Support for the state wide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medmutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP. Now, with eight locations across the country, Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community. More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 124000 members who worked to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA dot org, Covid cases keep climbing and schools are struggling with the impact. And the state's new voter approved process of drawing maps for elected lawmakers misses its first constitutional test, raising questions about what happens next. All this weekend, the state of Ohio. Welcome to the state of Ohio. I'm Karen Kasler. One in 500 residents of 21 states is dead of COVID 19. That list of states includes Ohio with nearly twenty one thousand residents who have died of Covid since March twenty twenty. And this week, that total includes Republican former state representative Doug Greene of Mount. The Ohio Hospital Association reports just two months ago around Independence Day. Covid hospitalizations were in the low to hundreds, and one in seventy eight patients had Covid every day this week. There have been more than two thousand one hundred people in Ohio hospitals with Covid, with one in eight patients, a Covid positive case. More than seven hundred and fifty are in intensive care. Over a thousand percent increase from the sixty eight ICU patients with Covid in Ohio on July 4th. Last spring, teachers were prioritized for vaccinations, and there was a statewide indoor mask mandate in place, which meant masks in schools. So when school ended and summer started, it appeared Covid was under control. Now, case numbers are as high as they were during last winter surge, and kids and school workers are coming back into those buildings. And while there's been a lot of attention on angry parents who oppose mass mandates in schools, there are many who say they're frustrated and that the numbers show that masks are needed. Statehouse correspondent Jo Ingles reports back to school has been rough for some, especially after a year of occasional shut downs, hybrid classes and virtual learning. The Athens City School District only had 18 the bare minimum of bus drivers to start the year. And then we just had a series of Covid related incidences. So we now have five drivers that have tested positive for Covid and have a six who was identified as a close contact and it's required to quarantine. So when you only have 18 and you're down that many, it makes it difficult to provide transportation for students. And given that we're a partly rural district, we cover about 90 square miles. Not having enough busses to get students to and from school makes it very difficult to have schools open. So we closed schools for this week. So has the Lebanon City School District and the Fairfield Local School District, both in southwest Ohio recently closed the Sandusky city schools has moved middle and high school students to remote learning. Licking Valley High School in central Ohio will also be online. Other districts are reporting high numbers of absences. Nearly 7500 cases among students and staff and many more thousands of kids in the state. And quarantine kids under 12 cannot get Covid shots, and only about a third of those between 12 and 18 years old have been vaccinated . Some districts have changed their mass policies since the beginning of the year. But Gov. Mike DeWine isn't changing his mind. He's adamant that he won't implement another mask mandate. There is not the appetite in this state today for that kind of a mandate. We did it last year with schools. It worked very, very well. There's not the appetite in this state to do that. I do not effectively have the ability to do that. But what I do under a new law, if DeWine implements a massive mandate. Republicans who dominate the legislature could and likely would hold an immediate vote to shut it down. That leaves some parents begging their school districts to implement mask policies. And we have a board of education with no health or medical professionals on it making these decisions. And they're not deferring to the experts. They're saying trust us. And a lot of doctors are saying they feel like their children are in an experiment and the experiments failing. And Tipp City, several parents are speaking out. Lindsay Woodruff says kids who have been exposed to Covid are allowed to remain in class while asymptomatic, but possibly contagious. There are people who just don't really think that this is any worse than the common cold. So maybe they are sending their kids sick. But I think really what it comes down to is people just don't realize how contagious this of strain is. And so if their kid is exposed, they're they're not taking it seriously until their child starts showing symptoms. Carry our blaster says her medically fragile 12 year old son contracted Covid at ATIP City School last week. You know, for the last several years, any time that he gets usually strep throat, he gets pretty bad with his asthma, has to go on steroids. Breathing treatments at home. He's spent several nights at Dayton Children's because of his asthma. And so with Covid, that obviously is the biggest concern, especially with the Delta variant, that that's going to go straight into his lungs. When Nicollet winner decided to put her two kids in the same schools earlier this summer, she thought they would be wearing mask. They have taken away every single protocol except for a little hand sanitizer, and that's about it. I mean, they really don't do much else. We we do mask on the busses, but that's it. My children do go to school masked, but my youngest is the only one in his room, teacher included, who masks. And my oldest is partway through vaccination. He should be wrapping that up hopefully next week. But he's one of very few who actually mask as well. So masks are not required in any of our buildings. In fact, yesterday my youngest told me that he saw a teacher tell students who came in masks that, oh, you don't need to wear that, which is not appropriate because they're not old enough to be vaccinated yet. Some schools have been requiring their students to wear masks from the beginning, like the private school Denise Steeles daughter attends in Columbus. I think it takes a layer of worry and complexity off the table. I don't have to wonder what's happening on a day to day basis. I don't have to be concerned about teachers or faculty or staff, other students. I just know when I send her to school with a ask every day, that's what's going on inside the building. And there's an expectation that everybody's going to comply. But some outspoken parents don't want mask mandates in schools and are showing up at the state house and at school board meetings with their complaints, which have sometimes resulted in angry outbursts and shouting matches between parents and board members. While school leaders are in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation, Woodruff's 10 year old daughter started school in the city public schools, but now she's back at the private school she attended last year. It kind of all came to a head on Friday afternoon when celebrate the first week of school. They were doing some team building exercises outside that required her to make physical contact with their classmates, including holding hands and letting others draw on her back. And she told the teachers, I don't feel safe. I don't feel comfortable doing this. And they I mean, obviously, you can't force a child to do anything. But when you're an authority figure, you don't feel safe as a 10 year old to stand up to your teachers. And she ended up I when I picked her up from school, she was in the middle of an anxiety attac because she did not feel safe at school. Pediatric doctors have said Covid hospitalizations among kids are rising with some children seriously ill and even on ventilators. And while the state's top doc, Ohio Department of Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff, has stressed wearing mask indoors and in schools, he stopped short of calling on DeWine, his boss, to attempt to put another statewide mask mandate in place. Joe Ingles, Statehouse News Bureau. September 1st marked the constitutional deadline by which lawmakers on the panel that will draw the new maps for Ohio House and Senate districts were supposed to vote on them as part of the first time use of the redistricting process that voters approved in twenty fifteen. That deadline came and went not only without a vote, but without proposed maps being released. And there continue to be questions about who's drawing both those maps and the congressional map, especially since one member of Ohio's congressional delegation will lose their job. Statehouse correspondent Andy Chow reports. After 10 public input meetings around the state during which many members were frequently missing, the Ohio Redistricting Commission was in full attendance for a meeting to set rules going forward. Republican and Democratic lawmakers say their caucus staff are each drawing up their own versions of state legislative maps. The Senate Democrats unveiled theirs for the 99 House districts, a map of 54 Republican favored districts and 45 Democratic. That reflects the 2020 vote, which was a 53 percent to 45 percent split with Donald Trump winning. By contrast, there are now 64 Republicans and 35 Democrats in the House. There have never been fewer than 59 Republican state Reps or more than 40 Democrats in the House since the current map was put in place in 2012. The Senate Democrats Senate map has 18 Republican districts and 15 Democratic ones. Some technical updates had to be made to the initial map to reflect that Senate districts that aren't on next year's ballot are protected. Currently, there are 25 Republicans and eight Democrats in the Senate. The number of Republicans has been growing and Democrats dwindling since the current map was put in place in 2012 when there were 23 Republicans and 10 Democrats elected. But there have been no maps unveiled by House Democrats or from majority Republicans at all. House Minority Leader Amelia Sykes raised the question of who is drawing the maps that will eventually be presented by the panel. What is the pleasure of this committee and in this commission? And putting forth a commission map by which we can all talk about are the members of the public can communicate with us about. We heard hours upon hours of testimony of people asking and requesting for that transparency and the ability to comment on the maps. And so I would like us to discuss at some point or have an answer before we leave today as to when the commission will put forth a map that people and members of the public can comment on. For Speaker Bob Kup said because census data didn't arrive until mid-August, the maps are still being developed. I think in this case, being careful and deliberate is a virtue when we're doing something this significant, which will have an impact for hopefully at least a decade. Senate President Matt Huffman said he expects all four caucuses will present maps, and the redistricting commission has received more than 40 submissions from the public. And the point here is that we're getting away from the way this was done in the past. It won't simply be meeting vote and it's over with. There will obviously be considerable hearings on it. And those hearings may change what the commission wants to do in one way or another. So I appreciate the effort by the Senate Democrats. And I'm you know, I think this is the kind of discussion that Senator Psych's and I anticipated when we introduced this in 2014 after a lot of mentions of the census delay, talk of bipartisanship and explanations of the new process by the other panel members. Sykes again asked the question she'd already posed several times. I appreciate all of the commentary and the lectures and the responsibility. I think we all understand our task at hand. But the reality is there is no map put forth by the commission, which is required by the Constitution that the minority party members can vote yes or no on. And my question still remains, at what point and what is the process for us to do that? I think that deserves an answer and a clear answer while missing the September 1st deadline goes against the Constitution. Jen Miller with the League of Women Voters of Ohio said What's more important is the process of drawing the maps. Deadlines matter. What matters more is a solid process that results in maps that serve the people. A 10 year map would require both Democrats to vote yes, along with at least two of the five Republicans. If that can't be reached, a four year map requires a simple majority vote. No announcements have been made about. The congressional map, which the state legislature will draw and one member of Congress will lose their district stories of how Republicans created the congressional map in 2011 secretly in a hotel room in Columbus are a main reason voters approved the change to the new process. Andy Chow, Statehouse News Bureau. One constant of those 10 redistricting meetings was the presence of fair districts Ohio. The group that worked for changes in the map drawing process. Its treasurer is longtime Republican officeholder and administrator Jeff Cabot. I think the reason that I am for fair districts is because I believe that our political discourse has gotten more and more polarized. I think we are having on both sides of the issue more fringe control. And I believe that safe districts where the district is not at risk in the general election, but only is in the primary, drives that further and further apart. So I think it's bad on both sides, and I think it's bad on both parties. Obviously, both parties have participated in this. And whenever they thought they had the crayons, they were you know, it's very difficult to give up power and an advantage. So but the voters of Ohio have spoken clearly a couple of times now, and I think they won fair districts, competitive districts, districts that are drawn not for political purposes, but to keep communities of interest together. What do you think is necessary to make a map, in your words, fair, in your view, fair? So map drawing turns out to be a very difficult thing. I am currently serving as a member of the Columbus City Council Council, Residential District and Commission. They are putting together first time ever maps for the city of Columbus, interestingly enough, in twenty twenty three. So. So I think a fair map is one that basically ignores the politics, but tries to keep communities together. Cities, villages, townships, counties, the way Ohioans have chosen to aggregate themselves and where they've chosen to live and make that be the regional poor districts that their representatives are elected from. We've heard mostly from Democrats who have been cerned about the map drawing process because majority Republicans control both the legislature and also the redistricting commission. You were a Republican. Do you think that Republicans do have the same concerns or do you think that Republicans should, as we've heard from some Republicans, run the process because they're the ones who won? So the script, the scripts can just be passed back and forth, depending upon which partizan charge. Lieutenant now, Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted had a very robust and I think interesting redistricting plan that died several years ago because the Democrats expected that they were going to get to draw the lines next time and they weren't going to give up that potential power. Now, they did not receive that power. And so in hindsight, I think perhaps Armond Budish and others perhaps wish they had gone along with the huge dead plan. But again, they used to say, I've been a Republican for a long, long time. And they used to say people run to the fringes in the primaries, in the center, in the general election. Well, they no longer have to run to the center in the general election because all the districts are stacked and packed and safe. And as I said, both parties have done the same thing. If we'd be if we're sitting in another state having another conversation, we're just substitute R for D and exchange the scripts, the fair districts or fair districts. Ohio has a mapping competition where people can submit a congressional map by September 15th and could win a share of a thousand dollars in prizes. Well, it's an interesting exercise and really can show people how difficult the process is to draw maps. Does it give people false hope? I mean, the map of state lawmakers will put in place will almost certainly be tipped toward Republicans. It won't be completely nonpartisan. Well, any time you're dealing with political elections, there's nothing nonpartizan about it. I mean, that's how the system works. I think there are many other interesting things that some of us would like to consider. Ranked choice voting is something that I'd like to think about sometime. Maybe its day will come. I don't know. But do you think people should potentially lower their expectations about what they might see in a congressional map? Because we go from 16 districts to 15, somebody is losing their job and it may not be the congressman that a person wants or congresswoman that a person wants to see lose their job. I don't think we should lower our expectations about government at all. I think we should have high expectations for our government and for them to do the job that we send them there to do. And if if high expectations means we're going to be disappointed, then so be it. But I think we should have high expectations. I think we should have a bipartisan plan. I think we should have a 10 year map. And I hope that's what we get. Among those who spoke out at those redistricting meetings is former Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper, who has been pushing the redrawing of maps as the most important public matter that elected officials will deal with this year. It's a shocking level of hypocrisy and just open willingness to violate Ohio, the Ohio Constitution. And these each of these people took an oath to begin this process, to not just follow the constitution generally, but this particular process had 70 percent of the voters approved only a couple of years ago, and they're just egregiously violating it. And by the way, the excuse that, oh, the census data came late, that's nonsense. This is exactly what happened 10 years ago. And we know this because public records requests were made. The schedule was very clear 10 years ago that they had the maps done well in advance. But the schedule said very specifically that part of what they need to do was hold the maps in the can until the last minute. That's what's happening. When you spoke to the redistricting commission meeting in Cincinnati, you specifically asked some members of the commission, including State Auditor Keith Faber and Secretary of State Frank Rose. If there had been private meetings and reporters have asked if there have been private meetings, we'd been told that there aren't any private meetings other than the caucus meeting to develop maps like the one presented this week by the Ohio Senate Democrats. So do you have. What evidence do you have? What proof do you have that there are these private meetings going on and that the process is not that much different than it was in 2011, though voters voted overwhelmingly to change it. Right. So they're these guys know better. You know, if there is one person drawing a map, which they are doing. We know that someone is drawing a map in some room somewhere. That's obviously happening. They've admitted it. They've said they have said Bob Coupet said they're being very diligent, drawing that map. If that person is literally briefing each member in separate meetings, but telling them, here's the map, here's what it looks like. All of that by the law is a meeting together. And you can't as a majority do that behind closed doors in Ohio that you know, Keith Faber, again, when local governments do that, they say you're violating the law. But these guys are doing it for drawing the entire map of Ohio for 10 years. It's it's egregious. And I think if you read closely, they're not even denying it anymore. They they're you know, they want to make this they just want to head down, get through it for as long as they can, put the map out there, get it done. That's what they did 10 years ago. That's the training they're given. And there's training programs on how to do this. But at this point, they're not denying it. They're saying, yes, there's a map out there. We're being very careful. The idea that there's some person doing a map in, none of these guys are actually being told what it is, is ludicrous. One other thing I said at that hearing, a bunch of them never showed up to the public meetings. Well, that's because that's not where the work is being done and they know it. The work is being done on some computer somewhere that they won't tell us where and they're being briefed clearly. It sounds like this is all a setting up toward a challenge in court to whatever maps are produced, because I think a lot of people, possibly including you, are very suspicious of the maps that will come out, will be overly partizan. Is that the case? Is this a situation where these maps, whatever's produced, will be challenged in court? And isn't that part of it? And won't that make things worse? Because it will delay the whole process of getting things ready for next year's primaries and general election? Yeah, but the Ohio voting, the Ohio voter spoke. The language is clear that there is absolutely no way that a hyper partizan map should exist for next year. And I believe and I have faith in this Kernohan House Supreme Court, it's balanced court Chief Justice O'Connor voted against the last attempt to gerrymander. She lost that vote for three. And there are far more rules now than there were 10 years ago. And their actions, because of those rules, their actions, I think, are far more clearly in violation. Again, the language says the price, the map should not be unduly partizan. Everything they are doing right now is unduly partizan. If if those five are drawing maps as one party and not including the other two, that alone is unduly partizan. That is not how it's supposed to work after this change. I think Frank LaRoche, Keith Faber, Mike DeWine should be deposed. On what they knew and who is drawing what when. Because all of that will go to a process that is unduly partizan. The Ohio Redistricting Commission has said it has until September 15th to adopt the map for Ohio House and Senate districts. The congressional district map deadline is September 30th, and that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television. Thanks for watching. Please check out our Web site at State News dot org. And you can follow us and the show on Facebook and Twitter. Happy Labor Day. And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio. Support for the state wide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual. Providing more than one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medd Mut. dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP. Now, with eight locations across the country, Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community. More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 124000 members who worked to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA dot org.