Although Ohio legislators introduced more than 900 bills in 2025, only a few dozen made it to Gov. Mike DeWine already.
The two-year state budget
From the start of the year until late June, the GOP-majority 136th General Assembly had its hands full writing and revising the two-year, $60 billion state budget.
Much of it came to be defined by an income tax cut for Ohioans who make more than six figures. The eventually flat 2.75% tax will cost the state more than $1 billion through July 2027.
To account for the cut and still balance the budget, lawmakers were “deliberate” elsewhere, reducing funding to numerous programs and community projects, and making cuts wherever else they could.
“We’re going to have a flat tax in the state of Ohio,” House Finance Chair Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said in June. “The House has agreed with the Senate to rescind an awful lot of small income and sales tax exemptions. Individually, it’s not that much money at issue, but ... all together, it’s a sizable amount of money and we’re going to return it to the state."
The final version of HB 96 also earmarked $600 million for the Cleveland Browns to build a domed stadium in Brook Park, using some unclaimed funds—assets that have been turned over to the state from Ohioans’ dormant bank accounts, uncashed checks and other sources.
Every legislative Democrat voted against the budget.
“They’re using these pots of money that we’ve used as safety nets to do things such as giving money to sports teams and making sure that billionaires don’t have to pay as many taxes as everyone else,” House Finance Ranking Member Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Westlake) said in June.
DeWine vetoed a staggering 67 items in the budget.
Senate Bill 1
Before this year, GOP infighting caused noticeable gridlock between the House and the Senate. But with new House and Senate leaders elected in January, the logjam broke, ushering movement on other major bills.
Republicans fast-tracked an overhaul of Ohio’s institutions of higher education, which Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) was motivated by a “crisis of confidence” among conservatives.
“A considerable factor in this lack of confidence, as we all know and as I found out in my four years now working on higher education, is the predominance—and you can deny it if you wish—but the predominance of left-leaning faculty, which has skewed things,” Cirino told the City Club of Cleveland.
Effective as of June, Senate Bill 1 got rid of most mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training at public universities and colleges, began requiring so-called “intellectual diversity” on certain subjects, and slashed university trustee terms.
It also banned faculty strikes, mandated their post-tenure performance reviews and added a civics course focused on United States history and the free market. The bill faced blowback from faculty, students and legislative Democrats, like Sen. Catherine Ingram (D-Cincinnati).
“How dare you act like I’m a quota? How dare you act like I’m a DEI hire? I had to do more than to get to even being considered, let alone hired,” Ingram told her colleagues on the Senate floor.
Big energy bill gets go-ahead
Another piece of priority legislation, however, brought the parties together. Signed into law in May, lawmakers and lobbyists have said House Bill 15 will prompt new energy generation and overhaul the system otherwise.
“The well-used adage applies in this case: perfect is the enemy of good. We know that this bill is not perfect, but we feel that it is pretty good,” Senate Energy Chair Sen. Brian Chavez said.
The bill ends controversial direct subsidies to two coal-fired power plants, some of the final legislative remnants of the House Bill 6 pay-to-play scandal. Among many other measures, it requires utility distributors to come before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and make their case for their rates every three years.
In the back half of the year, legislators also sent DeWine bills:
- Banning law enforcement agencies from using arrest and citation quotas
- Cracking down on dogs considered to be dangerous
- Changing numerous cannabis and THC statutes
- Shortening the timeframe for absentee ballots to be received
DeWine signed them, though he admitted he "reluctantly" put his signature on the last one.
