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We're a year away from the 2026 primary with a very low turnout.

One behind us and a high of mayors are watching the budget process as they wrestle with housing, public safety and other concerns.

I talked to two of them this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

We're a year away from the primaries that will decide the major party nominees for governor, U.S. Senate, and other offices.

But there's big news for both Democrats and Republicans this week related to next year's big vote.

Democrats now have an opening at the top, with Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters announcing her resignation to accept the position with Target Smart, a national Democratic data and strategy firm.

Walters said in a statement on ABC's that the ODP is in, quote, the strongest possible position for change, and completing a chair transition now ensures the next leader of our party will have a healthy amount of time to get their legs under them for the 2026 cycle.

First, jump into the race to be the new chair, Senator Bill Tamura of Columbus, who would have to mobilize the party against a well-funded Republican candidate in a state that has voted for the GOP in 80 of the last 96 statewide elections, a win rate of 83% since 1994. top of the ticket there with like Ramaswamy, who is got a lot of money leading in the polling, actively campaigning.

How do you beat him as a Democrat?

You've said Doctor Amy Acton, who is the only Democrat in the race right now, is not it?

I mean, I mean, if you go back in history, I'm a I'm a I have a history major.

I'm a student of history, especially political history.

And, and we've had candidates top the ticket of the last three or 4 or 5 or like five, six cycles.

And, the only time we won for governor was when we ran.

I'll be honest, I white male against a non white male, the Republican Party.

And that shouldn't be Ted Strickland against against, Ken Blackwell.

I mean, we have Vivek Swamy, who, is not a white male who's got a funny name.

And I hate to say this, but Ohio is still got some tendencies that aren't favorable to anybody other than white men.

And I think we need to run somebody that is that demographic, because that's what Ohio has shown in the last several, say winning elections, that we need to top of the ticket that is going to I mean, Rick Rubin Swami is is a carpetbagger.

He moved his company from Ohio to Texas.

He's I mean, he has all this money, but he doesn't actually talk to people.

I mean, he talks to the rich people.

That's all it's always good for.

And, he can be beatable.

I think he's eminently beatable.

If we get somebody at the top of the ticket who doesn't have, again, listen, I don't know Amy acting, but she worked for a Republican governor.

She was she took down abortion clinics, and then she shut down the state of Ohio during Covid.

It was the right thing to do at the time.

But today, people are are mad about that.

And I mean, everybody knows the TV commercials coming.

You know, I own a small business, whether I'm white, black woman, male, young, old, and they're all going to it's going to be same commercials, same commercials about I shut down the state, I lost my job.

I lost my business.

I didn't get to graduate on time.

I didn't have a graduation.

I'm behind in my learning.

All those of those are the commercials are going to run because all my Republican colleagues that I served with, we now all said that they love the fact that she's our candidate because they're going to run those commercials.

But, I mean, it's not a secret.

It's if you do this for a living, it's not a secret.

And I think we need somebody who can, I mean, we tried again, the Democrat Party.

We tried.

And look at the election results for the last.

I hate to say this because I'm all pro women and wish me, I mean, my girlfriend cheat me if I wasn't, but, we've had a woman at the top, I think at three of the last four statewide cycles, and they all got drubbed.

And I don't like to say that, but if you can only look at the election results and see Nan Whaley, their names are in the vote.

Kamala Harris, I mean, you know, Hillary Clinton, they all got beat because Ohio is just not as progressive as other states in the union because we know we are older, whiter and less educated than the state up north than Illinois, than Pennsylvania, than Wisconsin.

Those are demographic statistics that are that are truth.

So until we get to the point where we are more progressive and more forward thinking and have a better diversity of our state, as a general population, we have to play the hand as deltas.

And I just think that, I mean, we need to run our best candidate, and someone has name recognition, someone that doesn't have a, you know, these things that that have been out there.

And that's what I'm looking to do and look to do some of the most prominent names you mentioned, you mentioned a couple when you started talking about Chris Radford, David Pepper, but also Sherrod Brown and Tim Ryan.

All of those are white men who've lost races, lost statewide races.

And but if you noticed the one on the top of the ticket because since the Republicans are innocent, I gave my Republican colleagues credit that they know how to fix things, to change the rules, to win elections.

I mean, that's what they're good at.

That's the only thing they're good at, actually, is fixing the rules to to win elections.

But, Tim Ryan was number nine on the ballot when he ran for the Senate, and our top of the ticket got 38% the vote.

Sherrod Brown was not the top ticket.

He was below Kamala Harris and Supreme Court candidate and then didn't came toward Brown even though he spent, you know, the race for the most expensive in history of Ohio.

He did seven and a half, eight points better than a and then a presidential candidate.

But you can't overcome a top of the ticket that loses by a large amount.

I mean, it's been shown that both Tim Ryan and Jerry Brown made up 7.8 points better than the top of the ticket.

But you can't overcome 10 or 11 points, which is what we've lost.

That's because we'll say we're elections, right?

So you need someone at the top of the ticket because that's the first person on the ballot On Thursday, former U.S.

Senator Sherrod Brown endorsed former state Representative Kathleen Clyde.

He said her, quote, commitment to fielding strong candidates up and down the ballot and in every corner of the state demonstrates her understanding of what's at stake in the 2026 election and beyond.

And, quote, we hope to hear directly from Kathleen Clyde next week.

And on Friday, the Ohio Republican Party's state central committee met to consider endorsing Ramaswamy for governor over Attorney General Dave Yost and former Morgan County School Board President Heather Hill.

There were some Republicans who had asked for no endorsement of anyone that could leave the door open for another candidate not yet in the race, such as Lieutenant Governor Jim Tressel.

We'll have more on that meeting next week as well.

The May primary brought out less than 11% of voters statewide.

Two thirds of the school levies that were on the ballot passed, though the Madison Local Schools levy in Butler County was tied in unofficial results.

More than 86% of renewable operating levies were approved, and just over 54% of new operating levies passed, but new capital requests were soundly rejected.

Only 21% of those bond and combination bond levies passed, which is similar to how those levies did in the March primaries last year.

But all of the levies for public libraries passed with an average approval of 69%.

Also approved issue two.

The renewal of a ten year capital improvement program for local road, bridge and water and sewer projects.

Voters approved a half $1 billion boost in that program from its last approval ten years ago, to a total of $2.5 billion over ten years.

Dozens of local officials and government affiliated groups, business organizations and unions supported issue two, including the bypass Design Coalition of mayors from cities around the state.

I talked to two members of the Ohio Mayors Alliance about the issues that had their attention as they gathered for their annual luncheon last week.

Well, I know housing has been a top priority for the governor and one that we've made some good success on with, you know, some historic, investments into housing tax credits and other things, obviously like tech.

One of the things that I'm working on as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors is doing, a good bit of advocating.

I'll be in Washington again next week to advocate our housing priorities, because this is really not only an issue around Ohio, but around the entire country.

You know, housing prices and rents are going faster than folks incomes.

And so we need to address this supply crisis as a nation.

We're somewhere between 4 and 6 million units short across the country.

I know we're 200,000 short here in central Ohio, and every community has different housing needs.

But we do know that supply and dealing with the supply crisis we've under built since, quite honestly, before the Great Recession, and this issue was just compounded over the last 12 or 14 years.

I believe you've talked about a bond package to help with that.

I want to ask you, in Findlay, I mean, I don't think people necessarily think about affordable housing shortages there, but obviously you've got the property tax issue as well.

So, yeah, it's an issue for you too.

This is certainly an issue.

And as Mayor Guenther said, it's an issue across the country and all community types.

And one of the things that we've looked at in Findlay is that affordable means different things to different people, right?

So it's not just, hey, we need low income housing, we really need housing across the spectrum.

And one of the things we're talking about is how can we help incentivize single family owner occupied housing, because we have property tax abatement and different state incentives that we can work on to have the apartments or condos or rental properties, those commercial tax properties.

But how do we also make sure that we are helping support individuals who want to own the asset?

And that's something that we're trying to figure out.

One of the big barriers to development in communities like mine and really all communities, is the infrastructure cost rate when we're trying to put in a new subdivision.

So I know that there's some state, discussions specifically in the Senate.

I've talked to Senator McCauley regularly, and this is an important topic for him.

And so I'm hoping that we'll be able to come up with some creative solutions that may allow local communities like mine to come to the table and say, how do we address this to help offset that infrastructure costs and help spur development?

Do you think about the past, the present and the future of Ohio's economy?

It runs through Ohio's cities.

Over 80% of the state's GDP in America's GDP runs through metro economies.

And we also know that if we embrace growth, we help to spread that tax burden, you know, by growing as a city, as a state, we have more folks participating in that process, and that lessens the tax burden over time, whether it's to fund our schools, our police departments, whatever the needs are, you know, at the local level.

And so, we're bullish on our future here in central Ohio, in that of the state.

But it means that we're going to have to embrace housing the way we have economic development over the last 20 years.

Let's talk about taxes for a minute here in the House version of the budget says that communities with dispensaries, marijuana dispensaries will get 20% of the revenue for five years, whereas the current law says you get that money in perpetuity.

There's no time limit set on that.

What are your thoughts on that money?

How will you absorb losing that money?

Yeah, well, certainly we're grateful that they are having the local community funds available.

That is an important part of moving this forward in our communities that have stepped up and said that they're willing to work with dispensaries in their community.

Certainly the restoration is helpful, but we do believe that we should be receiving that long term.

That's a business that's occurring in our community.

The state voters passed this with that structure in mind.

And so that's an expectation that I think would be really beneficial to give back that local control and support a revenue stream that's so critical for us to be able to invest in our safety services or other amenities that are critical to supporting our community.

We trust voters and voters knew what they were doing when they voted for this and passed it, and we believe we ought to honor their wishes, and honor the commitments of the ballot language that they supported.

I think this is something that a lot of people think Columbus and central Ohio primarily, but it really does affect the entire state.

It's estimated that Ohio could be in a full on energy crisis by 2027, if the electrical grid is not shored up.

So let me start with you, mayor.

There.

What can be done about this?

Well, this is going to be a collective community left.

And luckily we've got great leadership.

The Ohio Business Roundtable, one Columbus, the Columbus Partnership, that of all in the Ohio Chamber, that all been part of putting out a set of recommendations.

And it's everything from embracing renewables to, shoring up our grid and making sure that it is, able to support and grow in the years ahead.

We believe our job is to continue to create jobs and grow the economy for the entire state here in central Ohio.

But we have to invest in ourselves and our infrastructure to do that.

And so investing in that grid, making that that grid stronger, more secure, it's sustainable for the future is going to be a top priority.

And I think a lot of people do associate this with Central Ohio because of the data centers and these kind of things.

But this does affect the entire state.

It affects Western Ohio's.

Well, definitely.

You know, Findlay is no different with making sure that as we have businesses looking for investment in our community, energy, water, sewer, land are the things that they're asking for immediately.

And I would completely agree with Mayor Gunther that it is one, a national defense concern, that our grid is woefully underinvested in.

It is a liability to us, and we need to be having a comprehensive approach to investing in our energy grid at the state level.

It's also a competitive advantage, that we can really harness ourselves to have affordable renewable energy.

And that means a yes and approach to our energy grid.

So we need to continue to look at and there's been some great recommended actions on how we continue to invest in that.

But obviously making sure that we're doing it in and a, a strategic approach because it is a great cost to the users across the state of Ohio.

And obviously energy and, investment has been a key topic and something that we need to continue to keep on the top of our radar.

At the end of last session, there was a bill that the mayors Alliance came out and opposed that would have increased the municipal contribution to the Ohio Police and Fire Pension Fund.

The alliance was concerned about, that could lead to layoffs.

It could lead to lack of recruitment from cities that can't afford to do this.

That the lack of investment in public safety, police and fire said they make concessions.

It's time for municipalities to now kick in.

Have you heard anything more about whether this proposal will be coming back?

Since the fund is facing a fiscal emergency?

We're, You know, I'm really proud of the fact that our police officers are some of the highest paid police officers in the state.

We support our officers.

We continue to invest.

We've been blessed to be able to invest in three police classes a year.

Our goal and vision is to put more officers on the street than ever before in the city's history, which is important because we continue to grow.

This is not an issue of of supporting or not supporting law enforcement.

We need to keep our resources focused on keeping our neighborhoods safe, adding more officers, getting the highest trained, best officers out in the streets.

And we're more than happy to work on a solution, with the FOP and other partners that make sense, that, you know, has everybody that's part of the solution.

But simply, you know, putting this through, you know, in lame duck and sticking cities, like Columbus and Findlay and others with millions and millions of dollars, of course, without us being at the table, without us being part of the solution is just something that I can't take back to the taxpayers of Columbus.

And accept.

Yeah.

So this is certainly something my my father was an auxiliary police officer.

My stepfather was a firefighter.

And so something we definitely are supportive of our police and fire.

The thing that we really struggled with, and from my standpoint is that our our budgets are finite and we are already under strain.

And how we make sure that we are investing where we need to invest and keeping folks on our streets is our top priority to keep our community safe.

When we were looking at the pension bill, my main concern was that the data was based off of pre-COVID investments that we had been making into our law enforcement and our fire departments.

And so the wages, the amount that's being paid in had not been, updated to really reflect that investment.

And so right now, it's my understanding that there's an analysis that's being complete.

Their report should be released later this year that will give us better data to make a decision that's going to make sure that the fund is sustainable long term, but that we're not throwing money at a problem that's really not going to get to the root cause.

One of the fun things to talk about with mayors is, local control and home rule, because quite often legislation runs right up against that.

Specifically, there is a bill that would require local law enforcement to cooperate with the federal government in the enforcement of immigration laws.

And would cut funding for noncompliance.

This is not only a federal authority potentially issue, but it's a home rule issue, is it not?

I mean, what are your views on legislation that would tell your communities how to handle this?

Well, we work with federal, state and other local law enforcement every day, going after criminals who've committed crimes in our communities.

What we've said and we, via executive order and council, later codified back in 2017, is that we weren't going to do the federal government's job of immigration enforcement.

And so does that make you a sanctuary city?

You know, we believe that we're a safe and welcoming city to all.

We want, the best and the brightest from all over the world.

If there are folks that have committed crimes in this community or any other community in this country, we we raise our hand, we stand ready, willing and able and work with federal, state and other local authorities every day to go after criminals who commit crimes in our community.

But we also have made very clear, that we're not going to do the federal government's job for them.

And quite honestly, the city of Columbus, the taxpayers of Columbus are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the Columbus Division of Police.

They want their officers fighting crime in their neighborhoods, making their neighborhoods safer for seniors and for children.

That's where they want their money going.

And that's why we're seeing crime come down dramatically in cities across the state and this nation, because of the great work in partnership between the community and law enforcement.

And how do you see this?

Do you see this as a public safety issue, a local control issue, a federal issue?

Yes.

All of those things.

I would agree with Mayor Guenther, though, that the expectation is, first of all, mayors.

We are not saying, hey, if somebody is breaking the law, you just get away with it.

That is not how we operate.

We are safety focused and want to keep our community safe.

I think it's maybe best to use a different example because this has become so politicized, is we would have an issue if the federal government, the IRS, called us and said, hey, Finley, I want you to start taking care of all of the tax processing for Reds, for federal taxes and your community.

We're not set up to do that.

We don't have the resources to do that.

That's not our job, and that's not what our taxpayers have paid us to focus on.

So we're not saying, hey, we're going to be adversarial to you, but we're saying that's not the the responsibility that we have.

You are in the structure to do that.

And that's your responsibility.

And we're here to collaborate when appropriate.

We're not going to enforce federal tax laws or immigration laws that people commit crimes in our community.

We're going to work, you know, hand in glove with anyone and everyone that can make our community safer.

You've mentioned that you are the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and that you're going back to DC very shortly.

You've probably making many trips to DC to advocate on, various policies.

And the city of Columbus is kind of pushed up against the Trump administration on some things cutting for funding for infectious disease programs.

Also, D-I programs, remote work.

I mean, there's a lot of issues that Columbus and I guess other cities around the country are pushing back on what is viewed as maybe federal, interference.

Well, we believe strongly that, Congress appropriates and wants that money has been appropriated.

And a commitment has been made on behalf of the federal government that the executive doesn't have the authority or power to cancel that, or to stop that.

And so, you know, in the case of Columbus Public Health, over half of Columbus Public Health employees are funded by the federal government.

And by canceling this grant that had already been awarded that already, agreements are all been signed.

We ended up laying off 11 full time employees who were working on infectious disease control coming out of a pandemic, with measles outbreaks all over the country.

That's not acceptable.

And that's why you're in.

And that's exactly what I would say in any awards that are made to this city or to cities across the country, we believe strongly that money, is a commitment and that there has been, you know, a sacred bond that's been created between the federal government and the local government.

And we don't think it's appropriate for the federal government, to tell states or cities, that their funding is at risk because, you know, of these other issues that have nothing to do with public health, public safety, public service, public utilities.

I tell people all the time, three kinds of people in America Republicans, Democrats and mayors, you know, there's not a Republican or Democratic way to pick up the trash to plow the snow, to make sure you have safe, clean drinking water.

So the blue and red fights in DC do not belong in our cities.

We're focused on delivering for the people of our communities.

And, mayor, you are a Republican, but do you view some of this as as a conflict over local control and deciding what your residents want versus the larger federal picture?

The larger state picture?

There definitely have been instances where there is a legitimate legal argument from the federal, state and local level.

And I think the message that I always portray, and that's an important part of the Ohio Mayors Alliance, is that we're here to work together.

We are all in these positions to serve our residents.

We've all taken an oath of office that says we're going to uphold the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the state of Ohio, and in my case, the ordinances of the city of Findlay.

We're all also for efficiency and wise use of the taxpayer dollars.

I'm paying taxes.

I want to see them used wisely.

We are here to help and identify processes for efficiency.

I think one of the big struggles that our communities are facing right now is that there are headlines that really don't get to the detail, and we have then responsibility to determine how it really impacts on the minute level in our communities.

And it's wreaking a lot of havoc by having headlines that really don't give us clear direction.

So I think that any opportunity for us to work with the state or federal government to really see how the rubber meets the road and we can all do what's right for our communities that we're here to, to be a part of that.

And know you say this isn't political.

There's mayors are not Republicans or Democrats, but some of you are.

I mean, you definitely are.

There are mayors who run for political office from your organizations.

And there's a perception, I think, that the state treats urban areas and rural areas differently.

Is does that make it hard for mayors of big cities and mayors of smaller communities to come together and agree on things?

Well, I think that both the Mayor's alliance and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, we still believe in bipartisanship.

We still believe that we can come together.

You know, we subscribe to the old Ronald Reagan tip no real, tip O'Neill rule.

And that somebody that agrees with me 80% of the time is not my enemy.

And I'm not going to let the 20% that we may disagree or disagree on giving away the 80% that we can work together on.

And so we believe that the greater good for our communities, for our state and our nation is when we share ideas based on data, best practices, and figure out how we can deliver the highest quality services and support to the taxpayers who are paying the bill.

Yeah, we know it.

So much of the political rhetoric at the federal level, at the state level and even at the local level, deters from the work that we're really here to do.

And certainly we don't agree on everything, I'm sure.

But but when we get down to it, we all are focused on the same things.

The execution may look different, but with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which I'm on the advisory board of, as well as Ohio Mayors Alliance, when we look at both of those organizations, we get in a room and we say, what can we agree on?

And how do we work together to emphasize that voice?

Do we have disagreements?

Certainly.

But I would say largely we agree on the meat and potatoes of local government and how we run our cities.

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

Thanks for watching.

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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.

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

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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.

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