Snollygoster | Ohio's Politics Podcast

Up until a couple of months ago, very few Ohioans outside his district knew who Rep. Max Miller was.

They may recall he is the guy who took former Rep. Anthony Gonzalez’s redrawn district seat after the former Ohio State University wide receiver did not seek reelection.

But Miller was no Jim Jordan, a household name in Ohio politics, until this summer.

That is when details of his bitter divorce from Emily Moreno and their resulting custody battle came to light. Adding to the drama is that Moreno is the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno.

Objectively, this is an ugly breakup.

Emily Moreno, in court filings, accuses Miller of physically abusing her and their 2-year-old daughter.

Miller denies the allegations and says his ex-wife has mental health issues.

The accusations have been percolating under the surface for weeks. A couple of weeks ago, a PAC supporting Miller’s opponent reportedly placed thousands of robocalls to voters in his district highlighting the allegations.

Then came word that internal polling showed Miller’s Democratic opponent, Brian Poindexter, was close in the reliably red district.

Then Sunday morning, Miller took to X and held a 15-minute livestream to refute the allegations.

That prompted his former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno, to post a statement calling on Miller to drop his reelection bid and calling him a danger to his daughter, something he repeated Tuesday as captured by TMZ.

Miller could drop out of the race in time for the Republican Party to put a replacement candidate on the ballot, but he has to do it by Monday. Miller says he has no intention of doing that and plans to fight.

To help unpack this story, we are joined by Abby Vesoulis, national politics reporter for Mother Jones.

Snollygoster of the week

Last week, Democrat Amy Acton said that as governor she would impose a conditional moratorium on data centers. They could be built provided they meet a list of requirements, including paying for their own power and using union labor. But it was not a ban or a firm halt to data centers.

That opened the door for Libertarian candidate for governor Don Kissick. This week, he called for an immediate moratorium on every new data center project in Ohio, with no new data center construction until the state comes up with new rules for the computer warehouses.

Before this week’s statement, Kissick was tough on data centers, but did not call for a temporary ban. His statement does not indicate why he changed his stance, only mentioning that this goes beyond Amy Acton’s conditional moratorium.

Whatever the reasons, he got headlines and attention. Pretty shrewd. For that, Libertarian candidate for governor Don Kissick gets our Snollygoster of the Week.

Our look at the campaign for governor this week runs from property taxes to the rights of transgender athletes to police union endorsements. We start with taxes.

Next to rising gas prices and grocery prices, property taxes have loomed as the symbol of affordability in Ohio. Thanks to rising property values and voter-approved levies, property taxes have risen sharply in Ohio over the last few years.

State lawmakers have done a little to limit the increases. A ballot effort to abolish property taxes has stalled.

And candidates for governor are laying out their plans.

Democrat Amy Acton has presented her plan to lower tax bills for some. Her plan calls for extending the homestead exemption, which helps low- to moderate-income seniors. She also proposes a rebate to low- and moderate-income Ohioans who see sharp increases in property taxes. Republican Vivek Ramaswamy has promised to reduce property taxes across the board to levels from before the end of the pandemic. Neither candidate has said how they would make up for the reduction in local tax revenue.

Property tax relief is topic one this week. Here to discuss is WOSU-TV’s "Columbus on the Record" panel:

• Sarah Donaldson, statehouse reporter for Ohio Public Radio
• Maria Bruno, director of Ohioans Against Extremism
• Mark Weaver, Republican strategist

Snollygoster of the week

For the second week in a row, we give it to Sen. Bernie Moreno, Ohio's senior U.S. senator and a member of the world's greatest deliberative body, who had this question for Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the national COVID-19 response, at a nationally televised hearing of the U.S. Senate. Before we run the unedited clip, a warning: Moreno uses an f-word, and it is not Fauci or Fifth, as in the Fifth Amendment.

You know, there's not much more to say. But it got headlines. It went kind of viral. It certainly pleased the far right of his political base. Will it hurt him politically in a statewide race? He won't be tested for four years.

It is certainly worthy of our Snollygoster of the Week award.

As back-to-school shopping begins and families return from vacation, the 2026 campaign will really start to ramp up. With an open governor's seat and control of the U.S. Senate at stake, candidates running for major office in Ohio this year are attracting lots of donations.

In the race for the U.S. Senate, Sherrod Brown has done better than Jon Husted. Over the last few months, Brown has raised $14 million, more than triple Husted's $4 million.

In the race for governor, the candidates have raised close to the same amount of money. Vivek Ramaswamy got a head start, but Amy Acton has outraised him since January.

To discuss the latest in the campaign, we turn to the WOSU "Columbus on the Record" panel: reporter Jessie Balmert from the USA Today Ohio Network, Republican strategist Bob Clegg, and progressive activist Morgan Harper.

Snollygoster of the week

It has been a rough couple of weeks for Ontario and the northeastern quarter of the United States. Canadian wildfires have grown to nearly 2 million acres, and smoke from the fires has spread across the Midwest and toward the Northeast. Ohio and many other states have issued unhealthy air warnings about the smoky haze.

Bernie Moreno, channeling the famous "South Park" anthem, blames Canada. He has released a bill that would sanction Canada for failing to contain the fires and polluting American skies.

The name of his bill, the Countering Atmospheric Nuisances Arising from Drifting Airborne Foreign Incendiary Residual Emissions Act, or the CANADA FIRE Act, would sanction Canadian officials and label the Canadian ambassador as persona non grata until the smoke clears.

Persona non grata: "them's fightin' words" in Latin.

Now, the smoke has been bad, especially for people with breathing issues.

But for filing headline-grabbing legislation with a ridiculously long acronym, Sen. Bernie Moreno gets our Snollygoster of the Week award.

Experts say that because of climate change, these frequent fires north and south of the U.S.-Canada border are here to stay.

This week, we discuss the race for the U.S. Senate and Sherrod Brown’s slightly risky new ad, where he takes on Jon Husted and data centers.

Despite getting hammered in TV ads, Democrat Amy Acton continues to hold her own against Vivek Ramaswamy in the governor’s race.

And calls grow for greater transparency and tighter rules for JobsOhio, Ohio’s public but privately run economic development agency. We start with data centers as a growing issue in this year’s campaign.

As you may have heard, Ohio has become a magnet for warehouses filled with computers. We have more than 200, putting Ohio in the top five of data center populations in the country.

The data centers draw opposition because they consume a lot of electricity, water, and farmland. But they also create lots of construction jobs, specifically union construction jobs, which is why a new ad by organized labor champion Sherrod Brown is a bit surprising.

Our panel includes reporters Jo Ingles from Ohio Public Radio and Jake Zuckerman from Signal Statewide, as well as Republican strategist Mike Gondiakis and Democratic strategist Brian Rothenberg.

Snollygoster of the week

This week, we turn our attention to the cable television channel CNBC. Last week, it named Ohio the No. 1 state in the country to do business.

Right away, the Ohio business bandwagon was overflowing. Archie Griffin recorded the intro for the CNBC segment, and Gov. Mike DeWine did a live interview on the network. As we mentioned, JobsOhio wasted no time heavily promoting the ranking. It was a nice way to counteract the governance and oversight questions the agency faces.

Democrats are taking advantage of the ranking, using it against their Republican opponents. This week, they quoted CNBC’s claim that Ohio is among the best positioned to land AI data center deals, despite rising public opposition.

It seems like every Ohio politician is quoting CNBC, which is a pretty shrewd move for the cable channel.

(photo: Mark Duncan / AP)

WOSU hosted a Politics and a Pint event last week. These events are a lot of fun. We get together at a Columbus-area brewpub and talk politics in front of a crowd of political junkies and public media fans.

This time we looked at the mood of the Ohio voter, the Ohio governor’s race, the race for U.S. Senate, property taxes and data centers. We covered a lot of ground and drank some good beer.

Thanks to the Politics and a Pint panel: Ohio Public Radio’s Sarah Donaldson, WOSU News Director Mark Ferenchik and WOSU’s All Sides host Amy Juravich.

Snollygoster of the week

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan serves as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Apparently, chairs get to have their portraits hung in the hearing room.

So Jordan is due a portrait. Instead of having to raise up to $80,000 to hire an artist to paint it, his wife, Polly, will paint it for free. This story was first reported by OpenSecrets. Polly Jordan is an artist, and disclosure forms indicate she has earned a little money selling her art. It is believed this is the first time a spouse has painted a congressional portrait. It won’t save taxpayer dollars since a recent law mandated private funding, but for keeping the art in the family, Jordan and his wife get our Snollygoster of the Week award.

Governor DeWine and the death penalty: We talked about it last week on this podcast, and this week we will dig a little deeper into the reasons why the former tough-on-crime prosecutor now says Ohio should stop executing people.

To recap:

In the early 1980s, a tough-on-crime former prosecutor helped write Ohio’s death penalty law. That new state senator was Mike DeWine. As Ohio’s attorney general, DeWine helped carry out 15 executions. Now in his final days as governor, DeWine says Ohio should abolish capital punishment. His sole reason is that it is not a deterrent to murder because it takes too long to execute someone.

At this point, DeWine’s change in position seems little more than symbolic. Republican leaders in the Legislature support the death penalty. There is no movement ready to put it on the ballot.

For deeper analysis, we turn to WOSU-TV’s "Columbus on the Record" panel: OSU political scientist Herb Asher, Republican strategist Terry Casey and Ohio Public Radio Statehouse reporter Sarah Donaldson.

Snollygoster of the week

This week, we give it to Governor DeWine for quietly commuting the death sentence of Gregory Lott. We talked about it earlier, and it appears he had very valid reasons for the commutation. There was nothing shrewd about that.

What is snollygoster-like is that he did not let the public know about it. He commuted the sentence on May 27, three weeks before his announcement that he now opposes capital punishment.

The governor’s office sends out at least one press release per day, creating a steady stream of communication that flows into reporters’ email inboxes. Usually, his office is touting a groundbreaking or ribbon-cutting he has attended or will attend. He announces science of reading successes and appointments to little-known boards and commissions. He generates a lot of press material, and he does make big announcements.

Not this time. He commuted the sentence of a man who committed a horrific crime, yet there was no press release, and he did not mention it at his news conference. He was even asked for his thoughts on commuting a sentence, but there was not a peep about how he had done just that.

We do not know why he kept it a secret, but it was pretty shrewd to do so.

(photo: Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos / AP)

Gov. Mike DeWine has come out against Ohio’s death penalty. This week, the conservative Republican governor, who co-sponsored the bill that reinstated capital punishment in 1981, said Ohio should abolish it.

His reason for saying Ohio should stop executing people is that the death penalty is not a deterrent because it takes too long to put a condemned person to death.

When asked if he is now morally opposed to the death penalty, he was unclear. When asked if he would consider commuting the sentences of some or all of the 109 people now on Ohio’s death row, he declined to answer.

The governor’s decision was based on data, which he displayed on PowerPoint charts during his press conference.

He called on state lawmakers to abolish the death penalty or at least put it on the ballot for voters to decide.

That seems unlikely. Some Republican leaders blame DeWine for not allowing a single execution since he took office in 2019. He says that is because drug companies denied the state access to lethal injection drugs.

Regardless of the timing, the reasons why or where the debate goes from here, it was a remarkable decision for a former prosecutor, former state attorney general and former, and perhaps still tough-on-crime, politician to say the government of Ohio should no longer put people to death.

Joining us now to discuss the governor’s statement is Kevin Werner, executive director of the group Ohioans to Stop Executions.

Snollygoster of the week

Union workers for the City of Columbus have filed a grievance against the city for subcontracting some of their work to nonunion beings.

These workers clear brush and vegetation at a wastewater treatment plant in Columbus. The city contracted with a firm that will have nonunion workers clear the brush.

The nonunion workers do not even get paid, or at least they do not get paid in cash. They are goats.

The union, Local 1632 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, says hiring the goats violates its collective bargaining agreement.

The company that provides the goats says they get to areas that are tough for humans to reach, including places where it is dangerous to operate machinery.

We do not have a goat in this fight, but it is pretty shrewd for the union to pick on goats just being goats.

(photo: Kiichiro Sato / AP)

The effort to abolish Ohio property taxes has failed – at least for now. The group collecting signatures to put an amendment on November’s ballot says it has fallen short of the number needed to qualify.

The group, Committee to Abolish Ohio Property Taxes or Ax Ohio Tax, had to collect at least 415,000 by July 1. Brian Massie, the leader of the effort, said they would not have enough by that date, but they will continue to collect signatures in the hopes of getting on next year’s ballot.

To analyze what happened and what happens next with the property tax fight, we turn to WOSU TV’s Columbus on the Record panel.

Democratic Strategist Brian Rothenberg, who also serves on the Norwich Township Board of Trustees, Gene Krebs from the group Better Choices for Ohio and Ohio Public Radio Statehouse Reporter Jo Ingles discussed the attempt to abolish property taxes.

Data Centers: The controversy is growing

Complicating the debate and the legislation to regulate the data center is a tax break nobody seemed to know about when it was awarded.

Back in the second term of then-Gov. John Kasich’s administration, he agreed to give big tech companies up to a 40-year 100% sales tax exemption on equipment needed to build facilities - including data centers.

Of course, data center construction has exploded and now that tax break to Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta and other companies has cost the state an estimated $2.3 billion.

Current state lawmakers who want to end or at least pare back the sales tax break for data centers are not happy. Because they can't change the agreements that are already in place.

They tried to regulate data centers this past week, but they could not reach an agreement before they left for summer recess. They likely won't take up the issue again until after the November election.

And the centers keep coming. A report this week says Ohio is in line for a mega data center. The tech news outlet called The Information reports the data center would cost a half billion dollars to build. It would be located on leased federal land in southern Ohio.

Snollygoster Of The Week

This week we give it to the Republican-dominated Ohio legislature.

Legislators apparently believe laws they pass are not good enough. In particular, the voter photo ID law they passed a few years ago requires Ohioans to show a photo ID to vote since 2023.

There’s no evidence voter fraud has been a problem. No one has seriously challenged it. But that law is not enough for Republicans in the legislature. They want to enshrine photo voter ID in the state constitution.

Lawmakers this week voted to put the amendment on November’s ballot. If voters, after showing their ID, approve it, it will be in the constitution. Supporters say the measure will protect the ID requirement from being overturned. Critics say it's not necessary. And say Republicans are just trying to boost turnout.

But for trying to enshrine an established state law in the constitution to boost turnout in an upcoming election… Republicans in the state legislature get our snollygoster of the week award.

Here in Ohio, the TV ad war between U.S. Sen. Jon Husted and his Democratic challenger, Sherrod Brown, is heating up. Gov. Mike DeWine, who supported a big tax break for data centers, has killed the tax break, at least temporarily, after it came out that the tax break is costing the state a lot of money.

And then there is the fight against fraud, which suddenly is top of mind for Republicans here in Ohio and across the country.

For these topics, we’ll turn to our panel discussion from WOSU-TV’s "Columbus on the Record." We are joined by reporter Sarah Donaldson from Ohio Public Radio, Republican strategist Terry Casey, and Democratic strategist Stanley Gates.

We’ll start with Ohio’s fight against fraud.

For weeks, DeWine has faced criticism from his fellow Republicans over allegations of widespread fraud in the state’s Medicaid system. It started with a report in the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, which accused home health agencies of fraudulently billing the system that pays for healthcare for low-income and disabled people.

House Speaker Matt Huffman said the DeWine administration was not doing enough to prevent fraud.

DeWine released a list of steps he’s taking to address the allegations. They include a moratorium on new home healthcare companies accepting Medicaid reimbursements, using electronic monitoring to verify visits by home healthcare workers, and other measures.

The nation’s top Medicare and Medicaid official, Dr. Mehmet Oz, recently visited Ohio. He defended DeWine but said Ohio needs more safeguards.

With Ohio’s primary behind us, focus shifts to the November election, in particular, the race for governor.

The primary did not change much. Democrat Amy Acton was unopposed, and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy easily defeated his long-shot opponent, Casey Putsch. It was already expected to be Acton versus Ramaswamy in November, and now it is official.

With six months to go, campaigns are ramping up as reporters and voters pay more attention.

To reset the scene, Mike DeWine leaves office at the end of the year. Term limits prevent him from running again. For the first time in eight years, Ohio will have a new governor. It will be someone from outside government: tech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who briefly ran for president, or Amy Acton, who served in government for about a year. Acton famously served as Ohio health director at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but she has not held elected office.

The latest polls have the two candidates tied as the summer months approach. National politicos are keeping an eye on this race. Earlier this spring, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved the Ohio governor’s race from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican."

Joining us to discuss that rating and provide an Ohio native’s national look at the race, we welcome back Kyle Kondik, who serves as managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

(photo: Carolyn Kaster and Jay LaPrete / AP)