In The Columbus Dispatch, Brianna McKinnon, a special-education teacher and a military spouse whose family is stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, urges the Ohio General Assembly to adopt the policies in Senate Bill 7, writing, “Ohio should no longer ask its military families to make yet another sacrifice in service to the country. The Air Force asks its men and women in uniform to “Aim High,” and the Army once challenged young recruits to “Be All You Can Be.” Ohio should not stand in the way of military spouses heeding that advice and accepting that challenge at home or at work.”

As the Ohio House State and Local Government Committee prepares to issue its first review of Ohio occupational licenses, The Buckeye Institute issued its newest policy brief, Opening Doors: Occupational Licensing Reform in Ohio After Senate Bill 255, where it identified 30 licenses that the state can eliminate or where training hours can be reduced, saving Ohioans hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, and countless hours in training. 

On November 6, The Buckeye Institute, along with the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at The Ohio State University, and the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission hosted a forum to examine the past and future outlook of criminal justice reforms in the state of Ohio and explore the state of criminal justice reform at the national level. 
 

Greg R. Lawson, research fellow at The Buckeye Institute, testified on Wednesday before the Ohio House State and Local Government Committee on the policies in House Bill 264, which would focus taxpayer dollars on Ohio’s critical infrastructure needs. Lawson urged policymakers to “embrace any effort to stretch local tax dollars and reduce fiscal burdens on taxpayers and local governments whenever possible.” 

On Tuesday, The Buckeye Institute joined Representative Jena Powell, Representative George Lang, Senator Kristina Roegner, Senator Rob McColley, as well as Arizona’s Goldwater Institute in calling for Ohio to adopt full occupational licensing reciprocity, which will remove needless occupational licensing barriers for Ohioans.

Andrew J. Kidd, Ph.D., an economist with The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center, commented on newly released employment data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, saying, “With recent reports that Ohio’s economy could fall into a recession by the spring of 2020, it will be important to watch job creation over the next several months to determine if October’s job losses are a blip or the start of a decline.”

In The Columbus Dispatch, Buckeye’s Rea Hederman looks at how Ohio policymakers need to adapt and find new strategies to fight the opioid crisis, writing, “Even as high-profile trials for prior misconduct dominate news headlines, civic leaders and policymakers should focus less on assigning blame for the past and more on winning victories and limiting casualties in the future.”

Daniel J. Dew, legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute’s Legal Center, testified Wednesday before the Ohio House Commerce and Labor Committee on the policies in House Bill 263, which reduce needless occupational licensing restrictions that make it harder for ex-offenders to find jobs after they are released from prison. In his testimony, Dew said that narrowly tailored restrictions “would help Ohio grant more licenses to worthy applicants while protecting public safety.”

Greg R. Lawson, research fellow at The Buckeye Institute, submitted written to the Ohio Senate Government and Agency Review Committee on the policies in House Bill 46, which would secure Ohio’s progress on transparency and government accountability by codifying the Ohio Checkbook initiative, writing, “Showing Ohio taxpayers how their elected officials spend their hard-earned tax dollars helps citizens better understand what their government does and how it operates. ”

Daniel J. Dew, legal fellow in The Buckeye Institute’s Legal Center, submitted public comment on the Ohio Supreme Court’s proposed changes to Criminal Rule 46, which governs how Ohio treats people who have been accused of a crime but are awaiting trial. In his comments, Dew praised Ohio’s Supreme Court and noted that the proposed change would make “clear that financial conditions ‘shall be related solely to the defendant’s risk of non-appearance,’” in court and not used as a punishment for people who don’t have enough money to be released while they await trail.