Ohio State Building in Columbus. (Photo: David DeWitt, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Last week, Ohio lawmakers worked for two days to pass as many bills as possible before going on summer break. Here are some of the more significant elements that passed and failed.
He passed
Voter’s photo ID card
Senate Joint Resolution 10 will be sent to a vote in November, and House Bill 472 will go to the governor’s desk.
SJR 10 is a constitutional amendment that will require Ohioans to show photo ID when voting. This is already state law.
To vote absentee, HB 472 would require a photocopy of an ID.
Medicare reform
SB 315 is a bipartisan bill that would make changes to the Medicaid system to better detect and prosecute fraud. The bill also requires Ohio’s SNAP program to begin using EBT cards with chips.
This goes to the voivode.
Capital budget
SB 450 is a nearly $4 billion budget for capital infrastructure and community projects.
This goes to the voivode.
Encouraging the storage of gun caches
SB 273 allows law enforcement to voluntarily store firearms for gun owners struggling with mental health issues.
This goes to the voivode.
Driving permit
SB 419 lowers the age at which a teenager receives a probationary or provisional driver’s license from 15½ to 15. However, drivers must be over 16 years of age to obtain a real driving license.
This passed the Senate and is sent to the House of Representatives.
Statute of limitations for a sexual offense
SB 421 would augment the statute of limitations from one year to five years for civil cases involving victims of sex crimes.
This passed the Senate and is sent to the House of Representatives.
Prohibition on locating sex offenders
SB 422 prohibits sex offenders from knowingly entering a school, daycare or child care center or participating in sanctioned activities.
Under current law, it is illegal to live within 300 meters of any school or childcare facility.
This passed the Senate and is sent to the House of Representatives.
Regulate ticket sales
House Bill 563 would require the total price of tickets to be posted up front, require a seller to disclose information if they are not affiliated with an official platform, allow the state to go after fraudsters, and more.
This passed the House and is sent to the Senate.
Child care regulations
HB 647 would give the attorney general the authority to investigate and prosecute alleged child welfare fraud, allow the state to immediately suspend licenses if fraud is suspected, and provide money for improved data analysis for reviews.
This passed the House and is sent to the Senate.
Post-release inspection
HB 667 is a bill honoring murder victims Reagan Tokes and Patrick Heringer. Among other things, it gives judges more discretion to send repeat offenders or problem offenders to prison and requires more habitual reporting to the Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADS).
This passed the House and is sent to the Senate.
Which didn’t go through
Data center regulations
HB 646 created up-to-date rules and standards for data centers, but lawmakers failed to pass them.
This circumscribed the amount of up-to-date sales tax relief for projects. Currently at 100% it would drop to 50%.
“We don’t believe that we should be giving tax breaks to multi-billion dollar corporations, especially since many of them are already coming here to build these data centers because of an agreement that was made a few years ago,” House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said, echoing the widespread sentiments of his caucus.
One of the main complaints from environmental groups was water operate. The bill requires facilities to operate a closed water loop or operate “best water conservation and efficiency practices.”
In addition, data centers are required to report any “anomalies” detected by water quality monitoring systems.
Another significant topic is transparency and companies asking public officials to sign confidentiality agreements. He didn’t do anything much to address it.
One provision that everyone seemed to like was a regulation that created a class of electricity rates for data centers in an attempt to ensure that generation, transmission and distribution costs were covered by businesses.
Child marriage prohibited
SB 341 would ban child marriage in Ohio. After months of stagnation, Parliament unanimously passed the committee. It could not be voted on by the entire Senate chamber.
Before 2019, there was no minimum age for marriage in Ohio. Although the state promoted the age of 16 for girls to marry, there were exceptions at any age if the child received parental and court consent.
Still, 17-year-olds can marry someone up to four years older than them, provided the juvenile court approves.
“We had a lot of other bills we were going to pass that came out of committee this week,” Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, said when asked why it didn’t make it to the floor. “Again, you know my feelings. I made it quite clear last week. This will probably be something that will get a lot of attention at some point this session.”
McColley has previously said he supports ending child marriage even as the bill stalls. The attack concerns several members of the Republican Party who do not want to get involved in the “personal affairs of citizens,” some say.
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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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