Recovery home legislation, ranked-choice voting ban advance

The House voted on Wednesday to approve Senate Bill 63, which would ban local governments from implementing ranked-choice voting. The bill passed 63-27, with Republicans voting “yes” and most Democrats voting “no.”

The bill cleared the Senate last May with broader bipartisan support. But since the House tweaked it – adding minor language that further specifies that the petitions political candidates file with their candidacy paperwork are public records – it now goes back to the Senate for consideration.

If the Senate approves it – which seems very likely – the bill would head to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature.

Supporters of ranked-choice voting say it helps elevate candidates with broader support, at the expense of more extreme candidates, although opponents call it confusing and unwieldy to administer. After some states and communities adopted it, state Republicans have acted to shut it down preemptively in Ohio. No local communities use ranked-choice voting, but several, including the Cleveland suburbs of Lakewood and Cleveland Heights, are considering it.

The Ohio House also voted on Wednesday to approve:

• House Bill 58, which tightens restrictions on recovery homes, which have proliferated in some parts of the state. The bill is a top priority for elected officials in Portsmouth and the surrounding area, where, they say, recovery homes have popped up faster than they can regulate them. Click here to read more.

• Senate Bill 9, which tweaks state law to conform with federal tax cuts and other changes in President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. SB 9 stalled last week after Democrats raised concerns over a tax measure that affected a narrow slice of wealthy investors. Democrats relented on Wednesday, providing votes needed for the bill to take effect immediately, later explaining they’d done so after Republicans committed to holding votes on some unrelated bipartisan bills.

What the state treasurer’s race says about the Ohio Republican Party

Ohio Republicans took a low-key vote on Friday that doubled as a small test of Vice President JD Vance’s local political clout – while also offering a glimpse of what the future of the Republican Party might look like.

The party’s central committee voted 36-28 to endorse in the state treasurer’s race. The measure failed despite getting a majority, since party rules require a supermajority to endorse in a contested race. The vote was a loss for state Sen. Kristina Roegner, who’d pushed for the endorsement over ex-state Rep. Jay Edwards.

The storyline rates higher than typical inside baseball for a downballot race, since Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP frontrunner for governor, had endorsed Roegner while Vance endorsed Edwards. Vance is gearing up to run for president in 2028, so the vote seemed like a barometer of his influence in the state party. Ramaswamy also has shown he has no lack of political ambition.

It’s a stretch to paint the vote as a rebuke of Vance’s leadership, since neither he nor Ramaswamy seemed especially engaged on the issue. Columbus politics complicates it further. Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman pushed hard for Roegner, while it hasn’t been long since the party voted to censure Edwards over his role in a legislative leadership fight that put him at odds with Huffman and other Republicans. Edwards’ position was that the party should remain neutral, so arguably Vance got what he wanted.

But still, a majority of the Ohio Republican Party voted against Vance’s preferred candidate.

Roegner also is more of a traditional tax-cutting Republican, while Edwards’ Appalachian roots and union ties are more like the vision of the Republican Party that emerged during the Donald Trump era.

In that sense, the vote gives us a preview of what the party might look like once Trump exits the national stage – and if and when Vance tries to claim the mantle.

Settling scores?

The Republican Party also endorsed in dozens of state legislative races, mostly a mix of endorsements of incumbents and favored candidates for open or Democratic-held seats.

There was one exception. 

The party endorsed Larry Kidd, who’s challenging Lawrence County Rep. Jason Stephens. Stephens served as Ohio House speaker from 2023 through 2024, a job he got with Democratic votes, until Huffman ousted him following the same acrimonious leadership fight that led the state GOP to censure Edwards.

In an interview, Kidd touted his background running logistics and staffing businesses. He also said Stephens has been rendered ineffective for the district, which contains Jackson, Gallia and Lawrence counties. He said he made the final decision to run after meeting with Huffman, who held a fundraiser for Kidd a couple days before the state GOP vote.

“Legislators should be about finding solutions and not handing out money,” Kidd said. “But he can’t do either of those now. He doesn’t have anyone he can work with because he lost their trust.”

Stephens told Signal he’s remained effective despite losing his leadership position, and pointed out he got the endorsement from his hometown Lawrence County Republican Party.

“If you know what you’re doing, there’s always ways to influence the House,” Stephens said. “You don’t have to be speaker, you don’t have to be the chairman in order to be in the House and represent the people.”

“There’s still some sore feelings from folks that don’t understand what went on doing that time,” Stephens added.

Finally, the party endorsed state Treasurer Robert Sprague for Ohio Secretary of State over a more conservative candidate, Marcell Strbich, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and elections integrity activist. 

Judge, prosecutor butt heads (again) at FirstEnergy trial

In terms of rulings, Assistant Attorney General Matt Meyer has won some and lost some with Summit County Common Pleas Judge Susan Baker Ross. 

But in her remarks this month outside the presence of the jury at the state’s ongoing bribery case against two top former FirstEnergy Corp. executives, Ross has made clear that she’s skeptical of Meyer and some of his arguments.

She has repeatedly questioned whether he has met certain evidentiary standards to admit evidence and expressed doubt over his characterizations of evidence. On Tuesday, she said she at first (but no longer) thought Meyer “lied” to her face – a taboo for lawyers who pride themselves on being officers of the court – and seemed to lecture him. 

“That irony was not lost on me that you were in the same exact situation as many defendants find themselves with circumstantial cases, and I was an open mind for you, and I will continue to be an open mind for both parties in this case,” Ross said during arguments. “I really felt it was necessary to point that out to you, just see being on the other side of that for a minute. You were very upset that anybody would accuse you of that, right?”

As it turns out, Ross ruled with Meyer on the matter at issue. But it left him with a salty feeling.

“There’s an attempt to put the state on trial here, and I’m not sure if [Judge Ross] feels that the state should be,” he said. 

It’s not the first time comments from Ross have raised eyebrows. Earlier this month, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down Ross’ restrictive media rules for covering proceedings, deeming them a prior restraint. 

And last week, during a lunch break in the testimony of Eileen Mikkelsen, FirstEnergy’s former director of rates, ex-CEO Chuck Jones was spotted talking to her. As Mikkelsen explained it to Ross after the fact, Jones said hello and apologized for getting her involved in a legal mess. 

Typically, defendants are told to avoid talking with witnesses, especially adversarial ones. Mikkelsen signed an immunity agreement with prosecutors giving her free rein to testify against Jones with impunity. Meyer raised the issue with Ross at the time. But alongside the defense, Ross seemed to explain the matter away before Meyer asked Mikkelsen what was said. 

“It was probably like, ‘You’re doing good, hang in there,’” Ross said, before instructing Jones against talking to witnesses. 

Ultimately, it’s a jury and not a judge that decides the case. But all evidence needs to get through Ross for jurors to see it. 

A court ponders how to handle a top Ohio politics ‘troll’

Some lighter fare from Akron: Ohio Sen. Casey Weinstein, a Hudson Democrat, is known as something of a loudmouth in Columbus. Especially online. And don’t just take it from us – he’s a perennial finalist for Cleveland.com’s semi-prestigous annual Sloopy award for biggest troll.

But his loud mouth at a committee hearing in 2020 cornered then-Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo, the former state official prosecutors say FirstEnergy bribed, into publicly denying working for FirstEnergy as a lawyer or lobbyist. That’s why prosecutors want to bring him as a witness to give jurors evidence of concealment of a criminal act given Randazzo’s receipt of $4.3 million in FirstEnergy funds in January 2019.

All parties in the FirstEnergy case in Akron know Weinstein is a wildcard, and in discussions outside the presence of the jury on Tuesday, they mulled the implications of letting a troll run amok in a courtroom.

Ross, an elected Democrat, disclosed to parties that she knows Weinstein and has supported his campaigns and considers him a friend. But that’s not the concern of Steve Grimes, an attorney for ex-FirstEnergy executive Mike Dowling, who called Weinstein an “absolute ticking time bomb” prone to grandstanding or calling figures associated with the scandal crooks.

Noah Munyer, a defense attorney for FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones, made similar comments.

“He tweeted in the last two weeks [U.S. Sen.] Jon Husted is bought by FirstEnergy, the ratepayers are paying for it, and he’s bought by Epstein,” Munyer said. (He was seemingly referring to Weinstein’s Facebook posts, not tweets.)

“He is vocal,” Ross said.

Carol Hamilton O’Brien, a state prosecutor, joked that Weinstein will have no problem being photographed.

“I’m sure he won’t. That’ll be a campaign ad next week,” Munyer said.

The committee tape of Weinstein confronting Randazzo has been edited to remove “inflammatory or improper or irrelevant statements, so no speech-making” is shown to jurors, Meyer said.

“I was very direct with his counsel and said keep him off social media,” Meyer said.

In the news

Libertarian candidate protested: A Fairfield County woman who’s active with the Ohio Libertarian Party is trying to remove one of the two Libertarian candidates who have filed to run for U.S. Senate in the May primary election. Per Andrew Tobias, Kristen Wichers is contesting the validity of hundreds of signatures Jeffrey Kanter submitted with his candidate paperwork earlier this month, and she said in an interview she suspects Kanter is a Republican plant. Meanwhile, Libertarians have filed to run for several high-profile offices, including several top congressional races, U.S. Senate and governor, increasing the potential the party may serve as a spoiler this November.

Two FirstEnergy trial updates. Two Florida homes: Jake has two updates from the FirstEnergy trial that invoke the Sunshine State. There’s explosive testimony from a company executive about suspicious text messages and a CEO’s private meeting with a regulator at the regulator’s Florida mansion. And prosecutors showed an email suggesting the CEO, after reaping the fruits of an alleged bribe, maneuvered to sell $10 million worth of company shares to help pay for his own house in Florida.