COLUMBUS, Ohio—Ohio lawmakers are back for the final stretch of the current legislative session to handle unfinished business, from regulating cannabis knockoffs to a number of education reform measures.
But there’s one vote looming over this year’s “lame-duck” session that could have implications for how much gets done: next Wednesday’s House Republican caucus vote on who to back for House speaker next session.
For months, Senate President Matt Huffman has been preparing to challenge incumbent Speaker Jason Stephens for the speaker’s gavel, a smoldering fight that’s helped make the current two-year legislative session one of the most unproductive in decades. Several lawmakers have given assurances – at least in public – that whatever the outcome of the caucus vote, it won’t heighten the legislative gridlock during the next few weeks, though that remains to be seen.
Even if the speaker’s vote doesn’t impede legislative business, it’s likely that lawmakers will only pass a fraction of the hundreds of bills from this session that still remain on the table.
Here’s more on what Ohio lawmakers will likely focus on during lame duck, as well as what to expect from the upcoming House GOP leadership vote.
House speaker’s race
House Republicans are set to meet at the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday to take a closed-door vote on who the caucus will nominate for House speaker in 2025 and 2026.
It remains to be seen who will secure a majority of the 67-member caucus. Huffman supporters have expressed confidence that the Lima Republican has more than enough votes to win, though Stephens’ backers say a Huffman victory is anything but a sure thing.
Other candidates potentially could put their names in the running too, though it’s not yet clear whether any one of them would attract enough support.
Perhaps the best-known of these alternative candidates is state Rep. Ron Ferguson, a Jefferson County Republican who’s been one of Stephens’ most vocal opponents
In an interview Thursday, Ferguson said that while he’s still considering whether to officially seek the speaker’s job, he asserted that enough GOP lawmakers have expressed support for him that he has a “pathway to victory” if he can win over undecided House Republicans.
“But there’s still a lot of time for people to be counting votes right now, and I don’t think (the outcome) is black or white,” Ferguson said. “There’s still a lot of gray.”
Traditionally, whoever wins the majority caucus leadership vote becomes the presumptive speaker, as lawmakers in the caucus unite behind the winner. House Republicans will control 65 of 99 House seats next session.
However, that tradition was upended last session, when state Rep. Derek Merrin of suburban Toledo won the House GOP caucus vote but Stephens was elected speaker during the official floor vote the following January thanks to support from every House Democrat, plus 22 Republicans.
Several Republicans predicted that such an outcome wouldn’t happen this time, as GOP lawmakers don’t want to repeat the chaos of the last speaker’s vote. They also don’t want to make House Democrats kingmakers again.
Several lawmakers expressed confidence that, no matter who wins the vote, it wouldn’t lead Huffman or Stephens to hold up the passage of legislation during the rest of lame duck.
“I don’t think it will have a big impact,” said House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican who backed Stephens for speaker last year but isn’t participating in this year’s caucus vote as he’s leaving the legislature at the end of the term.
“I’ve been around for 24 years, and there’s been plenty of times when the president of the Senate (and) the speaker of the House were not exactly best buddies, but nonetheless, we’ve always had a robust lame duck period,” Seitz said. “So, bygones be bygones — let’s get some stuff done, right?”
Intoxicating hemp
Gov. Mike DeWine has been pushing for almost a year for state lawmakers to restrict sales of untested and unregulated “delta-8” products containing low levels of THC, made from legal hemp and sold at gas stations and convenience stores around the state.
Multiple bills have been introduced to address the issue, though DeWine last week specifically urged lawmakers to pass Senate Bill 326. As written, that bill would outright ban “delta-8” products – though the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Stephen Huffman of Tipp City, says he’s open to loosening that to only allowing sales to customers age 21 or older, and requiring stores to sell the products from behind the sales counter.
DeWine and other proponents of a delta-8 crackdown argue the products are being marketed to – and are easily obtainable by – kids. He’s previously argued they should only be sold in state regulated dispensaries. While most lawmakers appear to agree that some sort of state regulation is needed, some legislators are resisting a total ban, saying that would hurt the many small businesses that sell intoxicating hemp products.
Public works bonds ballot issue
Since 1987, Ohio’s State Capital Improvement Program has issued billions in bonds, paid for with taxpayer money, for grants and no-interest loans to local governments to help repair and build roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
But the bond program will end in 2026 unless Ohio voters approve extending it.
Under twin House and Senate resolutions, a statewide vote would be held during the May 6, 2025 primary election on extending the bond program for an additional 10 years.
In addition, the proposal would allow $2.5 billion in bonds to be sold during that time, up from $1.85 billion in bonds sold during the past decade – an increase that supporters argue is needed due to rising costs of materials, labor, and other construction costs. The state dishes the funds out to local agencies in the form of grants and no-interest loans and then covers the cost with state taxpayer revenue.
The bond program has been approved by Ohio voters four times before, usually by significant margins. Legislative proponents of extending and expanding the program – which include both Republicans and Democrats – say they haven’t heard any opposition so far to continuing and expanding the program.
As some parts of the state currently don’t have anything to vote on during the May 2025 primary, lawmakers would also have to provide an additional $15 million to local elections offices in those areas to cover the cost of holding a vote on the bond program.
Higher-education reforms
Last year, the Ohio Senate passed a sweeping, Republican-authored bill aimed at curbing liberal influence at state colleges and universities.
That legislation, Senate Bill 83, would – among many other things – prohibit faculty and staff from striking, prohibit mandated diversity training at those schools, require annual faculty performance evaluations and post-tenure reviews, and force public colleges and universities to add to their mission statements that they don’t favor or disfavor any political, social or religious beliefs.
Since then, however, SB83 has stalled in the House, even after the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jerry Cirino of Lake County, reluctantly agreed to remove the language banning faculty strikes. Opponents of the bill have laid out several criticisms, including that it would force professors to accept conspiracy theories as serious academic theory.
Stephens has maintained that there’s not enough House votes to pass the measure, though Cirino has expressed hope that it could pass during lame duck — both because many legislators are about to leave the Statehouse for good and because of fears that if nothing passes now, SB83 supporters would be able to push through the original, tougher version of the bill next session.
School religious instruction time
Current law authorizes local school districts to choose whether to adopt a policy allowing students to leave school to attend religious instruction. Under two Republican-sponsored bills, Senate Bill 293 and House Bill 445, school districts would have to authorize released time. Several faith organizations run released time programs, but the one that will likely most benefit from the law is Hilliard-based LifeWise Academy, which is growing fast in Ohio and across the U.S. The bill has many parent opponents, who say it’s too disruptive to allow a portion of the class to leave in the middle of the day and that LifeWise doesn’t accept nontraditional families.
“Parent Bill of Rights”
House Bill 8 would require parents to be told if a child received physical or mental health care at school, which opponents said is dangerous if a child is transgender and faces punishment at home. The bill also requires schools to notify parents of sexually explicit content in the classroom. Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman said Wednesday HB8 was among his priorities, and more than half of the Ohio House’s 67 Republican members have signed on as bill co-sponsors.
Childcare reform bills
Under pressure from Ohio’s powerful business community, state lawmakers have introduced a flurry of bills designed to make childcare in Ohio both more affordable and more accessible. However, it remains to be seen whether any will pass in the final weeks of the current session.
Most of the bills seek to help by offering state grants or tax incentives, including measures to:
- Create a “tri-share” program, under which the state and participating employers would each cover one-third of childcare costs for those employers’ workers. (Senate Bill 273 and House Bill 610)
- Provide $10 million in grants to private employers that work to expand childcare access (House Bill 484)
- Allow employers in Ohio to claim tax credits of up to $500,000 annually for any money they put toward their workers’ child care expenses (House Bill 576)
- Create an annual, refundable state income-tax credit for childcare costs (House Bill 577)
- Offer another income-tax credit for employers to motivate them to help cover workers’ childcare expenses (House Bill 578)
Jeremy Pelzer covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.