From education to marijuana: What Ohio lawmakers want to accomplish in 2023

A new set of state lawmakers was sworn in on Tuesday, and they've got big plans on everything from how the medical marijuana program should be run to whether Ohio should still impose the death penalty.

The 135th General Assembly will be dominated by Republican ideas. The GOP has the governorship as well as supermajorities in both the Ohio House and Ohio Senate. And it's expected they will exert that control during the budget process, which gets underway soon.

"I think, ultimately, a flat tax in Ohio is the goal of everyone," Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said. But questions still remain about "where does it land" and "what are those brackets."

Democrats say they hope to influence budget conversations around how much to pay public schools and whether to raise reimbursement rates for healthcare providers. And the Senate's new minority leader has another big priority.

"I am determined, and my caucus is 100% behind this, to finally end the death penalty in Ohio," Sen. Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, said.

Here's a list of what else leadership hopes to accomplish in 2023:

Medical marijuana reform

Ohio became the 25th state to legalize medical marijuana in 2016, but the program hasn't worked as advocates hoped it would. High prices and a dearth of doctors who can recommend cannabis are among their two biggest complaints.

More:Ohio medical marijuana patients say prices too high, but program improving

But efforts to overhaul the program have failed.

"I think we all would agree it’s not comprehensive enough, really, to be used," Huffman said. And it's his goal to overhaul the program during this General Assembly.

Antonio said she 100% supported the idea, though the "devil" would be in the details.

"We had a medical marijuana system created by people who really didn’t want to see us legalize medical marijuana," she said. "When you don’t have 100% buy-in, you end up with something that is not fully functional."

She hopes any restructuring will include an emphasis on minority representation "when it comes to who are the dispensers."

Reconfiguring Ohio's Department of Education

In the final hours of the last legislative session, Huffman tried to pass a law to change who controlled public education in Ohio. The 2,200-page bill would have stripped authority from the partially elected State Board of Education and given it to the governor.

"There was some trepidation because it was a short time frame," Huffman said.

The bill dropped after the midterm elections, leaving lawmakers in both chambers a few weeks to debate its merits. This new General Assembly will have two years to make a decision. Though Huffman previously said he hopes to pass something before the budget.

"I do think this is a really critical piece of legislation," Huffman said.

Huffman has the support of the Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware. The legislation is a big priority for him in 2023.

More:How a controversial plan to change who controlled public education unraveled

Abortion discussions will continue

Republicans haven't passed any new abortion laws since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

"When it wasn’t possible for them to come up with something during lame duck, which we all expected, that was very telling," Antonio said.

The internal debate among GOP members appears to be about how far they should go in restricting access when a ballot measure to codify protections for the procedure in the state constitution is likely on its way. Some members want to ban all access from the moment of conception while others want to take a more measured approach.

"There is a range of feeling on each side as to what the specifics should be," Huffman said. The challenge is "trying to coalesce that into language that’s going to get the support of most of the people...I think we can continue down that path."

Ending the death penalty

Gov. Mike DeWine has delayed all scheduled executions since he became governor in 2019.

The lifelong Catholic officially put all death row sentences on indefinite hold in 2020 because lethal injection — the state's only legal method for execution — wasn't possible once pharmaceutical companies stopped selling drugs for this purpose.

"Lethal injection appears to us to be impossible from a practical point of view," he said.

But other Republicans have wondered whether DeWine, the former Ohio attorney general, has had a change of heart. Conservatives like Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, have come out against the practice, saying her pro-life beliefs led to a "change of heart" on the issue.

"We’ve been having conversations for years around this," Antonio said. But the last general assembly was the first time both Republicans and Democrats backed a plan to ban the practice.

"I think we can do it," she said. "I do believe this could be the general assembly that we get it done."

Passing the Ohio Fairness Act

Another priority for the new Senate minority leader is passing a law that would outlaw discrimination for those in the LGBTQ community.

The "Ohio Fairness Act" has been introduced 10 different times. If passed, it would ban employers, landlords, schools and other kinds of public accommodations from denying services based on a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

But just like banning the death penalty, 2021 was the first time any Ohio Republicans signed onto the legislation.

Sen. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, said the last version would make every Ohioan feel welcome. And business groups like the Ohio Chamber of Commerce supported it because they believed it would help employers recruit the best and brightest talent.

"It's about making sure Ohio is a place where young people want to put down roots," Antonio said.

Gun control and mental health

Sen. Matt Dolan, R-Chagrin Falls, has introduced and amended two different versions of a gun control bill in the last two general assemblies.

The last iteration stepped back from what is traditionally considered "a red flag law" and focused on restricting future gun purchases after a court declares someone dangerous to themselves or others.

That didn't pass, but Dolan said "what really developed was a great conversation."

Lawmakers did approve $90 million for six regional crisis centers, but Dolan wants to keep working on this issue in 2023.

"I give Sen. Dolan a lot of credit because he keeps trying," Antonio said. "I think there are some reasonable measures that the majority of people in the state of Ohio and across the country already embrace. You can support the Second Amendment and also support sensible gun measures. They don’t have to cancel each other out. It's possible to do both."

When it comes to mental health generally, DeWine said he appreciated the money Dolan managed to secure from the last legislature, and he plans to make the issue a big part of his upcoming budget.

Medicaid reform

Huffman is creating a new Senate committee that's focused exclusively on the Ohio Department of Medicaid.

He wants its members to focus on "the need for real reform," and the fact that Ohio has "a lot of providers who are not being appropriately compensated."

Both Dolan, who chairs the finance committee, and Antonio said they expect to hear a lot from Medicaid's list of providers once the budget process gets underway.

"They’re doing their work," Antonio said. "They are calling and reaching out and telling us what the reality is on the ground."

Reducing income taxes

In 2021, Republicans passed a $1.6 billion reduction in Ohio's income tax – the largest cut in state budget history. And it's possible that this year will be no different.

"It's a tax we would like to minimize," Huffman said.

Ohio has eliminated some of the state's income tax brackets in each of the last three biennial budgets, dropping from nine down to three.

"Now, we have to look at taxes in terms of impact. What will have the most positive economic growth for everyone," Dolan said.

He wasn't ready to divulge any specifics yet but "that’s where I am going to spend a great deal of time."

Antonio, however, isn't convinced that's a good idea because income tax cuts can come with sales tax increases.

"That affects lower-income folks much more than the wealthy," she said.

No guarantees for new school funding formula

Ohio implemented a brand new formula for how it calculates what school districts should receive from the state in the last budget, but Senate President Huffman didn't commit to using it in the new one.

"Every budget is a two-year budget," he said. And what one general assembly does isn't binding on the next.

Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: What laws and changes Ohio lawmakers want to pass in 2023