Rotunda Rumblings
Fertile grounds: The Ohio Supreme Court could end up deciding what happens to unused embryos if a couple who made them ends up getting divorced. Per Andrew Tobias, a Fairlawn man has asked the court to overturn an appellate court decision that granted his ex-wife 14 embryos the former couple produced through in-vitro fertilization prior to their divorce. The ex-wife wants to use them to get pregnant, while the ex-husband wants them anonymously donated. The unusual case offers an early example of how the court is interpreting the sweeping reproductive-rights amendment that voters approved last November. The ex-husband and the appellate court cited the amendment, while the ex-wife’s case frames the issue largely as a contract dispute.
Flying high: Northeast Ohio airports are getting more than $5 million in Federal Aviation Administration infrastructure improvement grants as part of nearly $500 million approved nationwide this year, Sabrina Eaton writes. Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is getting $2,625,000 to design new wildlife fencing and gates, and Akron-Canton Regional Airport Authority will get $2,703,150 to reconstruct runway lighting, according to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat.
Read more Ohio politics stories
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- Library violated free speech rights of guard fired for violent, anti-BLM meme, court rules
- One of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s longest-serving cabinet officials is stepping down
Going somewhere? The Ohio Department of Transportation has started handing out 1.4 million copies of its newly updated 2024 road map. As Jeremy Pelzer reports, state officials say there are still good reasons in the digital age to keep a paper road map, which contains all sorts of useful information (though not on how to fold it).
Driven to drink: GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance, a U.S. Senator from Cincinnati, and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, Minnesota’s governor, don’t agree on much, but there is one thing they both can get behind: Diet Mountain Dew, The Wall Street Journal reports. In a political season with no shortage of shocks, the vice presidential rivals have both professed their love for the super-caffeinated, no-sugar soda with a relatively small following. Diet Dew had about 1.9% of the total U.S. market for carbonated drinks at the end of 2023, far behind Diet co*ke and tied with Diet Dr Pepper, according to Beverage Digest.
Book delayed: The president of the conservative Heritage Foundation will delay publication of a forthcoming book with a foreword written by Vance until after the election, following an uproar sparked by Democratic criticism of the Heritage-led initiative Project 2025, RealClearPolitics reports. Democrats had tried for months, with varying degrees of success, to tie Project 2025 to the Trump campaign, which denies they’re linked. The book by Kevin Roberts is titled “Dawn’s Early Light.”
Role model: During her first run for president, Democrat Kamala Harris had Ohio’s U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in mind for a running mate using the same theory behind her Tuesday selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Politico reports. When Harris’ top aides at the time weighed the kind of partner they wanted to see on the ticket, they spoke about an avuncular, and at times rumpled white man with broad appeal across the industrial Midwest, such as Brown. That’s what made her pick of Walz, once viewed as a dark horse contender for vice president, a natural one.
Openly debated: The arrest of a local police chief at the Champaign County Fair last weekend for openly carrying his firearm and badge has triggered a debate over Ohio gun laws. As Jeremy P. Kelley and Jessica Orozco of the Dayton Daily News report, gun-rights advocate Jeffry Smith argued to county officials that they could be open to “liability” for the arrest St. Paris police chief Eric Smith, and that he and others would openly carry guns at the fair if fair officials didn’t change their “no guns” policy – which he claims violates a 2018 state law preempting local firearms regulations. The Champaign County Agricultural Society, which runs the fair, argues that the law doesn’t apply to them because they are a private entity operating the fair on private land.
Five Questions
Austin “Tex” Fischer, a 28-year-old Republican from Boardman, is the recently appointed state representative for Ohio House District 59.
1. What’s the origin of the nickname “Tex”?
“Honestly, I just had that nickname since I was a kid. ...I was probably like seven years old and it just kind of stuck. ...(I got it from) an older gentleman that we went to church with.”
2. Why do you want to be a state representative?
“I’m really passionate about the Mahoning Valley. This has been my home. (I was) born and raised here. I want people my age and younger to have the opportunity to stay here and feel like they can have the opportunity to build a good life for themselves without having to go to Columbus or Chicago or (Washington,) D.C. or wherever else people are off to.”
3. When I initially Googled you, the first result at the time was a Beaver County (Pennsylvania) Times article from 2016 quoting you as saying that you despised Donald Trump and that there was nothing he could do to earn your vote. Do you still feel that way about Trump, and has he earned your vote this year?
“I did not support President Trump in the 2016 primaries at all. I didn’t buy it. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think he was going to govern as a conservative. ...I’m happy to admit that I was dead wrong about him. I voted for him in 2020 and will be voting for him again (this year).”
4. As the youngest member of the Ohio General Assembly, do you see it as your responsibility to be an advocate for issues particularly affecting younger Ohioans?
“My job is to represent everybody in my community, whether they’re young or old or somewhere in between. But I certainly have, I think, a different perspective than a lot of folks growing up. You know, growing up in the late ’90s (and) early 2000s, and getting to live through the Great Recession as a kid, and then living through the pandemic as a young adult, I think it gives me a really different perspective from a lot of people.”
5. What’s something about you that people might not know?
“I have a pretty extensive collection of Ohio history books -- a lot of antique books from the 1800s through the early 20th century, primarily related to Civil War history and the history of the Mahoning Valley. I don’t know if you’re an antique store kind of guy, but I am – I’m probably the youngest person that goes into these places.”
Birthdays
Alex Weingarth, government and external affairs director, Amerihealth Caritas
State Sen. Shane Wilkin
Straight From The Source
“Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine. Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. B****ing about F16s.”
- U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Cincinnati, the Republican nominee for vice president, in a text message to blogger/entrepreneur Charles Johnson last October. It was one of several text messages from Vance, a vocal critic of U.S. military support to Ukraine in its war with Russia, that Johnson shared with the Washington Post.
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