(upbeat music) (graphic pops) - Hello and welcome to The Journal.

I'm Steve Kendall.

Time for an update on what's happening down in Columbus and in DC as we approach the halfway point of 2025.

Joining us, David Jackson, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes from the the BGSU Department of Political Science, and the Host of the State of Ohio, Karen Kasler.

Something that just popped up statewide, Karen, and we'll start with you, I think voters in Ohio thought they had dispensed with the legality or illegality of abortion in the state, but apparently that is not the case, because once again, the evergreen topic of should abortion be legal in Ohio may be up for grabs again.

- Yeah, actually there are several bills that would specifically relate to abortion.

And it's interesting because Ohioans did approve, 57% of Ohioans approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing reproductive rights that specifically talked about abortion, fertility treatments, contraceptives, all of that.

And so now we have a couple of bills, one that would deal with informed, so-called informed consent on abortion, and basically would require a waiting period.

That's something that's currently in law that's already being discussed in court, and there's a lawsuit over that.

But then this one, this is House Bill 370, which was introduced last week on Wednesday, and it would ban abortion completely.

And also, its advocates say would ban most fertility, well, it would ban all fertility treatments, and would ban some contraceptives.

So, this is what even groups that are opposed to abortion, like Ohio Right to Life, they're saying this is something that they cannot support.

It's too far to the extreme.

And this bill would even potentially create criminal penalties for not only people who participate in abortions, but also women and patients who receive them.

So, this is a pretty far reaching bill.

- Now, is it, and what's at the core of this, because obviously we have a constitutional amendment that says abortion is legal, and discussing all the pieces you mentioned, what's at the core of this that would somehow overturn that constitutional amendment?

What's the key element of the one that's been introduced?

- Well, this is a personhood amendment, in the sense of ascribing personhood and the rights that come with that to basically embryos and products of conception.

And so this is a movement that's been around for a long time, but the question of whether that's constitutional or not under Roe vs. Wade was certainly out there.

Now, that the Dobbs decision in 2022 overturned that, you've seen some of these personhood bills make their way back around, but this one has been around for a while in some shape or form, the idea of personhood.

I'm not sure that this really has a lot of traction possibly.

I mean, you've got two very conservative lawmakers and about six other conservative lawmakers who are the sponsors, and then the joint sponsors are co-sponsoring that.

So, I'm just not sure, even with Governor Mike DeWine being the most anti-abortion pro-life governor Ohio's ever seen, I'm not even sure that this would get to him or that he would even sign it because of some serious constitutional questions about this.

- Yeah, and it deals with, as you mentioned, too, contraception also, alternate ways to become pregnant and have children.

So, it's sort of like a big whatever bill that covers anything remotely related to abortion.

- Yeah, and this kind of shows that there has been this split in the anti-abortion activist community where you had right to life groups who were advocating, for a while, they had thought the six-week ban on abortion was too extreme.

And then they eventually came around and backed that.

But then you've got this group, this group called End Abortion Now, which has been pushing this, and some of the other advocates who are on that side who say all abortion is bad, and contraception can be bad, and in vitro fertilization and any of the fertility treatments like that that create embryos that need to be dealt with, that's all bad.

So, there is a split among anti-abortion advocates on what exactly is involved here.

- Yeah, and Nicole, when we look at this, too, the people spoke with that constitutional amendment, we've talked about this before, democracy and how close it is to the people versus the legislature, that sort of thing.

There's that question.

And then the other question would be, is this a fight that the Republicans want to have in front of the people of Ohio, as we approach redistricting?

As we approach, you know, discussions of senate races, governors races, those sort of things?

Is this a fight that Republicans want to have?

Is this a hill they wanna fight on right now or not?

- I think some of them just don't care.

This bill has been out there, it's a model piece of legislation written by an interest group, and then they shopped it around for years before finding two freshman legislators who were willing to introduce it this month.

And the Ohio legislature, because of gerrymandering, is very out of step with the State of Ohio itself.

And they know that and they don't care.

And so they're able to kind of pursue these policies knowing that as long as they can gerrymander the district, they are electorally safe.

Their real risk would be a primary challenge from further to the right.

But with the people who have introduced this, they don't really get much further to the right than this.

And they know that this is not going to become law.

This is grossly unpopular.

Not only we saw the overwhelming support for the constitutional amendment that enshrined these protections into the Ohio Constitution, but we actually have a lesson from other states, right?

We can learn from what other states have done.

And when the Alabama Supreme Court essentially declared personhood rights for embryos, it was a crisis in the state because all of a sudden all fertility treatment shut down.

And not only, like, beginning the process of fertility treatment, but people who were mid-cycle, people lost access to their embryos.

So, they had embryos that they couldn't access.

And then the companies that ship embryos, because people sometimes travel for these procedures, their embryos may be stored out of state, the companies that ship embryos refuse to transport them.

So, some couples had lots of embryos that they no longer had access to, but that they were required to continue to pay rent on because you have to pay for the storage.

And it creates kind of an embryo purgatory for people who can't access their own embryos.

And that was so grossly unpopular that even in a state like Alabama, they tried to very quickly carve out kind of a little bit for fertility treatments.

And so I think this type of legislation is safe in that I think these legislators know they can introduce it without any real fear of it kind of moving.

But the long-term goal is a court challenge that essentially would throw out Ohio's constitutional amendment and make it really, really difficult for people to access any type of abortion care, whether medically necessary or no, because we know those carve-outs don't actually work, most forms of contraception, including the most common forms of contraception, and any fertility treatment.

And that's just not what Ohio voters want.

- [Steve] Well, and I guess, and we've got just a moment here in this segment, is this a situation where you move the bar so high that anything underneath starts to look almost like normal, then?

Like, you cast everything out there and say, okay, we know we're not gonna get everything, but if we get these two or three pieces, that's our goal.

Not ultimate a hundred percent, but to make it seem like, oh, we're giving you a break by only getting three of these things instead of all six, or something.

- I think with some of these, with stuff like informed consent laws that are already in court, that is a little bit.

With this one that would essentially give embryos personhood, no.

Once you essentially say that life begins at fertilization, everything after stops.

And so that means that if someone has an ectopic pregnancy, they can't treat that.

It means that if someone needs chemo and they want to do fertility treatments before to preserve their ability to have a child, sorry, you don't get that.

So, those things are so unpopular, both nationwide, in Ohio, among Democrats, among Republicans, among independents, that this one is not necessarily a move the line.

The informed consent type stuff, that they're just trying to kind of kick the ball a little bit further, hope it ends up in court again, and then see what sticks.

- Okay, well, when we come back, we can touch on this a little bit, finish it up a little bit, and then we'll come up with a couple other things we have on our list to talk about today.

Back in just a moment with David Jackson, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, and Karen Kasler here on The Journal.

You're with us on The Journal.

Our guests are David Jackson, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, and Karen Kasler.

Karen, kind of to add just a couple of other pieces to this discussion about abortion that we're having, our potential laws in Ohio, the fact is, even though the constitutional amendment exists and was passed by the people, if I understand it correctly, most if not all of the previous abortion legislation that was passed remains on the books in Ohio.

None of that has been revoked, repealed, any of that.

So, all of that is still out there, even though we have this constitutional amendment.

- Yeah, all of that is in court challenges right now.

You've got even the six-week abortion ban, which Attorney General Dave Yost had said would not exist under the constitutional amendment, that's being litigated, going to the Ohio Supreme Court.

All of these laws will go to the Ohio Supreme Court.

And right now there's one Democrat and the rest are Republicans on the Ohio Supreme Court.

And some of the court members have said that they are sympathetic to anti-abortion causes.

So that's something to consider as you start talking about where the status of these laws is.

- Yeah, and Nicole, final word on this for you.

- I think just that these court challenges are gonna keep going on.

They're slow-walking them.

We elect our judges in Ohio.

And so they know that they're accountable to some extent to the public.

And so they're not in a hurry to weigh in on this and go against the voters.

And so even though they've said multiple times what their positions are on these.

And so, but we know what the State of Ohio looks like in terms of opinion on these issues.

We know what the voters said, and the voters passed a constitutional amendment enshrining these protections into law.

- Yeah, and David, Nicole referenced this in one of the earlier pieces, that because of the way the state is laid out district-wise, both at the general assembly level and at the congressional level, there isn't a lot of fear by incumbents to really listen to their constituents maybe as much as they would've.

So, once again, we're gonna talk about, we're gonna use the R word, we're gonna talk about redistricting because that has to come up again, because we didn't manage it as well as we could have the last time.

So, talk about where we stand with redistricting because that affects congressional districts, and probably to some degree, some general assembly districts, possibly.

- Redistricting, the gift that keeps on giving here in Ohio.

The evergreen topic.

So, yeah, right now what has to happen is the congressional districts have to be redrawn.

And right now in Ohio we have 15 congressional districts.

10 of those are held by Republicans, and 5 of those are held by Democrats.

There's different ways to measure the partisan skew of the state overall.

But if you say that roughly Ohio is a 55-45 Republican state right now, that wouldn't be entirely unfair.

That's about what Donald Trump won it by.

Sherrod Brown lost by a much narrower margin than that.

So, you could even say it's much tighter than that.

Well, so, the question then becomes to people who are opposed to gerrymandering, should the apportionment of safe seats for each party match the overall skew of the state?

Now, even before getting into that debate, one thing people who truly believe in gerrymandering reform would say is, why are we even talking about safe Democratic seats and safe Republican seats and safe partisan seats?

Shouldn't we be drawing districts in such a way as to keep communities together and create, you know, something that isn't completely dominated by partisanship?

But since we're talking about politics in the United States, everything goes through the lens of partisanship.

And so these districts have to be redone, like we know.

It's a 10-5 Republican majority right now.

Ohio's Senator, Bernie Moreno, said that a 12-3 Republican to Democratic gerrymander would be fair because that would be representative of what the partisan skew of the State of Ohio is.

And there's no data to suggest that 80% of the people of Ohio prefer the Republican party.

There's no even generous measure that would show that to be the case.

And then up here in northwest Ohio, we see this happening in one of our congressional districts up here.

So, right now, Toledo environs are represented, it's a much bigger district than that, but by Representative Marcy Kaptur.

She is the longest-serving woman in the history of the United States Congress and had a very, very narrow reelection last year compared with former state representative and almost speaker of the house, Derek Merrin.

And it came down to battles over, you know, provisional ballots and absentee ballots.

And the district right now skews maybe 7-8% Republican.

And a lot of Democrats believe, probably rightfully so, that Representative Kaptur is their best, and some people would say, only chance at holding that district given the partisan skew.

Because if you look at what happened in the election last year statewide, you know, Trump plus 11 and Sherrod Brown lost by 3, so he outperformed by about 8 points.

That's about what Kaptur outperformed, as I understand the data not having looked at it, you know, in the last minute or so, outperformed in her district as well.

Well, that's an obvious target then that the Republicans would be interested in making into an even more Republican district.

And we know that people are interested in that seat.

State Representative Josh Williams last week- - [Steve] From Sylvania.

- From Sylvania Township, announced that he is running for that seat.

And former representative Derek Merrin announced this week that he's running for the seat as well.

So, already there are two, you know, extremely heavyweight Republican candidates who are, you know, excited to run in that district because of the way it's already skewed partisan-wise, and how close Merrin came last time with the expectation that it could be an even more Republican district this time.

So, you've got candidates already entering the race.

You've got campaign ads already running both for and against Representative Kaptur.

Representative Kaptur has been all over the district, all over social media.

So, we are in June of 2025, and the November 2026 election is well and truly underway.

- [Steve] Wow.

Yeah.

Which I guess isn't surprising given that everything moves much faster now.

And I guess the thought is, too, as you kind of alluded to, that they may try to redraw that district to make it even more difficult for her to hold onto it, which is what happened in the last go-around.

That district shifted and became more more Republican.

When we come back, Karen, we'll check in with you and see just where the state is right now on redistricting.

Because obviously they have to start talking about that once they dispense with some of these other things.

Back in just a moment with Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, Karen Kasler, and David Jackson here on The Journal.

Thank you for staying with us on The Journal.

Our guests are Karen Kasler, Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, and David Jackson.

Karen, we were talking about redistricting.

Is it bubbling toward the surface down there?

Because obviously, state has to tackle that sometime in the very near future.

So, is there anything going on down there?

Is that even a topic of discussion in Columbus?

- Yeah, that has to be done again this year.

So, right now, legislators are really caught up with the budget.

It has passed the House and Senate.

It's now on the Conference Committee.

It needs to be passed out of the Conference Committee and then on the House and Senate floor.

And then Governor DeWine has to sign it by June 30th.

So, that's really where a lot of lawmakers minds are.

But there have been some questions asked about when we might expect something to happen on redistricting, and it looks like sometime this summer.

And you do have Republican and Democratic leaders saying current maps are probably, the new maps are gonna probably gonna look a lot like the current maps.

The issue may be the congressional maps, because you have Republican Senator Bernie Marino, US Senator Bernie Marino, saying they could be 12-3, as you just heard David just talking about, that Republicans would be dominating 12-3, and Democrats are saying they would not support that at all.

And right now it's 10-5, so, we'll have to see what happens here.

One thing that I'm wondering is back last year when the redistricting proposal was on the ballot for voters, Governor Mike DeWine had said he wanted to work for a Iowa-style redistricting proposal.

And he said if voters rejected that issue, that he would work with lawmakers on that.

We haven't heard him talk about that lately.

And so I'm just wondering where that Iowa-style proposal that he had talked about might be.

- Yeah.

Okay.

And Nicole, you know, we talk about Ohio redistricting, but these kind of battles and issues are being taken into account all over the country.

They're happening in almost every state where there's a discussion about how to draw a district.

So, it isn't just Ohio that's been plowing this field over and over again.

- Yes and no.

- [Steve] Okay.

So, we redistrict in the US every 10 years after we do the Census.

It is part of our Constitution.

We do the Census, we redraw the lines.

The way we redraw the lines, though, varies from state to state.

So, it's one of the things that makes it fun.

Some states have citizen redistricting commissions, like Michigan, California.

It's what kind of Ohio was going for with that ballot proposal.

Some states have legislative redistricting, some states use a committee.

There's a ton of different ways to do it.

You can get as creative as you want here.

What makes Ohio unique is we are super-gerrymandered in favor of the Republican party.

And it was such a disaster when we tried to do it after the last Census because voters in Ohio had actually passed two efforts to increase bipartisan cooperation on how we draw our lines in 2015 and 2018.

And the first time we tried to do that, it failed spectacularly.

And we ended up with very gerrymandered maps that the Ohio Supreme Court threw out multiple times.

And so the reason we're kind of back here again when you're not hearing this nationwide discussion about this is because we failed to get enough bipartisan support when we did this after the 2020 Census.

And so now we're trying to draw the lines again.

And my guess is, exactly what Karen said, which is I think we're probably gonna see pretty similar lines based on kind of where we ended last time.

- Yeah, and one other issue that we want to address, too, because obviously the legislature was fairly busy last year.

They did what they determined to be an overhaul of higher education, known as Senate Bill 1, lots of testimony and opposition, lots of discussion.

In the end, it became law.

Karen, there's obviously a move to put that on the ballot, to make it a ballot issue to overturn that.

Is there any discussion about that in Columbus right now?

How is that being bandied about?

- Yeah, you're talking about Senate Bill 1, and it's Senate Bill 1 because the last general assembly did not pass, but it became a priority for Republicans this time around.

And this is the bill that bans most mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training, bans faculty strikes, all sorts of, it's kind of a, it is a sweeping overhaul of public higher education in Ohio, though, there is also some, there are tentacles that go out into private colleges as well.

And there is a bill now in the legislature that would do the same thing in K-12 schools.

So, this petition drive started after it passed, and DeWine signed it in April, starting mostly with Youngstown State, some faculty up there.

They have now wrapped their signature gathering effort and they will be filing their petitions this week trying to stop the law.

It's supposed to go into effect on Friday the 27th.

They're trying to stop the law from going into effect to put it before voters this fall to repeal it.

And so this has been an all volunteer effort, no paid circulators, and really no support from the organized union which has been looking at litigation rather than this effort because putting repeals on the ballot are expensive, they take a lot of resources, and this has been a volunteer-led effort because of that.

- Yeah, and David, just to be clear, you've been intensely involved in Senate Bill 1, and especially obviously in opposition.

So, kind of explain your position and then let's talk about Senate Bill 1 and what you see as the impacts it's going to have if it goes into effect, and if it doesn't get repealed, get on the ballot and get repealed?

- Sure, so, speaking not as the objective political scientist that I was in the previous segment, but speaking as the President of the Bowling Green State University Faculty Association, which is the collective bargaining union for the full-time faculty at BG, I was the first in the Senate to testify against SB1 and the first in the House to testify against SB1.

So, my position, obviously is publicly well known on that.

In terms of why the bill is troubling to those of us who are in unions, the bill not only bans strikes, it bans bargaining at all over post-tenure review, over the evaluation of faculty, over most forms of what's called retrenchment, which is when a university says they don't have any money and have to start cutting employees.

So, it is our position that Senate Bill 1 is the most direct attack on organized labor in Ohio since Senate Bill 5.

And so, unfortunately, those folks who voted for the bill because they liked some things in it decided that it was worth attacking unions to get those other things that they wanted in the bill.

So, there is the effort to repeal the bill, as Karen pointed out.

Most times when people do things like this, there are paid signature gatherers because you have to have so many signatures statewide, and you have to have signatures in 44, I believe, of the 88 counties, reach a certain level as well.

And so it's a monumental effort just to get the signatures.

And even if you turn in the officially correct number of signatures, each one of them obviously is checked to make sure that they're valid.

So, you need to turn in even more than the minimum number.

Then, if you're successful at that, you need to get on the ballot what you've gotten on the ballot.

You need to then mount a campaign.

I think, in rough terms, Senate Bill 5 was a $35 million campaign way back then.

- [Steve] That was years ago.

Yeah.

- Nothing has gotten less expensive at this point now.

So, lots of energy behind the effort to get it on the ballot with a recognition that it is an incredible uphill battle in order to do so.

- Yeah, and there are those other pieces that both Karen and Nicole related about the fact that it does change the way things are done in the classroom, in just the administration of higher education.

And those are the pieces you talked about that people are willing to say, well, to get that, we're willing to deal, you know, allow this stuff that's sort of, in some people's minds, anti-labor, we're willing to take that and just say, well, we're gonna get these other pieces, but that comes with it.

- [David] Yeah, there were a couple of dozen topics in the bill.

It was a very broad and comprehensive bill to change higher education in Ohio, including a real interest in what goes on in the classroom and what faculty are doing.

So, I just wanna, and the legislators I've spoken with, and I've had, you know, vigorous conversations with, you know, the author of the bill and other supporters of the bill, the perception of what goes on in our classrooms in Columbus is completely different than what goes on in our classrooms.

And I strongly encourage and welcome any legislator to come to my American Political Thought class, my Introduction to American Government class, my Politics and Mass Media class, any day unannounced, and come and see what it is that we're doing in the classroom.

- [Steve] Good, okay, well, we're gonna have to leave it at that.

Thank you so much all of you, Nicole, David, Karen, thank you so much.

We'll get back together again shortly, because obviously these things are gonna keep rolling through the summer and into the fall, and there's always something to talk about in the great State of Ohio.

So, thank you so much for being here.

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS.

We'll see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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