Potential Roe overturn leaves distant options for Ohio women: Capitol Letter

Road trip: If Roe v. Wade falls and Ohio outlaws abortion, women would have to travel up to 339 miles to obtain a legal abortion in another state. Laura Hancock highlights geographic information system research that looked at the closest abortion facility from each Ohio county. If Pennsylvania and Michigan keep abortion rights, the travel would be shorter. But each state has Republican legislatures and Democratic governors, so abortion rights aren’t guaranteed.

A new year, same as the last? Ohio public schools could head into the 2022-2023 school year without a state superintendent after Steve Dackin resigned after 11 days. Hancock explains how enrollment and math and reading scores have fallen during the pandemic. The Ohio Ethics Commission cannot say whether Dackin’s under investigation for not waiting a year between serving on the Ohio State Board of Education and becoming superintendent, but if he were, his stepping away from the job and not taking any money should help mitigate any punishment he could face.

Fresh face: Senate Democrats announced Monday they had chosen a retired Cleveland electrician with no previous experience holding elected office to fill a vacant state senate term. As Andrew Tobias writes, Dale Martin, 66, will fill the unexpired term that opened up after longtime state lawmaker Sandra Williams announced last week that she would resign to take an unspecified job. Senate Democrats didn’t say why they had chosen Martin over several other applicants, including state Rep. Terrence Upchurch of Cleveland. The term expires at the end of the year, and Martin will be unable to run for election since he hasn’t filed for the Aug. 2 primary election.

Winning formula: Ohio has loosened baby-formula-related rules for the state’s Women, Infants and Children supplemental nutrition program, which provides free food to lower-income women and children, in response to the national formula shortage. Per Tobias, Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday the federal government has OK’d adding additional sizes of formula to a state list of WIC-eligible products. He also said state officials are working to change program rules so WIC enrollees can use a doctor’s prescription to obtain generic, store-brand equivalents of a specific prescription formula.

Forgive thy loans: As President Joe Biden weighs whether to forgive federal student loans, Twinsburg native Jalil Mustaffa Bishop told the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs that he should erase them, Sabrina Eaton writes. The Villanova University assistant education professor who studies how black borrowers experience student loans told the committee chaired by Ohio’s Sherrod Brown that “we need full debt cancellation, and we need it yesterday.” The top Republican on Brown’s committee, Pennsylvania’s Patrick Toomey, described loan cancellation as” a massive wealth transfer from taxpayers to a small subset of mostly wealthy individuals” and expressed skepticism that Biden has the legal authority to do it.

Cleveland moonshot: Cleveland should be the new home for a new federal agency called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) that’s being set up to drive biomedical breakthroughs, a group of Ohio Congress members said in a Monday letter to President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. Eaton reports that cities in several states are making pitches to be the new home of the agency tasked with making biomedical discoveries to prevent, detect and treat diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

Solar flares: Some of the measures that the Biden administration announced Monday to promote more widespread solar energy adoption will benefit China’s state-subsidized solar industry, advocates of building more solar panels in Ohio said Monday. Eaton reports they’re upset by a two-year ban on new tariffs on solar panels imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Critics say China has shifted production to those countries to avoid tariffs. A statement from Arizona-based First Solar, which produces solar panels in Perrysburg, Ohio, said the firm is “deeply disappointed in today’s announcement.”

That’s the ticket: A bill that would grant smaller townships authority to enforce traffic laws on state highways is awaiting DeWine’s signature. As Jim Provance reports for the Toledo Blade, House Bill 206 would lower the minimum population a township – from 50,000 people to 5,000 — must have to have that authority.

Private practice: Former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley returned to private practice after his failed bid in the Democratic primary for Ohio governor. Scott Wartman of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that Cranley will rejoin the law firm of Keating Muething and Klekamp, the firm where he worked before becoming mayor in 2013. Cranley lost the May primary to former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley by a wide margin.

Five things we learned from the May 16, 2022 financial disclosure of Senate President Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican:

1. In addition to his legislative salary, Huffman made more than $100,000 through his legal practice, he also an amount from $25,000 to $49,999 from his state retirement.

2. His law firm is called Huffman, Kelley and Brock LLC.

3. He is a member of a real-estate company called Downtown Lima Properties, LLC.

4. He owns two rental properties. He made an amount from $25,000 to $49,999 in rental income.

5. He received $8,828 in free travel related to his official duties, including more than $4,000 from the Ohio Senate, $3,167 from the National Conference of State Legislature and $688.27 from the Excellence in Education National, Inc.

Former President Donald Trump has endorsed GOP candidate J.R. Majewski’s bid for Congress against Toledo Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur.

Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown has endorsed Nan Whaley for Ohio governor.

Matt Borges, former Ohio Republican Party chair

State Rep. Jennifer Gross

Hunter Patterson, legislative aide to state Rep. Richard Brown

David Pepper, former Ohio Democratic Party chair

“I agree that it’s helpful. It’s been a long-time coming for Allen County. It’s unfortunate that the old saying comes into play at times that ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’ “

John Fortney, a spokesman for Senate President Matt Huffman, to the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jason Williams. Fortney was quoted in a recent Williams column highlighting the $2.4 million the project received in the recent state capital budget. Both Huffman and House Speaker Bob Cupp are from Lima.

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