What's Good with the Ohio Supreme Court

[00:00:15] Let's go to Ohio, on your host Sarah Grodenberg and this is The What's Good Ohio podcast

[00:00:20] where we talk about the activists, organizers, visionaries and good troublemakers coming

[00:00:24] together to make our state better for everyone.

[00:00:27] No exceptions.

[00:00:29] My usual co-host James Hayes is on a well-deserved vacation, so I am joined by Ben Stein,

[00:00:35] Comsterector at Policy Matters Ohio.

[00:00:37] What's good at policy Matters Ben?

[00:00:40] Hey Sarah, thank you for having me back.

[00:00:42] I've missed their time together on Whats Good Ohio and Happy Vacation James.

[00:00:46] I hope that you are someplace sunny and warm and also child friendly, I assume.

[00:00:51] So yeah, like at Policy Matters we've got a bunch of things in the hopper and I think by the time this comes out

[00:00:56] there will be two things that we really want to talk about.

[00:00:58] The first is our latest edition of The Great Ohio Tech's Shift.

[00:01:03] That's the ongoing story of how changes in Ohio's Tech's code starting back in 2005 have

[00:01:09] almost entirely benefited the very, very well-posed, especially the very, very, very, very

[00:01:14] well-posed, the top 1% who average income around $1.5 million every year.

[00:01:20] They're getting about $50,000 worth of tax cuts every year over the course of this or since

[00:01:25] 2005 if you add up all the tax cuts that the state has made, whereas people with the lowest

[00:01:31] incomes, people in the lowest 20% of income are in fact paying slightly more per year

[00:01:39] than they were on average because of the tax changes between 0.5 and 20.24.

[00:01:46] This is an ongoing story, we released this same record or a version of this report for

[00:01:51] the past few years and the upshot is a couple of things one when certain politicians

[00:01:57] talk about how much they like to cut taxes that means for one very specific group.

[00:02:03] If you're paying slightly less in taxes, you might be feeling some of the tax cuts

[00:02:07] if you're paying slightly less in taxes, but they are more than making up for it by

[00:02:11] cuts and services that harm our schools, our libraries, our parks, have you been to a

[00:02:15] park lately?

[00:02:16] They stop mowing the grass.

[00:02:18] They reduce taxes and as such have to reduce public services and the people who benefit

[00:02:23] from the tax cuts are the people who already have a whole bunch of money.

[00:02:27] That's the story of the Great Ohio Tech's shift, they've been shifting the tax burden

[00:02:31] from the wealthiest to folks who are not wealthy.

[00:02:34] That should be out, oh, about the same time as this episode of drops.

[00:02:39] Then straight after that we're going into a report on black women's health, a survey

[00:02:43] that we conducted with friends at the Ohio organizing collaborative including from the CEO

[00:02:50] project and I believe from Amos.

[00:02:52] Those findings are still kind of in the works, but what I can say for sure is that it

[00:02:59] finds this study finds that black women's health suffers due to systemic racism in both

[00:03:06] the economic and the medical systems and has been suffering for a long time.

[00:03:12] And this is not like speculation.

[00:03:14] These are findings in the report based on surveys of women, I think, in the Columbus area.

[00:03:21] More from that report maybe a week after this episode comes out and then even more after

[00:03:25] that in a special event helping the capital ladies gallery with our friends at the CEO project.

[00:03:33] Check out the CEO projects website for details on that because they should be announcing it there

[00:03:38] and I don't have the details right now.

[00:03:41] So that's what's good here at the policy matters of the Ohio, that and a little bit of late summer,

[00:03:45] I think, it's awfully nice.

[00:03:47] Right. And we did actually talk to people at the CEO project last season.

[00:03:52] I believe it was last season. So we'll plug that in our show notes. I can't remember which one it was,

[00:03:57] but it was an episode on child care and our next episode will be on the black women's health

[00:04:02] survey as well with I believe impacted individuals so stay tuned.

[00:04:18] We have a big election coming up in November. Everyone's talking about the presidential race,

[00:04:25] but in Ohio we have some down ballot races that can have a big impact on our state.

[00:04:30] Last episode we talked about the statewide ballot campaign on redistricting reform.

[00:04:34] Today we're going to talk about arguably the biggest statewide races on the ballot this year,

[00:04:40] the Ohio Supreme Court. There are three seats up for our state's highest court

[00:04:44] and we are the only state in the country that has the chance to flip the court this election.

[00:04:49] So I mean in some countries courts aren't independent from other political branches of government

[00:04:54] and as a result this political branches pursue their own self interest without any oversight

[00:04:58] or consequence from the courts as our federal Supreme Court recently said the president

[00:05:03] was allowed to do whenever he likes without fear of prosecution. Having an independent judicial

[00:05:08] branch, both at the state and federal level is a cornerstone of America's government

[00:05:11] and our wave life or at least it was in the past tense. To talk about what's good with

[00:05:16] the Ohio Supreme Court we're joined by Danielle Fiercic, the director of public policy

[00:05:21] at Plant Parade Hood advocates of Ohio. Welcome Danielle. Hi everyone. Thank you for having me.

[00:05:27] So first can you tell us a little about yourself and your journey into this work?

[00:05:31] Sure. So I started doing human rights and social justice based work over 15 years ago.

[00:05:38] I did that work in New York for about seven years and the rest of my time have been here,

[00:05:44] working on various aspects of human rights policy, legislation, social justice movements. And

[00:05:49] I was directing the first family justice center in Cincinnati, Ohio before I came to my current

[00:05:55] position. So I was organizing the entire citywide multi-organizational response to gender based

[00:06:02] violence cases, particularly those involving domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual assault

[00:06:07] and stalking. And unsurprisingly reproductive rights comes up a lot in that space.

[00:06:13] Bottle the autonomy comes up a lot in that space having to sit through the number of

[00:06:17] prosecutions I had to sit through and testify in some of those and see the real pain that was being

[00:06:22] in these communities where people had their ballet autonomy stripped from them and they didn't have

[00:06:27] the right to make decisions about their own body after they'd already had their personal agency

[00:06:31] taken from them. In this moment of violence, right after the fall of Robie Wade, I was thinking

[00:06:37] about this topic a lot. I saw this position become available and it just felt like a moment of

[00:06:43] kismit. Like I just felt like this was my moment to jump in to really devote some time to this to

[00:06:48] do a more statewide policy work on an number of different issues, more specialized at the state

[00:06:53] house than in my local government. And ended up being an incredible time. I started at the

[00:06:58] organization right before the issue won campaign. So it was a wild and incredible and unforgettable

[00:07:04] first year with Planned Parenthood. I can relate to that because I was interning with ProTry,

[00:07:09] so high, when Roe Fall, it was like the last two weeks of my internship was just an absolute world.

[00:07:16] I'm your home for you. That was a disastrous time, so good for you. It was great. And now they

[00:07:23] are abortion forward to any listeners here because if we want to disdigmatize abortion, we have

[00:07:28] to save the word. Well, let's just jump right into it, I guess I kind of already did. So this November,

[00:07:33] Ohio voters will return to the polls after enshrining reproductive freedom in the Ohio

[00:07:37] Constitution on November 7th, 2023. What you're just talking about? Can you talk a little bit about

[00:07:43] how abortion is still on the ballot in this election? Sure. So while the passage of the Reprupted

[00:07:49] Freedom Amendment was a monumental victory in the state of Ohio, it is only step one in fully

[00:07:55] realizing access to reproductive health care and abortion rights in the state. I think something

[00:08:01] we often say is that Roe Vueyd was the floor in not the ceiling and we say that because while

[00:08:07] Roe existed, we saw over 31 abortion restrictions enacted in the state of Ohio alone. So it's

[00:08:14] really important to think about the fact that issue one does not automatically nullify all of those

[00:08:18] previous restrictions. You have to individually litigate every single one of them. So we've already

[00:08:25] started that process. We've had some incredible victories in the past couple of weeks involving

[00:08:30] the 24-hour waiting period having a preliminary injunction. Same thing on the state mandated,

[00:08:36] inaccurate and often stigmatizing materials that they're forced to show people who are seeking

[00:08:41] abortion access. We are waiting on a very delayed decision on the six week ban. And we have

[00:08:47] other cases that were prepared to litigate before the courts. So a lot of these cases are likely to end

[00:08:53] up in the hands of the Ohio Supreme Court. They have the final authority for how that amendment

[00:08:58] is fully interpreted and whether that amendment is fully realized in the way that the Ohio

[00:09:03] voters demanded it be last November. And we also know that the Republican legislature and

[00:09:12] other members of the government believe that this court is amenable to their entire

[00:09:17] abortion arguments as well. There was a specific bill that was passed during the spring legislature

[00:09:22] H. Pre-301 that AG goes to a specifically pushing for because he wants to be able to

[00:09:28] immediately appeal litigation and lower courts to the Ohio Supreme Court. And that's because

[00:09:34] he does not want years of preliminary injunctions like those we've secured for things like

[00:09:39] the six week ban or the 24-hour waiting period. So he's trying to teet up to a Supreme Court that

[00:09:44] he believes is more amenable to his position, and that's something that we're well aware of in

[00:09:48] litigation process. So the composition of this court is going to vastly impact the future of

[00:09:54] issue one. It's going to vastly impact the future of Jeremy Andrewing in Ohio, Civil Liberties.

[00:10:00] We saw a huge swath of anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans bills that swept through the legislature this

[00:10:06] past year. Some of those are likely to end up in front of the highest court in Ohio. And in fact,

[00:10:11] scotos itself has now taken up a gender-forming care case because of how many of those bands have passed.

[00:10:16] So these races really matter, educating people on them really matter. Most people have no

[00:10:22] ideas on the court. They have no idea what they do. They have no idea if it's running.

[00:10:26] So it's really important that we emphasize the massive decisions this sport could be

[00:10:30] handing down the full impact future generations of Ohioans. I have to compliment you on how

[00:10:36] excellent you are at your job because we have a list of questions to ask you as we know

[00:10:40] people who prepare for our podcast would do. And you just answered like all of them so well done.

[00:10:46] I'm sure we can think about it. Thanks to talk about, but do you have examples of recent

[00:10:50] rulings to show how a Ohio Supreme Court directly impacts our day-to-day lives?

[00:10:55] Sure. Let's take a really fun one that happened recently which was the decision on

[00:11:00] boneless wings. And I bring this up for a very specific reason. I think most of us in the

[00:11:05] state of Ohio are very used to this political game that has played all the time here,

[00:11:09] which is people telling us up as down and down is up and making completely non-sensical

[00:11:14] rulings and or non-sensical legislation that is for pure partisan advantage. And this is a case

[00:11:21] that needs to remind you of the fact that a sports especially once they become more politicized

[00:11:27] because we do have sports now where we have the designation of Democrat Republican, etc.

[00:11:32] Next to the name of the justice. Typically ends up in more partisan courts where you have

[00:11:38] massively higher amounts of partisan funding coming in during the campaign.

[00:11:43] That impacts who runs, that impacts who is successful and it impacts their decisions on the court.

[00:11:48] And most often when you have a highly partisan judiciary, it leads to decisions that are much more

[00:11:55] likely to protect corporate interests rather than civilians or the average consumer.

[00:12:01] This is a trend that you can see in other states that have also creative partisan systems

[00:12:05] for their judicial races. So this wasn't unsurprising decision to me for protecting

[00:12:11] corporations or businesses over citizenry completely lines up with the fact that we are

[00:12:17] encouraging greater partisanship with our judges, even with the way that they are elected to the

[00:12:22] court. We have someone on the court right now who is appointed with no judicial experience. And that

[00:12:26] is remarkable when you're talking about the most powerful court within your state system.

[00:12:30] Oh 100% I wasn't even aware of this. I come into this topic knowing a good amount about

[00:12:36] abortion rights, but not a lot about the Supreme Court. So that is incredibly interesting.

[00:12:41] Many voters are focused at the top of the ticket with the presidential race we just had

[00:12:45] the debate the other night and their feeling either energized or disillusioned.

[00:12:50] Why should Ohio voters vote down ballot and be paying attention to the Supreme Court races?

[00:12:55] I know you've kind of gotten into it a little bit, but I think that for literally decades

[00:13:01] people fell into this trap of almost solely focusing on federal races or national races.

[00:13:06] Not paying attention to what was happening in their local courts and their local city halls,

[00:13:11] their school boards, their state house. The decisions that actually impact you on a daily basis

[00:13:16] are made by local and statewide officials. And that includes anything from your access to clean air,

[00:13:23] water, your ability to utilize infrastructure, your ability to attend a public school that is fully

[00:13:28] funded. All of these are things that are determined by the local and statewide officials

[00:13:33] in your state. And I think that when you look away from state and local races and ignore those

[00:13:39] races, that is when you see this massive increase in extremism in those positions. Like we've seen

[00:13:43] in so many states across the country. If you really care about what's happening every day in your

[00:13:48] community, if you care about things like gun safety, gun violence, your kids attending a school

[00:13:53] where they're getting a real education. You really need to be paying attention to everyone up and

[00:13:58] down the entire ballot. They are going to be making decisions that impact you every single day.

[00:14:03] Yeah, I mean, this comes out in probably a couple of weeks. So it would be a little bit

[00:14:07] farther away from the debate, but I was reading some responses to the outcome of the

[00:14:17] doing undecided voters and asking them, you know, who do you think won the debate? And a

[00:14:22] number of people said, well, I don't think either of them one because they didn't talk about the

[00:14:25] things that matter to me. And like I went through the list of the things they talked about. Like

[00:14:30] there were some things that mattered to me, but not to these folks. And so that's okay, but I thought,

[00:14:34] well, that might be because the things that matter to you are state and local issues. Right?

[00:14:38] Like if you are frustrated with the quality of the roads in your neighborhood,

[00:14:42] neither Donald Trump nor Kyle Harris is going to address that in a national debate.

[00:14:46] But you can go to the city council once a month and give testimony. Well, if you live a

[00:14:51] Cleveland, for example, you can call your council person. I think those day-to-day issues,

[00:14:57] like unless you're paying close attention to local politics, like they you sort of forget that

[00:15:02] that they don't live in the White House. Yeah. Yeah, I think we take for granted to how many

[00:15:07] like critical rights we are afforded because people showed up in places like the legislature

[00:15:12] and pushed for greater protections for themselves in their community. A great example, I can

[00:15:16] think from this past year, I think a lot about high winds probably had no idea that

[00:15:21] me coming from a place of working in gender-based violence. I've always known this, but we have

[00:15:25] had a spousal exception loophole for cases of rape or sexual assault. They have tried to eliminate

[00:15:32] this loophole for literal decades in the legislature and it became a cash-in project of some

[00:15:38] communities, including people from a how domestic violence network and some incredible

[00:15:43] legislators like Jessica Miranda who said that this is something that impacts people on a daily basis.

[00:15:50] The fact that if you were being assaulted by your partner, they are allowed to claim a loophole

[00:15:54] that prevents them from being fully prosecuted for the crimes they committed against you.

[00:15:59] We know sexual violence is a massive issue in every single community, no matter race,

[00:16:03] zip code gender, what have you? So the only reason that that loophole no longer exists

[00:16:08] is because of people that were elected at the local level to our state house and who listened

[00:16:13] to advocates and listened to communities who pushed for that to happen. Real change and really

[00:16:18] transformative change often happens from the ground up at the state and local level, and I think

[00:16:24] it's important for people, especially in a state that's as Jerry Manderd as ours, to remember that

[00:16:29] there are ways that you can make a very real difference. There are some elections we have that are

[00:16:33] not gearing the under and that includes your decision in the Ohio Supreme Court this year.

[00:16:39] Absolutely, now that note, vote yes on issue 1 in November so that we don't have to say we have

[00:16:44] one of the most jerry-mandered states in the country. So you mentioned earlier the

[00:16:49] intersections with LGBTQ plus attacks on trans rights, things like that in the state,

[00:16:56] with the obvious intersection being there are plenty of LGBTQ people who also need access

[00:17:01] to reproductive health care. But did you talk a little bit more about the bodily autonomy

[00:17:06] argument of these gender affirming care bands, the reproductive justice bands, and also just

[00:17:11] about working in coalition with other LGBTQ groups and things like that? Sure, so these

[00:17:18] topics are so intrinsically linked because they've really hit at the core definition of who you

[00:17:22] are as a human being and whether you have personal agency or bodily autonomy or self-determination.

[00:17:29] We have seen a massive movement to ban things like healthcare access for gender affirming care,

[00:17:36] and we have seen over and over these states and state-weight legislatures are using the

[00:17:40] exact same playbooks for all of these forms of legislation. And that's also why when these

[00:17:44] things are getting struck down by federal courts they are saying the same thing than most of these

[00:17:49] courts saying that these laws are unconstitutional or they encourage discrimination against a certain

[00:17:55] subset of people or the legislature and this has been said by conservative federal

[00:18:00] justice, the legislature purposefully used information that they knew was inaccurate to push

[00:18:07] forward this legislation. So it's something that we're not unused to in the repropealte,

[00:18:12] the fact that we have legislators who have no personal or professional expertise that are creating

[00:18:18] laws governing the bodies of other people, the fact that we will have hundreds of people who specialize

[00:18:24] in that care showing up to the state house and testifying against these bills and they will have

[00:18:30] five proponents who are all using willful disinformation in their testimony and who are paid to

[00:18:38] travel state by state to testify against these same exact bills in different states. So this is

[00:18:44] also something that we are very used to in the state, the complete ignorance around actual medical

[00:18:49] care what that looks like, how important it is to our communities and the stripping away of these

[00:18:55] rights even though it is incredibly unpopular to do so and leads to greater stigma disation

[00:19:00] and danger for communities that are already marginalized or have less access to resources.

[00:19:07] So another way that this Supreme Court is important in all of this as well is that we've had quite a

[00:19:12] few bills that were passed during this past legislature that affect the LGBTQ plus and especially

[00:19:16] the trans community. So the HB68 bill that banned gender-forming care for minors, it is currently

[00:19:24] in an appeals court actually oral arguments were yesterday. These are being appealed and

[00:19:29] litigated all over the country right now. We have scotists finally taking up a case on this which

[00:19:34] honestly should like stoke fear in the hearts of anybody who works in this field because if you've seen

[00:19:39] the best organization of that dobs decision, god only knows what's coming with them making

[00:19:44] a decision on trans healthcare. So it's really important that people pay attention, these movements,

[00:19:49] these national and the statewide movements in for me, each other and evolve around each other right?

[00:19:55] And we're seeing that people are talking a lot about project 2025. Guess what? It's already happening

[00:19:59] in the state of Ohio. It has been happening for quite a long time. We have three bills this spring

[00:20:04] alone that are targeting teachers and librarians for dissemination of certain materials to minors

[00:20:11] that are making it so that they would have to be registered as a sex offender if they

[00:20:15] distribute certain materials to minors that are considered obscene. And mind you, there isn't

[00:20:21] a proper definition of what obscene really means and that usually lends to people reporting

[00:20:25] books or content because they don't like the feature racial minorities or LGBTQ plus people

[00:20:31] or reproductive healthcare content and or any sexual content whatsoever right? That is age

[00:20:36] appropriate and more relative to the group that's reading it. So all of these decisions that are

[00:20:41] being litigated right now in the reprospaced and the LGBTQ plus rights space, many of them

[00:20:46] may end up in the hands of the Ohio Supreme Court and the makeup of that court is going to determine

[00:20:50] if people literally feel safe living in learning in and being a part of this state or if they're

[00:20:57] literally forced to flee the state which hundreds of families have done since HP 68 was passed.

[00:21:03] So we're talking about nationally, people focus on national races and not necessarily

[00:21:08] state and local and it's like, well if I'm just doing my state or just a local election

[00:21:13] like it's not as impactful but the reality is a lot of the times other states will look at what

[00:21:18] worked and this is for both progressive and conservative policy and be like, oh, we'll do that too.

[00:21:24] Ohio is great at being like, you did that watch me like horrible tendency to follow Florida's

[00:21:33] lead and I say this so discouragingly. As if you see something insane happen politically in the

[00:21:40] state of Florida, we are likely next 100%. Yes. Absolutely. Well, people think like people don't

[00:21:46] understand the vast extremism of our state house as it is on a daily basis. Like, remember how

[00:21:53] outraged people were when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were people.

[00:21:58] Well, guess what? We had a Republican representative introduced a bill that was a fetal person

[00:22:04] who had built. It didn't end up being successful but it would have said that upon the moment of

[00:22:09] conception that is a person. So that means that IVF out the window. That means abortion of any kind

[00:22:15] out the window. That's already happened. We've also had to state legislators say that they're interested

[00:22:20] in limiting access to birth control. I helped the Ohio Democrat house caucus write a bill that would

[00:22:27] protect IVF and assist of reproductive technologies after that Alabama Supreme Court decision came out.

[00:22:34] We couldn't get a single Republican to co-sponsor the bill. Just a bill that protects IVF and

[00:22:39] ART, not a single one of them would touch it. And that tells you how extreme our legislator is.

[00:22:45] IVF is supported by like 90 plus percent of people in American. They won't even put their name on a bill

[00:22:51] that says you should have access. Yeah. That's mild. I guess another word for wild is extreme

[00:22:55] which goes back to the jury manager. And I think probably a lot of folks listening to this

[00:23:00] already know this and you obviously do Danielle. But one of the obvious pronounced and long-lasting

[00:23:08] effects of jury manager is increasingly extreme positions taken by whichever side happens to hold

[00:23:17] the jury manager to power because one does not have to be accountable to one's constituents any

[00:23:23] counter. And so it gives you the leeway to be as extreme as you may want to be as a legislator

[00:23:30] without having just some modern influence by the sane rational people of your district.

[00:23:37] That's kind of part of this, right? We're like if we can keep moving the Overton window on what's

[00:23:41] acceptable discourse these folks don't have to pass every IVF ban. They just need to move the

[00:23:48] dialogue in that direction so that two years from now they could say hey we've proposed an IVF ban

[00:23:54] or it's not like it's a new idea and then suddenly people are like oh yeah you're right I remember

[00:23:58] that. Yeah I was like I can't remember why we do like it then and suddenly sort of something

[00:24:03] that's excuse my language. That shit becomes slightly more normal. One of the reasons I love

[00:24:08] issue one, like just to maybe put it into some of that nonsense. You are correct. Some of this

[00:24:31] stuff is straight up that shit non-sensical just like vitriol. I mean they tried to introduce and

[00:24:38] pass a bill a couple years ago that said that they would have to re-implant a fetus that was

[00:24:44] growing in somebody's philopian tube. That was literally in a bill that was written. That is

[00:24:50] physically impossible medically insane and people testified to that saying that is not possible for

[00:24:57] someone to do with an ectopic pregnancy. You can't just re-implant a fetus in an ectopic

[00:25:04] pregnancy so that person is able to then have a healthy child that's physically impossible.

[00:25:09] These are the kinds of things that they're putting in their bills because they feel completely

[00:25:12] unaccountable to quite literally anybody. A lot of the things they do is throwing red meat to their

[00:25:17] base. It is dog with so into people it's not actually focused on improving or bettering the lives

[00:25:22] of anybody in the state and you're right when you are so gerian andender that you feel completely

[00:25:28] unaccountable. You see how insane primaries have become and it is because of this exact issue because

[00:25:34] they are all trying to out crazy each other to get the most attention to have the most extreme

[00:25:38] views because they're in a district that is plus 80 of Republican, they know it doesn't matter what

[00:25:44] they do. Whatever gets the most attention is what really benefits them and just like the disparity

[00:25:50] between hard legislature and our actual citizen race pretty astonishing. Ohio isn't really

[00:25:56] a red state, we're just an illegally-jeri-mandered state because if you look at the actual

[00:26:00] partisan breakdown right now Republicans have like a 70th or 30th advantage in the house and the

[00:26:06] Senate, Supermajorities in both when the actual partisan breakdown of Ohio wins is like 56 to 44

[00:26:14] or 54 to 46. It's one of it's one of those two I often flip the numbers in my head but that

[00:26:20] is a massive difference and we saw with the win with issue 1 last year that in this state that

[00:26:26] has been so anti-abortion that has been an enemy to reproductive freedom for so many people had

[00:26:31] the issue 1 amendom passed with 57% of the vote and mind you. This is my favorite fact about

[00:26:37] issue 1 the Center for Christian Virtue reported that one third of evangelicals voted for issue 1

[00:26:45] and one third of people who believe that life begins a conception voted for issue 1 and that is

[00:26:51] remarkable because even they know how bizarrely extreme our politics are and they knew that they faced

[00:27:00] a monumental choice of either reproductive freedom or the potential return of a six week band

[00:27:05] with no exceptions for rape or incest. I mean the gap between those two realities is just enormous

[00:27:10] and voter saw that. And the language was also very dishonestly put on the ballot by Secretary of

[00:27:18] State, my nemesis, the explained clearer so we also that I mean I even my voting location is in a church

[00:27:26] that also blew my mind that we're sending people who are religious to churches to vote on abortion

[00:27:33] that and we still passed it every single church in my neighborhood had and I am not exaggerating

[00:27:41] vote no one issue 1 signs that were like 20 by 30 feet. They were that big including the place

[00:27:47] where I vote. And we still voted yes like that right there and then still regardless of that being a

[00:27:55] very clear statement from Ohio voters we still have very similar people with similar goals trying

[00:28:02] to still subvert what everyone voted on. Well did you see the bill that they introduced immediately

[00:28:07] after issue 1 the House Republicans introduced a bill called the Issue 1 Implementation Act

[00:28:13] which would take the authority of the interpretation of issue 1 away from the judiciary

[00:28:18] and give it solely to the legislature. wildly unconstitutional, first of all we have a separation

[00:28:25] of powers full of reason but that is how much they can't just submit to the reality of what

[00:28:30] people in the state want that they will not stop and they don't plan on stopping. They're right

[00:28:36] now they're like the Raptors testing the fences. They're still introducing weird bills to see if

[00:28:40] they can get around issue 1. There's one called HB475 that would take money away from cities

[00:28:46] that invest any of their state dollars into reproductive access and put it into a separate fund

[00:28:52] that can only be accessed by effectively crisis pregnancy centers who are authorized to under the

[00:28:58] Ohio families program and that's remarkable because the cities that we're giving money to

[00:29:06] local services are cities where issue 1 passed with a margin of like 70% plus. We're talking

[00:29:12] places up in Kaya-Hoga County, Lucas County, Columbus, Cincinnati, etc and they are so determined

[00:29:18] to keep punishing people for showing up and saying what they want that they want to further

[00:29:22] defund abortion providers who are ready and mentally defunded under the structure as it is

[00:29:28] right now. Could you talk a little bit more about crisis pregnancy centers? The amount of them

[00:29:33] versus actual clinics that perform abortion I knew they existed, I did not know the depth of their

[00:29:40] depravity until I interned with pro choice Ohio. Oh god there's a lot to say about crisis pregnancy

[00:29:46] centers so first of all they received 14 million dollars of our state budget that has more than

[00:29:52] doubled in the last several years despite the fact that they have zero regulation or reporting

[00:29:57] requirements. The vast majority of people that work at them are not actual trained clinicians or

[00:30:03] clinical staff, the vast majority of them are volunteers and almost all of the money that goes to

[00:30:09] these centers goes to administrative fees and or paying their workers it doesn't actually go to

[00:30:15] supporting people and providing services. A lot of times you can be denied the most basic services

[00:30:20] that they say that they offer because they have really strict requirements for whether you can

[00:30:25] participate in their programs especially if you need things like you're a new mother who who

[00:30:30] needs assistance with things like access to formula or diapers or what have you, but they thrive

[00:30:35] on disinformation and they purposefully set themselves up next to locations like plant parenthood so they

[00:30:41] kind of snack people that are actually trying to get true reproductive health care access and

[00:30:47] basically being a boozele them and to going into these centers and being fed religious dogma

[00:30:52] in disinformation. I mean these are people that will tell you that abortions lead to an increase

[00:30:57] in breast cancer which is like absolutely medically unfounded and we'll just shame and stigmatize

[00:31:03] people into not making a decision about their own body it's incredibly dangerous they receive

[00:31:09] more and more state funds every single year and they're not providing actual medical services

[00:31:15] they're also not subject to hip-a which is remarkable. I mean I'm hip-a is incredibly important when

[00:31:21] it comes to protecting patients who are accessing any kind of care they're not subject to almost

[00:31:25] any regulation about how they utilize their funds or what information they're allowed to give people so

[00:31:31] their massive disinformation centers and they're just raking in the funds and states all over this

[00:31:35] country as we're seeing more and more extremist legislatures strip those funds from actual health care

[00:31:40] providers like plant parenthood. I didn't know that part about it so these crisis pregnancy centers

[00:31:45] can for example maintain records of who visits them and included those records people who leave

[00:31:52] and say no I wanted an abortion you can't provide that I'm going to go next door they can keep that

[00:31:56] on record so that they then can report that this person intended to have abortion if for some reason

[00:32:04] at some point such a practice became illegal. Yeah this is another space where they spread dangerous

[00:32:09] misinformation so they will often imply that they're subject to hip-a because they like to imply

[00:32:14] that their medical providers and they are not and because most of them aren't stacked by actual

[00:32:19] medical professionals they're not bound by federal privacy laws like hip-a so they're not legally

[00:32:25] bound to protect patient information or confidentiality and it is really dangerous so I think it's

[00:32:31] really important for people to understand that you know we're a state that just voted to

[00:32:36] enshrine abortion access in our literal state constitution and we are giving tens of millions

[00:32:40] of dollars a year to these centers that are just peddling disinformation and stigmatizing people

[00:32:46] that need access to reproductive health care. Yeah I mean I think I probably said this on this podcast

[00:32:50] before but I've certainly said it to Sarah and conversation that it really does seem like

[00:32:55] Ohio's legislature isn't just disconnected from or unaccountable to the population of our

[00:33:02] state but like almost aggressively antagonistic to the voters where they find things that voters want

[00:33:08] voters say they want them very clearly at the ballot through a formal legal rigorous system that

[00:33:16] is in fact designed to keep progressive voters from having their voices heard not the second

[00:33:24] out that the people we've been elected to represent have an opinion about this we should think

[00:33:29] about that opinion and try to make it part of our way of governing they actively seek to

[00:33:34] subverted it's very hard to understand how democratic government, small-the democratic government

[00:33:41] cannot operate when the people who hold power kind of disdain the people that they represent

[00:33:48] and they actively work to subvert their will it is like dangerous at close to what you might call

[00:33:54] failed state maybe I'm going too far now that the smog condescension with which they operate

[00:34:01] on a daily basis is remarkable especially when they're like woefully informed on the topic at

[00:34:06] hand but that's the name of the game at the state house right now it's also a lot of white men

[00:34:13] showing their disdain towards women very specifically if we're looking at this dynamic which I just

[00:34:20] think should be stated circling back to the Supreme Court because we've just talked about all

[00:34:26] of the ways in which abortion is a crucial healthcare service that people need access to and

[00:34:32] is still on the ballot this November what we're voting for the Supreme Court where can voters

[00:34:37] go to learn more about the Ohio Supreme Court and the candidates who we will be able to vote on

[00:34:42] the snow member. A lot of awesome statewide advocacy organizations who are deeply involved in Ohio

[00:34:47] politics at the state house in elsewhere have put out awesome candidate guides voter guides with

[00:34:53] information about the candidates that includes partners of ours like the Gualdo, Ohio,

[00:34:58] plant parenthood etc it really gives you a great idea of what their views are in various

[00:35:03] specific issues like reproductive health care or civil justice issues so I really encourage you to

[00:35:10] go out and look at this information on your own and courage other people to talk about it like I

[00:35:14] said a lot of people are deeply uninformed about the Ohio Supreme Court in particular there

[00:35:19] are some fascinating characters on the ballot who have a lot of legal decisions that they have

[00:35:26] made that I think people really care about and understand how impactful they can be so I encourage

[00:35:30] you to do that research to really look to your trusted statewide partners who are dealing with these

[00:35:35] issues every day that will most likely end up before the Ohio Supreme Court. Nice and where can

[00:35:40] folks who are listening connect with plant parenthood and kids of Ohio. We have a thriving social

[00:35:46] media presence so if you're interested in following our Twitter or Instagram or TikTok I really

[00:35:52] encourage you to do so not only will you have some really fun content but a lot of really

[00:35:57] important informational content that helps you understand the reproductive rights landscape across

[00:36:01] Ohio come volunteer with us we do a ton of great work whether that is on campuses across the state

[00:36:08] whether that's debate watch parties whether that is campusing making phone calls we have a lot of

[00:36:13] ways for people to come involved so whatever your specific interest or skill set is we have a way to

[00:36:18] connect you with that. Wonderful we will include everything you've mentioned in the show notes

[00:36:23] so that listeners are able to easily find all of those great resources that you mentioned do you

[00:36:29] have any closing thoughts that you would like to leave our listeners with? Ohio has an incredible

[00:36:35] opportunity right now to have several back-to-back monumental elections in a row. The eyes of the

[00:36:43] country were on us last year quite literally because we were the only state that was voting on

[00:36:49] a reproductive rights amendment and again this year we're the only ones who can flip our state

[00:36:55] Supreme Court. This is a massive opportunity to show up to hold people in power accountable

[00:37:01] to make your voice heard to demand a future for Ohio that is just and fair and respectful

[00:37:07] and indicative of the actual citizens of Ohio and isn't just you know a party to

[00:37:13] absurd and dangerous partisan politics on a daily basis. I know it's easy to feel helpless in a

[00:37:20] state like Ohio because it's one of the most jerry-mandered states in the country but this is your

[00:37:24] chance this is your opportunity to show up if you want to incredibly important the Supreme Court

[00:37:30] Senator Brown's race we have several really key congressional races that are happening that will

[00:37:34] have lasting effect as far as who has the majority in the federal house and or Senate. That is

[00:37:41] when to vastly impact the future of reproductive rights in this country I can tell you right now whoever

[00:37:45] is sitting in the oval office whoever has the power in the house in the Senate is going to vastly

[00:37:51] impact whether we ever see federal protections again for something like abortion care and reproductive

[00:37:57] so your vote matters your voice matters we have the chance to secure another massive win

[00:38:02] for this state that will make the state better and better for citizens every day and I'm really

[00:38:07] hopeful and excited about that opportunity for Ohioans. Wonderful oh thank you so much for

[00:38:12] having this conversation with us I feel like I've learned so much about the Supreme Court

[00:38:18] thank you I so appreciate you all having me seriously thank you so much yeah thank you

[00:38:33] as always because at what's go to highland.com for show notes and links and subscribe to what's

[00:38:38] good oh hi oh wherever you get your podcasts we'll see you next time to keep talking about what's good

[00:38:43] here in oh hi oh