(suspenseful music) - Choosing a speaker for the US House of Representatives and the Ohio House has provided high drama for different reasons.

Akron teachers and the district, facing a Monday strike deadline, resume contract talks, and sports betting gets tons of interest in Ohio, raising concerns about gambling addiction.

"Ideas" is next.

(bright string music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas," I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks for joining us.

In the US Congress and the Ohio State House, the selection of a House speaker has provided high drama for different reasons.

In Washington, suspense, as a standoff between Republican factions resulted in a multi ballot vote that hasn't been witnessed in a century.

In Columbus, surprise, Democrats helped push an unexpected choice to the speakership.

Akron teachers and the district resumed talks in an effort to avoid a Monday strike deadline.

Buffalo Bill's safety Damar Hamlin, critically injured during a game against the Bengals in Cincinnati, is improving and communicating.

And the new year brings sports betting to Ohio and betters logged on to online sportsbooks in record numbers in the first few days, that raises concerns about gambling addiction.

We'll talk about that and the rest of the week's news on the Reporter's Roundtable.

Joining me this week from Idea Stream Public Media, director of engaged journalism Marlene Harris-Taylor, and education reporter Connor Morris.

In Columbus, State House News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

As we marked the two-year anniversary of the January 6th riot at the Capitol, there was a different kind of turmoil inside the halls of Congress as the new Republican majority battled with itself to select a new speaker of the House.

I've heard a lot of characterization of the dissidents in the Republican party as basically anti-government people, that they don't want the gears of government to work the way they do.

A lot of the concessions they're asking for are ways to be able to disrupt the way policy is gone in the past, for example, temporary spending bills and those types of things.

So if you look at it from that end, that's one perspective, what's another?

What is it that the, in your view, and from looking at the news that these dissidents are after?

What kind of change do they want?

And is there anything that can come of it that would make government different or better?

- Well, I think some of the rules change that they've asked for, some people will point out, are not things that the average American really even knows anything about, and so I think that's a big question here is, how are they serving their constituents?

Certainly many of them were elected in very Republican areas, you could argue that they were very gerrymandered areas, but these are definitely people, though I think you're right on the idea that they are concerned about government, don't like government, yet they ran for office and wanna be part of the government.

You hear a lot of conversations about, you know, the swamp and things like that, but this is part of what I think a lot of people look at and say, "This is what we don't like about government, we don't like when the government can't come together and do even the most basic thing of electing a speaker," because right now no other House business can go forward.

With no speaker, that means the members cannot be sworn in, and now you're having real implications.

For instance, I heard yesterday on CNN, Brad Wenstrup, a member of Congress, a republican congressman from southwest Ohio, was saying that he's having issues with trying to get certain things happening between US agencies and his office because he's not been sworn in, and that's what other members of Congress are also reporting.

So this kind of chaos for a lot of people is exactly what they don't like about government and they don't wanna see in their government, and yet this is exactly what all of this has fostered.

- And nobody can figure out either, Mike, I'm sorry for jumping in there, nobody can figure out either what the people who are not, who are the holdouts, dissidents, as we calling them, what it is exactly they want.

A few have come forward and said, "Okay, here's my conditions, here's what I want," but some of them have really not been transparent at all at what would actually resolve the situation.

- We have this situation continuing to play out, and Dave Joyce, as we mentioned, who isn't somebody that's usually a quotable kind of guy, you don't see him on the cable news networks quite often, but on CNN, in a conversation, he said, "This is the same brain trust that brought you, almost two years ago, January 6th, and the fake electors, those type of things.

Remember Scott Perry and his band of merry men who thought that was a good idea too.

I don't put a hell of a lot of stock into what they have to say anymore, I'm done playing games with them," that's pretty direct and to the point, Karen.

- Yeah, and Dave Joyce is in an interesting position in the sense that he was one of the few Ohio congressmen, and I say congressmen, Republican congressmen, because all of the members of Congress from Ohio who are Republicans are congressmen, he was not endorsed by Trump in the primary, and I don't think Trump endorsed him in the general election, I think.

Now, not to say that Dave Joyce hasn't been a supporter of Trump and voted along with what Trump had wanted, but he is in an interesting position now that he has a little bit more freedom to be able to express some of these things and maybe be a little bit more open, but he's been very clear too in his criticism of this band of merry men, as he called them, and that was back on the second ballot, again, we're on the 11th ballot, I think, now.

- [Mike] Right.

- That, you know, they're nominating Jim Jordan for speaker or voting for Jim Jordan when Jim Jordan is clearly nominating Kevin McCarthy.

So he says, these folks, he doesn't know what their game plan is when this is the way that they are acting on the floor.

(intense string music) - While the US Speaker vote dragged on in Washington, Ohio lawmakers made their speaker selection process a quick and surprising one in Columbus.

There was a story in cleveland.com today about how there's a little bit of shenanigan going on here in that Derek Merrin was absent, his father was ill and passed away, and while all that was happening is when this maneuvering was happening.

- And sure, that's certainly something that he's alleging here, and certainly, sympathies go out to Derek Merrin for the loss of his father, that did happen after the end of lame duck, and so the things that I keep hearing about are concerns about what happened in lame duck and what didn't happen in lame duck, but it certainly shows that even though Democrats are in the super minority at this point, because you've got 67 Republicans and 32 Democrats, there is power in that when they operate as a block.

A minority leader, Alison Russo, was saying they are the most unified block of voters in the Ohio House right now, and they were able to do this to get Jason Stephens elected, who they feel might be more understanding on some of their issues.

For instance, on education, Derek Merrin was a big supporter of vouchers and that would've been an interesting partnership between him and Senate President Matt Huffman, also a huge supporter of vouchers, there were some real concerns on public education advocates on how that arrangement would work, but also, this is the second time it's happened since 2019, when Democrats were the ones that united to vote for Larry Householder and handed him the speakership.

Larry Householder got more votes from, well, he got an even split of votes from Democrats and Republicans, but Ryan Smith, the speaker then, had gotten more votes from Republicans.

So, you know, it's the second time that the minority party has helped elect the leader of the majority party.

- Although I think the Democrats would prefer that you don't mention that they were the ones that got Larry Householder elected.

- It's true though.

(all laughing) - [Marlene] They want everybody to forget that.

- Yeah.

(Marlene laughs) - Let me ask Karen why it matters, because the Republican domination in the State House, we've called it a super duper majority, and that continues, so why does it matter that it's a different house speaker and what do we expect from Jason Stephens that's different from Derek Merrin?

- I'm not really sure because we really haven't been able to talk to either Jason Stephens or Derek Merrin.

Stephens did make some comments to the media after all of the business was done on the first day of session, but they were pretty generic.

We were asking him specifically about bills, for instance, the bill that would create a requirement that voters pass constitutional amendments by a 60% super majority, is that dead?

He says he's gonna look at that.

There are other bills that he says he's gonna look at, but there's a lot of work ahead, he did tell me in my question to him about, okay, you say there's a lot of work to do, isn't part of the work that you're trying to do uniting this Republican caucus because you got more democratic votes than you got Republican votes?

And he said that is something that he's gonna have to do.

The question is, I mean, we've heard this before from people you mentioned, former Governor John Kasich earlier, and you know, he has this reputation of being bipartisan.

There are Ohio Democrats who will disagree strongly with that.

Larry Householder reached out to Democrats, Democrats will say he didn't really, he wasn't as bipartisan as maybe we thought he was going to be, and now we've got Jason Stephens who says he wants to be bipartisan.

I think that remains to be seen on what kind of legislation he allows forward and what kind of leeway he gives Democrats as they propose their own legislation.

- Can you imagine this very same thing happening at the US level as we talk about what's going on there?

If you had a block of Democrats that said, "Okay, we're gonna solve this for you, we're all voting for this guy," that- - Well, actually Marcy Kaptur, the longest serving woman in Congress, had even suggested that, saying that if they had come together to support McCarthy, if they could find some common ground to agree with McCarthy on, but that's something obviously that a lot of Democrats would say, "Hey, wait a minute, we don't want that at all."

(intense string music) - Akron's Board of Education is preparing the school district for a potential teacher strike, with many questions still to be answered.

The two sides return to the negotiating table this week in the hopes of avoiding Monday's strike deadline.

Let's just talk specifically about what the impasse is, where are we at?

- Sure, so teachers are really concerned about safety in the buildings and there was a reports in November that, there was a fact finder that was brought on to try to kinda build consensus between the two, the administration and the teacher's union, and that kind of really outlined where the differences were, so the concern about teacher's safety is real broad, but they're saying essentially that students aren't being disciplined, they're not really seeing enough of a, kind of a more stern kind of approach is needed, you know, to really kind of show students that there are consequences for bad actions, you know, fights happening, disrupting class, and parents as well are saying that that's a real problem and it's really kind of causing trouble for their kids' education, but there's also plenty more that they weren't really seeing eye to eye on.

The other big one is salary increases for teachers, and I should clarify too, as well, the teachers union represents some staff that are not traditionally considered teachers as well, of course, but other, you know, staff that are kind of in that education support role.

But anyway, though they're seeking 5% raises each year for three years, which is very high, that's probably the highest in the state, in recent memory, and the teachers say the school district is kind of flush with federal relief dollars, right?

And you know, they're saying they deserve it, it's been a challenging time, lots of teachers are leaving the profession, you know, they're already having a hard time kind of retaining teachers, so that would help in that regard.

And the school district is saying, you know, maybe more closer to 2.5% is what they're looking for, so that was at least as of November.

So maybe they'll get closer to that as they get to negotiations, but not really clear here.

- The 2.5% was something that the, a mediator came in and said- - Yep.

- "That's the number," right?

- That was the- - So- - Yeah.

Fact finder.

- We're talking about, yeah, the fact finder, and when that fact finer made its report, the school district said, "Great," and the union said, "Not so much."

- Yeah, and so the fact finder said that even with modest salary increases, the school district is gonna be looking at a levy, needing a levy in the coming years, which is a real challenge.

Akron has not had much success with getting levies passed, especially on the first try, over the last 20, 30 years, or so, and that's according to the fact finder and the administration's kind of, like, view of the situation, of course, but it would add about like 15 to $20 million to the budget and expenses, that 5% increase, so that's probably a no-go for the school district, you know?

Maybe they will come to an agreement though in terms of, you know, a happy kind of medium.

- What about this crisis response team?

Huffmaster Crisis Response LLC?

Which has gotten some criticism in some of its work elsewhere.

When we say crisis response, what exactly is that and why is there criticism about this being authorized?

- Sure, so this is a business that provides what's called strike staffing, so staffing to help a school district continue to operate in the case of a strike.

In union lingo, you know, opponents would call them, they would say that they're providing scabs, essentially, they're crossing the picket line and they are, you know, essentially, you know, allowing for the school district to continue operation, and you know, on the school district's kind of side, they would say, "We're legally required to provide education to all students no matter what, regardless of the strike," so they would say this is necessary.

I haven't seen any cost estimate yet, but other school districts have kind of contracted with them or had them, kind of ready to step in if a strike were to happen in recent years in Ohio, so... - Hmm.

So there have been claims the school system denies about extravagant spending, all kinds of other things, non-residents who are involved in the school, so what about, and the residency requirements, so what about those things and will that still be part of this hash-out?

- Yeah, sure, the teacher's union has been very critical of superintendent Christine Fowler Mack and the administration in general, of course, too, but they allege the district used federal American Rescue Plan dollars to treat administrators to extravagant lunches, travel to Florida and Colorado, alcohol provided during those lunches, also alleging that the superintendent does not live in the city of Akron, and that instead the school district maintains a hotel room for her, basically, that is near her office.

The school district says categorically, you know, "That's all false."

The problem is that the union is seeking public records on these things and they're saying the school district is kind of stonewalling them on it.

It does take a while sometimes to provide records of that nature, especially depends on, you know, how broad the request is.

It's something that I am interested in looking into, but it, again, it would take time, likely the strike would be resolved by the point that we would get any, you know, further kind of word on, you know, the veracity of those claims.

- And that's assuming there is a strike, again- - Sure.

- It could be averted with negotiations this weekend.

If there is a strike starting Monday, what happens to the students?

They're gonna still have to go to class in some way?

- Yeah, sure.

So I talked to the spokesperson, Mark Williamson, this morning, and he said it's still considered a normal school day, so the same concerns will persist about truancy.

When there was a strike in Columbus, interestingly enough, only about half of the students logged on for online class and that's what the school district would be doing here, they would very likely be doing online schooling for all students.

(intense strings music) - We've been inundated with ads from sports betting houses for months now, and as it turns out, Ohioans had a big early appetite for sports betting.

I would expect, Marlene, that we're gonna see a whole lot of people placing bets on a whole lot of sports, and I'm not sure a whole lot of people know a whole lot about sports.

- (laughs) So you're saying they're gonna be losing their money, is that what you thinking, Mike?

- Well, that's my question.

I don't know.

- Yeah, I think, you know, listen, we've already saw that, you know, in Ohio it took off like wildfire and it's not surprising because everywhere you looked, especially around the holidays, the ads were everywhere for this, and so they're, many of the ads are targeting a demographic of young men who love sports.

You can even do the sports betting through gaming applications, so it's being made so easy now you can do it right from your phone, right from your game, you don't have to go out to a place and place the bet.

So yeah, we expect a whole lot of people are gonna take advantage of this.

- And the sites people are using are the same ones you used for fantasy football all this time, which is, you know, so you're kind of used to it, those types of things, you mentioned young men, we had a show here this week on "The Sound of Ideas" where there was a discussion about how young men in general are becoming more addicted to gambling, this is just another impetus for that.

- Another thing, yeah.

- What about the concerns about problem gambling across the state as a result of this?

- It is a concern and I will say that, you know, the officials, the Gaming Commission has had about a year to get ready for this and there are plans in place, funds have been utilized to set up hotlines and places where people can go.

So the resources are there, they have been made available because they do expect that there's going to be an increase in people who are gonna be addicted.

I mean, it was the same thing that happened when the casinos came into Ohio, right?

There was a big argument over whether we're gonna have more people addicted and we absolutely did have more people addicted, we don't hear a lot about it because there are resources out there to help people, but gambling is gambling, addiction is addiction, so this will be another layer to add on to the concerns that people have about that.

- And Karen, Marlene is mentioning the casinos and how that increased problem gambling, but in a casino you have to drive to it, park to it, park there, go in here, as we talked, it's a app on your phone.

In fact, I know somebody who downloaded, I think, seven or eight different apps 'cause each one gives you a little free money to start with.

So they said, "All right, great, I'll start with those," and who knows, maybe they'll go on further.

So it just seems so much easier.

State regulators are taking a real close look at those apps and those websites, and they're really dinging them if they get outta line, tell me a little bit about that.

- Yeah, well, first of all, it should be noted that the estimate is that this will be a $1.1 billion industry in Ohio, and you're absolutely right that most people will access sports gambling through apps, the vast majority, and for exactly the reasons you just said, it's just a lot easier to gamble from your couch than it is to get in the car and go to the casino.

But there's some real concerns about the advertising that's going on and people have been just bombarded with ads, really, as this whole thing was ramping up.

I mean, not just in the last couple of days, but even going back a couple of months, the Ohio Casino Control Commission has now cited three, or told three companies: Caesars, DraftKings, and BetMGM, their parent companies, that they could potentially face $150,000 in fines each because of some of the promises they're making in their ads talking about risk-free money and free money, but you have to lose money to get to that, and maybe people don't notice that.

Also, I asked Governor Mike DeWine in a press conference earlier in the week, about his concerns about gambling, he signed the law to make sports betting legal, although it was probably gonna become legal at some point anyway, and he said he's really concerned about the ads that are targeting young people, targeting people under 21 who cannot gamble, and DraftKings has been notified that they're in trouble for that, for sending 2,500 ads to people under 21, and so there there's some real questions about the advertising and the language that these companies are using to try to lure people into sports betting, 'cause again, you just have to lure 'em to download an app, you don't have to get 'em into the casino.

- Pat sent us an email, not a fan of sports gambling at all, and she said, "Yesterday someone said it's regulated here, I'm sorry, that is another close to falsehood."

So let's talk about regulation.

Ohio Casino Control Commission regulates betting in Ohio, how is it regulating this?

- Well, what it's doing, there's two parts of this, and of course it's pretty complicated here, you have the Ohio Casino Control Commission, which sets the licensing and regulation rules for type A, which is the online sportsbooks, and type B, the brick-and-mortar establishments, and then the Ohio Lottery Commission contracts with the Type C, lottery gaming proprietors, which is the kiosks and this other stuff.

So there's a very complicated regulatory scenario here.

The Ohio Casino Control Commission, I think, has the final word, especially on the big things like the apps, because the apps are tied to the casinos and the big companies, but yet it's a difficult and complex regulatory framework, I think, here, because it has to be, there's a lot of different moving parts here and this is why the law was signed in 2021 and the whole calendar year of 2022 was meant to get the state ready for this, and the question is, is the state ready?

And is it ready to really deal with some of these companies and the strategies that they use to bring in gamblers, many of whom apparently can't gamble?

'Cause, you know, if you're under 21, you're not allowed to gamble in Ohio.

- [Mike] Right.

- Well, I just wanted to note that they're, you know, it is recommended that, whenever we talk about gambling, that we give the hotline number out, so that number is 1-800-589-9966, 1-800-589-9966, and there's also a website available as well so that if you know someone who does have a problem with gambling, that hotline is available for you.

- You beat me to it.

So, you're right.

- And also.

- Thanks for sharing that.

- The three companies, Caesars, DraftKings, and BetMGM, that's one of the reasons that the Casino Control Commission notified them that they could be fined 'cause they weren't making that message clear, and so it is important to note that and to note that there is 2% of gambling revenue that's gonna go to programs that combat gambling addiction, so that is part of the whole framework.

(intense strings music) - Good news, Buffalo Bills' safety, Damar Hamlin, whose heart stopped during a game in Cincinnati this week, is awake and improving, according to doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

What an amazing job, Marlene, when we talk about, you know, medical professionals and doctors, these were team medics, team trainers who went onto the field, used a defibrillator, they were able to use CPR, keep him stable until medical professionals could arrive, and he's now in a Cincinnati hospital with good news coming.

- They did everything right and they're being lauded for the way that they jumped right in with that CPR and recognized the situation, got him attention right away, got him to the hospital right away, and they're saying that this is the reason that he is alive and we're possibly seeing the recovery today.

It was interesting when he asked who won the game, my understanding is the doctor said to him, "You won the game of life- - Right.

- Because you're here," right?

And it's interesting to me how this situation with this young man has captured the imagination and the attention of the country.

I mean, because we all watch football, we've seen tough hits, we've seen people get hurt.

- And this wasn't really a tough hit.

- It was not.

- Yeah.

- It didn't appear to be, initially.

- We don't know the details yet, there's all kinds of theory that there's a, you know, the heart's going on an upbeat and he gets hit in a certain way, there's a kind of cardiac arrest or arrhythmia that can happen.

- Right, yeah.

We don't know exactly what happened there, but it didn't appear to be, like, the toughest football hit at the time, until he fell backwards.

And I think that, now, this is just my own personal opinion, but I think that part of it is that we feel a little bit of guilt, in a way, watching these sports, because we know how dangerous it is, we know we've got these young men running around on the field in a really dangerous sport to entertain us, and then this kind of brought to us, you know, starkly, the danger, 'cause a lot of times, you know, it's not present, it was way in the back of your mind, so I think a little bit of our collective guilt is in this outpouring of affection and love for this young man.

- Yeah, and talking about that outpouring, he had a goal of $2,500 for a charity he was putting together to raise money for toys for kids, it's now at 7 million bucks.

- [Marlene] Yeah, wow.

- So people are definitely have got an outpouring there.

We will be keeping an eye on that case.

I mean, and that situation happened here in Ohio, in Cincinnati, but as I mentioned, good news, and also if you happen to drive down I-77 in Canton, the Bills' colors are displayed on the lights there at the Hall of Fame as another reminder of that, but it does also bring to mind the violence of sports and football and, you know, you've got young people that are playing sports, the odds of something happening, of this nature, obviously very small, but all kinds of other injuries, head injuries, and other things like that.

- Okay, yeah- I wonder if this- - Concussions.

- Is giving.

- Right.

- Yeah, I wonder if this, just that incident, even though it may not be a concussion or something like that, if it gets you to pause when you're talking about your children.

- I think it does, I heard someone say that they're in a group chat with a bunch of dads who are like, "My son is not playing football because of this," and also I heard a sports commentator on a local show talking about the fact that, you know, if this young man does not recover to the point that he can play football again, he will not be paid anymore by the NFL and he will have to apply for disability, and it's very, very difficult to cross the threshold in the NFL to be able to get disability.

- Well, if you can raise 7 million for toys, let's see what people can do for this young man.

(intense string music) Monday on "The Sound of Ideas," on WKSU, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb joins us to discuss his first year in office and his plans ahead for year two.

Join us live and ask your questions to the mayor.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks so much for watching, and stay safe.

(gentle music) (drums tacking) (laser whooshes) (bright ethereal music)