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And from the 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 State report card show improving grades for Ohio's public schools.

And there's a third candidate in the race for governor.

We talked to him this weekend.

The state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

Things look a little different this week as our studio is undergoing some upgrades, which have been continuing at the state House, which is 165 years old.

State education leaders are celebrating over the annual report cards, which analyze data from last school year for all public districts and individual buildings, as well as charter schools but not private schools statewide.

English language arts and math proficiency are at five year highs for Ohio's K through 12 public schools.

Chronic absenteeism has decreased by 20% over four years.

Graduation rates are up and more kids are leaving school with technical skills proficiency.

Ohio Department of Education and Workforce Director Steve Dawkins says that pushes back on the talking point that public schools are failing to deliver.

It's pretty hard to look at our report card and not suggest that all schools are doing much better.

I mean, just look at the data.

And and I think that that speaks for itself.

I know a lot of people have their own agendas when it comes to whether or not public schools are doing a good job or other forms of school and so forth.

I've always believed that as a country and as a state, that having parents have opportunities to make some choices and how they their children, it's terribly important.

I also believe there should be no bad schools.

And and I think we have policy in place that that attempts to deal with that issue.

And but in the end, the data is the data.

And it speaks very well for all schools right now in terms of how we're performing in the aggregate, obviously there are schools who who are not doing as well as we like for them to do, and that's both public charter and so forth.

But in the aggregate, we're moving the needle forward.

Around 38% of students are still not proficient in English language arts, and 44% of kids are still not proficient in math.

Only a 10th of districts are in the top rating of five stars, but no district had under two stars.

The state's eight big urban districts got either two, two and a half or three stars, with all needing help to meet state standards for graduation and early literacy.

The two major party candidates for governor, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Amy Acton, sat down with me over the last two weeks to talk about their plans on property taxes, data centers, and other issues.

But there is a third candidate in the race.

Libertarian Party of Ohio candidate Don Kiske, a Navy vet and TB control room operator from Ottawa in northwest Ohio.

Minor party candidates have typically barely been a blip in the election results, but this is an unusual year.

He talked with my Statehouse News Bureau colleague, Joe Ingles.

Why are you running and what do you think you can accomplish that a Republican or Democratic gubernatorial candidate cannot accomplish?

Well, reason why I got into this race is just, you know, I realized that Highlands need a third choice in the ballot this year, and the two party system is not going to get done.

We're having all kinds of division.

There's all kinds of problems that people want addressed, but are not having their needs met, their wishes met as voters.

I want to try and bridge that gap.

I think the one thing, one of the ways I can do that, and one thing I accomplished that neither Doctor Acton nor Mister Ramaswami can accomplish, is winning over the trust of the voters.

There's a major deficit trust right now in this election.

I believe I am the candidate who can overcome that.

Okay.

You say that you want to debate Doctor Acton and Vivek Ramaswami.

They won't debate each other.

Why should they debate you?

Well, I mean, all their misgivings about that either campaign has about debating one or the other.

They don't really apply with me.

I know Doctor Acton has been very unhappy with the nature of the political action committee ads that obviously Mr.

Ramos hasn't disavowed any of that.

And, I mean, I, I understand why Doctor Acton is troubled by, you know, a lot of the rhetoric and a lot of the messaging.

My campaign, my I, myself and my campaign, we have not engaged in any of that.

So there really is no reason for her to decline to to debate me with Mr.

Ramos Swamy if he if he wants to throw this rhetoric out, that if you're not willing to debate, then are you really fit to lead then.

Well, then he needs to, you know, he needs to practice what he preaches.

We have contacted him via email.

We've or I should say his campaign.

We've not yet heard back.

There is video of me out there that we captured of me shaking his hand at the Teamsters dinner back on August 18th, and he off agreement that he would debate me.

Of course, it was had the caveat that, you know, we needed to get you know, what he called the third candidate, meaning Doctor Acton.

Well, I mean, if if debating me is conditional upon her presence, then he's kind of been being disingenuous in that regard.

So tell me about your policy platforms.

What are your major concerns and how would you deal with them?

Our top three issues in this election, they are all the concerns about data centers, the large scale data centers that, you know, that have proliferated in Ohio.

Number two on our list are the automated license plate reader camps.

Or, you know, everyone's just calling them flock because it's a lot easier to say.

And those two issues go really hand in hand as far as what people are starting to recognize as just an ever growing surveillance state, not just here in Ohio, but across America.

I'm really trying to push back on.

This is a great way, I think, to create a ripple effect.

But I think people everywhere who are concerned about their privacy, their civil liberties, you know, you know, not just here in Ohio but the rest of the country, hopefully we can, you know, get that springboard.

yeah the third issue was property taxes.

We are all for ending property taxes in Ohio.

So tell me what you do about those things.

What are your actual platforms on those policies?

The with data centers, the governor appoints everyone who sits on the the various boards that oversee the issuance, the issuance of building permits on that they give the different boards that approve environmental, you know.

Permissions to do the these kinds of construction projects.

My calling for an immediate moratorium, and there really shouldn't be no new data centers built until we have solid regulations, you know, consistent rules across the board for all of this.

There's a lot right now.

The whole process is very haphazard.

I'm strongly opposed to the use of non-disclosure agreements that the top tech companies are using to get the local permits to make these projects come about.

I'm sorry, but the whole point of local government in particular is people should have full transparency, full transparency over what's happening in their communities.

And the NDAs are a great way to bypass the communities, bypass to the public, and just build and say, you know, you'll take what we give you and like it.

Well, that's really not how you know, that's not how we work here.

We people want to know what's coming up in their backyard now.

I mean, I'm not solely the biggest fan of what's known as Nimby or not in my backyard.

The problem with these data centers is that once they're operational, they truly render all the properties nearby and enjoining just unlivable.

They're uninhabitable.

They're unusable.

So, I mean, you have to well, I understand concerns about property rights for, you know, the tech companies and they they purchased the land.

But if these operations are now encroaching on the property rights of people who have already have already built their homes and set their roots nearby, we need to find that balance.

Right now.

There's no balance.

Okay.

And on the other two items, property tax, property tax.

I don't know if there's enough political will in the General Assembly, but I really I think that's moot.

You have the acts Ohio tax petition drive.

They're going to they're going to succeed.

There is a lot of interest in the general public, just not in the political class here.

My running mate James Mills and I, we have already signed the petition ourselves.

I signed here in Putnam County.

James, he signed the petition down to Warren County, where he lives.

And really, the best thing that we can do, or whoever the next governor can, is the best thing the next governor will how can do is just stay out of their way.

And what I what I mean by that here with and here we're talking about Mr.

Ramaswami in particular.

He's been all over the map talking about taxation in Ohio.

He wouldn't talk about property taxes.

He tried to do, like, a slight of hand maneuver recently, talking about wanting to eliminate and phase out with probably better phrase, phase out income tax in Ohio.

Now, of course, I'm a libertarian.

I you know, there's not a tax out there that I actually think is okay, but there's already a, a grassroots initiative going on right now.

And like I said, they're going to succeed.

The best thing we can do is not interfere with rhetoric with, you know, all kinds of promises that may or may not come about.

My promise is to on this issue is to stay out of the people's way.

Let them get that petition drive done, and I will.

I will vocalize full support for the people to vote on this and get rid of property taxes at Ohio.

Okay?

So they get rid of property taxes though.

And what do you do then?

You have no money for schools, no money for local governments.

Woohoo makes that up.

Honestly, there's going to be enough money we allow doesn't have a revenue problem.

In fiscal year 2025, the state of Ohio ran a $1.5 billion surplus.

Projections for fiscal year 2027 are a $1.75 billion surplus.

We there are revenues.

We we need to rein in spending.

I know this is a promise.

You get a lot of conservatives who run for office.

I'm going to follow through.

One of the things that the governor of Ohio has when it comes to the budget is the power of the line item veto.

If the General Assembly, which right now is a Republican supermajority, they won't rein in spending themselves.

I'll do it myself.

Or the power of the line item veto.

I will make that happen.

Okay, there will be enough money available for education to hire, so you take it from the state coffers then to make it up?

Yes.

Okay.

There's a lot of things that the state Ohio does.

And of course, my go to example is the first energy bailout that was passed recently.

We stopped doing nonsense like that.

We won't struggle to fund education.

who do you see as your voters, disaffected Trump voters or someone else, really just the independent voters?

Not just here at Ohio, but all across America.

More and more people are pulling away from the two major parties, and they're being legally, you know, classified as independent or non no party affiliation, which is the term here in Ohio.

They're the ones I want to reach.

They're the ones who have their fed up.

They've had enough.

Some you know may have, you know a particular history that they voted in past elections.

But perhaps the other switched back and forth between parties.

You know, when it comes to primary voting, because that's how we determine party affiliation.

Ohio, for anyone who's not aware of that, the party whose ballot you request and the primaries, that's all the state of Ohio determines if you're a Republican or Democrat.

Those numbers are dwindling here in the Buckeye State.

And it's those folks that I want to reach and just say they're, you know, I'm the candidate who understands where you're coming from because I got there 17 years ago, and I've stuck with this, and I want to encourage everyone to come on board and not the same thing.

They have to register as libertarians, but if they're willing to pull away from the major parties, there's a reason for it, and we are filling that void for you.

Okay.

In 2018, the five independent minor party tickets got 2.9% of the vote.

The four independent minor minor party candidates who ran in 2022 got 8924 votes.

So that's a total of 2% of the votes.

How do you make the case that you're a serious candidate when your party hasn't gotten double digits, in terms of percentage of the vote?

I mean, it's an uphill battle.

No doubt about it.

But it's in past years, a lot of it's been exposure.

Right now, there's so much dissatisfaction with the Republican and Democratic nominees that people are starting to look at us.

We need a lot of the polls that actually include mining, because and that's part of the problem, too.

How many polls, you know, actually just purposely leave me out and just list other, which is very disingenuous.

When my name is mentioned, we're getting we're in the 10%, we're in the double digits range.

And if you look at how many people are undecided still, even with three choices, if you even if you split, you know those voters three ways, you mean still that boosts our our our viability.

You know, I think significantly, the the best way to overcome it.

One is through advertising.

We're starting to get some of that rolled out, opportunities to do earned media such as this interview.

I mean, these are the ways that we're picking up steam.

My my campaign manager is doing a great job.

He is making sure that the media is hearing from us on regular basis.

That's then that plays a big role because when the when the only when media only hears from a, you know, every once in a while, it's easy to forget about it.

So we're not taking seriously my campaign manager, Steve Perkins, he's making sure everyone out there is going to take us seriously one way or another.

Are you at all concerned about playing a spoiler role specifically for Ramaswami, because he's more likely to be aligned with some more of your voters in Acton, right?

You know, honestly, Doctor Acton's not known for her free market stance, but she's also been throwing a lot of historically marginalized populations under the bus.

And that's, you know, that's drawing voters, you know, in from that side of the aisle.

There's there's, as I mentioned earlier, there's an enormous deficit or trust deficit with Vivek Ramaswamy, you know, so we're pulling some of, you know, people who might have voted for him.

And then of course, there is trying to reach the independent voters, the ones who haven't even necessarily made their decision yet.

Those are the ones we want to reach.

As far as playing spoiler goes, honestly, the whole notion of a stolen vote or a spoiler, I can't steal what neither of those candidates have earned, and they have not earned a lot of people's votes.

And that's what we're trying to do this year.

Neither of the two major party opponents have held public office before.

You haven't either.

How would you address your lack of experience?

A lot of it's just both not to principles, ultimately.

I mean, first and foremost I am I am pro liberty, I am pro constitution, and I am Ohio.

First, when there is legislation that comes to the governor's desk that aligns with all three principles, you know, I'll sign it.

And when there's legislation that does not align with all three, I'll veto it.

That is how representative governance is supposed to work in a democratic constitutional republic like ours.

I have done just my own personal history.

I have served on the Libertarian Party of Ohio Central Committee, and at one point, I in 2018, I was elected Central Central Committee chair and served a term that way.

So I have one contested races now.

They were internal elections, of course.

But, you know, I have earned I've been proven that I can earn people's trust and, you know, hold elected office.

Obviously it's an internal one.

But, you know, you got to start somewhere.

You can watch my interviews with Vic Ramaswami and Amy Acton in our archive at State News.

Kroger is the largest traditional supermarket chain in the US and in Ohio, with around 200 stores around the state.

But a small nonprofit food system advocacy group based in Pennsylvania says it's making some of its money by overcharging customers.

The center for Responsible Food Business advertised a public portal called Kroger Hurts Families.

Taylor Warren with The Crab says they got testimonials from 2520 shoppers between June and August.

So about 40% of the testimonials raise concerns about high prices, about Kroger's prices getting unsustainable.

And there's been a lot of chatter for for many years now about high grocery prices.

This is a real issue for many American families.

Most American families, what we were more surprised by was sort of the next tier of a common thread, which was around this issue of overcharging.

So about 29% of customer testimonials describe this issue, where people are being charged higher prices than what they're seeing advertised.

So while they're shopping there, they're in the aisle.

They look at the shelf, they see one price.

And when they go and look at their receipt later, they see a higher price was charged and we were taken back.

We were just struck by how common of an issue.

This was in Tennessee and Georgia, Texas, Ohio.

No matter where you lived, you're shopping at Kroger.

You might be encountering this issue.

And so we started to analyze this further.

And what we found was one, this is not a new issue.

Consumer reports did an investigation over a year ago finding this at Kroger stores across state lines.

And two, you know, we really wanted to validate the concern today that we were hearing from consumers.

So we looked at inspection records in nine jurisdictions in Ohio.

We submitted public records requests to county auditors.

And what we found is that Kroger is, in fact, failing price verification inspections.

So the government is going going in, excuse me.

And testing these products, trying to see if there are errors and they are finding errors.

So this isn't just shoppers perceiving.

I thought the price was I thought this was on sale.

You've actually been able to back some of this up with documents.

Yes.

Public records show that over the last four years in these nine jurisdictions, we were able to get public records from Kroger, failed 58 price verification inspections, and more than 1 in 3 Kroger stores had at least one item ring up as overcharged, one item ringing up with a higher price than advertised.

And you know, something that I was shocked by is how many?

Dozens or probably hundreds of these testimonials mentioned.

This sort of diligent auditing of the receipts that people do, that people go through and take photos of every products shelf price that they're purchasing, and compare that price to what they're charged at the register.

You know, people don't have time for this.

People don't have the money to be overcharged, and they certainly don't have the time to be looking through their receipt and then waiting in customer service in the hopes that they'll get their money back.

And how is this happening?

I mean, is this software problems?

Is this deliberate?

Do you have any idea how and why this is happening?

Well, part of our Kroger family's campaign sort of paints a broader picture of Kroger's track record and the various business practices that they deploy to, of course, make a profit.

And what we found is that their track record shows a number of practices that consumers as well as we as a watchdog group, would deem unethical.

You know, choices they're making to charge higher prices, choices they're making to raise prices above the rate of inflation.

So that was sort of indicator, one that Kroger is willing to cut corners in certain, like take certain actions to squeeze American families.

And that's the basis for this hypothesis of May.

It may not be deliberate, but I don't know that Kroger is necessarily prioritizing addressing this issue.

So that's sort of a corporate culture answer to your question.

But another one is just around labor.

It's a simple fact that Kroger is cutting labor at the store level.

Employees have mentioned this to us.

You know, employees have come to us saying, we see that you're talking about this issue of overcharging.

And it really comes down to the fact that we are understaffed at the store.

So, for example, we got public records back in Colorado related to King Soopers, which is another Kroger banner.

The company operates over there.

And in the public records, we saw a discussion between an inspector and a store manager for the store manager was saying, we know that there are these discrepancies and these errors.

It's because corporate is asking us to change over 20 to 30,000 price tags in in a matter of a day, and sometimes 1 or 2 employees are tasked with this.

So, you know, sort of the understaffing issue, the sort of looking the other way at this issue being so persistent, I think, is what amounts to really a corporate, a company wide issue.

Not to paint the whole industry with a broad brush here, but should people assume that this is the kind of thing that's happening at other grocery store chains, we haven't had the chance to investigate other major chains.

But as food system advocates, we encounter sort of a lot of talking points and issues that customers shopping at just about every grocery store or eating at just about every restaurant encounter.

And we've been struck by the track record of Kroger in particular.

It's really stood out to us that this issue of overcharging, starting with the Consumer Reports investigation over a year ago, has felt really specific to Kroger.

It's very possible, given that the system, you know, the retail industry operates in many similar ways that it's happening at Walmart, Publix, etc.

but we've been really struck by how prevalent it is at Kroger in particular.

And like I said before, their track record really makes us concerned that this is something they're willing to neglect to address.

And Kroger is about to get bigger since they're planning on buying Giant Eagle, which is another major chain here in Ohio.

So this are you concerned this problem just will spread across even more grocery stores that are under that Kroger banner?

Of course, as Kroger amounts and sort of builds more power and influence, it becomes harder to hold them accountable, becomes harder to push them to do better, to do right by their customers.

So we're deeply concerned about their purchase of Giant Eagle, and we hope that that decision will face more scrutiny, just like the Albertsons merger A spokesperson for Kroger said in a statement, our customers know that Kroger associates work hard every day to provide great service and value across millions of transactions in Ohio.

We take pricing accuracy seriously and work quickly to correct any issue when it is brought to our attention.

This misleading report combines selective data with unverified claims and does not accurately reflect the experience of customers in our stores every day.

End quote.

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

Thanks for watching.

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

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You can also hear more from us on our podcast, The Ohio State House scoop every Monday morning, and please join us again next time for the State of Ohio.

Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

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

More at Porter Wright.com.

Porter Wright.

inspired every day.

And from the 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