Snollygoster

WOSU hosted a Politics and a Pint event last week. These events are a lot of fun. We get together at a Columbus-area brewpub and talk politics in front of a crowd of political junkies and public media fans.

DeWine’s change in position seems little more than symbolic. Republican leaders in the Legislature support the death penalty. There is no movement ready to put it on the ballot.

Gov. Mike DeWine has come out against Ohio’s death penalty. This week, the conservative Republican governor, who co-sponsored the bill that reinstated capital punishment in 1981, said Ohio should abolish it.

The effort to abolish Ohio property taxes has failed – at least for now. The group collecting signatures to put an amendment on November’s ballot says it has fallen short of the number needed to qualify.

For weeks, DeWine has faced criticism from his fellow Republicans over allegations of widespread fraud in the state’s Medicaid system. It started with a report in the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, which accused home health agencies of fraudulently billing the system that pays for healthcare for low-income and disabled people.

For the first time in eight years, Ohio will have a new governor. It will be someone from outside government: tech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who briefly ran for president, or Amy Acton, who served in government for about a year.

The candidates are set for Ohio's general election in November. There were no big surprises in this week’s primary.

An important election is just around the corner. Ohio will elect a new governor and decide who will represent the state in the U.S. Senate. A new poll provides a snapshot of what voters are thinking, and the results are interesting.

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy is out with a new ad where his wife shows off their new baby. In another ad, he goes after Democrat Amy Acton for her role in the COVID-19 shutdowns.

We look back at a time when Ohio was blue politically, or at least purple. We talk with longtime Democratic activist Dale Butland, who worked for U.S. Sen. John Glenn and has a new book out When Ohio Was Blue.

The 2028 presidential campaign likely will start about a year from now, but Democrats are not waiting to take on a likely candidate: Ohioan and Vice President JD Vance.

JobsOhio is in the news not because of a big new project, but because of the role, however small, it played in the sudden resignation of Ohio State University President Ted Carter.

As electric bills rise and data centers start to encroach upon suburbs and farmland, politicians are hearing from voters and starting to ask if data centers are worth it.

While its end was unusual, Ted Carter’s tenure may not be all that uncommon. The job has always been difficult, but it seems to be increasingly challenging. To examine the politics of being a college president, Josh Moody, reporter for Inside Higher Ed, joins the show.

Ohio’s congressional delegation largely split along partisan lines in reacting to the attacks on Iran. Vice President JD Vance once strongly said the US should not get involved in endless wars, but supports the president in this case.

Les Wexner answered questions from members of the House Oversight Committee for about five hours about how much he knew about the sex offender and what role he may have played in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking.

University officials say they are considering all the facts, and they have a process to consider the requests to remove Wexner’s name from the medical center, the arts center, and the football complex.

The Tax Foundation says Ohio has the eighth-highest effective property tax rate in the country. Some residents are fed up. Citizens for Property Tax Reform member Beth Blackmarr joins the show.

AEP seemed to survive the storm pretty well, at least in Ohio. But the utility made news when Governor DeWine mentioned his administration is trying to keep AEP's headquarters in Ohio. The company is looking to possibly move out of its 31-story headquarters in Columbus.

It has been an eventful year for the Trump–Vance administration. We’ve focused more on Trump than Vance, but Vance has been more visible than many vice presidents.

Protests continue in Minnesota and across the country. Here in Central Ohio, there is no sign of intense ICE activity, but detentions continue. Ohio State students protested the school, including the Border Patrol, at its career fair this week. Officials continue to warn protesters not to get in the way of any enforcement activity.

The new year started with a firehose-like stream of political news. Venezuela, ICE activity, the tragic shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis and false daycare fraud claims in Ohio have dominated the news.

A new poll from Emerson College in Boston shows some interesting trends that likely give Ohio Democrats hope and give Republicans pause.

The public authority that owns the arena says it needs 400 million dollars—more than double the original cost—to renovate it. And it’s looking for taxpayers to pick up much of the tab.

Tim Ryan, the former congressman, former presidential candidate and former U.S. Senate candidate said he will not run for governor.