A protest at the Ohio Statehouse. (Photo by Susan Tebben, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Advocacy groups of all types are revving up for the new term of the Ohio General Assembly, laying out policy priorities from early childhood education to housing and brownfield remediation.
With a new year, a new House Speaker and a new Senate President, groups are planning their strategies when it comes to legislative and state support for what they feel are the biggest needs of Ohioans.
“State policies and tools that are sensitive to local context will ensure that all communities will contribute to Ohio’s standing as an economic leader,” said Jason Warner, director of strategic engagement for the Greater Ohio Policy Center.
The GOPC recently met to discuss priorities like housing inventory, public transportation and rail expansion, but at the top of the list for the group is brownfield remediation, a topic legislators have brought to the General Assembly in the past.
“Ohio has hundreds of sites with utility infrastructure, transportation access and nearby workers which are currently unusable,” Warner said.
Brownfields are areas that were built up for industrial or commercial development, but were abandoned, at times with environmental hazards or substances keeping further development from happening on the land.
In the last General Assembly, state Reps. Thomas Hall, R-Madison Twp., and Bride Rose Sweeney, D-Westlake, introduced House Bill 519, which aimed to revive the Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund, a program to provide grants for brownfield cleanup or remediation. The CORF has been inactive since 2013 and was repealed in the state operating budget passed in the 135th General Assembly, according to the Legislative Service Commission.
The bill would have required developers to submit affidavits confirming “that they did not contribute to the release of hazardous substances or petroleum at the brownfield that is being cleaned up or remediated.”
H.B. 519 saw one committee hearing in the House Finance Committee, but was never taken up further, thus it died at the end of the General Assembly term in December. The last two budgets, however, contained funding for the state’s Brownfield Remediation Program, a total of $350 million each in the 2022-2023 and 2024-2025 budgets. GOPC data showed that the BRP has given $659 million to Ohio communities to “assess, cleanup and revitalize brownfields in 86 of 88 counties.”
The U.S. EPA keeps track of brownfields across the country as well, along with assessments and resources in each region.
Hall and Sweeney say they plan to bring back the issue as the new GA begins, with the goal of establishing a “fundamental, permanent funding mechanism.”
“These are the types of issues, I think, most Ohioans want us to be working on,” Sweeney said.
Among other issues the GOPC wants to see from the state is use of underutilized commercial districts and other areas to boost inventory so Ohioans can obtain housing, something the state lacks in terms of sufficient inventory, according to Warner.
“The General Assembly should continue to support programs that encourage private and nonprofit developers to produce homeownership and rental opportunities,” Warner said, adding that the state should also limit the residential purchases by institutional real estate investors.
Supporting Ohio residents also means maintaining roads and transportation options for those residents, though the struggle might grow as Ohio’s population drops.
“In the next 25 years, Ohio is projected to lose 5.7% of its 2020 population,” according to Warner.
That means an aging population still looking to maintain its independence, but fewer ratepayers available to support longterm roadway maintenance costs. Because of that, the state should prioritize projects where they’re most needed, and cut others, the GOPC stated in their policy priorities.
Conservative views
The conservative group Americans for Prosperity-Ohio also released a legislative agenda they called the “Buckeye Blueprint.” The policy agenda focused on three major issues: the economy, education and energy.
The AFP-Ohio started their policy document by saying Ohio “is failing to lead where it counts” in areas like tax reform, spending, education and energy.
The national Americans for Prosperity Action, a super-PAC affiliated with the AFP, spent millions on GOP-backing ads for U.S. Senate races, including the race now-U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno ran against former Sen. Sherrod Brown.
In 2024, AFP-Ohio endorsed, among other Republicans, state Sen. Jerry Cirino of Kirtland, the author of the new Senate Bill 1, a reintroduction of the highly criticized S.B. 83, which seeks to overhaul higher education by banning mandatory diversity training and faculty strikes, along with keeping colleges from taking stands on topics deemed “controversial,” like climate change or abortion.
They top their policy agenda with support for laws that “phase out” income tax and “enhancing the business climate” to “improve its citizens’ financial well-being and regain competitiveness for congressional representation.”
The AFP-Ohio partnered with the Buckeye Institute on a new report laying out what they see as the “best energy policy for Ohio.”
“Affordable energy is essential to Ohio’s economy, where manufacturing accounts for over 15% of the workforce,” the groups stated. “Rising costs are a risk driving manufacturers to relocate, threatening economic growth.”
The best energy policy, in their view, would include eliminating “excessive government regulations” from the federal EPA, ending government subsidies that “damage energy markets,” and taking away a focus on clean energy.
“The reliance on solar and wind, driven by regulations on fossil fuels, raises concerns about creating reliable power and maintaining a stable grid,” the report stated.
The AFP-Ohio also plans to push the Republican supermajority to advance universal open enrollment in public schools along with “school choice” and the removal of “barriers in the EdChoice (private school) voucher system to ensure every child is given the opportunity to choose an education option that fits their unique needs.”
The legislature already expanded voucher eligibility in the previous budget to near universal levels, but the AFP sees more ways to “fund families, maximize flexibility and expand the supply for educational choice as demand continues to increase.”
“Despite the universal availability of EdChoice vouchers, barriers still stand in the way of true education freedom in the Buckeye state,” the policy document states.
The future of Ohio
Other groups are looking at the youngest populations of Ohioans, and prepping for “transformative policy,” partly through the passage of the state budget.
“With the upcoming state budget process, we are seizing this crucial opportunity to ensure that Ohio’s youngest children and their families are at the center of public investment,” Groundwork Ohio president and CEO Lynanne Gutierrez wrote in an email to the public earlier this month.
Groundwork’s policy priorities were spurred on by a “Roadshow Listening Tour” the group did in 13 communities in Ohio. From those conversations, Groundwork came up with budget priorities that include increasing eligibility for Publicly Funded Child Care in Ohio, increased access to public preschools, implementation of “community impact models” for infant mortality reduction, increased access to mental and behavioral health services and support for the educators who provide the young children with their learning experiences.
“Despite diverse geographical and socioeconomic contexts, the fundamental challenges facing families with young children across Ohio – such as access to quality child care, health care and basic needs – are strikingly similar,” the policy report stated. “This underscores a commonality that transcends urban-rural divides and offers opportunities for unified statewide solutions.”
Gov. Mike DeWine is expected to release his executive budget at the beginning of February, after which the Ohio House will introduce a budget bill for hearings. The Ohio Senate is set to hold budget hearings in the spring, with a conference committee of the House and Senate scheduled for June to bring the two budget proposals together with DeWine’s proposals. The deadline for DeWine to sign the budget is June 30.
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