In America, not everything is peaceful and not everything is clear. For millions of citizens and non-citizens, the ending days of December are not filled with hope, but with foreboding. The criminal president-elect and his billionaire cronies have already begun to darken the “shining city on a hill” with chaos, cruelty and endemic corruption.
But Ohio beat them to it. The lopsided Republican majority in the Statehouse lasts forever. Republican officials across the state are toeing the party line, and the partisan majority on the state Supreme Court is the GOP’s rubber stamp. In summary, Ohio’s rulers define corruption and don’t care. Like the next president, state Republicans have absolute power and can do whatever they want with impunity.
Remember, these same crooks were knee-deep in the largest political corruption scheme in state history – a legislative pay-to-play bribery scandal in which a deep-pocketed energy company sought billions in taxpayer aid. To this day, the GOP-controlled Legislature refuses to completely remove the infamous House Bill 6, passed on behalf of FirstEnergy, from the Ohio Revised Code. Parts of the shady law — which sent the former GOP House speaker to federal prison for 20 years — mean taxpayers continue to bail out two overly polluting coal plants and the state continues to gut renewable energy and energy efficiency standards.
But Ohioans paying higher utility bills and living with more polluted air are not the governing constituencies to which Republicans are answerable, especially not on Christmas Day. The GOP’s special interest version of Santa Claus just bowed to the lame duck session and, unsurprisingly, handed out lumps of coal to the marginalized and candy to the powerful. Statehouse Santa has used a cruel tool under the guise of parental rights to further exclude LGBTQ+ children and put them at even greater risk.
Lawmakers passed a bill that mandates schools and counselors single out queer students and destroy trust between students and teachers. House Bill 8, another MAGA solution in search of a problem, also limits mention of gender identity in classrooms (don’t talk about gays) and limits how so-called “sexual content” (undefined, of course) is taught in schools.
The right-wing invention of state Reps. DJ Swearingen, R-Huron, and Sara Carruthers, R-Hamilton, included an unrelated amendment that mandates local schools exempt students from religious education classes in the middle of the school day. The supplement was a gift to a lobbyist running a multi-state Christian nationalist program under the guise of a Bible study for “unchurched” K-12 public school children.
Forcing allowing secular state education systems to disrupt school activities due to questionable off-campus religious activities turns the entire concept of separation of church and state on its head. The same is true of public funding of tuition at a private Christian school billion-dollar gifts (coupons) or donating millions from the state budget to religious schools for construction. An unprecedented merger between the church and the state of Ohio that certainly seems unconstitutional.
Yet this is what Republicans in high state offices do for their friends/donors. It doesn’t matter whether the favored constituency is synonymous with a scam like FirstEnergy, or is polluting state parks for profit with the fracking boom, or is pursuing a right-wing religious mission of converting public school students but only during the school day, or is a powerful diocesan government. lobby that uses the gravy train to return profits to church schools. This is manna from Matt Huffman.
The former state Senate president and future speaker of the Ohio House last year prioritized universal vouchers (regardless of income) as part of his ongoing efforts to fund public schools and privatize education in the state. Huffman’s massive expansion of vouchers – for many wealthy private school families who could afford to pay the tuition of their enrolled children without state handouts – had all but exhausted $970 million from the state budget for education first year this could benefit public schools, where the majority of Ohio students (88.6%) attend.
Another voucher bill sponsored by two House Republicans was killed in committee last month without proposed minimum transparency and accountability standards for how public education dollars (in the billions) are spent on private education and academic purposes. Taxpayers don’t need to know. They just have to pay the bill.
Senate Republicans, prodded by Huffman, gave the middle finger to voters trying to get citizen initiatives on the ballot. The legislation, introduced into an unrelated House bill and passed, gave Republican Attorney General Dave Yost up-to-date authority to reject citizen initiatives over the title alone. The state Supreme Court previously ruled that Yost had no right to reject the ballot initiative because he didn’t like the title. Now, thanks to Huffman & Co., it does.
The least productive General Assembly in over 40 years has run out of time to pat itself on the back for doing less on a nice, fat, tone-deaf raise. But the up-to-date year is almost here. The GOP trifecta in state government will do whatever it wants in 2025, crossing the Rubicon again on the corruption and cruelty that put Ohio ahead of the Trump curve.
Yes, all is not peaceful and dazzling this Christmas, but all is not lost either. As long as there is decency, empathy and compassion, believe in better days ahead. Then plan to get there. Even to a diminutive extent. Where do you live. On this tranquil night this week, find faith. 🔥
