The topics that count will be the state share of the federal-state Medicaid health-care program for low-income Ohioans, and state aid to public schools.
And there will also be unavoidable interplay between any debate on state aid to K-12 schools and rising real estate taxes.
Reining in property tax collections means the General Assembly must allot more state money (from Ohio’s income and sales taxes, for example) for local schools – or a district must ask its voters to boost property taxes. And the latter would be a very tough sell.
In that connection, there are two complications. First, House Speaker Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, ardently supports tuition vouchers – using state money to help parents pay private-school tuition for their children.
Meanwhile legislators should fully the final two years of the Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding Plan, a blueprint drawn by former House Speaker Robert Cupp, a Lima Republican, and former state Rep. John Patterson, a Democrat from Ashtabula County’s Jefferson.
Their plan, if fully funded, offers the only realistic chance Ohioans have had in years to end decades of short-funded public education.
Ohio no longer is a Currier and Ives print of jaunty rural life. Instead, Ohio is in a tooth-and-claw fight with every other state to land living-wage jobs for its people. And that requires great public schools.
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Republicans running for governor in 2026: Attorney General David Yost, of Columbus; Cincinnati-born tech zillionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, of Upper Arlington; and Heather Brazell-Hill, of Morgan County’s Malta, a former board member of the countywide Morgan Local School District.
Democrats running for governor: Amy Acton, M.D., of Bexley, former director of Ohio’s Health Department.
Republicans running for an unexpired U.S. Senate term: Appointed U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, of Upper Arlington. Democrats seeking Husted’s Senate seat: ... crickets ...
Republicans running to succeed Yost as attorney general: State Auditor Keith Faber, of Celina. Democrats running for attorney general: ... crickets ...
Republicans running to succeed Faber as state auditor: Secretary of State Frank LaRose, of Upper Arlington. Democrats running for auditor: ... crickets ...
Republicans running to succeed LaRose as secretary of state, a critically important job because it stewards Ohio elections: State Treasurer Robert C. Sprague, of Findlay.
Democrats running for secretary of state: Bryan Hambley, M.D., of Warren County’s Loveland, an oncologist at University of Cincinnati Health. Hambley campaigned in 2024 for passage of statewide Issue 1 – sabotaged by LaRose –to forbid gerrymandering in Ohio.
Republicans running to succeed Sprague as treasurer: Former state Sen. Niraj Antani, of Miamisburg, and state Sen. Kristina Roegner, of Hudson. Democrats running for treasurer: ... crickets ...
As Republicans tumble like acrobats into Ohio’s center ring, Democrats loll on the sidelines. What’s happened to the party of John Glenn and Richard F. Celeste, of Howard M. Metzenbaum and John J. Gilligan, of Louis Stokes and Stephanie Tubbs Jones, of Vern Riffe and Harry Meshel, and of Sherrod Brown, who long and ably represented Ohioans in Washington?
One-party rule imperils Ohioans’ wallets and their treasury (think the FirstEnergy bailout, or the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow). Somebody needs to step up. Till that happens, Democrats will keep handing Ohio to Republicans – by default.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.
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