Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown holds a slim lead while outspending his Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, nearly four-to-one in one of the most expensive Senate races this cycle.
Ohio’s Senate race is currently the most expensive in the country, totaling $425,802,726 including outside spending, according to OpenSecrets data. Brown is currently leading by 1 percentage point at 47.4% to Moreno’s 46.4%, according to polling averages by RealClear Polling.
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The Ohio Senate voted to override Governor Mike DeWine’s veto of House Bill 68 on Wednesday, sparking an array of applause from activists and GOP lawmakers.
House Bill 68, which will become law in 90 days, combines two bills: the Saving Ohio Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act and the Save Women’s Sports Act.
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A bill heavily amended in the Ohio Senate in response to the passage of Issue 2 is awaiting action by the Ohio House of Representatives.
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The Ohio House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to override Governor Mike DeWine’s veto of House Bill 68.
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Less than two days from recreational marijuana use becoming legal in Ohio, lawmakers want to make some changes.
Senate Republicans added the changes to a bill that passed the House in June and would revise some of the state’s liquor laws.
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Former Ohio state lawmaker and current business owner Kevin Coughlin launched his campaign for Ohio’s 13th congressional district on Monday. Coughlin, a Republican, is a fourth-generation resident of Summit County.
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The Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill this week focused on providing property tax relief to Ohioans.
If enacted, the Ohio Homeowners Relief Act would modify the procedures used by the tax commissioner to conduct property tax sales assessment ratio studies. Specifically, the bill would require the commissioner to work alongside local elected officials and weigh the past three years of a county’s property values in order to determine property taxes instead of just one.
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A piece of legislation introduced into the Ohio House of Representatives to authorize a tax credit for landlords who allow companion animals to reside in their rental units has been assigned to a committee for review.
Assistant Majority Whip Sharon Ray (R-Wadsworth) and State Representative Juanita Brent (D-Cleveland) introduced House Bill (HB) 277, known as the Pet Friendly Rental Act on September 18th.
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A bipartisan group of Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill to the Ohio House of Representatives to freeze property taxes for eligible seniors.
The legislation, known as the 70 Under 70 Plan, sponsored by State Representatives Thomas Hall (R-Madison Township) and Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati), would freeze property taxes for Ohioans 70 years or older who make less than $70,000 a year and have owned their home for 10 years or more.
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A Republican lawmaker introduced legislation last week into the Ohio Senate to move Ohio’s primary elections to a closed system and to allow voters to update their party affiliation at any time up to thirty days before a primary election.
Senate Bill (SB) 147, known as the Voter Registration Modernization Act, sponsored by State Senator Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester), attempts to allow voters to be more civically engaged by allowing them to declare their political party affiliation in real-time increasing data, accuracy, and integrity of the voter registration process.
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A group of Ohioans wants to try to change the state Constitution by creating a 15-member citizen-appointed panel to draw state legislative and congressional maps removing that power from the Ohio Redistricting Commission.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission is a seven-member body created to draw districts for the Ohio House and Senate.
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Following the defeat of Ohio State Issue 1 on Tuesday, Ohio Lawmakers in the House and Senate voiced their opinions.
Issue 1, if approved by voters, would have mandated a 60 percent approval percentage for any future constitutional amendments, call for signatures from all 88 counties, and do away with the opportunity to “cure” petitions by collecting additional signatures if necessary.
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On Monday, Republican businessman and candidate for U.S. Senate Bernie Moreno and Arizona Republican politician and former candidate for Arizona Governor Kari Lake rallied Republicans to vote in support of Ohio State Issue on August 8th.
Moreno and Lake attended a county Republican rally in Cleveland in support of Ohio State Issue 1 to raise the threshold to amend the state constitution. They spoke to hundreds of voters at the Get Out the Vote Rise and Shine Rally at the Strongsville GOP in Parma.
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Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted announced on Tuesday that he named Aaron Crooks, former director of Legislative Affairs for Governor Mike DeWine, to serve as his new chief of staff.
Crooks, of Upper Arlington, has served as DeWine’s director of legislative affairs since 2021. As director of legislative affairs, he oversaw the development and promotion of the administration’s legislative agenda with the General Assembly and other stakeholders in that capacity. He worked for CareSource, OhioHealth, and the Office of Health Transformation before joining the DeWine-Husted administration. In 2002, he took a position with the Ohio Senate.
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A Republican Ohio lawmaker introduced a bill into the Ohio Senate to prohibit the use of ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting, in the state.
Senate Bill (SB) 137, sponsored by State Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green), would prohibit ranked choice voting in all elections in Ohio except for those conducted in municipalities or chartered counties.
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On Tuesday morning Alex Triantafilou, the head of the Ohio Republican Party responded to the announcement that Ohio-born singer-songwriter John Legend is rallying with Democrats against State Issue 1 calling it an attempt to “trick ordinary people.”
This follows a Democratic-backed group One Person One Vote announcing that Legend would attend their Cincinnati rally on Tuesday afternoon to encourage attendees to vote against Issue 1 during the state’s special election on August 8th.
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The Ohio Republican Party called on Mayor Justin Bibb to stop deflecting responsibility for the violence occurring in Cleveland and to instead fix the problem by supporting law enforcement.
On Sunday, an early morning shooting in a nightclub area of downtown Cleveland sent nine people to MetroHealth Medical Center with injuries. According to authorities, no fatalities were reported.
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed the state’s $86 billion biennial operating budget containing tax cuts for individuals and businesses, higher income limits for school vouchers, and a new requirement for parental approval of social media accounts for children under 16.
DeWine vetoed a total of 44 budgetary measures, including a two-week sales tax holiday, legislation that would have prohibited the regulation of tobacco and nicotine products, and legislation that would have prohibited higher education institutions from forcing students to have specific immunizations.
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The Ohio House of Representatives passed a Republican-backed piece of legislation last week that tries to make hospital prices more transparent and affordable.
The Ohio House progressed House Bill (HB) 49 by a 90-5 vote advancing the legislation to the Ohio Senate for its review.
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A new study indicates that in the general election in 2022 in Arizona, either election officials tallied more ballots than the number of registered voters, or Arizona counties failed to maintain accurate records of who cast a ballot.
The study, conducted by the think tank The America First Policies Institute (AFPI), conducted an analysis counting the total number of ballots in the 2022 Arizona general election compared to the number of registered voters.
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State lawmakers approved the state’s biennial operating budget including tax cuts for individuals and businesses, higher income limits for school vouchers, and 1.8 billion for public schools.
A temporary budget is currently in effect until Ohio Governor Mike DeWine can review and sign the permanent one.
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Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) says that he is now confident in lawmakers passing the state’s biennial budget before its June 30th deadline.
This follows his previous statement that with the approximately 800 differences between the biennial budgets passed by the Ohio House and Ohio Senate, it is likely that the state legislature may miss its end-of-the-month deadline and need to pass a temporary budget until they can strike a final deal.
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Six Republican Ohio House veterans wrote a letter opposing a committee adding a seven-day interim budget to a bill that gives military families a tax break.
On Monday, the House Rules and Reference Committee approved an amendment to include this budget to Senate Bill (SB) 43 to expand the situations in which surviving spouses of disabled veterans may receive the “homestead” tax exemption.
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The Ohio House of Representatives passed two Republican-backed pieces of legislation on Tuesday one that modernizes and streamlines the adoption process across the state and another bill that excuses breastfeeding mothers from jury duty.
The Ohio House passed House Bill (HB) 5 by a 93-0 vote and HB 34 by a 94-0 vote advancing both pieces of legislation to the Ohio Senate for review.
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The Ohio House of Representatives advanced a piece of Republican-backed legislation that aims to protect a healthcare provider’s ability to fill off-label prescriptions.
House Bill (HB) 73, known as The Patient and Health Provider Protection Act, sponsored by State Representatives Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester) and Mike Loychik (R- Bazetta) passed 75-17 out of the Ohio House of Representatives advancing it to the Ohio Senate for further consideration.
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is urging the General Assembly to pass the full biennial budget before its June 30th deadline rather than to pass a temporary budget with negotiations continuing into July.
Under the Ohio Constitution, the state’s two-year budget must be passed and signed into law before the fiscal year’s end on June 30th. However, the budget legislation approved by the Ohio House and Ohio Senate differ significantly from one another.
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Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is an undeclared candidate for the U.S. Senate, told The Ohio Star that he hopes to make an announcement for a run for U.S. Senate against Ohio Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2024 “soon.”
“It is a big logistical undertaking. You don’t undertake an effort this big without figuring out how you can do it successfully. I think it’s vitally important that we beat him (Sherrod Brown) next year. If I can do it right I want to do it. I hope to make an announcement soon,” LaRose told The Star.
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Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said that he disagrees that the state legislature may miss the deadline to pass the state’s biennial budget.
This follows Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hills) indicating the possibility that the state legislature may miss the deadline with budget negotiations continuing into July.
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The Ohio House of Representatives passed two Republican-backed pieces of legislation on Wednesday one that aims to protect women’s sports and children from exploitation in the state and one that aims to require school systems to have policies in place that allow parents to be more active in their child’s education.
The Ohio House passed House Bill (HB) 68, known as the SAFE Act, with the Save Women’s Sports Act amended into it by a 64-28 vote and HB 8, known as the Parents’ Bill of Rights, by a 65-29 vote advancing both pieces of legislation to the Ohio Senate for their review.
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Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) indicated that the state legislature may miss the deadline for the state’s biennial budget with negotiations to continue into July.
Under the Ohio constitution, the state’s two-year budget must be passed and signed into law before the fiscal year’s end on June 30th. However, the budget legislation approved by the Ohio House and Senate differ significantly from one another.
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The Ohio House unanimously passed Republican-backed legislation that aims to give judges in the state clear guidance in setting bail.
House Bill (HB) 191, sponsored by State Representatives D.J. Swearingen (R-Huron) (pictured above, right) and Bill Seitz (R- Cincinnati) (pictured above, left), looks to codify Criminal Rule 46, a rule that provides all state courts with instructions regarding bail-setting procedures in the Ohio Revised Code.
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The Ohio House unanimously passed Republican-backed legislation that aims to streamline tax reporting requirements for remote workers.
House Bill (HB) 121 sponsored by State Representatives Monica Robb Blasdel (R-Columbiana County) and Adam Mathews’ (R-Lebanon) looks to modernize the municipal net profits tax filing requirements for remote workers and allow employers to designate qualifying reporting locations to consolidate their filings to a single central business location.
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The Ohio House of Representatives passed a Republican-backed legislation that attempts to save taxpayers millions of dollars statewide by modernizing the Ohio Revised Code.
The Ohio House passed the legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support by a vote of 94-1, advancing it to the senate for its consideration.
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The Ohio Senate passed its version of the state’s new two-year $85.7 billion budget bill on Thursday highlighting significant reforms for education policy, tax policy, and home ownership programs.
The latest version of House Bill (HB) 33 passed out of the Ohio Senate by a 24-7 party-line vote. Now approved, the legislation will go to a conference committee to work out differences with the House budget.
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Lawmakers in the Ohio Senate have reinstated Governor Mike DeWine’s requirement for verified parental consent before children use social media in their version of the state budget.
DeWine included the Social Media Parental Notification Act in the executive budget for 2023-24, which he submitted to the Ohio General Assembly in February. In April, the House Finance Committee removed the proposal from the budget in favor of a potential separate bill.
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An Ohio House Representative introduced legislation that aims to cap how much retirement benefits school employees can receive.
House Bill (HB) 146, sponsored by State Representative Adam Bird (R-New Richmond), would establish a School Employee Retirement System contribution-based benefit cap to prevent pension spiking.
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The Ohio Senate unanimously passed bipartisan legislation that generally prohibits the installation of an electronic tracking device on someone else’s property without the other person’s consent.
Senate Bill (SB) 100, sponsored by State Senators Nathan Manning (R-North Ridgeville) and Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood), aims to establish the use of tracking devices for menacing or stalking purposes as its own offense under Ohio law – a move that the bill’s sponsors say closes a loophole in current state statutes.
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The Ohio Senate introduced its version of the state’s new two-year $85.7 billion budget bill highlighting significant reforms for education policy, tax policy, and homeownership programs.
The budget includes income tax cuts, universal school vouchers, and a plan to remove the majority of the power of the state Board of Education and superintendent.
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A student at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio is calling for action after a professor failed her on her final project proposal over her use of the term “biological women” in a paper about feminism.
Olivia Krolczyk claimed in a now-viral TikTok video that her Women’s Gender Studies in Pop Culture professor failed her on her project proposal even though it was “a solid proposal” because using the term biological women is “exclusionary.”
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted joined with Ohio Business Round Table President and CEO Pat Tiberi to address growing needs in the state’s workforce.
According to Governor DeWine, investing in education to build a skilled workforce of Ohioans is critical to continue the economy’s growth and momentum.
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Republican lawmakers in the Ohio House and Senate have introduced legislation to exempt sales tax from guns and ammunition and provide business incentive growth in Ohio.
House Bill (HB) 189, sponsored by State Representative Al Cutrona (R-Canfield) and companion bill Senate Bill (SB) 134, sponsored by State Senator Tim Schaffer (R-Lancaster) aim to remove sales tax from guns and ammunition and provide gun and ammunition manufacturers a tax credit that would offset the federal excise tax imposed on these manufacturers.
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The Ohio Senate unanimously passed legislation that removes hundreds of pages from the Ohio Revised Code, increasing efficiency at the state level.
Senate Bill (SB) 74, sponsored by State Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green), contains over 100 individual changes to the Ohio Revised Code, most impacting government-to-government interactions. The bill eliminates 64 code sections, cutting hundreds of pages from the Ohio Revised Code.
Senate Bill (SB) 74 sponsored by State Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) contains over 100 individual changes to the Ohio Revised Code with the vast majority of these changes impacting government-to-government interactions. The bill eliminates 64 code sections altogether, cutting hundreds of pages from the Ohio Revised Code.
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Ohio Republican Lawmakers have formed a new Ohio Legislative Prayer Caucus (OLPC) of the 135th General Assembly that pledges to advocate for religious freedom and Judeo-Christian values that have been embedded in American culture since its foundation.
State Representative Gary Click (R-Vickery) in the House and State Senator Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester) in the Senate co-chair the bicameral caucus.
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The Ohio House of Representatives passed legislation that aims to allow wholesalers experiencing “bad debt” to claim a refund on cigarette, tobacco and vapor products from the state for the tax they pay upfront when they are unable to obtain reimbursement from a retailer.
The House passed the legislation by an 85-3 vote with all Republicans and all but three Democrats voting in favor of the bill.
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The Ohio Senate has passed legislation that aims to increase transparency and modernize and clarify data in Ohio’s elections.
Senate Bill (SB) 71 known as the Data Analysis Transparency Archive (DATA) Act, sponsored by state Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) in collaboration with Secretary of State Frank LaRose passed in the Ohio Senate along party lines 24-7.
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A proposal in the Ohio Senate would allow Ohioans to register to vote on Election Day and force potential voters to register again if they have not voted in four consecutive years.
State Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, D-Toledo, introduced the resolution she says expands voting rights and is an effort to lessen the effects of voting legislation passed by the General Assembly last year.
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The City of Columbus filed a lawsuit against Ohio, claiming that the state has exceeded its power by passing legislation making it difficult for municipalities to establish specific gun control measures.
The lawsuit, filed in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, follows an Ohio judge ruling which denied the city of Columbus’ request to allow them to enforce their new gun control laws, while the lawsuit filed by The Buckeye Institute to protect the rights of Ohioans to keep and bear arms is being heard.
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Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, through the Attorney General’s office, has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit challenging the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 2, and an August special election to vote on it.
A Democratic-backed group One Person One Vote, and a coalition of three Ohio residents Jeniece Brock, Brent Edwards, and Christopher Tavenor, filed the lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court in response to the passage of a resolution, the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, aimed at altering the process of how initiative petitions can propose constitutional amendments on May 10th on the grounds that the resolution is unconstitutional and illegal.
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A Democratic-backed group that opposes the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 2, and an August special election to vote on it has filed a lawsuit on the grounds that the resolution is unconstitutional and illegal.
The group One Person One Vote, and a coalition of three Ohio residents Jeniece Brock, Brent Edwards, and Christopher Tavenor, filed the lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court in response to the passage of a resolution, the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, aimed at altering the process of how initiative petitions can propose constitutional amendments on May 10th.
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The Ohio House Higher Education Committee has passed the “Save Women’s Sports Act” that ensures that biological males cannot compete in female-only sports statewide propelling the legislation forward towards a full House vote.
The Ohio House Higher Education Committee passed the legislation by an 8-6 vote with all five Democrats on the committee and State Representative Gayle Manning (R-North Ridgeville) voting against the bill.
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