Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from Medical Mutual, dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans, offering health insurance plans, as well as dental, vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

More at Med mutual.com.

The law offices of Porter, right, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at porterwright.com.

Porter Wright inspired Every day in Ohio Education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at OHEA.org.

Governor Mike DeWine final budget is unveiled with some tax hikes and money for working parents.

School busses, library and stadiums.

And a conservative pushback against the climate and higher education is just one bill the state's leading civil rights group is watching.

We'll talk about that this weekend.

The state of Ohio.

Just.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

Governor Mike DeWine has put together the final budget of his two terms in office, with an expected focus on kids and families and a few surprises.

The budget, which aims to spend $62 billion in state general revenue funds over two years, is an increase over the current two year budget but also includes revenue growth of 4% the first year and 3.4% over the second.

And DeWine started with a tax increase to fund a tax credit for working parents for each child up to age six.

this will be totally paid for not by general fund dollars.

This will be paid by an increase in the cigaret tax of $1.50.

This will enable us to take that money and invest it in the families.

It's time we did that.

It is.

This is not a liberal or conservative proposal.

You have seen, I think, if you've read, very thoughtful people across this country, left and right, who said we must invest in these working, working families?

We must give them this opportunity.

DeWine has long advocated against smoking and has used previous budgets to raise the smoking age to 21 and to attempt to ban flavored vaping products.

The tax would raise the price of cigarets per pack in Ohio to $3.10, and bring in nearly $900 million, but smoking rates have fallen as taxes have gone up, so there could be an issue with paying for the credit.

Long term.

DeWine also suggested another tax hike, raising the tax on sports gambling operators to 40%, quadrupling it from the 10% rate when it went into effect in 2021.

That would raise $657 million for a fund to help with the continuing stream of requests for state money for stadiums and sports related projects.

Our proposal, we would raise it to 40%.

This would mean that Ohio still was certainly not the highest.

We wouldn't be the lowest, but we would not be the highest.

Look here, Ohio citizens have are giving every single day millions of dollars to the sports gaming companies.

It's time for us to raise the tax on them so that we can do things to help Ohioans.

DeWine also proposed $23.4 billion for K through 12 school funding, including vouchers, and says that includes fully funding the final implementation of the Fair School funding plan, but also reducing what's been called the guarantee, which he called funding for empty desks.

There's a $34 million fund for a school bus safety grant program and money to bring back driver's education training into high schools.

There's also $1 billion more each for libraries and for the local government fund.

And the expanded sales tax holiday will go back to a three day sales tax break in August.

DeWine is also proposing eliminating the local community fund that over a third of revenue from marijuana sales goes into, with the money going instead to jail projects.

One thing that's not in DeWine's budget an income tax cut, something lawmakers have either added to or approved in the last seven state budgets.

And DeWine is apparently not interested.

I've been governor for six years.

And I've been involved.

Lieutenant governor Houston, former lieutenant governor Houston and I have been involved in talking to many, many companies about coming to Ohio.

There is not one company that said to us, we can't come to Ohio because your taxes are too high.

We've been able to cut taxes now working with the legislature over a number of years.

We are now extremely competitive.

But legislative leaders may not be interested in some of DeWine's proposals, starting with the sports stadium fund from the gaming tax increase.

you start out with a 10% tax on gaming, and I was in 2000, that's I think that's in a general discussion on the question should be made here.

Should it be?

I think it is happy with and how serious like I think that that's a majority.

Quite a bit of discussion Would say this.

You know, like the idea.

Like you got.

I think it's a really great point, just holistically of the realities of expecting people to gamble more, drink more, smoke more in order to fund, what we think are basic priorities and making sure that, that's not the only way that we can generate revenue.

We give away around $25 billion in tax expenditures, so you don't even have to touch the income tax code or to fund some major portion, such as making sure that our public schools are getting enough money to, provide quality education, that we actually have child care in the state.

And so that's kind of been our main focus, is to make sure that we're providing our main sources with continue our revenues, which you can do so in a very thoughtful and strategic way.

But the policy of taxation says, what is the point at which there are diminishing returns when you raise taxes?

And we have that on you live in New York City, about 60% of your income tax or 60% of what you make at some point is tax.

So people just stop working after six months because so how does it affect the economy doing all of those things?

You know, when we did the gambling tax, it was 10%.

I think it was easy for a lot of people to say what, we're going to raise it to 20% because, it's still one of the lowest in the nation, 40% is one of the highest in the nation.

And people will find other alternatives, as there were before we had sports gambling, in at all.

They were doing it, you know, in other states or doing it illegally and things like that.

So I think those are the two questions that need to, to be addressed.

know, we're we're making a lot of money off of people's vices.

Here.

And how sustainable is that?

And is that something as a government, we want to continue to encourage.

And I think it's, it's a fair point, but I think it speaks to the larger point of we have a very, unbalanced, unfair tax system here in the state of Ohio.

We've gotten very, out of balance with, how taxes are distributed specifically amongst working people.

So we have an overreliance, for example, on state income, our state sales taxes.

Now, as we've rolled back some of these income taxes, and that's a very regressive tax structure that tends to make people who don't make as much money pay more of their income in taxes.

And so I think this is just one more example of that.

And it's, you know, a discussion I hope we continue to have throughout the budget process.

hearings on the budget and the House Finance Committee have already begun.

House is set to pass the budget by the break around Easter on April 20th, and then the budget would go on to the Senate.

It must be signed by the end of June.

The $9.5 billion transportation budget, which was rolled out at the same time as DeWine's executive budget, must be signed by March 31st.

The musical chairs among term limited Republican officeholders started up again this week, which ended with a much clearer picture of the 2026 statewide elections from the GOP perspective, Treasurer Robert Sprague announced he is not running for governor as expected, but will try for secretary of State joining the race already occupied by former lawmaker Niraj Anthony.

Sprague also says he'll endorse Vivek Ramaswamy should he enter the race for governor over his fellow Republican statewide office holder, Attorney General Dave Yost, who launched his gubernatorial run last month.

Then Secretary of State Frank Larose said he will run for auditor.

Current auditor Keith Faber is already running for attorney general.

No Republicans have declared for treasurer so far.

The only Democrats to announce for these statewide offices are two doctors.

DeWine's former Ohio Department of Health director, Amy Acton for governor and Cincinnati oncologist Brian Hambly for secretary of state.

A second hearing is set next week for Senate Bill one, the bill that conservatives say will fight what they claim is liberal bias and indoctrination on public university campuses in Ohio.

The bill, which is a new version of Senate Bill 83 from the last session, would ban most diversity, equity and inclusion programs at universities and block faculty strikes, along with promoting what Republicans call intellectual diversity.

Democrats, student groups, faculty organizations and unions were among those which oppose the bill.

Last time, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

And this is just one issue that group is concerned about right now.

So let's talk about what's known as Senate Bill one, which the ACLU was opposed to when it was Senate Bill 83 last time around.

There are a lot of elements of this bill that have raised concerns.

The ban on faculty strikes, the post tenure performance reviews, the American History and Civics required course, among other things.

Can you rundown specifically what the ACLU's concerns are about this bill?

And we have, various concerns about the bill, but I think they can be put into two easy to understand buckets.

As far as our primary concerns that we hope have some sort of weight with legislators, number one, in no particular order.

Number one is the elimination of Dei initiative efforts.

Anything that looks, sounds or smells like Dei, just remove it from college campuses.

And that's problematic in a variety of ways.

Number one, Senate Bill one does not define Dei in any way, shape or form, which leaves everybody guessing.

What exactly are we talking about here?

And so, you know, you can look at and I've done it, you can look on state university websites and you will see scholarships intended for and used by, among others, military veterans, human trafficking survivors, people with physical disabilities.

That's DEA that is reaching out to a community or communities that have traditionally been, unserved or underserved with regard to, student recruitment and retention, faculty recruitment and retention, and saying no, under SB one, the the clear language of it, that's all going to be eliminated as just one example of how far Senate Bill one goes.

And so, we see it as, again, using the language that's in SB1 and the language that's missing again, no definition of Dei.

And that's not to say if they do define it would be any better, but at least, you know, give everybody some sort of general understanding of what exactly we're dealing with here.

But, you know, so it goes beyond just scholarships.

It goes beyond all kinds of efforts where we want to make, I think, ideally, our state's universities and colleges, places that people want to attend, that they feel good about attending, that they feel safe attending.

Nothing illegal, no quota systems, quotas.

In that respect, they are unconstitutional and illegal within universities and, and colleges.

But SB one does not recognize or appreciate any of these nuances.

It just says and all of it and do it quickly.

And there was a second portion of that.

Yes.

I believe, you're talking about the, the controversial topics.

I. Yeah, yeah.

The second part of it is, which, SB one supporters try to frame as some sort of academic freedom when that's actually, not the case whatsoever, because when you're talking about academic freedom in a university or college, kind of context, you're talking about the academic freedom of the instructor or the professor.

And the idea is, is that even though they are state funded, what you're talking about is the freedom to develop courses and coursework in a way, you know, you might be an economics professor, and you're saying that, look, I think that the best economic system on the planet is capitalism.

But as one example, under SB one, you would be forced to and various parts of SB one to not only say, look, I'm going to teach this class from my own perspective.

Everybody clear on what exactly is going on here.

This is something that happens in universities all the time, but they would be forced to teach perspectives, on equal footing, with, things that do not, comport with what they are trying to get across to students.

And so when people talk about in a history class, if you were to teach, for instance, what happened with the Jewish Holocaust, before and during World War two, you've got to give all opinions, give all ideas, equal footing and equal voice inside a classroom setting.

And and university professors, at least still to this day, they have a First Amendment right to academic freedom, to be able to teach courses, the way they see fit and to require equal footing, equal voicing of each and every single other opinion on this, is just a recipe for disaster in our college classrooms.

And it's going to and is already, motivating people, to seek other places to teach, other than Ohio and to attend schools in places other than Ohio.

I want to go back to the D-I thing that you talked about in a minute, but I want to ask you about that idea, this controversial ideas proposal.

Why not allow for some of these ideas to be put out there and be fully debunked and discussed and really dismissed entirely?

So people who are wrong are told they're wrong.

And I think ideally, I mean that that's what you see in university coursework and classwork, is that you see, you know, not just a one sided this is how it should be.

It will be like, look, there are other perspectives out here that people will offer.

And then I think what you're trying to do as a responsible faculty member, say, and this is why we don't pursue this, you know, again, using like a capitalism example, you know, there's also socialism out there.

There's also communism.

There's all kinds of hybrids of these ideas.

And here why me teaching this course?

I don't think you know that that's how this works or how it should be.

But, you know, if you're out there talking about civil rights in the 1950s and the 1960s and protesters and what was going on, and people, you know, getting, you know, denied the right to vote and getting, you know, water hoses turned on them and the violence and everything else.

You can't then take a position, essentially as the professor, you have to be there saying, no, look, you know, this is this is under SB1.

This is part of these controversial ideas.

We must, voice.

And so students are left wondering, well, you know, if, if a university professor is essentially, forced to become neutral or almost neutral on these types of things, we feel they're not getting the education that they deserve, and they should have, I want to ask you about the Dei stuff that you mentioned earlier.

The argument can be made, the Dei and affirmative action are being rejected on the national level by the Supreme Court, by the Trump administration.

So it only makes sense for these things to be de-emphasized or eliminated in Ohio as well.

Well, it's a there's a lot of nuance here with the issue.

Again, because essentially Dei is is left undefined.

And and while the Supreme Court has said, look, no, you can't use quotas in any way, shape or form when you're talking about admissions, to, to a university or a college, and you have to be extremely careful how you're considering the qualifications and what have you, students coming in.

This what we're talking about with Senate Bill one goes far, far beyond that.

You're talking about any and every effort whatsoever.

So, it's, you know, going back again to this idea that you want to to, present a welcoming and provide a welcoming environment to these people and essentially, you know, correct some of the wrongs of the past.

You know, it's it's it's an endemic within, you know, employment world and everything, you know, that that you interview and you look at and you reach out to places that you're familiar with, people that you are familiar with.

And there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, look, you know, when we look at the makeup of our student population currently or over time, there's a lot of people underrepresented on our campus.

And that's not good for the campus, the university, for society as a whole.

So we're not talking about quotas.

We're not talking about anything numerical.

We're just saying perhaps we should redouble or increase our efforts to reach out and make campus a better place for these people.

I don't see why that is so controversial.

You know, whether it's based on race or gender or sexual orientation, veteran status, military status, you know, being a crime victim, like a human trafficking victim, you know, across the board, this is something that we should be striving to do.

But Senate Bill one says, no, these are bad ideas.

We shouldn't be doing it.

And we're going to end it all immediately.

The sponsors will say that, for instance, the, Holocaust denial argument that you gave before, that's not what this is about, that the Holocaust that they're not nobody's a Holocaust denier here, but that, that they want to bring out ideas and make the university a place for especially conservative folks to feel they are comfortable sharing their ideas.

Is there evidence that this bill is needed that colleges are indeed bastions of liberal thought?

The sponsors will tell you, yes.

There is that there, that that it's it's uncomfortable for conservatives to express themselves in colleges.

You know, I don't see any certainly you know, it's not like I've been out there going and visiting every college campus around Ohio when I have.

It's been quite a number of years since I attended, college myself.

But you will have some, university coursework.

That is, for lack of a better word.

It's deliberately provocative.

It deliberately takes one end of the spectrum.

And usually you're quite clear about that.

You know, people talk around campus.

Hey, I'm thinking about taking this course next semester with such and such a professor, and you're like, oh, we'll just, you know, she teaches her class, you know, this particular way and everything, you know, word kind of gets out and, and, you know, there are methods for teaching to bring out other opinions, to talk about other ideas.

But Senate Bill one, you know, again, it doesn't recognize that.

It basically says, obviously, what's happening on college campuses is that they're indoctrination centers.

We need to do something about this.

And it just doesn't jibe with reality, with what's going on out there.

And if some people are uncomfortable voicing their ideas with voicing their thoughts in the classroom setting, I mean, absolutely, that's unfortunate.

That shouldn't happen.

But, you know, there are also times where we're all talking about adults.

Sometimes, your ideas will be rejected by others, and that's just part of life, whether it's on a college campus or what have you, though the answer to the problem, to the extent that there might be a problem.

And again, I don't see any evidence of this being the case.

But the answer to that problem is not the passage of Senate Bill one.

when I ask you about some of the other bills that you've been looking at here, one would ban so-called sanctuary cities in Ohio.

My research suggests we don't have any official sanctuary cities, but is there such a thing as an official sanctuary city?

And if not, how do you ban them?

Yeah.

Much like, DTI being undefined in Senate Bill one, the current bill with regard to, Ice enforcement and sanctuary cities and everything else, sanctuary cities are not defined.

There's no official definition of what a sanctuary city is.

It's not like there's some grand formal register, that, you know, the city of Cleveland or the county of Franklin or anybody goes in signs and now we're officially a sanctuary city.

The idea behind this, though, is that immigration enforcement, that's federal law.

Immigration laws are federal laws.

The responsibility for the enforcement of those laws are federal.

But there are ways, that, local governments can partner up, in a formal sense, with the federal government to provide some level of immigration enforcement, usually, post arrest.

And while somebody is detained in jail, at least temporarily.

And that all has its own host of problems with regard to legality, constitutionality, financial liabilities and what have you.

But recognizing that, again, this is a this is a federal responsibility.

The states don't have to go along with it.

The local governments do not have to go along with this.

They they are free under current law, to say, look, if ice comes knocking and says to, you know, the City of Columbus police or the Franklin County Sheriff's Office where we're going to conduct a workplace raid, in your city, and we want your assistance to be able to do that.

The city or the county or whomever is free to say, you know, no, thanks.

We understand what you're doing.

But, you know, for any number of reasons, this just isn't for us.

And typically that's a financial, burden on the local governments.

And I think is what typically leads them to to not participate with the federal government.

Attorney General Dave Yost disagrees, says it would be just like a local government doesn't have the ability to print its own money.

It doesn't have the ability to make its own laws on immigration.

I think we respectfully we think Attorney General Yost is is wrong on this.

It gets to the fundamental function of government.

You know, where exactly on that ladder of law and, and, statutory law that the federal government is that the state government is and that local government is.

And so, you know, this is something that that people who are gun rights advocates have latched on to in recent years to trying to get laws passed that say, hey, local governments, when the feds come knocking, wanting to enforce federal gun laws in your community.

We want to pass laws that say, no, absolutely.

Under no circumstances are you allowed to cooperate with the federal government with this.

So it gets into this sort of federal supremacy issue, but where you still have, you know, the 10th Amendment and states rights to say, hey, look, no, this isn't for us.

This isn't something that we want to do.

I want to ask you real briefly about, legislation that we are still waiting to see.

This would be legislation that would ban the death penalty and executions, as well as ban state funds for abortion providers, which has already been banned, and state funds for end of life procedures, which are already illegal.

The ACLU normally favors, bans on executions and the death penalty.

But you're not in favor of this.

Yeah, the ACLU of Ohio and the ACLU, nationally, we're strong believers in abolishing the death penalty.

And so we have supported, and been active in these efforts throughout the years here in Ohio, since Ohio, at least since Ohio reinstated capital punishment back in the 1990s.

One of the first things that I worked on with the ACLU, actually, and so we have supported and continue to support clean death penalty repeal bills.

We don't think that there's any reason to confuse things, to bring in abortion arguments, to bring in death with dignity arguments which, again, we see as both of those fundamental civil liberties issues, and so, our preference is for let's just do this the clean way.

Now, the thought out there is that you can bring along some of the so-called pro-life folks by saying, okay, we're going to, you know, get our nose in the tent here with regard to, abortion or death with dignity.

And it just it just sucks up the waters.

It it becomes a Trojan horse at that particular point.

There's no reason to bring abortion into this conversation whatsoever.

Senate Bill one is considered a top priority of Senate Republicans who say it was vetted last session.

And so it could come up for a vote soon.

There's also last sessions law requiring schools allow students to be released for religious instruction, and parents be notified of sexual content in classroom discussions.

And if their children are showing physical or mental health changes or want to use new pronouns, which the ACLU said was Ohio's version of a don't say gay law, Daniel suggests those who are opposed are waiting for people who have a claim to have been hurt by that law to come forward before legal action is taken against it.

And that is it for this week, for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Media.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State News Dawg or find us online by searching the state of Ohio Show.

You can also hear more from the Bureau on our podcast, The Ohio Statehouse Scoop.

Look for it every Monday morning wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for watching, and please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Just.

Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from Medical Mutual, dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans, offering health insurance plans, as well as dental, vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

More at Med mutual.com.

The law offices of Porter, right, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at porterwright.com.

Porter Wright inspired Every day in Ohio Education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at OHEA.org.