Ohio taxpayers sent families $966 million for private school tuition: Capitol Letter

Rotunda Rumblings

School work: The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce said that as of Aug. 7, the state has shelled out $966.2 million for private school scholarships for the school year that just ended. The General Assembly expanded one of the five voucher programs to include upper-income Ohioans and its participation has ballooned from 23,272 participating students in the 2022-2023 school year to 89,770 students last year. Numbers will be finalized in October, Laura Hancock reports.

Let’s make a deal: FirstEnergy on Monday signed an agreement with Attorney General Dave Yost’s office on Monday to pay $20 million to avoid prosecution on state charges over the House Bill 6 scandal, as well as to drop FirstEnergy from Yost’s HB6-related civil lawsuit. As Jeremy Pelzer reports, the agreement means the Akron-based utility will pay a total of just $250 million, plus an expected $100 million regulatory fine, to skirt charges for its role in the largest bribery scandal in Ohio history; consultants previously warned the company it could face up to $3.8 billion in fines if it was indicted.

Job qualifications: U.S. Sen Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, has introduced legislation that would make it easier for workers who lack four-year college degrees to get federal government jobs, Sabrina Eaton reports. The “Federal Jobs for STARs Act” that he introduced with U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, would remove unnecessary educational requirements from federal civil job postings on USAJOBS.com.

Failed investment: An indoor agriculture startup called AppHarvest that U.S. Sen. JD Vance invested in and publicly pitched “not only failed as a business after pursuing rapid growth, but also provided a grim job experience for many of the working-class Kentuckians” the Cincinnati Republican vowed to help, CNN reports. The rise and fall of the company, which declared bankruptcy last year, and Vance’s role in it, cuts against his image as a champion for the working class — an image that helped catapult him to the top of the Republican ticket as Donald Trump’s running mate.

Red meat: Although the speech Vance’s wife, Usha, delivered to last month’s GOP convention praised her husband for adapting to her vegetarian diet despite being a “meat and potatoes kind of guy,” the vice-presidential candidate is not a vegetarian and has frequently appears in photos “alongside all manner of plated flesh”, the Los Angeles Times clarifies. Only 4% of Americans identify as vegetarians, according to a recent Gallup poll. And these days, there’s little doubt: In popular American culture, vegetarianism often is perceived as “liberal, wimpy and feminine,” a food studies professor told the publication.

Speaking of red meat: A Washington Post fact check has evaluated a trio of claims that Vance made about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, including a claim that she “wants to take away your ability to eat red meat,” and found them to be false. Other false claims it examines are Vance’s contention that Harris wants to take away gas stoves and his insistence that Harris has said it’s reasonable not to have children over climate change.

It pays to advertise: The National Republican Senatorial Committee canceled its fall cable ad reservations totaling more than $700,000 in the Ohio Senate race between Brown, the Democratic incumbent, and GOP challenger Bernie Moreno, Washington Examiner reports. According to AdImpact, NRSC canceled its full cable reservation in one of the most competitive races in the country in which ads were set to run between Aug. 31 and Election Day. In a social media post, the GOP Senate campaign arm said it still regards Ohio as a top pickup opportunity but believes its money can be more efficiently spent on hybrid ads.

Delayed again: For those anticipating an order over whether the state’s six-week “heartbeat” abortion ban is constitutional, the wait goes on. First, Hamilton County District Court Judge Christian Jenkins gave himself a deadline for the order on May 20. Then he pushed it to June 25. Then he pushed it to Tuesday. And on Tuesday, he pushed his deadline to Aug. 29. The state has been prohibited from enforcing the heartbeat law for 22 months, meaning women can obtain abortions past six weeks. But abortion clinics and doctors want Jenkins to weigh the law against the new abortion rights amendment that voters passed last November and strike down the law for good. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost agrees the ban is no longer constitutional but thinks other parts of the law should stand.

New job: Lee Strang, a University of Toledo law professor who was a driving force behind the legislature creating five new “intellectual diversity centers” at a handful of universities, was hired to lead one of them. Strang will be executive director of the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society at Ohio State University. Strang was also the leader of the University of Toledo’s intellectual diversity center, and has testified to the legislature on a number of issues, including in favor of the special election last year that was intended to foil the abortion rights amendment, Ohio Capital Journal’s Megan Henry reports.

Lobbying Lineup

Five organizations lobbying on House Bill 103, which would establish a K-12 social studies task force to implement the American Birthright standards by the conservative Civics Alliance. The bill hasn’t had any hearings since June 13, 2023.

1. Cleveland Metropolitan School District

2. Ohio Council of Churches

3. Ohio Federation of Teachers

4. Buckeye Association of School Administrators

5. Warren City Schools

Birthdays

State Rep. Thomas Hall

Grace Flajnik, legislative aide to state Rep. Justin Pizzulli

Straight From The Source

“Any application question or line item requesting an applicant’s race or ethnicity was removed from all materials provided to application readers or other individuals participating in admissions decisions.”

-A section of Ohio State University’s website, as reported by Ohio Capital Journal’s Megan Henry, who looked at how Ohio’s universities are treating affirmative action after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions policies last summer.

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