Matt Huffman

The year 2021 will bring a new mapmaking process for Ohio's state legislative and congressional districts. Voters approved reforms in the past five years to avoid gerrymandering, where districts are drawn to favor one party over another. And voter advocates say the time has come to make sure the process works.

Ohio lawmakers have been wrestling with how to make changes to the state’s Ed Choice private school voucher plan for more than a year. Too many schools and families have become eligible in recent years as the state has changed its school performance standards. The Senate's President-elect is proposing a new plan to fix it. 

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy Devos came to a Columbus suburb to talk about school choice. And some local elected officials are miffed that they weren’t even aware of it until after the fact.

Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a law that allows students in public schools to express their religious beliefs.

Lawmakers who’ve wanted to stop the impending explosion in the number of school buildings where students will be eligible for the state’s largest private school voucher program say there’s a deal in the works. But parents and students already in the EdChoice program want it to stay and expand.

The number of public school buildings where students will be eligible for the state’s largest private school voucher program will more than double in the coming school year. And that could blow huge holes in the budgets of 70 percent of Ohio’s school districts. Lawmakers who have said they want to change that are running out of time.

A lawmaker who backed the expansion of the state’s largest voucher program says it’s creating problems – with a 400 percent increase in the number of public school buildings where students will be eligible for private school vouchers by next school year. 

A federal program that could provide $5 billion dollars to private schools across the country hasn’t received the ok from congress yet. But that’s not stopping at least one state senator from introducing a bill to draw down those dollars when and if the program is approved.

Finally, Ohio has a new two-year operating budget. Gov. Mike DeWine signed it into law this morning.

Ohio is among 15 states that have asked the federal government for permission to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. Ohio’s request would cover people up to age 50, but a state senator has proposed a bill that would go further.

Some major proposed changes are coming to a bill that passed the House overwhelmingly earlier this month cracking down on the payday lending industry in Ohio. Borrowers here pay an average of 591 percent annual interest, the highest in the nation. While one Republican Senator is hoping for a compromise, supporters of the original plan are furious.

The only statewide issue on the May primary ballot nearly didn’t make it – though it’s been talked about for decades. There's a long history of the complicated Issue 1, which some activists call a historic effort to change the way the map of Ohio’s Congressional districts is created.

A deal has been reached to reform the way Ohio’s Congressional district map is drawn, after weeks of difficult negotiations between Republicans, Democrats, and a citizens group that wanted to put its own plan on the fall ballot. Under the new plan, the map drawing power stays with state lawmakers, but with new rules. 

Time is growing short for state lawmakers who want to put a congressional redistricting reform plan before voters in the May primary. They need to pass a plan quickly to get it on the May ballot, before citizens’ groups can put theirs before voters in November.

Lawmakers are off and running on the contentious issue of changing the way the map of Ohio’s Congressional districts is drawn. Reforming that process is meant to stop the practice of gerrymandering, when the lines benefit one party over another. But the outline of a new proposal has caused a rift between several groups.

A Republican state senator wants to roll back almost a hundred requirements on school districts. They range from mandates on school personnel to directives for students in classrooms.

Republican state legislative leaders say they’re putting together a bipartisan group to come up with a new way to draw Congressional districts. This comes as a citizens’ group frustrated with inaction on the issue is planning its own proposal to present to voters.

State lawmakers who want Ohio to join a group of states in calling for a constitutional convention brought in some conservative star power to make their case.

A state senator is proposing a bill that would give local government officials more control over what they pay construction workers on government projects. But critics say it will end up cutting wages for those workers.