In a new policy brief, Universal Licensing Reciprocity: How to Welcome Workers to Ohio, Buckeye’s Greg R. Lawson outlines why Ohio should adopt universal occupational licensing reciprocity, writing, “Opening the door to universal licensing reciprocity will make Ohio more attractive to already-licensed professionals, eliminate superfluous and expensive burdens on newcomers, and continue the ongoing effort to end the ‘Mother-may-I?’ approach to earning a living in Ohio.”
 

When state governments run surpluses, the temptation to spend is almost irresistible. Rea S. Hederman Jr. of The Buckeye Institute joins Caleb O. Brown on the CATO Daily Podcast to discuss what should happen to those excess tax dollars.
 

In The Blade, Buckeye’s Greg Lawson urges the Toledo City Council avoid adding new occupational licenses for drywall professionals, writing, “City council’s proposal to license drywall professionals will do little to protect the health and safety of the citizens, and a city license, which compels competent drywall installers to pay a fee, will only make it more difficult for people to gain employment.” 
 

In The Des Moines Register, Buckeye’s Andrew J. Kidd, Ph.D.; and John Hendrickson, with Tax Education Foundation Iowa, look at pro-growth strategies that Iowa policymakers can pursue that will allow Iowans to keep more of their hard-earned money. The two write, “State policymakers should take full advantage of Iowa’s economic strength and surpluses to pursue pro-growth tax reforms—without delay…Now is the time to act to bring about reforms that can propel the state, along with its families and businesses, forward economically and make Iowa a national leader in good tax policy.”

In The Columbus Dispatch, Buckeye’s Andrew J. Kidd, Ph.D., looks at two innovative solutions policymakers can implement to help make Ohio a more attractive place to live and start a business, which would help reverse Ohio’s negative economic trends. Kidd writes, “policymakers cannot maintain the status quo and expect Ohio to turn around economically.”

On Monday, The Buckeye Institute unveiled its updated public salary databases which includes salary information through 2018 for public employees in Ohio’s K-12 public schools, state employees, Ohio’s public universities, and for local governments in Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown. With more than 17 million visits to its salary database, Buckeye has been recognized as a pioneer in increasing government transparency.

Daniel J. Dew, a legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute’s Legal Center, submitted public comments 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. Dew outlined changes to the rule that would “further the commission’s stated goals” as outlined in the Task Force to Examine the Ohio Bail System’s report.

The Buckeye Institute, which filed the first significant post-Janus First Amendment labor-law challenge in the Supreme Court of the United States, on Thursday announced its filing of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in Reisman v. Associated Faculties of the University of Maine (AFUM). The Buckeye Institute represents Professor Reisman, and has repeatedly called for an end to laws that force public-sector employees like him to accept compelled union representation—particularly when the person is not a member of said union.

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, “November’s jobs report brought some Christmas cheer with 6,300 new private sector jobs, the second-best job growth month of the year. And with the unemployment rate holding at 4.2 percent, this month is a bright spot amid a year of relatively slow job growth.”

The Buckeye Institute, along with other prominent national scholars and think tanks, filed an amicus brief on Tuesday in Salgado v. the United States urging the United States Supreme Court to hold the government accountable under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act when it unjustly seizes private property.