The morning newsletter of the Ohio Capital Journal
Reporting for the People
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By David DeWitt | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning Ohio!
Food insecurity is one of the biggest issues on college campuses, yet is often invisible, according to experts. Almost every college campus in Ohio has a food pantry, but each one is different and a bipartisan bill would create a new hunger-free campus program.
Prepared boxes cover the floor of a food pantry. (States Newsroom file photo.)
By Megan Henry
“The hope at the end of the day is that every college and university in Ohio, private and public, would have a robust program,” said Ohio state Rep. Sean Brennan, D-Parma. “Hungry students don’t do as well academically.”
By Reilly Ackerman
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Department of Education and Workforce Director Stephen Dackin have announced the launch of a statewide Attendance Dashboard in an effort to combat chronic absenteeism in K-12 public schools.
By Morgan Trau, WEWS
A state lawmaker, fed up with not knowing how to watch Cleveland Cavaliers games without subscribing to a dozen services, is looking into drafting legislation to prevent exclusive streaming deals for professional sports.
COMMENTARY
The Gavel outside the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original article.)
Republican Ohio Supreme Court makes Ohio first in nation to allow political endorsements from judges
By Marilou Johanek
Without being asked, and without public hearings or briefs, five Republican Ohio Supreme Court justices engaged in flagrant judicial activism and decided that Ohio judges can participate in partisan politics and make political endorsements, including for prosecutors, sheriffs and lawmakers.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Robbie Sequeira
Eviction filings fell in 2025 for the second straight year in the cities and states tracked in a new report — areas home to roughly a third of the country’s renters — though some of those places saw increases.
By Kelcie Moseley-Morris
Speaking with active-duty service members about their experiences with accessing abortion has become more difficult in the current political environment, say researchers, who also confront long-standing barriers.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Lindsey Toomer, Colorado Newsline
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear another case from Colorado involving the balance of state anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people and religious exemptions for groups that want to receive public funds but still exclude LGBTQ+ children and parents.
NATIONAL NEWS
By Jonathan Shorman
Voting rights groups launched a lawsuit Tuesday against the Trump Justice Department’s efforts to sweep up sensitive American voter data. While Republican officials in other states refused, Ohio Sec. of State Frank LaRose has given the justice department personal info for 8 million Ohio voters.
By Ashley Murray
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection tariff refund system went live Monday, marking what small business advocates call a “complex” first step to recoup $166 billion in import taxes accrued under President Trump's emergency tariffs, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down.
By Ariana Figueroa
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will step down from her post, the Trump administration announced Monday, following multiple reports alleging work misconduct including misuse of funds and more.
By Jacob Fischler
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the Trump administration’s approach to energy production Monday, as Democrats on a U.S. House Appropriations panel accused the department of kowtowing to oil and gas interests at the expense of renewable energy.
WEDNESDAY WISDOM
“There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”
-Maya Angelou
CATCHING OUR EYE
Going nuclear on home rule? Cleveland.com’s Anna Staver reports, “Who decides? Ohio lawmakers eye limits on local say over nuclear plants.”
As tech companies increasingly turn to nuclear energy to power their artificial intelligence systems, some Ohio lawmakers are considering stripping local governments of the ability to block new plants.
“Given the importance of baseload energy, I think there needs to be one set of standard rules across the state,” said Rep. Roy Klopfenstein, a Paulding County Republican and chairman of the House Energy Committee.Ted Carter. Sheridan Hendrix, Emma Wozniak, and Max Filby report for The Columbus Dispatch, “Ohio State releases investigation into former president Ted Carter.”
Ohio State University has released a report summarizing its findings in its investigation of former university president Ted Carter.
The 50-page report details the investigation into Carter's downturn. Sources said there was no misuse of university resources or funding.ICE in Ohio schools. The Dayton Daily News’ Jen Balduf reports, “Gratis police chief, officer on leave after ICE ‘wellness checks’ at Cincinnati schools.”
The Preble County village of Gratis placed its police chief and another officer on administrative leave after they participated in a federal law enforcement operation at Cincinnati schools.Springfield. In an opinion column in the Columbus Dispatch, Viles Dorsainvil writes, “We found home in Springfield after terror. Save us from Trump's cowardly bullying.”
Springfield came together then, and we’ll do it again now, because no amount of cowardly bullying from Trump can undo a central truth: If one of us is in trouble, we are all in trouble.Shadow docket. The New York Times reports, “Secret memos obtained by The New York Times illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine “shadow docket” rulings on presidential power.”
In public, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has cultivated a reputation for care and caution. The papers reveal a different side of him. At a critical moment for the country and the court, the papers show, he acted as a bulldozer in pushing to stop Mr. Obama’s plan to address the global climate crisis.
When colleagues warned the chief justice that he was proposing an unprecedented move, he was dismissive. “I recognize that the posture of this stay request is not typical,” he wrote. But he argued that the Obama plan, which aimed to regulate coal-fired plants, was “the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the power sector,” and too big, costly and consequential for the court not to act immediately.
In the Trump era, he and the other conservative justices have repeatedly empowered the president through their shadow docket rulings. By contrast, the papers reveal a court wielding those same powers to block Mr. Obama. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. warned that if the court failed to stop the president, its own “institutional legitimacy” would be threatened.
The court’s liberals pushed back, but compared with their recent slashing dissents, they were not especially forceful, mostly confining their arguments to procedures and timing.
The papers expose what critics have called the weakness at the heart of the shadow docket: an absence of the kind of rigorous debate that the justices devote to their normal cases.
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
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