Mayor from Ohio. (Getty image file photo.)
Each morning in the Ohio Capital Journal’s free newsletter, The Eye-Opener, we round up the news and commentary from across Ohio, the country and the world that catches our attention. We call this feature Catching Our Eye and have published it here.
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Catching our eyes
- Transition to nuclear energy on a self-governing basis? Anna Staver of Cleveland.com reports: “Who decides? Ohio lawmakers restrict local right to speak out about nuclear plants.“As tech companies increasingly utilize nuclear power to power their artificial intelligence systems, some Ohio lawmakers are considering stripping local governments of their ability to block modern plants. “Given the importance of baseload energy, I believe we need one set of standard statewide rules,” said Rep. Roy Klopfenstein, a Paulding County Republican and chairman of the House Energy Committee.
- Ted Carter. Sheridan Hendrix, Emma Wozniak and Max Filby report for The Columbus Dispatch:Ohio State Announces Investigation of Former President Ted Carter“The Ohio State University has released a report summarizing the findings of its investigation into former university president Ted Carter. The 50-page report details the investigation into Carter’s economic decline. Sources say there was no misuse of university resources or funds.”
- ICE in Ohio schools. Jen Balduf of the Dayton Daily News reports: “Unpaid police chief, officer on leave after ICE ‘wellness checks’ at Cincinnati schools.“The village of Gratis in Preble County has placed its police chief and another officer on administrative leave after they participated in a federal law enforcement operation in Cincinnati schools.
- Springfield. In a column in the Columbus Dispatch, Viles Dorsainvil writes: “After the terror, we found a home in Springfield. Protect us from Trump’s cowardly bullying.“Springfield came together then, and we will do it again now, because no amount of cowardly bullying from Trump can undo a basic truth: If one of us is in trouble, we are all in trouble.
- Shadow document. The New York Times reports: “Secret memos obtained by The New York Times shed featherlight on the origins of the court’s now routine “shadow act” rulings on presidential power.“In public, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has earned a reputation as a caring and cautious person. The newspapers show a different side of him. At a critical moment for the country and the court, he acted like a bulldozer at a critical time for the country and the court, pressing to stop Obama’s plan to address the global climate crisis. Aides warned the chief justice was being dismissive in proposing an unprecedented move. “I realize the attitude of this request to stay is not typical,” he wrote. But he argued that Obama’s plan to regulate coal-fired power plants was “the most costly regulation ever imposed on the energy sector” and too serious, expensive and consequential for the court not to take immediate action. During the Trump era, he and other conservative judges have repeatedly empowered the president with their shadow rulings. In contrast, newspaper reports reveal a court with the same power to block President Obama. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. he warned that if the court failed to rein in the president, his own “institutional legitimacy” would be at risk. The Court’s liberals pushed back, but compared to their recent strident pushbacks, they were not particularly forceful, mostly confined to procedures and timing.
The articles expose what critics call a weakness at the heart of the shadow inquiry: the lack of exacting debate that judges devote to their normal cases.
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