2015 could be a huge year for Gov. John Kasich. He will start his second term as Ohio’s 69th governor, after winning re-election by 30 points. This is a budget year, and he has a lot of things he wants to accomplish. And while he’ll have a Republican dominated Senate and the largest Republican majority in the history of the Ohio House, he doesn’t always have total support from his own party. Kasich shared the stage at an Ohio Chamber of Commerce event last month with Senate President Keith Faber (R-Celina) and outgoing House Speaker Bill Batchelder (R-Medina), and talked about Medicaid expansion and his desire to increase taxes on cigarettes and oil and natural gas drillers. He also talked about the federal balanced budget amendment tour he's been on, and about the two-year freeze on the state's green energy standards.
A lot of what Kasich had to say he went over in an interview he did about a month before the election, just after he'd finished up an event with veterans in southwest Ohio. But there were a few things he talked about then that he didn’t mention at the Chamber of Commerce event.
Kasich’s second term officially begins with a small swearing-in ceremony for him and his cabinet at midnight on January 12 in the Senate chamber, where Kasich got his start as an elected official in 1978. Then as he did in 2011, he’ll speak at a public inauguration event, this time at the Southern Theatre in downtown Columbus, around noon on January 12.