMBUS, Ohio— When state lawmakers return to Columbus subsequent week to wrap up their legislative session, there are a variety of points they’re more likely to contemplate, from banning gender-affirming medical procedures for minors to distributing tens of billions of {dollars} in federal coronavirus assist.

What’s much less clear is what, if any, motion the Republican-dominated Ohio Common Meeting will take to additional prohibit abortion within the state now that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has overturned Roe v. Wade.

Throughout this 12 months’s lame-duck session, lawmakers have a closing likelihood to approve laws launched in the course of the previous two years. Any payments that aren’t handed by the top of the 12 months die and must be reintroduced from scratch when subsequent 12 months’s session begins.

Whereas it’s nonetheless unclear precisely which payments will probably be handed within the subsequent few weeks, legislative leaders and different outstanding lawmakers have supplied some alerts about which proposals is perhaps acted on, and which have little likelihood of passage earlier than the top of session.

COVID-19 assist funding: State Sen. Rob McColley, a Northwest Ohio Republican, mentioned Thursday that the query that he and different legislators hear probably the most is how Ohio’s share of federal coronavirus reduction cash will probably be spent. Ohio has about $10 billion left unspent from the $26 billion the state was given underneath the American Rescue Plan Act, the CARES Act, and different COVID reduction payments handed by Congress.

To date, Ohio has spent COVID assist {dollars} on repaying a federal mortgage for state unemployment advantages, law-enforcement grants, water and sewer tasks, and Appalachian group grants, amongst different issues, based on an Ohio Poverty Legislation Heart web site set as much as monitor such spending.

McColley, talking at Thursday’s Affect Ohio convention in Columbus, mentioned the health-care sector has requested among the remaining funding. He added that a part of the cash may go towards extra water-quality tasks recognized by Gov. Mike DeWine.

Ohio Home Minority Chief Allison Russo, a Columbus-area Democrat, mentioned distributing the remaining coronavirus assist is a prime precedence for her. “We now have individuals in our communities who’re actually hurting and wish that reduction,” she mentioned in the course of the Affect Ohio occasion.

Poll drop-boxes: The continued debate over what number of poll drop packing containers ought to be allowed in every county in Ohio is more likely to crop up once more in lame-duck.

Ohio Home Speaker Bob Cupp, a Lima Republican, instructed reporters that the Home will possible take up GOP-sponsored laws that will permit drop packing containers at one location per county. It will additionally solely permit drop packing containers for use for 10 days earlier than an election, somewhat than the 30-day window allowed forward of final week’s election.

Drop packing containers turned a contentious challenge in 2020, when Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose permitted just one drop field per county regardless that a number of judges mentioned he had the authority to permit extra, as Democrats wished.

Legal-justice reform: Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, has mentioned his number-one precedence is criminal-justice reform. Huffman has mentioned, for instance, that he desires to make it possible for individuals convicted of a criminal offense aren’t prevented from getting a job or knowledgeable license.

It’s unclear, although, precisely what criminal-justice reform payments would possibly clear the legislature within the coming weeks. Cupp mentioned he’s “undecided how a lot of that may get throughout the end line,” although he predicted some payments will go.

Cleveland.com/The Plain Supplier has reached out to a Huffman spokesman for this story.

Bail reform: Final week, voters handed Situation 1, which permits judges to set increased bail quantities to maintain defendants behind bars within the identify of public security. The poll measure was handed after the Ohio Supreme Court docket diminished a homicide suspect’s bond due to his lack of ability to pay.

Cupp mentioned the Home will contemplate a equally worded invoice to carry state legislation in alignment with the brand new constitutional modification handed by voters.

Gun offenders: Greater than three years after DeWine unveiled a gun-reform plan following a mass taking pictures in Dayton, state lawmakers could lastly take motion on one in every of his proposals. Home Invoice 383, which might toughen penalties for repeat violent offenders discovered to have weapons illegally, is the a part of DeWine’s gun plan most palatable to conservative lawmakers who’ve voted to considerably loosen state gun-control legal guidelines lately.

Home violence: Cupp mentioned lawmakers are passing Aisha’s Legislation, which might increase domestic-violence offenses, impose harder penalties, and alter how such circumstances are dealt with by legislation enforcement. The laws is known as for Aisha Fraser, a sixth-grade trainer in Shaker Heights earlier than she was murdered in 2018 by her ex-husband, former Cuyahoga County Widespread Pleas decide and ex-state lawmaker Lance Mason.

Distracted driving: State lawmakers have lengthy resisted calls by DeWine and others to go a harder state distracted-driving legislation. However Cupp mentioned Thursday that lawmakers are more likely to take motion on such a proposal, Home Invoice 283. Huffman beforehand mentioned he’s opposed “conceptually” to distracted-driving payments due to civil-liberties issues and since present traffic-safety legal guidelines are sufficient to handle the issue. However Cupp mentioned the invoice has “achieve[ed] momentum” over the previous couple of months.

Beneath present Ohio legislation, grownup drivers can solely be cited for distracted driving if an officer finds one other, legitimate cause to cease them. HB283 would permit legislation enforcement to make visitors stops solely for distracted driving, and it might create stricter standards for what constitutes “distracted driving.”

Transgender payments: One of many first payments Home members will maintain committee hearings on when lawmakers return subsequent week is Home Invoice 454, which might prohibit Ohioans underneath the age of 18 from acquiring hormones, remedies, puberty blockers and surgical procedure to be able to transition genders, even when they’ve parental consent. Twenty-five Home Republicans are sponsoring the laws; Huffman mentioned that he wouldn’t cease the invoice from passing, although he instructed the Columbus Dispatch that the measure wasn’t one in every of his prime priorities.

Huffman expressed extra concern about Home-passed laws that will ban transgender women and girls from taking part in women’ and ladies’s sports activities in highschool and school in Ohio. Specifically, Huffman has mentioned he objects to a controversial provision of the invoice that will require student-athletes to bear a genital examination if their gender is disputed.

Medical marijuana: Cupp indicated that Home Republicans are against a Senate-passed invoice that will increase entry to medical marijuana to any affected person who can “fairly be anticipated to learn” from it. “That offers the (Home) members concern,” Cupp mentioned.

Final March, the Home handed Home Invoice 60, which might permit Ohioans recognized with autism spectrum dysfunction to legally get hold of medical marijuana. Since then, although, the invoice has stalled within the Senate.

Nursing properties: Cupp mentioned Thursday he desires to take motion throughout lame-duck to assist nursing properties in Ohio which have encountered “vital monetary difficulties.” Cupp mentioned it’s necessary to make sure that sufficient nursing properties stay open for growing old Ohioans. “This isn’t any person who’s crying wolf,” Cupp mentioned of nursing properties. “This can be a very critical matter.”

Abortion: Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, many on either side of the hot-button challenge have anticipated the legislature to go new abortion restrictions throughout lame duck. Proper now, Ohio legislation bans abortion after about six weeks right into a being pregnant, although a decide has positioned that legislation on maintain indefinitely as he considers a authorized problem to it.

Twin payments launched within the Home and Senate would create the crimes of felony abortion and selling abortion, in addition to increase on the crime of abortion manslaughter. There could be no exceptions for rape or incest, although docs prosecuted underneath the measure may argue in courtroom that an abortion they carried out was medically mandatory.

Whereas some GOP lawmakers have known as for a complete abortion ban, Huffman mentioned earlier that he doesn’t assume there will probably be sufficient time to go such a ban by the top of the 12 months. When Cupp was requested Thursday what the plan was relating to abortion, he replied, “I don’t assume there’s a plan but.”