Can you imagine Jim Jordan as 3rd in line to the presidency? He might want to be House speaker: Today in Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio — On the heels of Tuesday’s historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the U.S. House, Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan’s name has been tossed out as a possible replacement.

Jordan hasn’t ruled out the possibility, and we’re talking about what that might mean on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, politics editor Rick Rouan and reporter Courtney Astolfi.

You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.

Here’s what else we’re asking about today:

How does Gov. Mike DeWine explain moving forward with an overhaul of the Ohip Department of Education when a judge has blocked the overhaul because of a lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional?

What is the absurd reason a Cleveland man is sitting on death row when everyone pretty much agrees he has no business being there, and what are some lawmakers trying to do to fix this situation?

Nobel prizes don’t come easily, so it’s big news for an Ohioan to get one. Who is he, and what did he get recognized for?

Public service moment. We have two big questions on the November ballot, regarding abortion and marijuana. If people want to vote, when do they have to register by?

Has there ever been another moment when celestial happenings gave Cleveland students a day off of school? Why is that happening next spring?

Nick Chubb is one beloved Cleveland Brown, but he’s missing the season after a gruesome knee injury a couple of weeks ago. We now know what was torn up and how they are trying to get him back to form. What did Gretchen Cuda Kroen report?

We mentioned earlier that two big issues are on the ballot with Election Day nearing. Rick, what can our readers expect from us on abortion and recreational marijuana during the stretch run to decision day on these two controversial issues?

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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

Chris (00:02.612)

The first dethroning of the House Speaker in the recent history of Congress has a big Ohio angle for all sorts of reasons, even though it’s a huge national story. It’s what we’ll start with on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. We have a different panel today. I’m Chris Quinn and Lisa Garvin is here, but we’re also joined by Rick Rowan and Courtney Astolfi. Lisa is going to be first up.

Lisa (00:03.942)

with the House Speaker in the recent history of Congress has a big Ohio angle for all sorts of reasons, even though it’s a huge national story. It’s what we’re so good for today in Ohio, the news podcast, especially fromsingleton.com and the Clean Dealer. We have a different panel today. I’m Chris Quitt and Lisa Carver is here, but we’re also joined by Rick Cohen and Courtney and Stalfie. Lisa’s gonna be first up. Lisa, like we said, the House Speaker

Chris (00:30.664)

Lisa, like we said, the house speaker has been dethroned and it turns out there is a well-known Ohioan who’s opening the door a little bit as Sabrina Eaton reported last night to getting that position. Where do we stand and what is Ohio doing in this big pageant?

Lisa (00:47.899)

So I guess there’s no surprise here that all of the Ohio Republicans in the House voted to keep.

uh, house speaker, Kevin McCarthy, actually only eight Republicans in the house voted to oust him. None of them from Ohio. That vote was 216 to 210. Um, so, and everyone had something to say about McCarthy and how they were supporting him as leader. Dave Joyce from South Russell says, you know, he’s a McCarthy alley. We know that. And he was also attacked by Matt Gates in a recent video, Gates being the one to, uh, make that historic motion to vacate.

He said that the House Republicans delivered on their promise to pass bills for border security, reduce government spending, and fight the Chinese Communist Party. And he, but he did call Gates nothing more than a tantrum aimed at personal and political gain. But he still supported McCarthy in the end. Jim Jordan, McCarthy says, he says he’s done a good job and he didn’t vote to oust him, says he wouldn’t accept the speaker job. But we know that that’s changed overnight. Max Miller from Rocky River, he said,

He supported McCarthy with several social media posts. He said, we need to focus on doing the job. And he says, it’s not MAGA that’s trying to remove him. It’s Gates putting himself first over the interests of the country. Troy Balderson from Zanesville, he says, I stand with Kevin, let’s get back to work.

Chris (02:12.552)

What I am disappointed in is the way McCarthy was so hardline with the Democrats. There was a chance here to try and say, okay, the fringe is out of control. They’re trying to remove me. Maybe if we work with people who are more moderate from both sides, we can get some stuff done like we did over the weekend. Instead, he basically said, I’m not talking to Democrats to hell with them. So Democrats were like, okay, well then the hell with you. You’ve not been our friend since you got this job

But it was a real chance for the Dave Joyce’s of Congress to say, let’s build a coalition. Let’s get some stuff done. We shouldn’t let Matt Gaetz decide what the future of this country is, and instead, we’re as polarized as possible, which makes it an interesting idea that Jim Jordan might be House Speaker, because he’s going to have to get support from people that probably aren’t crazy about his antics.

Lisa (03:09.097)

Well, and he’s, you know, a member of that hard right freedom caucus and actually is kind of its de facto head. So I don’t expect any business to get done if he is elected speaker. You know, it’s interesting. I think that McCarthy, you know, he, the only reason he got to be speaker is with the help of votes from Democrats in the House.

And maybe he thought they were going to back him up again, but he ended up blaming the Democrats over the weekend for the government shutdown. And I think they said, okay, we’ve had enough.

Rick Rouan (03:32.59)

I’ll shut down and I think this is okay.

Chris (03:36.06)

Yeah, I just didn’t understand why he was so hardline against them because they were, they just worked together. They just got business done and were roundly applauded. And he has this guy trying to take him out because of that one person vote. And he didn’t. So, you know, so what are the prospects? I mean, it’s unthinkable to me that Jim Jordan could be speaker of the house. We talk about him on this all the time. He’s just a cartoon clown looking for headlines.

Lisa (03:57.335)

Ay.

Rick Rouan (03:58.211)

Yeah

Chris (04:01.768)

the hearings he’s had this year, the subpoenas he’s issued. It’s just been a desperate attempt to be on the conservative media. So does he have a shot?

Rick Rouan (04:11.87)

I’m not sure what to make of this Jim Jordan for speaker stuff. I mean, it could be that he’s just kind of relishing the attention and the immediate aftermath of the McCarthy ouster. I mean, we know that, uh, leading up to this, that he’s been a McCarthy supporter. He was supporting him on the house floor yesterday as, uh, recently as Monday. He was saying that he wasn’t interested in becoming speaker, but then a few hours after the dust kind of settles.

Uh, his name starts floating to the surface again, and, uh, he, he’s not throwing cold water on that. Uh, last night he said that it, uh, is just going to be up to, to the conference, but is he really serious about becoming speaker? I’m not entirely sure about that. I mean, he, he wanted it in 2018, but then when he was put forward this year, he wasn’t interested. Uh, he’s got a lot on his plate in the judiciary committee that we’ve been writing a lot about.

Um, in the weaponization committee that we’ve been writing a lot about, he’s been a key figure in this whole impeachment probe into Joe Biden. So it’s unclear to me whether he he’s really serious about this or whether he’s just kind of, you know, taking it all i

Chris (05:22.344)

Well, no Democrat would vote for him. So he would need to have pretty much all the Republicans in the House support him. And you’ve got to think that there are at least a handful of reasonable Republicans that don’t want that kind of ridiculous firebrand as the leader. And, you know, we should point out the House speaker is third in line to the presidency. Can you imagine?

I guess not. Nobody’s saying anything. FAST!

Lisa (05:49.516)

He’s a fascinating figure.

Rick Rouan (05:49.954)

I mean, he’s a fascinating figure to me. He came into the house as part of this whole Tea Party movement that was a real thorn in the side of John Boehner from the far right. In some ways, he was kind of Matt Gaetz before Matt Gaetz in that regard. But now he’s kind of closer to the establishment. In part, that’s because the parties have moved farther to the edges of the political spectrum. I think that.

part of it too is that you hang around long enough and you just become a little more ingrained in the institution. You become kind of the furniture in some ways. So you have someone like Jordan who’s now publicly supporting McCarthy while he’s taking fire from his friends like Matt Gaetz. But he also sits at this really interesting political intersection within the house.

Chris (06:32.36)

Let’s not forget, he is a Donald Trump sycophant. I mean, he just worships at the altar of Donald Trump. Also, you got to think if he starts to become a serious candidate for this, reporters across the nation are going to revisit the wrestling scandal at Ohio State University that we’ve written so much about that’ll, that’ll be analyzed to death again, which he doesn’t need because you’re right. He sits in a very prominent spot. And if he supports somebody who gets it.

courtney (06:32.494)

You know?

Chris (06:59.748)

under the deal that he gets to keep his positions, he’d probably be happier doing that. He’s been in his glory this year.

courtney (07:06.613)

And I mean, let’s look at Jim Jordan. He doesn’t he doesn’t legislate much, if at all. I don’t know that he’s known for consensus building his skills. He’s just it doesn’t seem like he’s suited for that position.

Chris (07:22.304)

Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. All right, Rick, how does Governor Mike DeWine explain moving forward with an overhaul of the Ohio Education Department when a judge has blocked that overhaul because of a lawsuit claiming it’s unconstitutional

Rick Rouan (07:38.03)

So as DeWine explains that he’s in kind of a legitimate legal pickle here. So as we’ve noted before, the state legislature moved to strip the state school board of most of its power as part of the two year state budget that was adopted over the summer. And instead of the school board, which is a combination of elected members and appointees by DeWine or whoever the governor is at the time, most education control would become part of the governor’s cabinet.

So the board sued or members of the board sued to try to overturn the law and got a temporary restraining order to try to stop it from going to effect. But on Monday, after the plaintiffs and state attorneys argued in a Franklin County court over whether to extend the temporary hold, DeWine held this press conference where he essentially said he was stuck. He had to move forward, at least on some aspects of the law. And his reasoning was that at midnight on Tuesday,

the Department of Education, legally speaking, would cease to exist and without implementing some of these changes that schools could be left in a lurch. They might not get state funding checks. So essentially somebody has to be able to send the checks as DeWine explained it. He really keyed in on an aspect of the judge’s order saying he couldn’t create the new Department of Education and Workforce. As he argues that the legislature already did that, he’s not creating it himself.

Chris (08:48.313)

Yeah.

Rick Rouan (08:58.842)

Um, he hasn’t hired anyone to lead it, but the interim superintendent is functionally in charge and the wine said at that news or that if anyone had a problem with it, they could essentially, you know, have to sue, um, plaintiffs are calling foul on all of this. They say the wine’s just flagellant or really, uh, flouting the law. Um, but we spoke to an education policy expert yesterday, someone who, you know, actually pays attention to this stuff for a living and even they were kind of at a loss for what to do here. So it seems like a potentially legitimate legal.

Chris (09:26.2)

Except they passed the law that’s being in as part of the budget that is being challenged and a judge has said stop We’ve seen that kind of thing before that means the status quo remains while this is underway I’m really surprised that Mike DeWine on this Yeah, the state government is loaded with people who’ve given up following the rules They don’t follow the rule law what happened with the with the redistricting commission in the first round was the worst evidence of it

But Mike DeWine, former attorney general, generally has shown he believes in the rule of law. A judge has stopped this. So what existed before is what exists now until this is resolved. That’s the easy way to proceed. Okay, we’re not gonna make any changes until this is finished. To go this way saying, well, the legislature abolished it. It’s a done deal, it’s a done deal. I don’t know what the judge is doing. I mean, the judge is probably gonna have to come in here and weigh in and say, I’m saying that.

there is a block on what was put into that budget because it very well could be unconstitutional. So that doesn’t apply, that part of the budget is held and what existed before is what existed now, which would have been the easy answer. I’m just surprised that Mike DeWine, he’s usually the guy that tries to follow the law and this is Whackadoodle.

Rick Rouan (10:44.826)

We should get some clarity from the court later this week. I think that some additional briefs are due on Thursday from both parties as they’re arguing over whether there should be a longer injunction on the law. So the state is going to have to, I think, give a more developed legal argument around what DeWine did and then

you know, it’s going to be up to the court to either say, you know, whether he could do that or whether, you know, he was allowed to move forward based on the order with the stuff that he did do.

Chris (11:27.708)

We’re in a time that’s very dangerous in which governments are defying courts, which they’re not supposed to do and traditionally had not done. Alabama did it with the Supreme Court on redistricting. The Ohio redistricting commission did it with the Ohio Supreme Court on redistricting. For Mike DeWine to do this is what surprises me. The court, you’re supposed to follow the courts. This is the way government is set to work. And the leaders are just saying, yeah, I’m not going to do it. And

government collapses if we don’t follow the basic rules that are set up. So it’s going to be very interesting to see how this goes. I wonder if this ends up just having immediate appeals that go to the Ohio Supreme Court, it shouldn’t be this. This is chaos and the governor has a hand in creating it. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. What is the absurd reason a Cleveland man is sitting on death row when everyone pretty much agrees he has no business being there?

And what are some lawmakers trying to do to fix this situation, Courtney?

courtney (12:28.157)

Yeah, it all comes down to a loophole that a group of bipartisan lawmakers in Columbus are, they’re now trying to close that loophole up. So we’re talking about 68 year old Anthony Apanovich. He was convicted of killing a nurse in her home up here in 1984. He was, he was freed in 2015 when DNA evidence led a judge to clear him of the rape charge that was part of that case. And, and the judge acting on that DNA evidence.

ordered up a new trial for the murder and burglary charges he was convicted on. But here’s the problem. Prosecutors back then over a decade or so ago were the ones who had ordered that new DNA evidence that led the judge to his conclusion. And in 2018, Uponovich was sent back to death row after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that state law only allowed defendants seeking a new trial to be the ones to request that DNA testing.

not the prosecutors. They can’t be the ones to request that DNA testing as we saw in a Panovich’s case. So he was hauled back to prison in death row. And meanwhile, now the Ohio parole board is saying it can’t take up his case until he’s assigned an execution date. So he’s sitting down there waiting for a date. But in the meantime, Mike DeWine has, you know, functionally put executions on hold until something shakes loose.

So he won’t get a date. So between all of this is a upon a bitch and this group of house law makers, which includes that Claremont County Republican, Jean Schmidt, and then our own Terrence up church from up here, they’re part of the, those who are seeking to close this loophole involving the DNA requests and new trials. And the bill as currently written would apply to future cases where this is an issue, but lawmakers are looking to add an amendment.

to specifically address a Panovich’s case.

Chris (14:25.744)

This one is where you just can’t believe red tape like this would cause somebody to be deprived of their freedom. Why couldn’t the Ohio Supreme Court when they’re ruling on this saying, hey, look, there’s a legal problem here, but we’re going to order habeas corpus. He’s free pending some resolution. I mean, you’re keeping a guy on death row who everybody knows should not be there. How do you justify that? I mean, there should be some common sense way to get him freed.

courtney (14:56.373)

Yeah, and we’ll have to see where this effort goes. It sounds like it had been tried before, but we’ll see if this bill advances and can solve this loophole issue. But when we’re talking about the case in general and his innocence or guilt, his DNA expert, after this evidence came through about a decade or so ago, testified here that there were other DNA samples from the victim’s body,

other people, neither of whom was a Panovich. And then we’ve got our Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office, who, it sounds like still wants him on death row. Prosecutors, we reached out to them for this story and they disputed that the DNA evidence they turned over back then proves a Panovich’s, his innocence. They point to a few different reasons why, and say that he still had a rare match with DNA.

taken from the woman’s body. And they also to point to comments the victim made back then saying she was scared of this man. He was her house painter and he had made unwanted sexual advances towards her, she’d said.

Chris (16:09.468)

OK, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Nobel prizes don’t come easily, so it’s pretty big news for an Ohioan to get one. Lisa, who is he and what did he get recognized for?

Lisa (16:20.406)

He is Pierre Agostini. He’s a retired Ohio State University physics professor and he is one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics, which was announced yesterday. He won it along with Ferenc Krause with the University of Munich and Anne Loulier from Lund University in Sweden. So starting his back as far as 2001, Agostini

generated a series of light pulses that last 250 attoseconds. So these short pulses of light are used to measure the movement and energy fluctuations in electrons. They’re measured in quintillionths of a second. So it’s kind of similar to a strobe light in the way that it attracts movement. Agostini is the fourth Nobel Laureate from Ohio State University. Governor Mike DeWine said in a

congratulating Agostini. He said, Ohio is the heart of innovation and research, building on our proud legacy of inventions that changed the world. I’m just trying to wrap my head around a quintillionth of a secon

Chris (17:28.484)

Yeah, I know. Yesterday we’re talking about Calvin Hobbs. Today we’re talking about high-level physics. You get it all on Today in Ohio. What an honor though for somebody, is there, retired, their professor, Amaretis, to get that. That’s, it’s just a cool thing for Ohio for that to come here. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. All right, we got a public service moment. Rick, we have two big questions on the November ballot as we’ve discussed ad nauseam. One about abortion, one about marijuana. If people want to vote…

When do they have to get registered by?

Rick Rouan (18:00.562)

So I’ll start with a shameless plug that readers of the Capital Letter newsletter would have seen our countdown starting yesterday. But the registration deadline is now six days away on Tuesday, October the 10th. So boards of elections were trying to call some special attention to that this week because it’s actually a day later than usual as Monday is an observed holiday. So early voting will start on Wednesday, October 11th, the day after the registration deadline.

Chris (18:08.232)

Hahaha.

Rick Rouan (18:30.194)

Interestingly, Cuyahoga County is reporting that absentee ballot applications are already trending ahead of the August special election when they had surprisingly high turnout for the effort to raise the constitutional vote threshold. The county’s election director told us he wouldn’t be surprised to see turnout approach that of the gubernatorial election last year, which is pretty much heard of during an off-year election like this.

really speaks to the way the two statewide issues on the ballot are animating voters.

Chris (19:01.176)

Yeah, and I think it’s probably the abortion issue that’s animating voters the most. This is such a big moment. I have a feeling that we’re going to see for people that don’t vote early, or even some who do, people taking pictures and putting them on social media as they vote. Like they did, women did this when they voted for Hillary Clinton. You had a lot of voters do it when they were casting their votes for Barack Obama. I think this is going to be that kind of moment for a lot of people where they’re basically saying,

hold of the decisions regarding my health and my body from all those guys in the legislature that are trying to take it away from me. But if you want to vote, you gotta be registered. So this is it. This is the big moment. The second issue, of course, is the legalization of recreational marijuana. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Has there ever been another moment when celestial happenings gave Cleveland students a day off of school? Why is that happening next spring, Courtney?

courtney (19:59.505)

Yeah we’re talking about that big rare total solar eclipse that’s coming to northeast ohio among other places in the country but we will be in the path of totality here and it’s gonna be a big draw. And we’re seeing local schools react to this event on april eight it’s going to be happening around three pm in the afternoon that day and you know these schools are necessarily let the kids out just so they can.

Enjoy the festivities of the day and go watch, though that’s certainly part of it. But some of the concerns here are logistical on the schools and there’s several places in Northeast Ohio that aren’t going to have kids in class that day in part because they’re pretty worried about the traffic that will be generated. We know that there’s lots of hype going on here, that this will be one of the U.S. places in the path of totality. Places like Columbus and Cincinnati, for example, are not in the path. So.

So local folks, including our tourism bureau, Destination Cleveland, are expecting just tons of people to come up here, kind of like we saw in Tennessee when there was another recent total solar eclipse and they were in the path of totality down there. They’re just expecting a lot of traffic jams and things because there will be out-of-towners coming in and school lets out right at the time when this is all gonna be happening. There’s concerns about buses and getting caught in congestion.

And the thought is just keep kids out for the day and they won’t be caught in that mess.

Chris (21:27.316)

The sad part about that is that the kids will all be home and they might look up at the sun. Whereas if they’re in school when this was going on, at least the teachers could make sure they’re using safety glasses. I’ve said this before, I still don’t understand why we’re expecting traffic jams. This isn’t like it’s at Brown’s Stadium. It’s anywhere in Northeast Ohio, you’ll look up. What is, I get it, people will come here from elsewhere, but it’s the entire region that’s going to be able to see it. It’s not like it’s concentrated.

in some tight spot. Just an odd one to me how everybody’s responding to this. Like we’re gonna be mobbed.

courtney (22:03.385)

Well, it sounds like we’ve heard from Lorraine County’s Office of Emergency Management and the same kind of office here in Cuyahoga County. They are pointing to those traffic jams that happened in Tennessee. And so they’re pointing at recent past where this happened in the path of totality. But yeah, I’m a little skeptical for how much of an impact it’s going to have. And schools like Rocky River, Avon Lake, Westlake, and Parma are looking to let kids out this day.

Lisa (22:16.592)

traffic, jams, looking after the fish. And so they’re formative.

courtney (22:30.309)

And there’s other places that are CMSD isn’t looking to do this. Lakewood isn’t looking to do this. Shaker Heights is on the fence. So it’s kind of a mixed bag.

Chris (22:40.364)

It’s a new one in Eclipse Day. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. At least at first you had higher level physics. Now it’s time for an anatomy lesson. Nick Chubb is one beloved Cleveland Brown, but he’s missing the season after the gruesome knee injury a couple of weeks ago. We now know what was torn up and how they were trying to get them back to form. What did Gretchen Kudachrowin report?

Lisa (23:01.911)

Yeah, this was a fascinating story. And if you look at it on Cleveland.com or in the paper, they have wonderful graphics showing all these different ligaments that hold your knee together. But running back Nick Chubb on Friday underwent the first of two surgeries to repair that left knees. That was 11 days after that gruesome injury in the September 18th game with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Apparently it was so gruesome that ABC refused to show the replay of the injury. So this first surgery repaired the torn meniscus and medial collateral ligaments. So the meniscus is kind of like a disc of ligament that fits in between the thigh bone or the femur and the two lower leg bones, and it acts as kind of a shock absorber. And now the medial collateral ligament attaches the femur or thigh bone to the tibia, which is your shin bone.

And that prevents the knee from buckling inward and it prevents external rotation of the lower leg. And apparently this injury, I couldn’t even, I could barely read it. I was cringing so much, but his leg bent outward at a 90 degree angle. So the second surgery will repair his anterior cruciate ligament in the coming months. I don’t really know because he has to kind of recover from this first surgery. ACL is a very common injury, a lot of athletes and even weekend warriors get it. It prevents,

front and back movement of the knee. Brown’s team physician, Dr. James Voos, performed the surgery. We haven’t talked to him or anyone who performed the surgery, but we did talk to Cleveland Clinic orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Michael Scarcella, and he says in general, even for athletes, it’s a long recovery, about nine to 12 months, the ligaments must adhere strongly back to the bone. And he said, unfortunately, especially with ACL injuries,

There’s really not a lot you can do to protect from them. Even if you wear a knee brace, you can still get an ACL tear.

Chris (24:56.212)

The diagrams and the various animations you see how the knee work. It’s such a complicated joint. And when you tear these things up, the comeback is so long. He did it once before. He had this happen in college and made the comeback that became great.

Lisa (25:12.518)

Correct, yeah, in 2015 when he was on the Georgia Bulldogs team, he injured that very same knee, but he was able to play the very next season.

Chris (25:21.572)

Yeah, we’ll see if anybody’s going to pull off coming back. It’s him and Cleveland would be very happy to see that he really is a fan favorite. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We mentioned earlier that we have two big issues on the ballot with election day nearing. Rick, what can our readers expect from us on abortion and recreational marijuana during the stretch run to the decision day?

Rick Rouan (25:42.946)

So I think up to this point, our staff has really been doing some high quality work on both the abortion issue and wreck marijuana. Laura Hancock, in particular, has been leading the charge on both of those issues for us with some really incisive stories, including looking at some of the complicated legal questions that could arise from the passage of the abortion amendment. We really do have a trove of stories that extends far beyond what you might consider the campaign season here because we’ve been covering these issues for a very long time.

But I think our audience can expect more of that kind of coverage where we’re focused pretty intensely this week. Uh, for example, on explaining what some of the practical effects of the marijuana could be, if it passes and looking at what it’s meant in some other states. Uh, we’re also interested in how the campaigns are shaping up for the abortion issue, because in a lot of ways, Ohio is sitting at this fulcrum point between the wave of abortion rights, victories at the ballot box and the anti-abortion side, trying to kind of.

reevaluate how it’s communicating with voters. We’re seeing some of that in real time in Ohio, which really has some national implications as other states, I similar measures next year. Um, I’d also say that one thing that’s pretty important to me personally, and to our team is that we help readers understand how to exercise their right to vote, how you vote has been politicized in ways that we haven’t really seen before, and we’re trying to make sure that Ohioans have good objective resources that answer their questions about the various ways they can cast their ballots.

and what’s required of them when they do that. It’s why we publish pieces like the one we highlighted earlier on the podcast about the upcoming voter registration deadline and include countdowns to key election dates in our newsletter.

Chris (27:21.808)

I think that from what I can gauge from the people we hear from, that people feel pretty confident that they know what’s going on with abortion, they know how they’re going to vote. But I do get quite a few questions on marijuana. And so it’s good that we’re trying to provide more and more of that information. The people that are anti this thing, we talked about this yesterday, are really kind of pulling a page from Reefer Madness and trying to…

induce panic when this is a much more nuanced debate. We don’t know a whole lot about the long-term ramifications of legalization of marijuana because states only started doing it in recent history. So the more we can give people for this, I get the feeling they’re struggling with it. When I put this out on a subtext message a few weeks back, the…

The majority of people said they’re going to vote for it, but almost all of them expressed some anxiety about it and were curious to read more. So it’s good we have more coming on that. And like you said, helping people know what they need to do to vote is important. We had a little bit, not a lot of confusion with issue one, if I recall.

Rick Rouan (28:34.386)

Yeah, there were some voter ID questions around issue one. That was the first big election that we had after the state changed its voter ID law. One thing we didn’t talk about earlier is that Andrew Tobias, who wrote the story yesterday about the voter registration deadline, pointed out in his kind of FAQ that accompanied that, that there’s this exemption in the state’s new voter ID law that

Lisa (28:37.827)

I think that’s a good point.

that we had after the state changed its voter ID law. One thing we didn’t talk about earlier is that Andrew Tobias, who wrote the story yesterday about the voter registration deadline pointed out in his kind of epicycle that are pumping that there’s this exemption in the state’s new voter ID law that some voting rights groups and others were targeting.

Rick Rouan (29:03.162)

Um, uh, some voting rights groups and those who are kind of targeting, uh, college kids, um, to, to get them out to vote, they’re, they’re really highlighting it essentially, if you want to vote in person, you need to bring a valid ID, which Andrew kind of spells out, but you can get around that by voting by mail. You still need to provide the last four digits of your social security number as proof of identity.

but you don’t have to present a state ID. That’s kind of important for college students who might live or might have lived out of state, but are now here for four or five years, and this is their primary residence, but they haven’t taken the step to change their ID from Pennsylvania to Ohio when they’re attending Ohio State.

Chris (29:49.82)

I voted early for the first time on issue one. What are you planning this time around? You going to vote early or in person at the ballot or by mail?

Rick Rouan (29:58.162)

I always vote early just because election day can be sort of hectic for our coverage plans and I want to make sure that I’m free. I often vote early in person. This time around I may actually do it by mail. I’ve done both, but more often than not I do vote early in person.

Chris (30:14.505)

Lisa, what’s your plan?

Lisa (30:15.688)

I always vote on election day.

Chris (30:17.939)

and Courtney.

courtney (30:19.029)

I love voting on election day and chatting with my neighbors if I can.

Chris (30:22.98)

I generally have, but the early voting, I voted on like, I think the first day that issue won, first or second day. It was so easy and so convenient. I may do it again. That’s it for the Wednesday episode. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Rick, for joining the podcast. Thanks to everybody who listens. Don’t forget to register to vote. We’ll be back Thursday talking about the news.

Lisa (30:33.818)

That’s it for the Wednesday episode. Thanks for the… Thank you Courtney.