Today marks a fresh start for Ohio legislators. It’s the beginning of Ohio’s 136th legislative session, which means a flurry of ideas – both new and old – will be introduced at the statehouse.
Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler sat down with the Ohio Newsroom to recap the action of the last session and give a preview into what issues are likely to be discussed in 2025.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
On last session
“The two year session started in 2023, and for the first year it was really very unproductive in terms of the number of bills that were passed. It was considered the lowest number of bills passed in half a century.”
“There were some big ones, though, that were acted upon, especially in the second part of the session in 2024. Several of the bills that were proposed and passed dealt with LGBTQ issues, for instance. There was the ban on gender transition care for minors and on trans girls on sports teams. There was also a ban on bathroom use, saying that a person could only use the bathroom of the gender they were assigned at birth. And that covered not only kids but also private and public college and K-12 schools. So that was a big deal."
“There was a bill that passed that made it easier for students to be expelled if they pose a threat to schools. There was a bill cracking down on ‘sextortion’, making it a crime to ask for incriminating pictures to try to get money from someone, especially a teenager.”
“Then there was, of course, the last minute Christmas tree bill, the one that comes at the end of the year that's stuffed with all sorts of things. We're still waiting to figure out all the things that were in this, but it had, for instance, an update on the name, image and likeness law that is protecting and dealing with student athletes in colleges. And it gives more power to universities in that area.”
On bills that might get reintroduced
“This year it was really interesting because there were more than 1,000 bills that were proposed, including some high profile ones that didn't move. And some of that was related to the split between the House and Senate. You had House Speaker Jason Stevens and Senate President Matt Huffman openly at odds with each other because Huffman is hoping to be speaker.”
“One prominent [bill that’s likely to get reintroduced], it's known as Senate Bill 83. It's a bill that conservatives say will deal with what they feel is the spread of liberal ideology on college campuses. And it has a lot of things in there about banning diversity, equity and inclusion training in colleges, banning faculty strikes, things like that … It's got a lot of support from incoming Speaker Matt Huffman, as well as the incoming Senate president, Rob McCauley. So that one's likely to pass.”
“There are a couple other issues: the pensions for police officers and making sure that those are shored up. Marijuana law changes are another thing we expected to see. There's a lot on the table that we expect to come back.”
On top issues to watch
“I think property tax reform is the big one. It's not new, but it's one that really didn't get a lot of movement because there are so many moving parts in changing tax laws. If you change property taxes in this area, you affect local government funding or you affect what seniors pay. So there are a lot of dominoes that could potentially fall if you change one thing in property taxes.”
“There were so many proposals that didn't really move, including ones that were introduced at the end of the year that are interesting to watch out for. The one that has come up twice now in the last 10 years or so, that will be interesting to see if lawmakers do anything about it, is a bill to ban lame duck sessions, which was proposed during the lame duck session. It didn't move forward. The bipartisan group of lawmakers who backed this said lame duck legislating is not great because we don't have a lot of time to really look at issues and [they argue] we should not be one of the seven states that allows lame duck legislating.”
On gubernatorial vetoes
“DeWine did start out 2024 by vetoing the ban on gender transition treatment for minors and trans women in girls sports. The legislature came back and quickly overrode that veto. In 2023, he actually banned something in the state budget, a provision that would ban communities from banning flavored vapes. It’s a lot of bans to keep track of there, but that was overridden by the legislature as well. So he's definitely used his veto power to send messages to state lawmakers, even though Republicans are in the super majority."
“There are issues on which Republicans and DeWine do disagree. So I wouldn't be surprised, in his last two years in office, to see DeWine use that veto power when it's an issue that he really cares about. Especially when you get to the budget, which has a lot of policy things that are typically thrown in, some of which DeWine doesn't agree with.”
On how the last election could impact legislation
“I don't think there's going to be a huge change. I think that's part of what lame duck legislating tries to deal with, is that if there's going to be a big change, then they try to get things through before the change happens.”
“But the change this time isn't really dramatic. Democrats picked up two seats in the House and two seats in the Senate, but it wasn't anywhere near enough to give them a lot of power. You have Republicans in every statewide office except for one … making a lot of decisions based on how they think their constituents want them to do things.”
