(upbeat music) - Making it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution is harder than proponents expected.

Recreational marijuana proponents aim for a November vote.

And should Ohioans have to declare party affiliation when they register to vote?

"Ideas" is next.

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas", I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Hundreds of people this week protested the Republican led effort to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution and the effort to force an August vote on that issue is running outta time.

The push to legalize recreational marijuana is moving forward again after lawmakers failed to act.

Should Ohio require voters to declare party affiliation months in advance of primaries, some GOP lawmakers say so, and Shammas Molik is set to be the next mayor of Akron in 2024.

After winning the crowded Democratic primary, he'd be the first person of color to hold the office.

We'll talk about those stories and the rest of the week's news on the reporter's round table.

Joining me this week in studio from Idea Stream Public Media, Abigail Bottar, and from the Buckeye Flame, editor Ken Schneck.

In Columbus, Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

Time is running out for lawmakers to get an issue on the August ballot that would make it harder to amend the state constitution.

The idea pushed by majority Republicans is to ask voters to raise the threshold for amendments to 60% of the vote, an extremely high bar, the effort to compel an August vote on that measure met big opposition this week.

Karen, lots of intrigue here, but let's start with Speaker Stevens says there will not be votes this week.

Do you expect there to be something next week on this, or are we seeing sort of a quiet, slow death?

- I don't know what to expect at this point.

I mean, I do expect that there would be no votes today.

I know there are a lot of people who are suspicious about last minute votes, especially on a day like a Friday, but that's not gonna happen today.

So I think the next couple of days though, are gonna be critical because the question is whether this bill to create this August special election gets through committee, the resolution, the 60% voter approval resolution has gotten through committee.

It could go to the house floor next week, but the special election bill has not gotten through committee.

And there are 13 members in that committee.

Five of them are Democrats and one is a Republican who says he will vote against it.

So one more Republican vote, and that bill does not get through committee and doesn't go to the house floor and the whole thing's over.

- [Mike] Hmm.

- So it's going to be very interesting to see the pressure that's on Speaker Stevens.

And there is a lot of it, including from a new political action committee that was set up that's being funded by, largely, almost exclusively by a billionaire Republican mega donor from Illinois named Richard Uihlein.

And there are ads that are running to try to pressure Stevens.

There's tweets out there trying to pressure Steven.

So he's getting a lot of pressure whether he changes the members of the committee, that could be an avenue or if he leaves the committee as it is, and we'll see what happens then.

- Ken and I were talking about this just before we went on the air.

So we have a lot of outside money coming into this effort, Ken, for what lawmakers say the reason there needs to be a 60% threshold is to keep outside money out of these efforts.

So they're being basically saying, this is an example.

- Right, it's almost like the very definition of irony, Mike.

Yeah, this is exactly what they're trying to prevent except their content to use it if it furthers these goals right now.

And we're talking quite a bit of money pouring in from outside the state.

- And lemme just add one thing here.

I asked the, or somebody asked the, one of the sponsors of this resolution, Brian Stewart about that, that there's this out-of-state billionaire who's funding this and you've said that this is about keeping out-of-state interest out of the Ohio Constitution.

And he said that this actually proves the point that they're trying to make, that out-of-state interests can come in and do things with the Ohio Constitution.

So I thought that was an interesting observation.

- We've got two different things tracking here.

So the first one is whether there'll be an August election, and the reason for that, many of the proponents of amending the constitution to include abortion rights, say basically this is just a move to try to preempt that, make it harder for us to do that.

So that's one of the things that's happening on the other track though, is the whole idea of making it 60% at some point it would be during a regular election.

When we see all this opposition, the opposition isn't just to the idea of an August vote.

The opposition is to raising the threshold, right?

- Yeah, and my State House News bureau colleague Jo Ingles, ask Senate President Matt Huffman about that idea of if, let's say the August special election doesn't happen or voters don't approve this, and then the Reproductive Rights Amendment goes forward in November and people do approve that, would he want to put the 60% voter approval resolution before voters say next year?

And he said, no, that's not what he wants to do.

So I think that there have been lawmakers who have been pretty clear that this is about that reproductive rights amendment and making it harder and potentially even impossible for that to pass.

So I think you're right that we've got these two tracks going here.

And I often get, I wouldn't say often, I occasionally get questions on Twitter about why we aren't covering the pro arguments more.

And we have covered those.

We always put that in our stories.

But the opposition has just gotten so huge.

I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

And I've been here for senate Bill five and House Bill six and all these things.

I mean, you've got hundreds of groups, Ohio's four living ex governors, five former attorneys General, the Ohio Association of Elections Officials, the Libertarian Party says that they're against this.

So this is really an incredible amount of opposition to this idea.

- Does that sway anybody?

I mean, is that what Stevens is listening to?

- That's a good question.

And I'm just not sure.

I mean, there were hundreds of people who came and marched around the State House this week and came in and chanted and it had a little bit of a Senate bill five, which was the Union collective bargaining law that got overturned by voters in 2011.

It had a little bit of that vibe, but I don't know if it makes a difference.

And that's what the next couple of days I think are gonna show us, is our, these lawmakers being swayed by public opinion.

Is this, are these hundreds of people?

Is that public opinion?

I mean, it's gonna be interesting to find out.

- What, and Karen, can I just ask Karen, like what about someone like Secretary of State Frank LaRose who said last year, I mean it was just last year that he testified, wasn't it, to get rid of August special elections?

- Right and he, and there were other, in fact, all Republicans save for one, I believe, voted for the idea of getting rid of all August special elections except for in very specific circumstances.

So this bill would bring back the August special election in specific circumstances such as voting on an amendment that was proposed by state lawmakers.

So it's really clear once you start laying out all of this where the dots are and any, like I said, you've got some lawmakers who are being open about that this is about protecting Ohio's constitution from this reproductive rights amendment getting into it.

- You mentioned the living former governors.

What about the current governor?

He seems to be doing something I've seen him be able to do before, which is basically, well, it's not in my court, so I don't really have to weigh in.

- Well, he does not have to weigh in on the 60% resolution.

That's true because once it passes the house, it can go to voters.

But he does have to sign the special election law if that passes the house.

And we've asked him and he said that he will.

And I don't think that that's a huge surprise given how pro-life he is, because again, this is really about that reproductive rights amendment.

But I think that there were some who were hoping otherwise because this really does feel like it's a flip flop from what happened just a couple of months ago when those August special elections that were called costly and wasteful and nobody pays attention to 'em and all that stuff.

Now we're bringing them back in certain circumstances, especially for something as huge as changing the Constitution and requiring 60% voter approval to amend it.

- So it's not just abortion rights, though.

There are other issues, other attempts to amend the Constitution that would be affected.

Bob sends an email and he says it's much bigger than the abortion issue.

It'll prevent a correction of the gerrymandered bill and many other things.

- Well, groups would have to come to the ballot with those things.

That's absolutely true though.

I mean there are certainly, you've got the Ohio Restaurant Association, which is opposed to this because there's a minimum wage amendment that could potentially come forward.

I mean, you've got the groups, they're gun rights groups that are supporting this.

And I said the Ohio Restaurant Association is supporting the 60% amendment, gun rights groups are as well, because certainly there's the possibility that gun control groups could bring a constitutional amendment forward.

So yes, it is bigger, but right now, it's really pretty clearly focused on getting that August special election so that 60% threshold is in place before voters see a possible reproductive rights amendment in November.

- And last thing on that, the deadline set by Frank LaRose was May 10th.

I don't know if he gets to set a hard and fast deadline.

Is it hard or could it be later than that and still happen?

- Well as Secretary of State, he's in con he's in communication with the 88 County Boards of Elections.

They're the people who would have to administer this election.

And so he said May 10th is the date.

I heard this week though, that May 10th may not be the date.

We've seen dates like this get pushed back.

And so, I presume that May 10th is the date and if it doesn't happen by then, there won't be an August special election.

But stay tuned.

That date could potentially be fluid if indeed there's a thought that there are the votes to make this happen.

(upbeat music) - Council member Shammas Molik won the crowded democratic primary for Akron Mayor with nearly 43% of the vote Tuesday.

There was no Republican primary and no independence filed before the deadline.

So Molik is set to become mayor in January.

Abigail, this race was closely watched.

We had a poll on it.

We knew who the top three folks were and it turned out that that was pretty darn accurate.

But not just because of it being Akron mayor, but also the idea that it wasn't a primary, this was really the mayor's race.

- Right, right, yeah.

Unlike other cities, like I believe Cleveland takes the top two right, and sends them to the general election in November.

Akron just has a Republican primary and a Democratic primary and there were no Republicans, no independents who ever won the Democratic primary we are expecting to become mayor unless there's some crazy write-in that gets a lot of votes in November.

It will be Shammas Malik that'll take the mayor's seat next year.

- And he'd only been a council member for one term.

- Yes.

- So this is a trend it seems, and Mayor Justin Bibb in Cleveland hadn't had any elective experience.

There are are a number of young new mayors.

I wonder what it's saying about what these communities want in terms of leadership.

- Yeah, I remember hearing a segment about that on "Here And Now" when Mayor Bibb was elected about young millennial mayors of color specifically, and now we have two in northeast Ohio.

And I mean, I really think it's indicative of a change that people want to see in their communities.

That they're tired of the establishment that's been running their city for years and years and want some fresh "Ideas", some young perspectives about how to actually make some change in their cities for the better.

- In the case of Akron Shammas Malik was going up against Marco Somerville who would be a definition of establishment.

He'd been the deputy mayor for a long time.

Also Tara Mosley, who was an ally of his.

- [Abigail] Yes.

- The two of them said they'd pick each other as deputy mayor if they had to make that choice during our debate conversation.

What happens with those other two top vote getters?

What are their plans?

- Right, so Somerville, like you said, he's kind of the definition of establishment political figure in Akron.

He said that he plans to focus on his business.

He runs a funeral home in Akron with his daughter and his family.

Mosley is also currently sitting on Akron city council.

So she said she's gonna focus the rest of the year on that and wrapping up all of the work she wants to do.

But she plans to still work in public service when in her concession speech, she quickly threw her support behind Molik and said she'd be happy to work with him during his work in the mayor's office.

But she also said that if things don't go well that she might run again in four years, so, well.

- If you believe the debate, she's gonna be deputy mayor.

- Well, I mean that is definitely the rumbling.

- [Mike] It's a tough question.

- Yeah, that's definitely the rumblings.

But yeah, they're definitely politically aligned, mostly in Molik.

(upbeat music) - Proponents of recreational marijuana will begin collecting signatures for a November statewide vote after the general assembly failed to enact its own recreational marijuana legalization.

I got an email that was sent earlier in the program from Heather who says, and it's a good question, "Why are 150,000 or so signatures required for the marijuana petition, but 425,000 are required for reproductive health."

It's 'cause they're two different kinds of measures.

Can you explain that?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- And that's, it's a really, this is a really good example of how this whole thing works out and what lawmakers are hoping groups would do.

They want groups to do this initiated statute, which is what this is where a group comes up with a statute of law, they want the legislature to pass, they take it to the legislature.

The legislature has four months to act on it.

If the legislature doesn't, then they can go back out and gather about 125,000 signatures and put it before voters in the fall.

This would be a law though, and a law can always be overturned by the legislature.

So a lot of groups that say, hey, we wanna put this out there and we want voters to approve it will go the constitutional amendment route.

Because if you're gonna spend all this time and money to get 125,000 signatures and you're gonna have to wait for the legislature to act or whatever, why not just do a constitutional amendment which cannot be overturned by the legislature?

The only thing that can overturn a constitutional amendment is another constitutional amendment.

So this is an initiated statute and that's why it's different.

And there are some lawmakers who wanna vote against that 60% voter approval that we talked about earlier.

And they want people to start using this and they wanna put some safe harbor provisions around the initiated statute process.

For instance, if a group went and passed a law that legislators disagreed with, they asked voters and voters passed it, the legislature couldn't come back and override it for a year or a couple years or whatever.

That's the compromise that they're trying to come up with.

- So what do you think might happen?

There are a lot of people in the legislature that are not fans of legalizing marijuana.

So if we go down the line, they get the 125,000 signatures, it gets on the ballot as they expect the voters of Ohio say, yes, we already have medical marijuana, we might as well have recreational.

Would there then be an effort in the legislature and would it be successful to overturn that?

- That's a really good question' and it certainly could happen.

The legislature could do that.

I mean, arguably the legislature could put together its own constitutional amendment and overturn, say we hear a lot of complaints about the casino amendment.

They could have overturned that with the constitutional amendment if they brought it to voters.

So yeah, the legislature could indeed though pass its own piece of legislation that says, "Nope, we don't want legalization of marijuana and for marijuana to be regulated like alcohol," which is what this bill would do.

But it'll be interesting to see if this makes the ballot what the balance will be.

Because polls have certainly shown that legalization of marijuana bipartisan across the board is something that people are accepting of.

And so that's one of the reasons why this group is putting itself out there and saying, we wanna have voters decide on this.

Though marijuana is still listed as illegal under federal law.

That kind of creates a different situation when it comes to businesses setting up to try to bank and this kind of stuff.

- It just seems like such a different environment now with medical marijuana 'cause I can't tell you how many people I know who have medical marijuana access, who I think it's pretty, it seems to me that it's not incredibly difficult to get.

And so the idea that it's almost being seen as recreational and that next step doesn't seem to be as high a step as it was before.

- I've heard the same thing.

And in fact, there's a bill in the legislature in the Senate that would indeed expand the already expansive list of conditions for which you can get a recommendation for marijuana.

It's not a prescription, it's a recommendation, but yeah, I've heard that list is pretty big and as long as you fall into some of those guidelines, you can probably get that recommendation does cost money though, you gotta find the physician that'll do it and all that sort of stuff and you gotta pay for the card and everything.

- I heard, yeah, if under five foot five is gonna be right.

- [Ken] Is that right?

- Yeah.

- I'm still moving past the fact that you said it's not as high of a step, but it's also keeping in mind that we have to have an eye on what other states around us are doing, right?

As we as Ohio as the legislators continuously say that they're trying to position Ohio as a destination place for people to move to.

This is one of those issues that people look at at how permissive a state is with regards to marijuana.

(upbeat music) - There's a new push by some Republicans including Secretary of State Frank LaRose to close Ohio's primaries.

What does that mean?

In Ohio's current open primaries, voters do not have to declare their political affiliation when they register to vote.

They can request either Republican or democratic primary ballot at the polling place.

Secretary Street Frank LaRose is among those who want voters to declare their party affiliation when they register.

Karen, what's behind this one?

- Well, I think first of all, in Ohio, like you said, you don't have to register as a Republican or a Democrat.

You're considered affiliated with the Republican or democratic party by virtue of the vote you cast in the primary.

It's one of the reasons I don't vote in primaries because I don't want anybody to think that I am affiliated with either the Republican or democratic primary.

So the idea though has been what's been called party rating, which is where a group of people say Democrats will pull Republican ballots in a primary and vote for a candidate they think will do well against their candidate.

And this is a strategy that goes back to, I think, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Clinton back in the '90s.

I mean where the suggestion was go vote for this guy 'cause he'll be easier to beat in the fall.

There are groups that wanna stop that.

And Secretary of State, Frank Rose is one of them, Republican former Congressman Jim Renacci, who ran in a contested primary last year for governor and lost, he's another one who's saying, "We need to make sure that Republicans only are voting for Republicans and Democrats only are voting for Democrats.

- Isn't this yet another issue though, where there isn't data to support the theory behind the legislation?

That's what I was reading, that there's not really data on party rating.

- Well, and it's hard to tell because I mean, you can look at the list of party registrants every year from the Secretary of State's office, they'll tell you how many Republicans, how many Democrats, and most people in Ohio are considered independent or unaffiliated because people don't vote in primaries, but there really isn't a whole lot of data that explains why people might switch parties or that people are switching parties.

So yeah, there's not a whole lot of information other than anecdotal stuff here.

- So what would be the impact on that in regards to voting?

So right now maybe it's like, for example, you just mentioned you, you won't vote in a primary because you don't wanna be affiliated with a party because you find that to be important for your job.

If you then in order to vote in a general and wanted to vote for president of the United States, governor of Ohio, whatever it is, which is your right, you'd have to declare that might make you less likely to vote entirely or others might be less likely.

Is that a concern?

- I don't know that you would not be able to vote in a general without declaring, I'm not sure.

I know that for primaries, Jim Renacci had said he wanted something that, where, for instance, if there's a March primary coming up or a May primary or whatever, you'd have to declare by December 31st of the previous year, which one you are if you're a Republican or a Democrat.

But I think when it comes to the general election, we all get the same ballot in our individual precincts.

So I don't think it would affect that, but it still would require people to declare a party and not be able, and you'd have to declare it months in advance.

So what if your party, what if you decided a couple months later, hey, I would rather go into the other party.

I don't know if you'd be able to make that switch.

(upbeat music) - East Palestine is still dealing with the after effects of the toxic train derailment three months after the disaster put the village in the center of global headlines.

The cleanup at the site is ongoing.

Abigail, I know you were on the spot for coverage of that and now we're three months out from it.

We had a story from the Ohio newsrooms, Kendall Crawford who talked to people there.

It's not as though three months later everything is hunky dory.

- No, honestly, I was, I mean, not surprised, but I mean a little dis, not disappointed, sad for them that they're still dealing with so much weariness, so much anxiety, still so much distrust in government officials and scientists telling them what's happening and for good reason that people are still sick.

People are still experiencing symptoms.

Some people don't trust that their drinking water is safe, so they're sticking to bottled water.

Some people haven't even returned to town, they're still living from hotels or they've decided to move to a different town.

So there's still like a lack of trust in the town for for good reason as we've been reporting on.

- We know the Attorney general has said that the legislation that was filed against Norfolk Southern, that could take years.

What about the cleanup, is that supposed to take years too?

- I don't really think we know at this point.

I mean, we got an update from the governor's office saying that Norfolk Southern is gearing up to begin sediment cleaning in Leslie Run, which was found to be contaminated by the derailment.

They're starting that this week.

And then according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, 14 million gallons of wastewater have been removed from the town, 5,400 tons of contaminated soil are ready to be shipped out.

And 35,700 tons of soil have already been shipped out.

So we're seeing progress.

Like a couple months ago there was political arguing about the fact that the EPA maybe wasn't moving fast enough.

So we're definitely seeing continued progress on the cleanup, but it's really unclear how long or when the end will be.

- And we'll be looking long term too at health effects of this.

There is the notion by the EPA that everything is safe and the water is safe, the ground is safe, they'll be continuing to do testing, but really the proof is gonna be what impact this has on public health years from now.

- Right, right.

And we had a story from the Allegheny front from Julie Grant talking about how soil sampling was finding that the soil was fine, but how that still doesn't match up with what residents are expecting.

And that's why Dave Yost had said that the litigation with the state's lawsuit could take years because it will take years for us to find out what the long term impacts are for health, for agriculture, for the environment, it will take some time.

(upbeat music) - The state's highway rest areas will soon be renovated over the next four years.

Ohio's gonna rebuild some rest areas fresh in others.

33 of the state's 83 stops will be spruced up.

I'd settle for one that doesn't smell like a dead wild beast in the hot July sun.

But Ohio has even fancier plants.

They're gonna install photos with information on nearby attractions and treat visitors to an endless loop Ken of Ohio themed songs handpicked by the Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jack March Banks, there's gonna be Cleveland Rocks 'cause that has reference to a place in Ohio.

Others are written by Ohio artists like "Whip It" from Akron Steve-O.

Some are just associated with Ohio.

Like "Hang On, Sloopy," which I have no idea why, but is the Ohio official rock song.

The rest area renovations are priority for Governor DeWine.

He was a father of seven recalled those crucial stops on family road trips, Ken.

- I am from New Jersey, so we take rest stops very seriously.

And so when I saw this, I'm like, well, who is this Jack March Banks?

And let me do a deep dive dive.

- [Abigail] I can tell you about him.

- Well, I learned that he is not just Jack March Banks, the Ohio Department of Transportation Director, but he is Doctor Jack March Banks.

He's a host and producer of Jazz Sundays on WCBE and he has his PhD.

He wrote his doctoral dissertation on jazz artist advocacy, no, jazz artist advocacy and financial support of the American Civil Rights Movement.

So I totally support any of his song choices.

- And he's a great guy.

I worked with him at WCBE, that's the station I started out in public broadcasting.

And he's very, very knowledgeable.

Goes to the Rock Hall inductions every year that he can.

- So this, maybe these will be like, the highlight of your trip is to stop at the rest stop to hear the playlist.

- Again from New Jersey, it already is the highlight of my trip.

- And I like picturing Mike DeWine and his seven kids in like a van, a bus.

And I'm like, oh, he's just like us.

- Yeah and the whole family with him leading it- - Sweating.

- Singing, "Whip It."

- Yes.

- Right?

- Mike DeWine, yes.

- DeWine.

- With the little hats.

- With a dog strap to the roof.

No, wait, that was- - That was a different film.

- That was a different film.

- Yeah, it's interesting to hear what the list of songs will be.

I talked to Lee Barr about it.

She looked at the whole list, Ohio from Neil Young, not in there.

- That sounds a little depressing.

- It's a dep.

So my point is, it's not just that it is about Ohio or Ohio history, but I guess it's gotta also make you feel good.

- Yeah, there you go.

- Yeah.

(upbeat music) - Monday on the Sound of "Ideas", on WKSU, we'll discuss how cities fund stadiums for their sports teams.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

(upbeat music)