Amid lawsuits, allegations of domestic violence, and calls to step aside from both of Ohio’s Republican U.S. Senators, Ohio Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller is still running for reelection in November and his constituents say they are looking for consequences and accountability.

Heather Tuck-Macalla lives with her family in Bay Village, a town just west of Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie.

She’s a librarian who has worked for years in the Cleveland area, and she loves Bay Village, the town she shares with Miller. But she says that’s a fact she wouldn’t know just from living in the area.

“He’s almost not human to me because I’ve never seen him around and he lives two blocks away from me,” Tuck-Macalla said last week.

Miller represents Ohio’s 7th U.S. House district in Congress. The Northeast Ohio district goes from the west side of Cuyahoga County south down past the city of Wooster. It includes southern and western Cuyahoga County, all of Medina and Wayne Counties, and the northernmost part of Holmes County.

John Blockinger, a retired Parma resident, said he’s trying to stay positive, but has been discouraged by the actions of Congress, including Miller, even before he became front-page news for allegations of domestic violence.

“I can’t believe that they haven’t just kicked his butt out of there,” Blockinger said. “And the (fellow congressional) Republicans should be doing more to get him out, because he’s going to be a drag on them in November.”

Multiple allegations of domestic violence have been leveled against Miller including by his ex-wife, the daughter of Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno.

Moreno denounced Miller, saying that Miller doesn’t meet “the basic criteria of serving in Congress,” but has received criticism for the time it took for him to release a public statement.

Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted has also called on Miller to resign and drop out of his race for reelection, as have several Democratic members of Ohio’s congressional delegation, U.S. Reps. Shontel Brown and Emilia Sykes.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson told Politico he won’t ask Miller to step down.

Miller has made no indication that he will drop out of the race, and has requested an ethics probe on himself, something he believes will clear his name. The Democratic candidate in the race is Brian Poindexter, and independent write-in candidates have also filed.

Congressional ethics investigation 

Ethics investigations aren’t an uncommon thing for the U.S. House to deal with, though they are more commonly focused on campaign conduct or finance questions. But the discretion of a House ethics panel is broad, said Case Western Reserve University School of Law Professor Cassandra Burke Robertson.

“There’s really no limit, the committee can investigate pretty much anything that would be relevant to either somebody’s serving in the House, or there’s a very broad view of anything that could bring disrepute onto Congress, onto the House,” said Robertson, the director of the Center for Professional Ethics at the Case Western School of Law.

While many ethics investigations delve into the weeds of congressional procedure, something the public may or may not be interested in, the situation with Miller is bringing a lot of eyes to the proceedings, according to Robertson.

“I think what makes the allegations in this case so publicly interesting is that so many people have had experience with difficult divorces, with allegations of domestic abuse, either they’ve experienced it or they certainly know people who have,” Robertson said. “There’s just a lot more public attention, given the allegations.”

A resolution from the investigation will involve a lot of patience, as ethics probes tend to take time, she said.

The House panel will consider documents, gather data, possibly hold hearings, and then decide on the appropriate level of punishment, from no punishment at all, to censure or the worst-case scenario of full House expulsion.

Robertson said she wouldn’t be surprised if the investigation stretches past November.

“An investigation that serious would take some time, and if the investigation found serious consequences (were needed) and moved toward expulsion, I would be surprised if that could happen quickly, likely not before the election,” she said.

The political pressure surrounding the investigation could have a quicker timeline, with Republican members of Congress in particular seeing pushes for action.

“It’s got to be in the back of the minds of the other Congressmembers,” Robertson said. “I have no doubt that members are worried about disrepute, and about the political consequences of that.”

’Out of sync’ 

Constituents in Miller’s congressional district say they don’t feel like he’s representative of the needs of the region.

“I’d really like to get normal people, people who reflect our community better than a lot of these yes men for Trump,” Tuck-Macalla said.

With a Japanese American uncle who lived in internment camps during World War II, the Bay Village resident said she’s worried that patterns are repeating in Congress that lead to negative impacts on large groups of people, such as the immigration crackdown, and the lack of support for public education.

“I don’t feel like the policies Max Miller is supporting are doing what Americans want,” Tuck Macalla said. “Everything that I feel like is a baseline for a good quality of life is being taken away.”

Blockinger has reached out to Miller and the rest of his congressional representatives and senators, pushing back against immigration policies, cuts to Medicaid, and other government spending cuts to public services.

“It’s so out of sync with what we should be doing as a government,” Blockinger said. “I don’t feel represented at all by anyone.”

Hoping for a Democratic wave in the Nov. 3 general election, the Parma grandfather wants to see reversals of Trump executive orders and the Big Beautiful Bill as soon as possible, along with other policies that he saw Miller working “in lock-step” with the Trump administration to implement.

“I think we’ve got to stop basically just being nice guys, and keep pointing out the number of people who are hurt, and the money that’s being lost here,” Blockinger said.

Tuck-Macalla is hopeful the district can move on from Miller and the negative public attention.

“Max Miller does not represent who we are, and with him, I don’t feel very patriotic,” she said.

The Libertarian Party of Ohio released a statement on Aug. 3 “unequivocally” demanding the resignation of Miller, saying his continued presence in Congress “dishonors the district he was elected to serve and sends a dangerous message that powerful politicians are immune to basic standards of conduct.”

“The allegations surrounding Representative Miller reflect a disturbing pattern that goes far beyond partisan politics,” the statement read. “Ohioans in the 7th District deserve an elected official who respects the individual rights both in the halls of Congress and within their own home.”

The Capital Journal reached out for an interview with the Wayne County Republican Party, and the Republican Party of Medina County, both in Miller’s district, but did not receive a response.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Ohio has seen its second straight week of “significant increases” in cases of cyclosporiasis, the parasite that has been connected to leafy greens, and to severe diarrhea throughout the U.S, according to the state’s health director.

The Ohio Department of Health shows the state has seen nearly 4,000 cases since June 1.

The highest numbers come out of Lucas County, which has 553 cases to date since the beginning of the summer. Cuyahoga County has a reported 457 cases, and Wood County comes in third with 446 cases since June 1.

While Ohio hasn’t caught up to the numbers seen in Michigan, considered one of the biggest states in the cyclosporiasis outbreak, the numbers are getting close, according to the state’s health director, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff.

“We have just seen over the course of the last couple of months a fairly steady and alarming increase in the number of cases,” Vanderhoff said in a Tuesday press conference.

“What it is telling us is that we have reason for continued concern about the risk people face from cyclosporiasis.”

Vanderhoff encouraged anyone who has been sick to respond to calls from health departments seeking to interview those who have been infected.

“These interviews provide crucial data … and help find commonalities among those who have been sick,” Vanderhoff said.

While the state is deferring to the FDA and the CDC to identify potential sources of the outbreak, the state has been collecting information they’ve passed on to federal agencies, according to Vanderhoff.

The CDC has traced infections back to iceberg lettuce in nine states including Ohio, and produce company Taylor Farms has recalled iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico, according to the federal agency.

The investigation into the outbreak is still ongoing, as the CDC is also investigating other cases it says are unrelated to the outbreak hitting Ohio and surrounding states.

The Ohio health director dismissed ideas that fresh produce should be avoided entirely, pushing for more diligent cleaning practices instead.

“Prevention really begins not with avoiding … things our bodies need, but taking a sound approach to how we prepare fruits and vegetables every single day,” he said.

Proper washing of produce includes a thorough rinse under running water, and scrubbing fruits and vegetables with tougher skins with a brush.

Dr. Robert Frenck, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, was mainly on the press conference to discuss child vaccines as a new school year approaches, but also served to dissuade ideas that cyclosporiasis is bigger than it is.

“In the greater scheme of things, it’s still a rather unusual infection,” Frenck said, adding that norovirus sees far more incidence rates annually than the parasitic infection that’s covering major news headlines this year.

The hallmark of cyclosporiasis is the lasting effects, Frenck said, with symptoms like diarrhea lasting weeks, sometimes months.

Treatment is possible through antibiotics, but Frenck said it’s important to know when to alert the doctor (after about a week of symptoms), and for physicians to make sure lab tests look for the parasite. Routine lab work wouldn’t normally cover that type of infection, according to the pediatrician.

Both Frenck and Vanderhoff said deaths are not typical from the infection.

Reported deaths in Michigan were connected to individuals with unrelated significant health problems, but Vanderhoff said that does give reason for immunocompromised, elderly, or very young individuals to keep medical professionals involved in their care.

“The caution that I would remind people about is if you’re vulnerable because your immune system is not working optimally … and you develop diarrhea, you should be reaching out to your provider immediately for guidance and direction,” Vanderhoff said.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Ohio public school districts continue to be desperate for bus drivers, while the status of school transportation as a whole is being debated by public and private schools alike.

A recent transportation workgroup put together by the state recommended, among other things, a “comprehensive system change” to transportation along with immediate actions to “ease current system challenges and build the new system foundation.”

The shared goal of the workgroup was to”to transport as many students as possible to and from their school of choice safely and consistently – regardless of where they are enrolled,” according to a recent report.

However, disagreement among the workgroup members on how to implement those goals was made clear in their final recommendations.

In the most recent state operating budget, the Ohio Pupil Transportation Workgroup was tasked with “exploring transportation issues,” including a look at the current system and a study ending in recommendations on “the feasibility of each school district providing transportation to students enrolled in a community school or nonpublic school on days that the school district is not open for operation.”

The group agreed that school transportation and the funding to do so was an issue in need of resolution, but they acknowledged that even the members of the workgroup “do no agree on what all the core challenges are.”

Members included representatives from private schools, religious schools, public schools, career centers, and educational service centers, as well as two Ohio state senators and two Ohio House members, one from each political party in each chamber.

Three workgroup members noted that they “do not support the recommendations report:” Shauna Murphy, of Cincinnati Public Schools; Josh Biederstedt, of Patrick Henry Local Schools; and state Sen. Catherine Ingram, D-Cincinnati.

“Family school choice” was noted in the report as a “valued principle in Ohio” that is “respected by all workgroup members.”

“However, not all stakeholders fully agree on how to best accomplish safe and reliable transportation across education systems for more students,” the report stated. “Therefore, the recommendations identify where divergence of opinion exists while seeking to inform policymakers of viable options for moving forward.”

“School choice” is a term often used by those who support the use of private school vouchers funded by taxpayers to allow students to move to nonpublic schools.

Religious education advocates supported the recommendations of the workgroup when it came to opening up transportation to more students.

The workgroup used data from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, case studies and briefs submitted by members, and “panel discussions” of “transportation experts and leaders” among school districts and communities.

Transportation to school districts as it stands now was established in state law starting in 1966, when the law stated that traditional school districts were to provide bussing for the districts and chartered nonpublic schools.

Districts are required to transport those students unless deemed “impractical to transport,”based on six different factors, in which case a payment is given to the family to compensate for transportation.

“The (payment in lieu of transportation) process is imperfect, and for many families a payment does not solve the daily school transportation problem,” the workgroup report stated.

“This is particularly true for families experiencing poverty and those with inflexible work schedules.”

In the 2025-2026 school year, the workgroup found that more than 22,000 students were deemed “impractical” for transportation, with all but 1,000 of those enrolled in community or chartered nonpublic schools.

The impracticality issue made headlines in 2024, when former Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sued Columbus City Schools for not busing private or charter school students. The school district said it believed it was following the law.

In May, the Ohio Supreme Court said Yost did not have legal standing to compel the district to do so, and that only 63 students were impacted, citing the former attorney general’s own facts.

“The attorney general has not shown that a case affecting a small number of pupils within one school district of the state concerns the well-being of ‘a substantial segment’ of the state’s population,” the court ruled.

One of the recommendations given by the workgroup was elimination of the impracticality clause over time, with the legislature working to phase out the payment system for transportation deemed impractical.

“In a new transportation system, (payment in lieu of transportation) should be exceptionally rare or phased out completely,” the workgroup stated.

Bus driver shortages

The report also noted the “persistent bus driver shortages” in the state, with Ohio Department of Education and Workforce data showing that on average, only 14.68% of vacant school bus driving positions were filled in fiscal year 2025.

In 34 districts across the state, 10% or less of the vacant bus driver jobs were filled, according to the state.

Part of the problem districts are seeing in recruiting and keeping bus drivers is the wages and benefits that come with the job, something that is exacerbated by the General Assembly’s decision to lower the funding to the Fair School Funding Plan in the last operating budget, according to Jeff Wensing, head of the Ohio Education Association.

“If you’re not fully funding the schools, if you’re not making it attractive to be a bus driver, if you’re not making it feasible to have enough buses to transport those kids, you can’t make it work,” Wensing told the Capital Journal.

A current listing for a Columbus City School bus driver listed the salary at $23.56 per hour, with at least five years of driving experience, possession of a Class B commercial driver’s license, and pre-service driver training through the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District had a listing for a bus driver at $21.65 per hour, and a “driver trainee” at $12.94 per hour.

Toledo Public Schools listed hourly compensation for bus drivers at $18.56 to $22.59, with an unspecified “annual longevity bonus” after five years.

While Wensing said the recommendations of the group were good goals, without more money, more bus drivers, and more school buses, he likened the plan to having 500 guests at a venue with a capacity of 200.

“You can only imagine the service you would get if you overload a venue like that,” Wensing said. “It’s the same with transportation, you can’t pull the rabbit out of that hat.”

Among the recommendations pushed by the workgroup were bus driver recruitment strategies “with additional state support.”

The workgroup’s call to fund the transportation portion of the education funding formula was praised by Melissa Cropper, who directs the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

But she said the group strongly disagrees with “a main premise of these recommendations – that the state is equally responsible for transportation for private school students and that transportation funding should follow the student to an unaccountable private school.”

“We should not commit to any additional funds for private school students, including additional transportation funding, until we are meeting our promise to the 90% of Ohio students who attend public schools,” Cropper said in a statement to the Capital Journal.

While the General Assembly reduced the amount going to the Fair School Funding Plan in the last operating budget, the state-funded private school voucher program saw funding in the billions of dollars.

Religious private school advocates praised the workgroup’s implementation of “school choice” in the report and recommendations.

“Ohio has made tremendous progress expanding school choice, but those opportunities mean little if students can’t get to school,” said Troy McIntosh, director of the Christian Education Network, a division of the religious lobby group Center for Christian Virtue.

“We urge the General Assembly to act on these recommendations and ensure every eligible student has reliable transportation, regardless of the school they attend.”

The Catholic Conference of Ohio also commended the workgroup’s findings. The conference’s associate director, Tom Rhatican, was a member of the transportation workgroup.

“A parent’s choice of the best educational option for their child often becomes moot without the reliable transportation promised in Ohio law,” said Brian Hickey, executive director of the conference, in a statement.

It’s unclear when, or if, the General Assembly could take up the recommendations. The legislature is currently on an extended summer break until after the November general election.

Once lawmakers return, they have a tight turnaround to take action on priority legislation before the end of the General Assembly term. Any legislation not passed before the end of the year will need to be reintroduced in the new General Assembly, starting in 2027.

Requests for comment from Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman and Ohio Senate President Rob McColley were not returned.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

The post Ohio School Transportation Debated as Bus Driver Shortage Continues, Private Schools Demand More appeared first on Cleveland Scene.

Public school librarians in Ohio are raising alarms about book bans and funding cuts.

School librarians have been navigating challenges in their work as long as they’ve been among the stacks in their local districts.

Proposed legislation to filter the reading choices students can make has brought concern, and budget reductions make some worry about the future of public school librarians as a mainstay in schools.

“Right now, a lot of administrators and school boards look at having school librarians as a luxury,” said Gayle Schmuhl, president of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association. “I think a lot of school librarians (in Ohio) are just hoping to stay employed.”

Schmuhl said many members of the association were wondering about the future of their jobs with cuts to public school funding in Ohio and debate over property taxes that go to education.

Cuts to state public education has been talked about for decades, especially after multiple Ohio Supreme Court decisions that said the state was not paying its constitutional fair share.

In 2022, a model called the Fair School Funding Plan came about with bipartisan sponsorship, and was passed in what some saw as a new era for Ohio. The plan was to fund schools based on actual need from school district to school district.

The model almost made it through the six-year phase-in as planned, but Ohio Republican lawmakers abandoned it in the last operating budget.

While the most recent state operating budget included a $226 million increase in school funding, the Fair School Funding Plan model needed at least triple that amount to maintain its initial calculations and keep up with inflation.

Lawmakers, however, increased private school voucher funding into the billions.

Courtney Johnson was a school librarian in Columbus for 10 years, and seeing funding plans decrease for public schools played a part in her move back to teaching English.

She worried that though the funding priorities for schools hadn’t been spelled out, the cuts might mean she’d be splitting her time as the librarian in multiple district buildings.

“I’m a person who likes to have roots in a place and go to my ‘work home’ every day,” Johnson told the Capital Journal.

Johnson said returning to the classroom also means following an entire class through their year-long experience, and still means helping kids with reading and writing, two things that are among the passions that brought her to the profession.

“Every kid has a story, even if they don’t trust that they do at first, and I love making space for them to tell their stories,” Johnson said.

As a librarian, she saw the importance of parents reading to their kids, students receiving the context of other subjects in school for “full background knowledge” to help them decode the words they’re reading, and encouraging the connection between kids and books.

“We’ve known this, that when kids see themselves represented in books, they feel more connected to the books, they’re going to like reading better,” Johnson said. “Likewise, kids can see how other people live in books, and develop empathy that way.”

Part of the job of the modern school librarian is discussing material with parents that they may find objectionable enough to demand it be taken off the shelves.

Sharon Hawkes, a retired librarian who is also part of the group Right to Read Ohio, decided to survey school librarians, with the help of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association’s member list.

Of those who participated in Hawkes’ study 56% “experienced censorship incidents” between 2021 and 2025.

While she only received responses from 32 school librarians, about 10% of the total school librarians in the state, she said the experiences were still indicative of a challenge in Ohio.

“We’re getting some clues about what’s going on,” Hawkes said, noting that because there’s no standard survey system in each state to study censorship in libraries, the count made by organizations like the American Library Association may be less than the actual amount happening across the country.

The American Library Association reported 98 attempts to censor 355 books in Ohio from 2021 to 2024, and last year, there were seven attempts to censor 129 books, according to the ALA.

Schmuhl agreed that the study was representative of the experience she’d heard of in the state.

“I did see that school librarians in our areas were being proactive and trying to have good communication within their school districts (about attempts to ban books),” Schmuhl said.

In Hawkes’ study, of the 16 censorship requests in Ohio between 2021 and 2024, eleven were “challenges without removals,” while eight resulted in a book ban of some kind, and three involved “relocations of books or other materials.”

According to the researcher, librarians use “objective criteria” in decisions about what materials are age-appropriate and relevant for the school libraries. Their training qualifies them to decide on the inventory, and to deal with challenges from parents, where the majority of material challenges came from in the study.

The majority of school librarians who responded to Hawkes’ survey had between 11 and 15 years of experience as the director or manager of their current library, and more than 62% had a Master’s degree in Library Science.

“More than anything, I wanted people to understand that parents do have the right to guide what their children read and when they read it … they can approach their librarians about it,” Hawkes said. “What they can’t do is ban books for other people’s children.”

For Johnson, moving back to English doesn’t mean she’ll avoid the topic of censorship.

“I think I’m going to deal with that in public schools under what we have going on right now, no matter what my position is,” she said.

The legislature approved one measure to compel public libraries to relocate “inappropriate” materials out of the sight of minors, but Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed it as “not workable.”

Another bill still in consideration by the legislature would order vendors of online educational resources that go to public libraries and schools to create protections to prevent “inappropriate” content from making it to kids’ eyes.

Opponents of the materials have said the bill could have unintended consequences, removing materials that are educational as well.

Johnson’s classroom goals include helping kids maintain reading to “get them ready for this really difficult world that we’re navigating,” and bring the parents in as part of it.

“We need to work together as parents and school communities to make sure kids are achieving literacy, and we know that having access to books at home, and at school, at their fingertips, is just the beginning of it,” she said.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Three former Ohio Supreme Court justices marched to their former workplace last week as part of a national movement to emphasize the importance of judicial independence.

The justices also decried the state law that requires partisan labels on state supreme court races, an Ohio Supreme Court decision to allow judges to endorse political candidates, and movements throughout the country to politicize judges’ seats.

“When average citizens start to talk about judges and justices by putting them in a political tribe, it undermines who we are,” said former justice Yvette McGee Brown, in a press conference outside the Joseph P. Kinneary federal courthouse in downtown Columbus.

Brown stood with fellow former justice Michael P. Donnelly and former Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor during the press conference with the organization Justice in Motion.

Donnelly said the fear is not just the loss of independence for judges and justices, but of societal and legal norms that were once believed to be concrete.

“You all grew up with the same norms that we accepted as Americans: that America was the great melting pot; if you were born here, you were an American; no one is above the law,” Donnelly said. “You see these norms being broken … it’s like a firehose coming at us.”

The justices were also joined by former North Carolina Supreme Court justice Robert Orr, along with former Ohio attorneys general Nancy Rogers and Richard Cordray, and judges from across the state.

Orr said the separation of powers between the branches of government is critical for democracy.

“The founders of our nation feared the consolidation of power into the hands of any one branch or any one person, and it was the judiciary that the framers of our Constitution … turned to, to abide by the law, to be independent, to be judges not for a party or a person, but for a Constitution and the people,” Orr said.

Justice in Motion puts judges from multiple states on a tour bus that travels from Pennsylvania to Michigan, holding events like the one in Columbus “focused on the rule of law, constitutional democracy, and public trust,” according to the organization.

Donnelly said the “assault” on the rule of law “could not be overstated,” especially with enormous ramifications possible from the midterm elections in November.

“In my lifetime, I have never seen this danger to the rule of law,” Donnelly said. “Call it out, don’t be afraid, exercise your vote as an American, it’s all on the line.”

Cordray said the danger to judicial independence starts at the very top.

“We’re here because we believe in the rule of law, and hate to see it corrupted by people who think they’re above the law, including the president of the United States,” he said.

O’Connor was flanked by her own “defender of democracy,” her 19-month-old dog Carlo. She pointed back to the redistricting battles that lasted the better part of four years in Ohio, with the supreme court she led rejecting five statehouse district maps and two congressional maps.

The former chief justice and former state lieutenant governor also mentioned the defeat of Issue 1, an effort she championed to overhaul the redistricting system in Ohio, and eliminate the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

Because Issue 1 was voted down in 2024, the commission continues to be made up of elected officials, mostly from the majority party, and includes the governor, secretary of state, and auditor of state.

But hard work in the next election could not only bolster the integrity of the judiciary, but bring about hope to address gerrymandering again, O’Connor said.

“We have the opportunity to vote for people who will make up the redistricting commission that we still have, that will make a difference how maps are drawn,” she said.

O’Connor added there is “talk” of a possible push to try redistricting reform again in 2027, depending on the results of the midterms.

The judges and justices urged Ohioans to educate themselves on the judicial candidates running in the November election, from the supreme court, down to their county courthouses.

Partisan politics should play no role in an independent judiciary, Donnelly said, and public confidence in it “is its lifeblood.”

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

The post Former Ohio Supreme Court Justices Join Tour for Independent, Nonpartisan Judiciary appeared first on Cleveland Scene.

One year ago, the Republican “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” made the largest cuts to food stamps in the history of the program. Now 100,000 Ohioans are going without help and the state is bracing for enormous new costs without federal help. 

The Trump/Republican spending law made the largest cuts ever to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is largely used by children, older adults, and those with disabilities.

The cuts to SNAP have impacted millions of in-need Americans.

Not only did the spending law cause major damage, but the longest-ever federal shutdown that followed it meant even those who were able to get benefits couldn’t get them in a timely fashion, according to Gina Plata-Nino, director of SNAP policy and advocacy at the national Food Research & Action Center.

While all 50 states saw severe impacts, Plata-Nino said states like Arizona saw a more than 50% drop in SNAP benefits. Florida and Georgia each saw nearly 700,000 people lose benefits, despite still needing the help, she said.

“It means that kids are going to have less to eat,” Plata-Nino said. “For families, it might mean that there’s just no food on the table, and they may not be able to pay rent because they have to pay for this.”

Ohio saw a 7% drop in SNAP since the cuts, amounting to about 100,000 people.

While the Ohio Association of Foodbanks also serves people at poverty levels slightly higher than those who qualify for SNAP, executive director Joree Novotny said food banks work with SNAP to “fill shortfalls, prevent hunger, and promote nutrition,” even as demand at food banks rises.

Novotny said the association is partnering with the state and counties to protect SNAP access, as numerous factors push down on the economic livelihood of Ohioans, including inflation, consumer prices, and other costs.

SNAP benefit theft has also impacted the system, she said, adding to the “general economic strain” for thousands of Ohio families.

“All this means continued pressure on Ohio’s food banks and their local hunger relief partners, while at the same time, food supply from retailer and manufacturer donations and federal commodity programs is down,” Novotny told the Capital Journal.

Modernization of the SNAP cards used to purchase items has been approved by the Ohio General Assembly, and Novotny praised legislative action to give food banks emergency funds when the federal government shutdown held back SNAP benefits.

“These efforts and more will be important to food security for Ohio families and the continued strength of Ohio’s interconnected food supply chain,” according to Novotny.

On top of drastic cuts, the spending bill also changed the way states contribute, bumping the administrative costs a state pays from 50% to 75%.

“That means that SNAP has become a line item in the budget, and Ohio is looking at paying approximately $160 million additionally… to keep the program going,” Plata-Nino said.

States can also decide to opt out of the program if the costs are too high, but currently Ohio plans to continue.

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said lawmakers “helped cover the gap” for the increase, which takes effect in October.

An important part of the analysis of individual state SNAP programs is their error rate, or payment accuracy rate.

The rate shows how often states see common errors as part of their SNAP benefits participation.

Fraud is not considered as part of the error rate, but things like a failure to report income, incorrect makeup of a household, or miscalculating a household’s income or expenses are included, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

The analysis of the error rates is done both by the states and by the federal government, and sometimes those separate analyses can differ, according to Plata-Nino.

It’s important that the error rates are accurately noted, because the number determines how much the federal government will contribute to states, and an inaccurate rate could mean less money coming to state programs, under the new law.

Ohio has set its focus on the error rates for SNAP.

According to a press release on June 25, the job and family services department said the payment accuracy rate for SNAP in Ohio has improved, down to 6.76% in 2025 compared with 2024, when the rate was 9.13%.

“We have been working closely with counties to improve payment accuracy by reducing common errors in the SNAP program,” said department director Matt Damschroder in a statement. “Together, we’ve made significant progress over the past year and remain committed to becoming even more efficient stewards of these critical public resources.”

The department noted the importance of the lower rate, as the changes in federal SNAP cost-sharing create a line in the sand for states.

States with error rates under 6% will continue to see 100% of benefit costs funded, whereas states above 6% will pay “an increasing percentage of benefit costs,” according to the department.

The 2025 error rate is not going to be used to identify the cost-sharing the state will have, but Damschroder and the department said it “demonstrates that Ohio’s improvement can significantly reduce potential costs.”

If the 2024 rate of 9.13% was used to calculate Ohio’s costs, the state would have had to come up with $321 million. Under the 2025 rate, the cost would be $160 million.

The state said about 1.4 million Ohioans use SNAP benefits monthly, at a cost of more than $270 million.

Plata-Nino said there’s still hope that the SNAP cuts could be undone via a Farm Bill that’s still being debated in Congress.

She said “at minimum,” the Food Research & Action Center and other organizations have asked for Congress to delay the implementation of the changes in cost-sharing for all states.

While current drafts of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House versions are “cost-neutral,” meaning there would be no change for the SNAP program, Democrats are attempting to hold off until changes can be made, according to Plata-Nino.

Still, without a crystal ball, it’s hard to know how the Republican majority and President Donald Trump will move forward.

“We just don’t know how this administration is going to act,” she said.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

The post One Year After Biggest SNAP Cuts Ever, 100,000 Ohioans Without Help, State Bracing for Costs appeared first on Cleveland Scene.

An Ohio House bill creating in-person requirements for “high-risk” medications is now in an Ohio Senate committee after passing the House last year. Advocates question the bill’s metrics and say it’s a back-door way to attack abortion pill access. 

Ohio House Bill 324 was brought by Republican sponsors to create “greater oversight” over medications that are determined to have “a high risk of severe adverse effects,” according to bill sponsor state Rep. Adam Mathews, R-Lebanon.

The bill passed the Ohio House in November along party lines, 60 to 28.

Using insurance claims data, patient reporting, and “applicable data” from the FDA, the bill would require in-person appointments for medications that have caused complications that required hospitalization like sepsis or hemorrhaging, cases of organ failure, or death, in more than 5% of its users.

“The rise of mail-order medication and telehealth has transformed how Ohioans access prescription and over-the-counter drugs,” Mathews told the Ohio Senate Health Committee.

“While telehealth often is beneficial, offering increased access to care and convenience, it may fall short when high-risk medications are involved.”

The measure’s co-sponsor, state Rep. Meredith Craig, R-Smithville, said requiring in-person consultations and banning mail-order sales of “dangerous drugs” through the bill “protects Ohio’s citizens from the risks associated with inadequate oversight in mail-order and telehealth systems.”

The bill does not single out one medication specifically, but it was criticized in the House for the consequences it could have on medical access to necessary medications like diabetes prescriptions and blood thinners, and also the data that could be used to declare a medication in-person only.

Even before a national battle over the medication abortion drug mifepristone came to Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, H.B. 324 heard from reproductive rights advocates who said the bill could create an avenue for debunked or medically unsound studies to be used to argue that medication abortion drugs have too many adverse effects. The drug has been approved by the FDA for decades and has seen decades of peer-reviewed medical studies showing serious complications to be statistically rare.

If mifepristone and its companion drug misprostol were required to be prescribed only during in-person appointments, abortion access could be impacted in low-income areas, and areas of the state where clinics and medical facilities are limited, advocates told House Health Committee members last year.

Anti-abortion advocacy groups spoke in support of the bill while it was in the committee, saying the bill would provide “necessary safeguards” specifically for medication abortion pills.

In the recent Ohio Senate hearing, physician and state Sen. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, pointed to national drug safety data collection and peer-reviewed scientific journals “that do a broad analysis of drug safety.”

“But you’re excluding them from being used (in the bill),” she said to the co-sponsors.

Craig said discussions were had while the bill was considered in the House, and “ultimately, the language in the bill includes strong measures,” including the use of insurance claim data and patient reports.

“Quite honestly, looking at actual insurance claims, I think, is where we’re going to find the most concrete data in this,” Craig said.

She added that 30 other states use insurance data to “establish and try and figure out the value of care.”

“You have to look at what the cost of care is,” she told Liston. “Insurance claims paying for that is a big part of that.”

Liston pushed back on the argument, saying insurance claims don’t point directly to the outcome of drugs and their safety.

“No one uses insurance claims to look at health outcomes when you have other mechanisms specifically to do so, especially when there’s no real transparency publicly on Medicaid data, Medicare …,” Liston said. “Whereas, there is a national drug safety database and surveillance system that captures that.”

The senator noted data on blood thinners and diabetes medications that show they can have the severe adverse effects the co-sponsors noted as part of the bill’s focus, and asked if regulating those types of medications was part of the aim of the bill.

“You have very strong medications treating very difficult situations,” Mathews said. “But you want to have in-person checks rather than just having telemedicine without having any in-person evaluation.”

H.B. 324 will now be open for hearings in the Senate Health Committee to hear from those who support and oppose the bill. The next hearing on the legislation has not been scheduled.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff laid out plans for a $202 million federal award aimed at rural health, following drastic Trump/Republican Medicaid cuts that will hit Ohio to the tune of $33 billion over 10 years. 

During overall budget testimony in the Ohio House Health Committee, Vanderhoff spelled out different priorities for the money awarded to the state through the Rural Health Transformation Program, which the Trump administration has presented as an attempt to offset cuts in other areas, such as Medicaid funding cut.

The Trump/Republican Medicaid funding cuts will hit Ohio to the tune of $33 billion over 10 years, according to experts. Those and other cuts will disproportionately impact rural hospitals and health care facilities.

“We’re not the most rural state (according to the federal government),” Vanderhoff said. “But we do have important rural areas, and we do have important rural needs.”

Vanderhoff said the department “felt rewarded” and “felt that we hit the mark” after their application netted more federal funds than he was expecting to receive.

The biggest pot of money received through the fund is $92 million, to be used for Rural Health Innovation Hubs and Clinically Integrated Networks, according to Vanderhoff.

Services would include hospital support and health access for struggling areas, and “primary care services particularly impacting students.”

Ohio’s program of rural school-based health centers would also get $21.1 million from the funds, and $13.5 million will go toward workforce programs, according to Vanderhoff.

The director said a big problem the department hopes to address is maternal and infant health.

“We are already aware of a number of efforts that are in the early stages in places in Ohio, and so we have a lot of optimism that those kinds of efforts will find this as real fuel for helping them move forward,” Vanderhoff told the committee.

The state maintains high infant mortality numbers compared to other states, along with high maternal morbidity and mortality rates, all of which are “directly impacted” by work in rural areas, he said.

But “doing more of what we have done in the past unsuccessfully is probably not the way to go,” the director noted.

He is prepared to see grant proposals come from groups in the state looking to do more innovative work.

“I have heard enough to say that I’d be very surprised if we don’t see this be one of the top things that some regions choose to address in a serious way,” Vanderhoff said.

Committee members from various parts of the state acknowledged the challenge of bringing and keeping health care in rural regions of the state.

Maternal care has seen a decrease in rural areas, partly because of the Medicaid cuts, and other losses of funding.

“A lot of maternity care is being provided outside of those rural areas because of the (obstetrics) units that have closed in several of our rural hospitals or have been consolidated,” said state Rep. Anita Somani, D-Dublin.

Committee members noted the comprehensive impacts inaccessibility of health care in rural areas has on health care in the state.

“Although I do not live in or represent a rural area, there will be ripple effects throughout the state in terms of accessing health care, as well as potential cost increases due to lack of early access or prevention,” said state Rep. Karen Brownlee, D-Symmes Twp.

Vanderhoff said that while he feels there’s “very little flexibility” in using the funds outside of what has already been outlined in the funding application, he believes the Rural Health Innovation Hub/Clinically Integrated Networks funding could have room for change, as indicated by discussions with the Trump administration and those overseeing the rural health program.

“We have been able to … actually have some conversations already with them about, well, but can some of this help some of the more challenged rural hospitals that maybe just need a little leg up, so that they’re in a position, existentially, to be able to participate in a hub, or a clinically integrated network,” Vanderhoff said.

The health director did acknowledge that the funds aren’t enough to assure a sustainable longterm future for rural hospitals in the state.

His comments aligned with other legislators and rural advocates who have said the money is not nearly enough to offset other federal funding cuts and increases in costs for health care.

“I do think it offers, though, a real opportunity and incentive for many of them to enter into a partnered and collaborative approach to changing their paradigm of care in rural Ohio,” Vanderhoff said.

For the first year, the director said the state will have to “stay nimble,” and work without flexibility on the programs specifically noted in their application, in the hopes the work will merit further flexibility later.

“I think we’re going to have to push hard on these, show that Ohio can get things done and put ourselves into a position to get the opportunity to maybe get more or at least to have flexibility because it’s evident that Ohio has its game going,” Vanderhoff said.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Republican Ohio lawmakers plan to formally pledge their support for the Trump administration dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education with a resolution this week.

Resolutions are planned in both chambers of the General Assembly that urge Congress to dissolve the federal department, as President Donald Trump has promised to do since the beginning of his second term.

The language of the Ohio resolution states that education “is not a power delegated to the federal government and has historically been governed by states and local communities accountable to families.” It goes on to say that under federal involvement, academic achievement has “stagnated or declined.”

“Decades of increased federal spending and regulation have not improved outcomes for students, but have imposed burdens on states and their schools,” according to the draft resolution.

Republican state Rep. David Thomas, R-Jefferson, said the measure will be introduced as part of a national movement that he said is needed to help federal leaders get the ball rolling.

“I think that the federal government and our federal partners need state support to be able to push this concept,” Thomas said. “So, I see the impact essentially being a sign-off of yes, Ohio agrees this should be done.”

The resolution’s language is nearly identical to model language provided by the America First Policy Institute, a national right-wing non-profit policy organization. The deputy director of the group’s Ohio chapter is Emily Moreno, daughter of Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno.

The institute called the federal education agency a “failed experiment” in background included with the model language.

“(The department) has not promoted student achievement, improved education for disadvantaged students, nor helped expand educational opportunity,” the group stated.

The department “has used federal funding to coerce states into complying with controversial social policies that should be reserved to local decision-makers,” the institute added.

In the resolution, Ohio would create a task force to create and publish a “comprehensive plan to assume full responsibility for education programs” currently under the U.S. Department of Education purview.

That comprehensive plan is set to include any statutory changes required to “assume administrative control over federal education programs,” and the identification of federal education mandates Ohio would “decline to administer.”

The one clause from the model language state legislators didn’t include in the draft resolution promised a state report using metrics from the plan to “measure student outcomes, fiscal efficiency and regulatory burdens.” Under the model language, the report would “allow the public to compare outcomes under new state educational leadership relative to the prior period of federal education control.”

Through conversations with members of public schools and some teachers, Thomas said he’s found the concept of trying to bring education funding “more local” has “broad public support.”

“When I ask (schools) how can we help you cut costs, each school brings up all the regulations and the mandates and different things,” Thomas said. “This, to me, is another good example of something I’ve wanted, which is having more flexibility to remove a lot of those types of (federal requirements).”

State leaders have already shown support for the dismantling of the federal department, with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine attending an event where Trump signed an executive order to begin eliminating the department.

In a world without the U.S. Department of Education, Thomas sees the state moving to more of a block grant-type process, with the middleman out of the way. The federal money, which makes up about 10% of education funding in Ohio, would still come, but the state would have more control over what to do with it, he said.

“I’m sure a lot of folks think you get rid of the Department of Education and that gets rid of all the money,” Thomas said. “That’s not been what the administration has been saying, that’s not what this resolution is supporting.”

Teachers unions in Ohio and nationwide have stood staunchly against the effort, worrying about the loss of federal protections and other necessary services from the move.

“Dismantling (the department) risks cutting or destabilizing Title I and special education supports, weakens civil rights protections, and shifts costs onto local communities through higher levies or painful cuts to services,” said Jeff Wensing, president of the Ohio Education Association, in a statement.

The union leader said the consequences of the agency’s elimination would be “immediate and profound,” with less accountability for public funds and increasing inequality.

“Educators, parents, and families know that our students need more opportunities to succeed, not less,” Wensing said. “We need to strengthen our public schools where 90% of students – and 95% of students with disabilities – learn.”

Thomas doesn’t see the elimination of the federal department of education affecting the school funding formula in the state, even with a change in federal funding model.

“I don’t think that changes dramatically with a federal Department of Education-less world,” Thomas said. “I think it’s more so the policy side that changes dramatically.”

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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A Democratic candidate for Ohio Attorney General is receiving backlash after making comments about killing President Donald Trump through legal conviction and “capital punishment.”

Elliot Forhan is a former state representative who is set to appear on the Democratic primary ballot for Attorney General against John Kulewicz in May. Kulewicz is a longtime member of the Columbus-based law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease.

Forhan started a firestorm on social media Tuesday after saying he planned to “kill Donald Trump.”

“I want to tell you what I mean when I say I am going to kill Donald Trump,” Forhan said in a video posted to his Facebook page. “I mean I’m going to obtain a conviction, rendered by a jury of his peers, at a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, based on evidence presented at a trial, conducted in accordance with the requirements of due process, resulting in a sentence, duly executed, of capital punishment.”

In a statement posted on social media, Kulewicz condemned Forhan’s comments.

“The comments today from my potential primary opponent are disgraceful,” Kulewicz said. “The AG is the chief law officer of our state, a serious responsibility, not a political game. The AG must take the law and judicial process seriously.”

Forhan did not walk back his statements when asked about them on Wednesday.

“If Donald Trump tries again to end American democracy, then as Ohio Attorney General, I will hold him accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Forhan told the Capital Journal.

In comments to Gongwer earlier on Wednesday, Forhan pointed to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to interrupt the 2020 presidential election certification process. Forhan told the outlet the president “did not face justice for that.”

Charges in the election interference case against Trump were dismissed at the request of federal prosecutors because after Trump had been elected president a second time and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents hold constitutional immunity for official acts.

Republican members of the Ohio legislature, along with other Republican elected officials, rushed to social media to denounce the comments.

State Auditor Keith Faber, a Republican candidate for Attorney General, called on Democratic candidates and leaders to “call (Forhan) out for such conduct.” He also called for “political calm” in a video statement posted to X.

“Tamp down the rhetoric, let’s keep everybody safe,” Faber said. “Ultimately, if we keep inflaming tensions, somebody’s going to get hurt.”

Forhan didn’t respond to Faber’s comments about him, instead criticizing an opinion piece Faber wrote (and referenced in his video post) on ICE presence in Minnesota, where two people have been killed by federal agents amid protests.

“Mr. Faber is telling Ohioans that, if elected, he will let Trump get away with murder,” Forhan said. “Ohio voters should take Mr. Faber at his word.”

Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou posted a statement to X saying he was shown an “outrageous and extreme post,” referencing the Forhan video, one which he called “unhinged rhetoric.”

Some social media comments on the Republican statements called for Forhan’s arrest. He told the Capital Journal he feels he was within his rights to make such statements.

“I broke no law,” Forhan said. “The core of the protections of the First Amendment is political speech.”

The former representative said he’s grateful to have received support from Democrats in Ohio on Tuesday and Wednesday.

When asked for comment on Forhan and the social media posts, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Clyde simply said “there’s no place for political violence of any kind.”

Forhan had his share of controversy as a state representative and after losing his bid for re-election, leading to an ongoing defamation suit he filed against the current Ohio Attorney General, along with former and current legislators.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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