Ohio lawmakers pass ‘bathroom bill,’ restricting transgender students’ access to bathrooms, locker rooms: Capitol Letter

Rotunda RumblingsBathroom remodel: The Ohio Senate sent to Gov. Mike DeWine a bill that will prohibit transgender students from using the school bathroom and locker room associated with their gender identity. Senate Bill 104 began as a noncontroversial bill about a high school program. It was amended in the Ohio House to affect transgender students in K-12 public and private schools, public and nonprofit private colleges and for-profit career centers. Wednesday was the first Senate session during lame duck, the final march of the two-year legislative session, when a flurry of bills pass, often involving social issues, Laura Hancock reports .

Not talking: Joel Bailey, a FirstEnergy lobbyist who worked closely on the company's scandal ridden lobbying and self-professed bribery campaign, was deposed Wednesday in a regulatory probe. As Jake Zuckerman reports , he invoked his constitutional rights against self-incrimination roughly 100 times and refused to answer questions. The regulatory investigations had been stalled for more than a year because of criminal proceedings.

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Double DOGE: Vivek Ramaswamy, the Columbus-area biotech entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, says he's out of the jockeying to be appointed to Vice President-elect JD Vance's U.S. Senate seat. As Jeremy Pelzer reports , that's because Ramaswamy was named by President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead a new anti-government waste advisory initiative called the "Department of Government Efficiency" - or DOGE, a wink to the favored cryptocurrency of billionaire Elon Musk, the other co-leader. While some mentioned Ramaswamy as a leading candidate to take Vance's seat, there were signs that DeWine wasn't going to pick him anyway.

Book backers: A proposed law might bring a bit of Dollywood to Ohio roads. Molly Walsh writes that an Ohio Senate committee on Wednesday advanced a bill that would create a specialty license plate supporting country superstar Dolly Parton's Imagination Library , a literacy program that sends free books to children. If approved, the license plate will display a logo and words that are selected by Parton's organization and approved by the state registrar for Ohioans who opt to pay an extra fee to get it. A portion of that fee would go to support the library, which provides books to about 400,000 Ohio children.

Under wraps: Reporters on Wednesday asked Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman how he's going to argue to House Republicans that he's best qualified to lead them, instead of current Speaker Jason Stephens. Huffman said that his speech will occur next week during a private meeting. Members are not supposed to talk to publicly about it. But he plans to send out his legislative resume to underscore his experience, including his most recent work in defeating Issue 1, the anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment proposal that would have weakened GOP majorities in the legislature if it would have passed. He also said he'll talk to Republicans about how he's better poised to unite the caucus, versus Stephens, who was embroiled in a battle against more socially conservative Republicans.

Lame duck list: Reporters also asked Huffman what his priority bills were for the lame-duck session. He said there is an adoption reform bill he wants to pass, a ballot issue to renew $2.5 billion in public infrastructure bonds , removing delta-8 THC hemp products from gas stations and other common retailers. He wants to pass House Bill 8, the Parents Bill of Rights , that would require schools notify parents if children accessed mental health services, but critics say will force schools to out children to parents. Huffman said that he usually forgets bills when asked this question, and the public can look at the bills in committees over the coming weeks to get an understanding of his priorities.

Anti-pronoun: Public universities in Ohio would be prohibited from asking student and job applicants for their preferred pronouns, under legislation introduced by state Rep. Gail Pavliga, a Portage County Republican. As Erin Glynn of the Columbus Dispatch reports , Pavliga argues she wants to keep "bias" out of higher education. Thirteen Ohio public universities use an online student application platform that includes an optional question asking for the applicant's preferred pronouns.

Betting man: Dayton-area state Sen. Niraj Antani, the author of a bill that legalized Ohio sports betting in 2022, has proposed cutting the sports gaming tax rate back to its original 10% after the state bumped it to 20% last year. As the Dayton Daily News' Aveyr Kreemer reports , Antani submitted written testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday in favor of his Senate Bill 190. He previously told The Plain Dealer/cleveland.com that the 20% rate, which was set last year, results in less favorable odds for bettors and stingier promotional offers.

CHIPS on their shoulder: The Ohio Chamber of Commerce has joined 17 other business groups in Oregon, New Mexico, and New York in pushing President Joe Biden to immediately release the nearly $53 billion in federal aid and tax incentives promised in the CHIPS & Science Act - including nearly $20 billion in financial aid to help Intel build a new computer-chip plant outside of Columbus. As Mark Williams of the Dispatch reports , the Biden administration has vowed the money will go out before the end of the year.

Vance event flak: The Michigan site of a September JD Vance vice-presidential rally is facing several land use violations, Fox 17 in West Michigan reports . The event was supposed to have been conducted outdoors but was brought into a barn on the property that wasn't allowed to host more than 500 people under local fire codes. Sparta Township officials defended the facility's owner, saying the Secret Service forced the relocation.

Silver lining: An ex-prosecutor whose nomination to become Chicago's first female U.S. attorney was blocked by a hold Vance placed on all Justice Department nominees was instead confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday as a federal district court judge, the Chicago Sun Times reports . April Perry's July 2023 nomination to be U.S. Attorney wound up languishing for nine months until Biden announced he would nominate her for a judgeship. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, shared on X that 213 Biden-Harris judges had been confirmed as of Tuesday morning, "and we're laser-focused on confirming every possible remaining nominee."

Full Disclosure Here are five things we learned from the Feb. 20, 2024, ethics disclosure form filed by state Rep.-elect Meredith Lawson-Rowe, a Reynoldsburg Democrat, about her 2023 finances:

4. Her travel reimbursements last year included $717 from Vote Run Lead (an organization that trains women to run for public office) and $118.98 from "Southwest" (her disclosure form did not include more detail).

On The Move Sarah Ingles has been named the Ohio House Democrats' new chief of staff, moving up from serving as the caucus' legal counsel. Ingles will succeed Jordan Plottner, who has accepted the position of assistant director at the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center, a health policy research center at Ohio State University.

Bethany Sanders, currently the director of policy & strategic initiatives at the Franklin County auditor's office, will succeed Ingles as the House Democrats' legal counsel – a job Sanders previously held before joining the auditor's office, according to a release.

Other House Democrats' staff changes include promoting Minority Policy Director Nick Muccio to deputy chief of staff for policy and finance, and promoting Deputy Budget Director Riley Alton to caucus finance director.

Jen Detwiler and Jonathan Varner, two veteran Democratic public-relations and political consultants, have merged their respective sole proprietorships into a new firm, Kestrel Communications .

State Sen. Stephen Huffman

Frank J. Lausche, Ohio's 55th and 57th governor (1895-1990)

Straight From The Source "It's difficult when in effect you have three caucuses. And it seemed to outsiders like myself that way. When it's two sides versus three, in contentious issues it's easier to get to a conclusion."

- Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, on one of the arguments he'll make to House Republicans about why they should choose him as their leader next week over current Speaker Jason Stephens, a fellow Republican. To win the speaker's gavel two years ago, Stephens won the support of Democrats and a small number of Republicans, with a more socially conservative group supporting another House member. This resulted in GOP infighting throughout the legislative session.