Author
Ohio Senate budget attacks poor people on food assistance, affordable housing, and other programs
The Ohio Senate Republican budget passed last week put forth a new vision for social safety net spending in Ohio. The proposal suggests reduced spending on food banks, housing for pregnant women, affordable housing, and school meals for poor children. It also proposes making it harder for low-income people to get access to Medicaid, SNAP […]
Food insecurity in Ohio as bad as ever
Back in 2016, I conducted a policy analysis on food insecurity in Ohio. I was drawn to this question because I saw a report from the Center for American Progress rating states on a variety of different indicators. Ohio, as it still tends to do, fell near the middle of the pack on nearly every […]
Health inequity alive and well in Ohio
Last month, the Health Policy Institute of Ohio released its annual Health Value Dashboard, its marquee report analyzing health outcomes and cost of healthcare in the state of Ohio. This year, the report had a special focus on health equity. This section covers both the progress the state has made on the health equity front […]
Will Ohio legalize recreational cannabis?
A group called the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is currently collecting signatures to legalize the cultivation, manufacturing, testing and sale of cannabis to Ohioans age 21 and up via a ballot initiative later this year. The argument that cannabis should be treated the same as alcohol is a common one in legalization circles. […]
Is it time for a $15 minimum wage?
When I was living in Nebraska in 2014, the state passed a citizen-initiated minimum wage increase to raise the wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. At the time, Nebraska’s minimum wage was the highest in the country after adjusting for local cost of living. Nebraska was on the front end of a series of […]
Reading curriculum changes need evaluation
Earlier this month, Education Week reported on a policy trend that Ohio Gov. DeWine has made a central focus of his 2024-2025 budget: reform of reading curriculum standards. This reform in particular centers around a fulcrum of debate about how to teach reading in schools. In particular, a popular but controversial program called “Reading Recovery” […]
Should hybrid cars pay for roads?
The Ohio House of Representatives recently passed a two-year, $12.6 billion transportation budget. The budget included a number of different provisions, including billions of dollars for pavement and bridges, dollars allocated specifically for economic development projects, and $3 billion for Cincinnati’s Brent Spence Bridge. One small provision of the bill, however, makes a tweak to […]
The utility bailout House Bill 6 made both Ohio’s air and politics dirty
With all the drama surrounding the Householder trial for racketeering, it can be easy to forget the bill behind the former Ohio Speaker of the House’s alleged $60 million payoff from First Energy power company. House Bill 6 had four major impacts. It required power consumers to bail out two massive nuclear power plants in […]
How can we prevent the next East Palestine?
Ohio is in the national news again, this time around a tragedy that sits at the crossroads of transportation, environmental policy, and public health. The high-profile train derailment at East Palestine, Ohio started as a shocking evacuation. It has since grown into an international story about the impacts of the derailment on the environment and […]
DeWine child tax deduction leaves poor families out
At his “state of the state” address on Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine put forth a unique proposal to the Ohio legislature — to enact a $2,500 per child state tax deduction. When I first saw this, I was excited! The 2021 federal child tax credit expansion lifted over 2 million children out of poverty. […]
What does it mean to call natural gas “green?”
Earlier this month, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation to redefine natural gas as “green energy” and to require state agencies to lease out state lands for oil and gas exploration and production. With the redefinition of natural gas as “green,” Ohio follows a summer decision by the European Union aiming to provide guidance for […]
Can Jason Stephens help Ohio do partisanship differently?
I used to live in the state of Nebraska where I did work as an organizer and an occasional lobbyist in the nation’s only nonpartisan legislature. Candidates for the Nebraska unicameral legislature run on a nonpartisan ballot and once elected, do not caucus with a party. When I was living in Nebraska, all committee chairs […]