Editorial Roundup: Ohio

Editorial: Keep affordable housing tax credits in the budget. The need is great

Ohio has a pressing need for more affordable housing for low-income families and mothers with children. A shocking 25% of Ohio renters are “severely cost burdened,” cleveland.com’s Jake Zuckerman reports, citing state data. What that means in plain English is that more than half what they earn goes to put a roof over their heads and pay utilities. Even worse, there are not enough affordable and available rentals for low-income Ohioans -- less than one-third of what’s needed by the state’s extremely low-income renters and slightly more than three-quarters of what low-income renters need.

For those more fortunate, think about what that would mean in your own lives: If, after paying the rent or mortgage, water bills, for electricity and heating, you only had half what you earned left to pay for food, health care, clothing, school supplies for the kids, transportation and other necessities -- forget about emergencies.

Gov. Mike DeWine recognized in his State of the State message that the lack of affordable housing was contributing to Ohio’s high infant mortality rate, promising to use the next two-year budget, which must be finalized soon, to “expand access to safe, stable housing for pregnant and new mothers.”

And the governor’s budget proposal went farther, proposing $100 million in annual tax credits for developers who build low-income housing in Ohio. The Ohio House in its wisdom added to that, raising the annual maximum to $500 million.

DeWine’s budget also proposed a $50 million annual tax credit for affordable single-family housing development, which the House excised - but which merits reconsideration. DeWine pledged in his State of the State to address the affordable housing shortage “holistically.” Incentivizing affordable single-family construction should be part of that plan.

“We started a housing conversation last year in the waning days of the legislative session,” the governor noted in his State of the State. “And at that time, I pledged to the people of Ohio that we would address the issue of housing holistically.”

It’s a promise that he and Ohio need to keep.

That’s why Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, needs to rethink his position that instead of incentivizing the construction of new affordable housing units, Ohio should instead add budget dollars to incentivize homeowner improvements.

“When people can remain in their homes, maintain that value, the people are better off,” Huffman said, according to Zuckerman, who noted that Huffman’s position sets “the stage for a showdown over affordable housing when House and Senate negotiators haggle over the final form of the state’s roughly $88 billion budget before sending it to DeWine for approval.”

The stakes are high -- no less than a proper alignment of priorities for Ohio. Turning the state’s back on struggling families who too often end up in homeless shelters or couch-surfing among family members is an economic drag on the state, and its human capital.

Children can’t learn when their home life is unstable, or poisoned by brain-harming lead paint and other dangerous contamination. Mothers lose babies, and babies die early, because of a lack of affordable, safe housing.

Tax credits will help mobilize the private sector to build the affordable units that Ohio needs not just to shelter families, but to give them the stability they need to do better, and the safety they need so their babies and children can survive and thrive. Affordable housing will help get them back on their feet financially.

That’s worth at least $150 million in tax credits per year, if not more. The Senate should keep the $500 million in low-income tax credits in the budget and restore the governor’s affordable single-family tax credit proposal -- and if it doesn’t, House-Senate conferees need to find their way to do both. Lives are on the line.

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Toledo Blade. May 20, 2023.

Editorial: Bring it on

The Ohio Gen­eral As­sem­bly has put on the bal­lot for Au­gust as Is­sue 1 a ref­er­en­dum that, if passed, would weaken the peo­ple’s power to con­trol their gov­ern­ment.

Op­po­nents of the pro­posal have filed a suit in the Ohio Supreme Court try­ing to block the planned Au­gust elec­tion as il­le­gal.

How­ever, it is un­likely that the Re­pub­li­cans in the Gen­eral As­sem­bly are go­ing to be de­terred from their goal to have an elec­tion in Au­gust, so Ohio­ans should be­gin plan­ning to de­feat this un­wise con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment by turn­ing out in large num­bers to vote.

We say, bring it on.

Who’s in charge in Ohio? The Re­pub­li­can su­per-ma­jor­ity in the Gen­eral As­sem­bly, sup­ported by Gov. Mike DeWine and Sec­re­tary of State Frank LaRose, want to dra­mat­i­cally re­duce the power of cit­i­zens by re­quir­ing 60 per­cent of the vote to amend the con­sti­tu­tion. For the past 111 years Ohio cit­i­zens have been em­pow­ered to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion through bal­lot is­sues with a 50 per­cent-plus-one re­quire­ment. It’s the em­bod­i­ment of Ohio’s con­sti­tu­tional lan­guage as­sert­ing all po­lit­i­cal power is in­her­ent in the peo­ple.

That long­stand­ing gov­ern­ing prem­ise is to be tested in an Aug. 8 elec­tion, picked in the cyn­i­cal as­sump­tion that Ohio­ans will be too pre­oc­cu­pied with sum­mer va­ca­tions to par­tic­i­pate in the most im­por­tant elec­tion of this cen­tury. The GOP only a year ago abol­ished the Au­gust elec­tion as a waste of money be­cause of his­tor­i­cal low turn­out.

Now it hopes low turn­out will be the key to en­act­ing a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment so as to head off pas­sage of an abor­tion rights amend­ment through a bal­lot is­sue in No­vem­ber. The be­lief is that a pro-abor­tion rights amend­ment might get a sim­ple ma­jor­ity but not 60 per­cent. That same think­ing has been joined by other spe­cial in­ter­ests who fear pop­u­list bal­lot amend­ments.

The Ohio Cham­ber of Com­merce, Na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Inde­pen­dent Busi­ness, The Ohio Ho­tel and Lodg­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, and the Ohio Res­tau­rant As­so­ci­a­tion all fear a min­i­mum-wage bal­lot amend­ment. The Buck­eye Fire­arms As­so­ci­a­tion fears that fed-up cit­i­zens may im­pose re­stric­tions on as­sault weap­ons. Re­pub­li­can law­mak­ers fear Ohio vot­ers will try to im­pose a cit­i­zen-con­trolled re­dis­trict­ing pro­cess through a bal­lot is­sue.

The im­me­di­ate fight is over abor­tion pol­icy, and some will equate a “no” vote in the Au­gust elec­tion as be­ing pro-abor­tion rights. The real is­sue be­ing de­cided is whose voice ul­ti­mately steers Ohio’s ship of state, the peo­ple or the pol­i­ti­cians.

State­house Re­pub­li­cans claim to be mo­ti­vated by the need to pro­tect the pro­cess from “spe­cial in­ter­ests.”

That is a shame­less de­cep­tion from pol­i­ti­cians who too of­ten be­come pup­pets for the spe­cial in­ter­ests who fund their cam­paigns.

In some con­texts, a su­per­ma­jor­ity is ap­pro­pri­ate and has served this na­tion well, as for ex­am­ple when the leg­is­la­ture over­rides a gov­er­nor’s veto or Con­gress con­firms a justice to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion has a fa­mously high bar for a new amend­ment, re­quir­ing a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate, fol­lowed by rat­i­fi­ca­tion of three-fourths of the states.

But as Pres­i­dent The­odore Roosevelt — a Re­pub­li­can — pointed out in his 1912 speech to the Ohio Con­sti­tu­tional Con­ven­tion which es­tab­lished the right of cit­i­zen-ini­ti­ated amend­ments, checks and bal­ances only ap­ply to the dif­fer­ent branches of gov­ern­ment to whom the peo­ple have del­egated cer­tain por­tions of their power.

“The power is the peo­ple’s and only the peo­ple’s.”

Mr. Roosevelt’s words in sup­port of es­tab­lish­ing cit­i­zen-ini­ti­ated law were pre­scient: “I pro­test against any the­ory that would make the con­sti­tu­tion a means of thwart­ing in­stead of se­cur­ing the ab­so­lute right of the peo­ple to rule them­selves.”

Since cit­i­zens took the right to amend the state con­sti­tu­tion they have en­acted law when the Gen­eral As­sem­bly failed to act and re­pealed law when the leg­is­la­ture over­stepped pub­lic opin­ion.

There is al­ready a com­pli­cated pro­cess in place in Ohio. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of sig­na­tures rep­re­sent­ing at least 44 coun­ties have to be col­lected and ver­i­fied. The lan­guage of the pro­posed amend­ment goes through care­ful le­gal re­view by the at­tor­ney gen­eral and the state bal­lot board.

These pro­cesses frus­trate many pro­posed bal­lot amend­ment drives. And even when they make it to the bal­lot, pas­sage is far from guar­an­teed. Since 1912 there have been just 71 bal­lot is­sues and only 19 passed.

Now law­mak­ers want to raise the bar to re­quire a min­i­mum num­ber of sig­na­tures in all 88 coun­ties, as if Ohio vot­ers were abus­ing the elec­toral pro­cess.

There may be a case to be made for set­ting the bar for an Ohio con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment higher than it is now, but it should be af­ter a bi­par­ti­san con­ver­sa­tion and then ad­dressed in an elec­tion with a guar­an­teed high turn­out.

The cyn­i­cal mo­tives that have brought this elec­tion into ex­is­tence ren­der it ad­vis­able for de­feat.

The only way to do that is for cit­i­zens to stand up for their rights to de­ter­mine their own fu­ture and use the many op­por­tu­ni­ties to vote in the com­ing elec­tion.

Early vot­ing lasts 28 days, and vot­ing by mail is an op­tion avail­able to ev­ery reg­is­tered voter in Ohio.

The Aug. 8 elec­tion is an op­por­tu­nity to send a re­sound­ing mes­sage the Cap­i­tol needs to hear:

You work for us!

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Youngstown Vindicator. May 21, 2023.

Editorial: Change Ohio Constitution, but not in Aug.

A proposed Ohio constitutional amendment to require a supermajority of 60 percent voter support to change the state’s defining governing document makes eminently good sense.

But a planned special Aug. 8 election to send that proposal to the electorate for approval or rejection, however, makes absolutely no sense.

Such a rush to judgment on the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment would throw down the drain an estimated $20 million in taxpayer money and would expose lawmakers who steamrolled it through the Legislature as hypocrites.

After all, it was only five months ago that the same Republican supermajority in the Ohio General Assembly prudently passed legislation to end August special elections. We and many others hailed that move because of the negative cost-benefit ratio of special elections. They cost millions of dollars statewide only to produce a super minority of voters at the polls. Those flimsy outcomes fly in the face of a fiscally responsible and robust participatory democracy.

In addition, if, as some argue, the speed to get the amendment to the ballot is an attempt to torpedo a special-interest reproductive freedom constitutional amendment expected on the November ballot, would not those legislators pushing the August election also be guilty of pandering to the special interests rising up in opposition to a constitutional amendment on abortion?

Fortunately, legal challenges to the misguided resurrection of summer elections already have begun in the courts. Here’s hoping they succeed at the very least in delaying the vote on the 60-percent standard until the regularly scheduled Nov. 8 general election, when little or no additional expenses will be thrust upon state taxpayers.

But despite the hideously poor and politicized timing of the proposed constitutional amendment, the bedrock content of the Ohio Constitution Protection Act has clear merit.

As Ohio’s chief election officer, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, points out in his support for a 60 percent majority, narrow special interests should not be permitted to invade Ohio’s broadly constructed governing document. He points to the 2009 constitutional amendment largely financed by outside gambling interests that passed with a razor-thin 53 percent majority after having failed statewide twice before.

According to LaRose, the Ohio Constitution has been amended successfully almost 200 times since its adoption in 1802. Many of those changes have originated from narrow special and corporate interests.

Contrast that with only 27 amendments added over nearly 250 years to the U.S. Constitution, the model for our state’s document. It, however, requires supermajorities of 66 percent approval in Congress and 75 percent approval among the 50 states to alter. The result has been a more stable governing charter with maximum consensus and strong durability.

Simply put, some decisions are so consequential as to require more than a meager 50 percent plus 1 majority. Juries determining the fate of suspects often require 100 percent unanimity. A two-thirds vote majority is required to override a presidential veto. A three-fifths majority is needed to pass a substantial measure through the United Nations Security Council. A 60 percent voter majority to chisel permanent changes into Ohio’s overarching governing document hardly seems out of place.

Even if the change is enacted, individuals and groups seeking to change language in the Ohio Revised Code still can do so easily enough through the citizen initiative outlined in the state constitution. The ORC, however, is a much more fluid document, having been revised thousands of times. Narrow and targeted changes in state law are best suited for the narrow and targeted nature of the ORC. What’s more, those ballot initiatives require only a simple majority of voter support for passage — and there’s no move afoot to raise that standard.

Clearly the simple majority rule for state constitutional amendments has outlived its usefulness. It was enacted in 1913 by Ohio voters through a statewide ballot initiative. Now, 110 years later, our state’s overly lenient amendment process has attracted more than 11,000 often costly and foolhardy attempts at change. Constitutional amendments, on the state or federal level, should be exceedingly rare — not marketed at a dime a dozen.

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Elyria Chronicle-Telegram. May 17, 2023.

Editorial: ‘Workforce Hub’ designation for Columbus should help all of Ohio

There’s something to be said for having Ohio’s capital city being in the geographic middle of the state, particularly when it comes to economic development.

What happens in Columbus can radiate out to the remainder of the state, something we were reminded of Tuesday when the Biden administration announced that Columbus had been named one of five new “Workforce Hubs.”

The idea is for the federal government to partner with community leaders, including state and local officials, “to drive effective place-based workforce development efforts that are essential to building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”

That means apprenticeship and other training programs that would help workers gain the skills needed in burgeoning local industries.

Columbus received the designation because it “has emerged as a center of investment across a variety of industries — including in semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, and transportation,” a White House news release said.

Semiconductor manufacturing is probably the best known of these, thanks to Intel’s $20 billion investment in a chip manufacturing facility outside of Columbus.

It’s a boon not only for the Columbus area, but the rest of the state.

For example, workers will develop skills at institutions around the state, including Lorain County Community College, that will help them land jobs at Intel and the suppliers and other supporting industries which are expected to sprout up across Ohio in support of Intel.

In September, LCCC was named to lead a consortium of 10 colleges and universities, dubbed the Ohio Semiconductor Collaboration Network, to develop a curriculum focused on those working in the semiconductor industry.

The White House news release singled out the network in explaining why Columbus was one of the five cities chosen. The others are Augusta, Ga., Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Phoenix.

The White House said that the hubs, along with other economic development programs announced Tuesday, would build off previously announced projects and laws passed in recent years, including the bipartisan infrastructure law, the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Plain Dealer reported that the “Workforce Hub” designation won’t require new federal funding, although help would be available for communities to find and apply for existing grant dollars.

All five of the hub locations make sense as places where the federal government should be committing resources to expand American manufacturing.

Take Pittsburgh, which the White House described as showing “strong growth in advanced manufacturing, including robotics and biomanufacturing, as well as clean energy, including batteries.”

Given Pittsburgh’s proximity to the Buckeye State, its designation as a hub, too, could help improve the economic fortunes of northern Ohio.

What’s more, the White House said that the hubs would serve as models for additional hubs planned for elsewhere in country. Where those hubs might be wasn’t said.

It also remains to be seen if the hubs will prove effective.

Some of the coverage of the announcement pointed out that the newly named hubs were in “key 2024 battleground states,” as The Hill put it.

Given Republicans’ electoral success in Ohio in recent years, it might be a stretch to call Ohio a “battleground.” Maryland is considered a blue-leaning state these days, although Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania are indeed crucial swing states.

Whether the locations were chosen because of their potential electoral impact or not, finding innovative ways to spur job training, education and economic growth is not just good politics. It’s good governance.

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