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
• Seeking a Trump pardon over the biggest corruption scandal in Ohio history. Jessie Balmert of the Columbus Dispatch reports: “Larry Householder will seek a Trump pardon after losing in the Supreme Court.“
The U.S. Supreme Court will not overturn the bribery conviction of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, ending a six-year legal saga that saw the former top Republican Party leader sentenced to 20 years in prison…
Following the legal loss, Householder’s lawyer Scott Pullins said Householder would seek a clemency from President Donald Trump.
• Trump’s Department of Homeland Security attacks Ohio voters. Reuters reports: “How Trump is trying to control the US elections, one state at a time.“
Reuters has uncovered a broader than previously known effort by the Trump administration to take federal control of traditionally locally held elections in at least eight states – using investigations, raids and demands for access to voting and voter identification systems…
In Ohio, federal investigators collected voter data in at least six counties, two of which are solidly Democratic and others politically competitive, citing unspecified investigations. The scope of these probes has not been previously reported.
• Property taxes. Karen Kasler of the Statehouse News Bureau reports: “A group pushing for an amendment to eliminate Ohio’s property tax likely won’t make it to the ballot“
A group that wants Ohio voters to repeal the property tax will almost certainly not be on the fall ballot, even though the signature deadline is more than two months away.
After months of rejecting requests from journalists and group volunteers, members of the Committee to Eliminate Property Taxes released their signature totals during a livestreamed event. The group, also called Ax Ohio Tax, needs at least 413,487 valid signatures from 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties by July 1 to get on the November ballot. That’s 10% of all votes cast for governor in the last election to that office in 2022.
• Ohio Section of the State Race. Laura Hancock of Cleveland.com reports: “Ohio Secretary of State candidates split over hand-marked ballots, redistricting“
The race for Ohio secretary of state includes Republicans who believe it is too effortless to cheat on the ballot and Democrats who believe the latest state laws making it more tough to vote have been repealed.
However, the details of what they would do vary.
• Haitians. Cornelius Frolik of the Dayton Daily News reports: “Haiti TPS: The Supreme Court will hear personal arguments in high-stakes cases this week“
Legal protections for more than 330,000 Haitian citizens and other foreign-born people living in the United States hang in the balance as the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments this week in a lawsuit over the federal government’s attempts to invalidate the Temporary Protected Status of Haiti and Syria.
On Wednesday, April 29, justices on the nation’s highest court are expected to spend an hour or more listening to and taking questions from Trump administration lawyers and TPS holders who question whether the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security followed the law and proper procedures in trying to revoke protected status from other countries.
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