They’re back
Medicaid fraud is on Republican state lawmakers’ minds as they’ve resumed meeting in Columbus following a break for the primary election.
House Speaker Matt Huffman said he wants to see the state take action on the issue by June 10, the last scheduled legislative session before summer break. On Wednesday, he excoriated state Medicaid officials and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine after a series of articles by The Daily Wire, a conservative publication, questioned the billing legitimacy of companies providing home health aide services. The series focused narrowly on businesses operating in an area of Columbus with a high Somali-American population.
Huffman referenced several unsuccessful attempts by legislators to pass laws increasing oversight of Medicaid, the state and federally run health care program for low-income and disabled Ohioans. DeWine vetoed them, first in 2019 and again in 2021.
“We are now here trying to pick up the pieces of what I would say, at best, was patently negligent execution of the laws of the state of Ohio by the director of the Department of Medicaid,” Huffman said.
Hours later, DeWine issued a press release announcing a slew of anti-fraud initiatives, including asking the Trump Administration for permission to impose a six-month moratorium on approving new home health aide and home hospice Medicaid providers. Even before these changes, DeWine said Ohio “has long been a national leader in fighting Medicaid fraud.”
When the county keeps the profit
The Ohio Supreme Court agreed to accept an eyebrow-raising case this week.
Three homeowners in Cuyahoga County fell behind on their property tax bills, leading officials there to foreclose on their homes. One debt was for just $620.
State law calls on the county to sell the houses at auction, take what it’s owed, and distribute any surplus to the homeowners. But in all three cases, the homes didn’t clear the minimum auction price. So instead, the county won title to the houses in full, even though they’re worth more than the tax debt.
A Cuyahoga County spokesperson didn’t answer when asked how frequently these forfeitures occur, but plaintiffs’ lawyers said it’s on the scale of “thousands.”
The seven justices will set the pace of the case. But their acceptance means the political hot button issue of property taxes is on their docket in an election year.
Watch this space as the docket develops, and read details in the meantime from Jake here.
Attorney General Dave Yost leaves post for new job
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced last week that he’d be stepping down from his post in June to take a new top job at the Alliance Defending Freedom, an influential conservative legal interest group.
Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday, at a press conference where Yost was not present, announced he’d name current Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson as replacement until the winner of November’s election takes office.
The decision puts a close DeWine lieutenant into the office – rather than promoting an existing AG employee who could keep things business as usual. It also ends speculation about a musical chairs scenario where DeWine slides the current auditor/future attorney general hopeful, Keith Faber, into the office, starting a cascade effect to DeWine’s liking.
It’s unusual to see an elected constitutional officeholder like Yost step down in the middle of a term.
Taking questions from reporters, DeWine said he’s not “disappointed” in Yost and said he doesn’t think leaving a term early disrespects the voters. And he said Wilson has proven himself both as a prosecutor in Clark County and as overseer of the ODPS, including a hands-on role after the East Palestine train derailment.
Jake’s two takeaways from a press conference with DeWine and Wilson on Monday:
- DeWine, who has now appointed his ex-lieutenant governor as a U.S. Senator and also tapped a state Supreme Court justice and now an attorney general, remains a power broker in Columbus
- Wilson, when asked, declined to answer whether he’d continue the office’s high-profile bribery prosecution of FirstEnergy’s ex-CEO.
Sign of the times
The leader of a prominent state conservative Christian lobbying organization said Wednesday that he still wants to sit down with Columbus city planners to better understand why they rejected his group’s application to build three large aluminum crosses on its Capitol Square building’s roof.
Center for Christian Virtue President Aaron Baer said his organization planned to build the crosses when it bought the building, a former Columbus Dispatch building located across the street from the Ohio Statehouse, for $1.25 million in 2021.
He said it would be “clearly unconstitutional” if it turns out rejection had something to do with CCV’s mission or the crosses themselves, hinting at a potential lawsuit.
“We believe it’s absolutely our right to proclaim our religious beliefs on the building that we bought and own, in what we think is the most beautiful symbol in human history,” Baer said. “So we’re going to continue to work with them, and we fully expect at some point we’ll be putting those crosses up on our building.”
During an April 28 public meeting, Columbus’ Downtown Commission rejected CCV’s application to build the three crosses. Planners suggested CCV propose some kind of wall sign instead to better comply with downtown design guidelines.
Baer discussed the sign controversy as he gave Statehouse reporters a tour of the CCV’s building on Wednesday. The group just completed a $2 million renovation that reflects its broadening ambitions in education and business advocacy, adding an event space, a podcast recording studio, a classroom-style meeting room and more.
The wisdom of crowds
Andrew has been interested in whether betting websites like Kalshi can help predict election outcomes as political polling has become rarer and less reliable here.
As it turns out, the website batted 1,000 in higher-profile races while whiffing on most of the more obscure Democratic primaries.
Kalshi’s odds correctly highlighted clear favorites in several high-profile, contested Republican races in Ohio – predicting wins by Vivek Ramaswamy in the governor’s race as well as by the GOP nominees in three Democratic-held districts that Republicans are hoping to win in November: Ohio’s 1st, 9th and 13th Congressional Districts respectively.
The website also correctly favored two Democrats with quiet national backing in two Republican-held districts that could be long-shot targets for Democrats: Brian Poindexter in the 7th District and Kristina Knickerbocker in the 10th District.
On the other hand, the website’s track record was much spottier in lower-profile Democratic primaries that generated less betting activity and, we guess, less collective wisdom.
The most notable whiff was in the Democratic primary for Ohio’s 15th Congressional District.
The site had pegged Adam Miller, a former state lawmaker, as a clear favorite, projecting him to have 90% odds of winning. Don Leonard, a former Ohio State University professor, narrowly won the race instead. The district is on national Democrats’ radar as a potential pickup opportunity if everything goes their way.
The site fared worse when bettors tried to pick winners of Democratic primaries in safe Republican districts. The odds-on favorites lost three of six of these Democratic primaries: the 5th, 6th and 14th Districts. The betting for these races still somehow attracted $52,884 in bets, despite being the political equivalent of betting on the Puppy Bowl.
The odds were muddled in the 8th District, although winner Vanessa Enoch emerged as the odds-on favorite late in the race.
And if you were one of those who went with the Kalshi odds in the 2nd District Democratic primary, backing Jennifer Mazzuckelli over Todd Wilson, or Jerrad Christian over the rest of the field in the 12th District, congratulations.
To the rest of you, there’s always next time.
In the news
Steady as she goes: Roughly 90% of Ohioans who requested absentee ballots returned them ahead of the May 5 primary election. As Andrew writes, that return rate is roughly on par with past mid-term primary elections in 2018 and 2022, despite the passage of a new law that requires ballots to arrive by Election Day to count. Previously, straggling ballots would still count as long as they arrived by the Saturday after the election and carried a pre-Election Day postmark.
‘It’s about control’: More than 150 critics pushed back Tuesday against Ohio Republicans’ latest legislative effort to reform the state’s public colleges and universities. Amy Morona explains House Bill 698 ties college funding to compliance with Senate Bill 1, the sweeping higher education overhaul law passed in 2025. Only seven people testified in person before lawmakers ended the hearing.
This post was updated to include information about Kalshi odds in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District primary
