The Libertarian Party candidates for president will be allowed to appear on the Ohio ballot, though not under that label. And group of state lawmakers will look over the way jobless benefits to come up with ideas for their colleagues to consider when they come back to work after the November election.
The green energy standards freeze, which will expire at the end of the year. If lawmakers do nothing, a 2008 law that was frozen for two years in 2014 goes back into effect. There are several bills that would address that freeze, including one from the chief critic of the original 2008 law – Sen. Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati). His bill would push the freeze out another three years, to 2019. But there are plenty of activists watching, including Trish Demeter with the Ohio Environmental Council.
For more than a year, it has been legal to lie in a political ad campaign, thanks to a US Supreme Court ruling on a 19 year old Ohio law banning false statements in campaigns. The Court ruled in favor of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, which wanted to run ads in 2010 saying then-Congressman Steve Driehaus supported taxpayer funding of abortion through the Affordable Care Act. And now we’re in perhaps the most divisive presidential campaign ever, with both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton routinely saying the other is lying, and with fact-checking sites working overtime. Of course, the law didn’t prevent lying by candidates, and it’s become increasingly difficult to decipher facts from opinions, and to determine what the truth actually is. Back in April, two experts shared their thoughts. Mark Weaver, a former deputy Ohio Attorney General who teaches law at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University and the University of Akron, and has served as an adviser to many Republican candidates. Ned Foley directs Election Law @ Moritz at Ohio State’s law school and has written several books and articles on the topic, and was working with the Stanford University Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law on the issue of electoral competition.