Letters to the Editor: Saturday, Aug. 11, 2024

As a registered nurse, I am concerned that the Republican majority on our Ohio Supreme Court put our health at risk. In the opinion authored by Justice Joe Deters, the majority absolved a restaurant of liability for causing a severe injury to a customer who ingested a “boneless” chicken wing. Justice Deters expects us to accept that “boneless” is merely a cooking style.

Justice Deters opinion is further evidence he is not qualified to sit on our state’s highest court. He was appointed to his seat by family friend, Governor Mike DeWine and has no previous judicial experience. Now he is switching seats to run against Justice Melody Stewart. Justice Stewart has 18 years of judicial experience and is the first Black woman elected to Ohio’s Supreme Court.

The decision is an additional example of the Ohio Supreme Courts majority to put the interests of business over the public’s well being. We need to keep Justice Stewart and fellow Democrat Justice Mike Donnelly on the court and elect Judge Lisa Forbes. Last year Ohio citizens chose to protect reproductive freedom in our state constitution. We need Donnelly, Forbes, and Stewart to protect that right on the Ohio Supreme Court.

- Carol Roe, JD, MSN, RN, Miamisburg

The reversal of Chevron Deference is a good start. By a 6-3 vote at the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1984 Chevron decision — and in doing so, reined in federal agencies’ unchecked power to make law without congressional oversight.

Many pundits and legal experts in the media have not focused on the fact that post-Chevron much administrative power remains in the federal bureaucracies. This monumental decision solves a portion of the problem by removing the judicial or “deference” portion of agencies’ power to interpret their own laws. Unelected and unaccountable, they still have significant power to usurp the legislative role of Congress and make laws, rules, and regulations that Congress itself should be doing.

Reversal of the Chevron deference doctrine was a great first step toward deconstructing the administrative fourth branch of the federal government. However, there is more that can be done to right-size our bloated federal government, including having state legislatures call a Convention of States to reclaim their sovereign powers under Article V of our Constitution. In a June 2024 poll of likely registered Ohio voters by the Susquehanna Polling and Research firm, 76% of representative Ohioans supported calling for a Convention of States to limit the power and scope of the federal government. So far, 19 states have called for a state amending convention, with 15 more needed to reach the 34-state threshold to call a 50-state convention. It’s time for our Ohio state legislature to join those other 19 states in calling for a convention.

- Bill Scott, Dayton