The only Democrat holding statewide office in Ohio, Supreme Court Justice Bill O'Neill, says he won’t follow through on the run for governor he was considering - because he says former Attorney General Richard Cordray will run.
The new budget is now three weeks old, and experts are still analyzing it and speculating how the state ended with a budget shortfall of $849 million. Budget director Tim Keen shares his thoughts about the budget process and on specifics in the budget, such as education funding and the use of so-called "rotary funds". Damon Asbury with the Ohio School Boards Association has been very concerned about the very small boost that Ohio’s 610 school districts received in this budget. And Zach Schiller with the progressive research group Policy Matters Ohio has several things he's watching and worrying about in this budget. But he's pleased about the appointment of six lawmakers to the Tax Expenditure Review Committee.
A common complaint about government is that once a federal, state or local entity is created, it never goes away. The opposite happened to one commission in this new state budget. The Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission was abolished, four years before its required shutdown in 2021. Fred Mills is a former chief of staff for the Ohio House and an aide to Gov. Jim Rhodes, and is now a lawyer and lobbyist. And Mills was a member of three of the committees that comprised the commission, chairing the legislative branch and executive committee.