Rotunda Rumblings

Public-private partnership: The state began testing for the new coronavirus Saturday morning and hours later, Gov. Mike DeWine announced a testing protocol in which the highest-risk cases will be tested by the state and lower-risk cases will go to private labs, such as LabCorp, cleveland.com’s Laura Hancock reports.

So negative: As of Sunday, 10 people had tested negative for COVID-19, Hancock reports, and four people were being tested. The turnaround for results has hastened since the state began testing.

Showdown in downtown: As votes come in from six states during Mini Super Tuesday, both former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will be on stage in Cleveland giving what they hope will be a victory speech, cleveland.com’s Seth Richardson reports. Thus starts the one-week blitz that will probably continue in the Buckeye State until the March 17 presidential primary.

Growth opportunity: The proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize recreational marijuana -- which still has numerous hurdles to jump through before campaigners can start gathering signatures statewide -- has provisions allowing people to grow up to six plants at home. Hancock looked at home grow laws in other states, and why a proposal backed by licensed marijuana companies would allow people to grow plants at home.

Speaking of growth and opportunity: Four Ohio House GOP candidates on Friday spoke out against a wave of attack ads against them bought by groups supporting the favored candidates of House Speaker Larry Householder. As cleveland.com’s Jeremy Pelzer reports, one of the candidates, Nick Owens, said there was “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” that Householder is illegally coordinating with the Growth and Opportunity super PAC, though he admitted he had no hard evidence.

Not the census, a political ad: Facebook is killing ads for an electronic version of the “2020 Congressional District Census” - actually a Republican political survey and fundraising tool – that looks like what many people in Ohio and elsewhere received earlier this year in the mail. The social media giant said it began taking down ads for President Trump’s re-election campaign that directed people to the survey, enforcing policies to prevent confusion with the 2020 census. The electronic survey is similar to what cleveland.com’s Rich Exner reported early last month had gone out in the mail in Ohio.

Tense moment: Ohio Senate candidate Melissa Ackison says she was thrown out of a Marion County Republican Party fundraiser Thursday for bringing in two former Ohio State University wrestlers, cleveland.com’s Andrew Tobias writes. One of the event’s speakers was U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, who has faced questions about what he knew as an OSU assistant coach about abuse by former OSU doctor Richard Strauss, including from one of Ackison’s guests. Ackison, a Republican candidate for Ohio’s 26th Senate district, put on a "Jordan knew” T-Shirt and joined protesters for a Facebook live video after the event.

Strauss settlement: OSU said Friday that it had settled more than half of the lawsuits it faces from former athletes and students who accused Strauss, now-deceased, of sexually abusing them. Cleveland.com’s Eric Heisig has more.

Lean wit it: Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican, said Friday he was leaning toward supporting GOP-backed subpoenas into Ukrainian company Burisma and Hunter Biden’s role on the board of directors, Richardson reports. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is leading the charge to issue more subpoenas into the Bidens just as the former vice president’s chances at the Democratic nomination were resurrected.

Phone number: Attorney General Dave Yost’s assertion earlier this week that Ohioans received 2.2 billion robocalls last year got us thinking – how was that statistic calculated? Pelzer dialed in to the answer.

Chipping in: JobsOhio covered nearly $67,000 in travel costs for state officials making economic-development related trips in 2019, Tobias writes. Among the costs: $12,409.18 on a trip during which Lt. Gov. Jon Husted flew to London to finalize a deal with the London Stock Exchange, $41,476.26 to send Gov. Mike DeWine and others to Japan to meet with Honda and other companies and $6,010.36 covering costs of using the state airplane. The nonprofit reported the costs last week as part of a required annual disclosure.

Green light: The path is clear for Harvest of Ohio, LLC, to open three medical-marijuana dispensaries in Ohio after the company paid a $500,000 settlement to the state pharmacy board, Tobias reports. The settlement says Ohio found the company broke a law that requires that listed owners of companies that get licenses set aside for minorities and other disadvantaged groups to have true ownership and oversee the company’s day-to-day operations. Harvest plans to open locations in Athens, Beavercreek and Columbus’ Clintonville neighborhood.

Going for it: Katie O’Neill, a Democrat who was disqualified from the ballot earlier this year in her effort to challenge Athens County state Rep. Jay Edwards, has filed a lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court trying to get her candidacy reinstated for the March 17 ballot. The Athens County Board of Elections, using information collected by a private investigator, had determined she did not meet residency requirements. O’Neill contends she did, based on an email exchange with her landlord.

Ballot update: Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office has certified ballot summaries for four separate issues submitted by Ohioans for Secure and Fair Elections, the ACLU-backed campaign seeking to amend the state constitution to expand Ohio’s voter access laws. Meanwhile, the Ohio Supreme Court granted the group’s request for an expedited schedule for its lawsuit appealing the state ballot board’s decision to split the measure into four parts.

No OK for KKK: The Ku Klux Klan is attempting to make a return trip to Montgomery County, per the Associated Press. Last year, the group rallied in downtown Dayton after much back-and-forth with the city. On Friday, the county denied the Klan group a permit, sparking what will likely be a lengthy legal struggle.

Full Disclosure

Five things we learned from the Feb. 18 financial disclosure form of state Rep. Juanita Brent, a Cleveland Democrat.

1. Brent’s lone reported source of income was her $63,007 salary from the state of Ohio.

2. Brent’s only reported investment was a retirement fund through the Public Employees Retirement System.

3. Brent reported owing at least $1,000 at some point in 2019 to Capital One, the U.S. Department of Education and Prestige Financial.

4. Brent reported receiving $6882.60 in travel expenses, including $4,492.80 in mileage reimbursement, $982.81 from the Ohio House of Representatives, $773.99 from the Urban Agriculture Academy, $350 from the Future Summit Conference and $283 from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

5. Franklin County Commissioner Kevin L. Boyce gifted Brent $60 worth of tickets to a July 31 Columbus Clippers game (an 11-inning loss to the Louisville Bats). The Greater Cleveland Partnership gave Brent a ticket worth $225 for the Public Officials Reception on Nov. 11 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Birthdays

State Rep. Jim Hoops

Straight from the Source

“Biden is considered certainly the front-runner now, and Bernie [Sanders] is going to criticize Biden as being part of the Democratic establishment – whatever that means, considering that Biden got all these votes from African-American women and from people in labor, from a lot of elected officials, from a lot of people that really see this race as, ‘Who is the most likely to win?’ And I think that’s probably why Biden has that status now, as the frontrunner.”

-Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown discussing the state of the presidential race during a Friday roundtable in Akron. Brown said he probably won’t endorse before the March 17 primary.

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