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 eye. We call this feature Catching Our Eye and have published it here.
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Catching our eyes
• After Pretti’s killing, J.D. Vance reportedly advocated for the suspension of constitutional rights in Minnesota. The New York Times reports: “Frustrated with the courts, Trump has considered suspending the constitutional right.“
In the case of the Insurrection Act, Vice President J.D. Vance pushed for it to be invoked just days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse in Minnesota who was protesting the administration’s immigration policies.
Details of internal debates about how aggressive Trump should be in seeking to deport millions of immigrants and crack down on those who protest his policies are taken from a report to appear in the book “Regime Change: Inside Donald Trump’s Imperial Presidency.” …
Mr. Vance got to the point. They had to quickly invoke the Insurrection Act to quell the unrest in Minnesota. It would be painful in the brief term, he said, but the signal it would send — that paid agitators can’t get away with disrupting ICE operations — would ensure no one would try it again. (There was no evidence that Mr. Pretti or Ms. Good were paid activists.)
• Cheating. Nora Igelnik of the Columbus Dispatch reports: “Ohio introduces penalties for companies selling homework and exams“
Selling homework answers to Ohio students could soon result in financial penalties.
The Senate’s sweeping absenteeism and school zoning bill also targets cheating in schools and outlines consequences for companies that facilitate students cheat on everything from exams to essays for profit.
The bill also seeks to clarify school districts’ authority to maintain, sell or demolish vacant buildings.
• Data centers. In a column, Thomas Suddes writes in Cleveland.com: “The data center tax break that grew from millions to billions“
Ohioans are finding that huge, tax-subsidized data centers popping up in pastures like toadstools after a summer rain benefit Silicon Valley and Wall Street, not working Ohioans.
This comes at a time when, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Ohio’s median household income ($80,520 in 2024) is below the national median ($83,720), while gas and grocery prices are skyrocketing.
Ohio’s data center tax credit appears to have its origins in the 2011 Senate amendment to Ohio’s 2011-2013 budget, passed in mid-2011 on a party-line vote – Republicans yes, Democrats no – and signed by then-Republican governor. John R. Kasich.
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