Without a quick deal to re-open the federal government, funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is scheduled to lapse on Saturday.
State officials are considering what they can do – if anything – to ensure that Ohioans who rely on the program don’t go hungry.
Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman told reporters Wednesday he has explored giving extra money to food banks, schools or faith-based organizations as potential options. Whatever happens, he said it won’t be a quick fix.
About 1.4 million Ohioan’s are enrolled in SNAP, which provides food aid to the poor.
“Standing up the programs to help us in this current storm is going to take a little bit of time,” Huffman said. “But I think that’s what we have to look at if we get to Oct. 31 and the Senate hasn’t acted.”
Huffman also called on U.S. Senate Democrats to end the shutdown, which began on Oct. 1. So far, Democrats say they’ll only fund the government if Republicans agree to spend extra money to prevent premium spikes for people on the Obamacare health insurance markets, and to reverse future Medicaid cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill.
State Democrats, meanwhile, have called on Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to declare an emergency and set aside $100 million for emergency food aid. They also say DeWine should recall National Guard members from their detail in Washington, D.C., to help distribute aid at state food banks.
“A good lawyer tells you why you can’t do something,” said House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, of Cincinnati. “A great lawyer figures out how you can. A great leader is going to figure out how to feed these kids and how to feed families across Ohio, not why we can’t feed them.”
The federal debate spilled onto the legislative floor in Columbus on Wednesday. Ohio Senate Democrats tried to include SNAP funding in an unrelated spending bill. But Republicans shot it down, arguing the move is fiscally irresponsible.
It’s unclear what DeWine might have planned as a contingency. Dan Tierney, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said the easiest way to fix the problem would be for the U.S. Senate to pass a new permanent budget or a temporary measure that will re-open the government.
“Any state solution is a temporary bandage,” Tierney said.
Andrew reached out to the two main candidates running to replace DeWine in the November 2026 election, Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, to see what they think
Ramaswamy’s campaign declined to comment.
Acton said she grew up wondering where her next meal would come from, and called it “unconscionable” that state leaders would fail to act. She didn’t weigh in when asked whether U.S. Senate Democrats should drop their healthcare demands and vote to re-open the government.
“It’s clear that there are both federal and state options to ensure Ohioans don’t go hungry,” Acton said.
Ohio Supreme Court to rule on aid from last economic crisis
As lawmakers tussle over one federal government crisis, the Ohio Supreme Court will decide the fate of $900 million in relief from another one.
In June 2021, DeWine refused to accept the federal government’s supplemental unemployment payments for people laid off during the pandemic, which would have extended benefits for 300,000 Ohioans from June through September of that year. He rejected the aid despite a Depression-era state law that directs state officials to accept all federal unemployment money that’s on the table.
This led to a class-action lawsuit led by attorney Mark Dann – once Ohio’s Democratic attorney general – that seeks to force DeWine to take the money and distribute the payments to those who qualified. The case succeeded in lower courts.
A state appeal moves the case to the Ohio Supreme Court, which may be less friendly to the plaintiffs. Republicans hold a 6-1 majority and include the governor’s son, Justice Pat DeWine, who didn’t participate in the vote to accept the case.
Jake lays the issue out in an article, including a claim from the governor’s spokesman that the money isn’t there for the taking all these years later.
Is Pat Fischer too old to judge? He says no.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, you might remember some of Andrew’s coverage about Justice Pat Fischer’s since-aborted maneuvering to circumvent Ohio’s age limit, which prevents candidates from seeking the bench if they are 70 at the time of the election.
Fischer abandoned the gamesmanship but has since studied the issue and would like you to know that, no, he is not too old to be a judge, thank you very much.
He wrote a law review article on the subject, aptly titled: “In Ohio, How Old is Too Old to be a Judge?”
There, he proposes a new system of “cognitive assessments” of older judges who want to run.
His proposal faces a nation led by 79-year-old President Donald Trump, who took office after Joe Biden, 82, and led by a Congress where not one but two sitting, octogenarian representatives have been reportedly diagnosed with dementia (one of their offices has disputed that claim, detailed in a police report).
Ohioans last considered raising the mandatory retirement age for judges in 2011, which requires voter approval. They defeated it in a statewide vote by a 62% to 38% margin.
Redistricting chess game playing out as expected but …
We’ve written a few times now about the redistricting process, which so far has involved a few uneventful public meetings, a lot of words and no action.
For those keeping track at home, Republicans and Democrats now have until the end of Friday to agree to a bipartisan deal redrawing Ohio’s 15 congressional districts. After that, Republicans no longer have to work with Democrats, under the redistricting rules Ohioans approved in 2018.
GOP state lawmakers then will be allowed to approve a map with a simple party-line vote. This greatly increases the party’s opportunity to win up to three Democratic-held U.S. House seats by redrawing lines for districts around Cincinnati, Akron and Toledo. (The GOP’s plan also satisfies President Donald Trump’s call to tilt maps nationally). Andrew has been pointing out for months that Republicans were likely slow-walking the process to gain full control of it.
Could redistricting bipartisanship break out at the last minute?
(Update: The answer is yes. Legislative leaders reached a tentative, bipartisan redistricting deal late Wednesday.)
Huffman told reporters Wednesday that talks are ongoing with Democrats about cutting some kind of deal. He said doing so theoretically would help Republicans by taking a looming Democratic-backed referendum effort off the table. If an agreement happens, Huffman said it likely would occur in the final hours before the deadline lapses.
“I think there’s genuine, real discussions. And I think if that does end up coming to fruition, I hope people will write about how the system worked and not how the system failed,” Huffman said.
Nickie Antonio, the Democratic leader in the Ohio Senate, agreed that talks have become more productive this week. Meanwhile, the Ohio Redistricting Commission, a panel of elected officials that has two more days to approve a map, has scheduled a meeting for 4 p.m. today.
“I do believe the possibility of [a deal] exists at this point to the level that I can have that information, not having a conversation with President Trump myself,” Antonio said.