The morning newsletter of the Ohio Capital Journal
Reporting for the People
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By David DeWitt | Editor-in-Chief
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Ohio electric bills are among the fastest-rising in the United States. As they grow, the CEO of one utility is by far the best-paid in the country.
An electricity meter. (Stock photo from Getty Images.)
By Marty Schladen
In February, Ohioans’ electricity bills were up 22% compared to a year earlier. Meanwhile, according to a new report by the Energy & Policy Institute, CEOs of the four electric utilities serving Ohio made a combined $81 million last year.
By Megan Henry
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week to decide if the Trump administration can end protected status for Haitian and Syrian nationals. With the court seemingly likely to strip legal status from Haitians, the impacts in Ohio will be profound.
By Nick Evans
The Ohio Supreme Court has waded into a dispute over submetering — dealing a blow to the third-party companies managing electricity service and billing at some apartment complexes.
By Susan Tebben
The Ohio Supreme Court this week ruled that a woman does not have parenting rights to children born to her same-sex partner under Ohio law, and that an appellate court applied incorrect logic in wondering what the rights would have been if the couple had been married.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski, Canary Media
A group fighting to uphold an Ohio county’s ban on renewable energy has significant financial ties to individuals and organizations that promote fossil fuels, as a campaign finance report filed this week reveals.
By Morgan Trau, WEWS
With the 2026 primary coming up shortly, we created a full candidate guide with everything you need to know about the May 5 primary election.
COMMENTARY
Ohio Republican Treasurer Robert Sprague. (Photo by Justin Merriman/Getty Images)
By Marilou Johanek
In a new ad, Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, who is looking to play musical chairs with statewide office and become Secretary of State, displays open partisanship dripping with disdain for Democratic voters, and spreads false election fraud hysteria.
STATELINE
The big challenges and policy issues that cross state lines.
By Kevin Hardy
After costly heating bills this winter, consumers shouldn’t expect relief this summer, projections for household utility costs show. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association projects an 8.5% increase from last year, nearly 37% higher than in 2020.
By Tim Henderson
A quarter of immigration arrests since August were labeled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as “collateral,” a type of arrest and detention that’s been challenged in court as an end run around civil rights.
THE RUNDOWN
News from other states
By Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Illuminator
Louisiana’s elected Republican leaders are debating whether to call off the May 16 primary elections for the state’s six U.S. House seats after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s existing map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
NATIONAL NEWS
By Jacob Fischler
The U.S. House approved a five-year farm bill Thursday that keeps intact major cuts to hunger programs from the Trump/Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as members attempt to update major agriculture and nutrition policy after three years of extensions.
By Jennifer Shutt
U.S. House Republicans adopted their budget resolution Wednesday night, clearing the way for the party to pass a bill in the coming weeks that will provide tens of billions in additional funding for immigration enforcement.
By Jonathan Shorman
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the federal Voting Rights Act sent Black Democrats in the U.S. House reeling on Wednesday, as Republicans could gerrymander them out of office and limit the ability of Black voters to elect candidates in the future.
By Jennifer Shutt
State officials say they need more information from the Trump administration before they can fully implement new requirements for Medicaid, according to a survey released Thursday by KFF and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.
By Jennifer Shutt
President Donald Trump signed a bill Thursday that will fund almost every agency in the Department of Homeland Security for the next five months, ending the shutdown that began in mid-February.
By Ashley Murray
The man who allegedly targeted President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner agreed in federal court Thursday to remain jailed as the Department of Justice continues its investigation, including examining ballistics to prove a single shot fired at a Secret Service agent came from the defendant’s weapon.
SCIENCE FRIDAY
Scientists have long assumed our universe would continue on for trillions of years, but a new study presents a much shorter life span for the cosmos: Our universe might last only another 33 billion years. Read more from Livescience.com
CATCHING OUR EYE
Prediction market ban. Politico reports, “Senate bans senators from prediction market trading.”
The Senate Thursday unanimously voted to ban senators and their staff from trading on prediction markets, a practice that has come under growing scrutiny on Capitol Hill in recent months.
The resolution, spearheaded by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), prohibits senators and staff from using prediction markets. It goes into effect immediately.Rural outreach. The Statehouse News Bureau’s Jo Ingles reports, “Once again, Democrats aim to reach out to rural voters in Ohio. But will it work?”
The midterm elections often go well for the party not in power. With that and low approval ratings for President Trump, political analysts are predicting a blue wave across the country this fall. And Ohio Democrats are hoping they can also make inroads in rural areas to try to win in November.
The party’s rural caucus recently put out a report on findings from community meetings in small towns and agricultural areas throughout Ohio. And they hope it will show them the way.More Ohio gerrymandering? Cleveland.com’s Sabrina Eaton reports, “Could Ohio’s Black congressional districts be targets after Supreme Court ruling on Voting Rights Act?”
A landmark Supreme Court ruling issued Wednesday could reshape congressional maps across the country — including in Ohio — after the justices sharply limited the reach of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that has protected minority congressional districts for six decades…
The consequences could reach well beyond Louisiana. University of Akron political scientist David Cohen called it “an absolute disaster for minority representation in the U.S. House.” Minority voters tend to overwhelmingly support Democrats.
“In an attempt to maintain their majority, scores of red states, including Ohio, will now look to carve up majority-minority congressional districts currently represented by Black or Hispanic lawmakers, spreading voters of color into different red districts thus muzzling their political voices,” Cohen predicted.Homeless Ohio school students. The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Grace Tucker reports, “Cincinnati Public Schools opens safe sleep lot for homeless students.”
After weeks of delays, Cincinnati Public Schools' safe sleep lot for homeless students is opening Thursday, April 30.
A first-of-its-kind effort in the state known to the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, the project offers 12 parking spaces at William Howard Taft Elementary School to families living out of their vehicles. The initiative is meant to aid a population of homeless students at CPS that has nearly doubled since 2015.
THE POD
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.
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