By The Associated Press
Toledo Blade. February 2, 2024.
Editorial: Focus on railroad safety
Safer railroads are a must for the United States, as evidenced by the ongoing trauma in East Palestine, Ohio.
Yet statistics from the industry show that the number of accidents increased in 2023 over the two previous years.
The year 2023, of course, is when a train carrying vinyl chloride went off the tracks in East Palestine and released its deadly contents, one year ago Saturday.
Five cars were intentionally ignited to avoid a highly destructive explosion but unintentionally creating a hazardous waste emergency.
As reported by Blade environmental writer Tom Henry, the village of East Palestine remains traumatized of the derailment that occurred on Feb. 3, 2023.
At the same time, village residents are recovering, and are divided as to whether the damage is permanent and devastating or is on its way to being repaired.
The mayor of East Palestine, Trent Conaway, has been a pillar of leadership. He was an outspoken advocate for his village when the crisis struck. He gave up a higher paying job to devote more attention to the needs of East Palestine. Because of the mental and emotional strain, he has sought out a therapist.
Despite the damage to the village, the massive deaths of wildlife that have been recorded, and the credible worries about long-term health damage for citizens who live in the area, and for the economic future of East Palestine, the actual extent of health injury is unknown.
Some are ready to move on, others believe the cleanup and the commitments to continue monitoring the environment and treating the residents medically isn’t enough.
Much has been done in East Palestine in response to the accident. That includes establishment of a clinic that Gov. Mike DeWine expects to stay open indefinitely.
As a response to a disaster that all wish had not happened, the East Palestine case so far shows state and federal governments and a big corporation, Norfolk Southern responsibly stepping to be correct the damage.
The last step is one that appears to be stuck in committee — the Rail Safety Act, jointly sponsored by Ohio U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D.) and J.D. Vance (R.).
A sticking point is the railroads’ opposition to a more robust wheel heat sensor. A heat sensor would have detected the overheated wheel that triggered the derailment.
We don’t have the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigative report yet, but many reports after the accident cited the failure or lack of action based on a trackside heat sensor. An overheated wheel was seen in multiple railside webcams before the wheel failed and the train derailed in East Palestine, a few miles from Pennsylvania.
That same train passed through Toledo earlier on that day.
If a failed or missing heat sensor was the trigger, then the Rail Safety Act must require a solution so it doesn’t happen again.
The problem of overheated wheel bearings appears to be getting worse, not better.
These data show there were 17 incidents involving overheated wheel bearings in the first 10 months of last year — more than double the six recorded in the same period of 2022 and higher than any full year’s total since 2014.
The legacy of East Palestine will be multilayered. One aspect of it is that rail transportation must become safer.
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Youngstown Vindicator. February 1, 2024.
Editorial: Attorney General Yost rejects ballot title for voting rights groups
Voting rights groups have their hands full with state Attorney General Dave Yost.
In January, Yost issued his second rejection of petition language a voting rights coalition has submitted for a proposed constitutional amendment. Yost claimed the amendment’s title — “Ohio Voters Bill of Rights” — was “highly misleading and misrepresentative” of the measure’s contents.
That argument might have flown with little notice were it not for one crucial detail. Yost acknowledges his office previously certified identical language for the Nursing Facility Patients’ Bill of Rights in 2021 and another Ohio Voters Bill of Rights in 2014.
This time around, though, the proposed amendment asks for enshrining the right for all Ohioans to vote safely and securely in the state constitution. It includes automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration and expanded early voting options and locations.
“In the past, this Office has not always rigorously evaluated whether the title fairly or truthfully summarized a given proposed amendment,” Yost wrote the coalition’s attorney. “But recent authority from the Ohio Supreme Court has confirmed that the title for a ballot initiative is material to voters.”
It’s hard to tell whether that is a shot at previous attorney generals (Gov. Mike DeWine was state attorney general from 2011 to 2019), an admission of his own office’s failures or a knock on the intellectual abilities of voters.
Yost also wrote in a letter that “examples of past practice from this Office may be relevant,” just not this time, it seems.
One can understand there are reasons this particular proposed amendment is an irritant to Yost. But if the best he’s got is that similar titles used to be OK, but aren’t now, he might want to reconsider his evaluation process for potential ballot measures.
For its part, the coalition of voting rights groups says it believes its efforts included “dutiful compliance with (Yost’s) previous objections.”
No matter whether one agrees with the intent of a proposed amendment, it seems obvious that advocacy groups have a right to expect consistency in the way such ideas are evaluated by the state attorney general’s office.
If nothing else, that office has given groups proposing amendments to the state constitution a road map of mistakes to avoid in recent years. Now the question is, will the office follow it?
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Elyria Chronicle-Telegram. February 1, 2024.
Editorial: Ohio shouldn’t pursue new execution method
Ohio shouldn’t follow Alabama’s lead when it comes to executing condemned inmates with nitrogen gas.
The method, which causes the condemned to suffocate as the body is deprived of oxygen, was tested last week when Alabama executed convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith.
The execution did not appear to go as smoothly as Alabama officials had promised. They had argued that Smith would quickly fall unconscious and die as he inhaled the gas.
Instead, the execution took about 22 minutes and witnesses said Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes, shaking, writhing and pulling against the restraints on the gurney, The Associated Press reported.
That is not the description of a humane execution.
Alabama officials described Smith’s movements as “involuntary,” which apparently was good enough for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican.
Yost, along with state Reps. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, and Phil Plummer, R-Dayton, said Tuesday that the Buckeye State should add nitrogen gas to its execution kit.
Ohio hasn’t executed a death row inmate since 2018, when convicted killer Robert Van Hook was put to death via lethal injection. (Two Lorain County men, James Filiaggi and Daniel Wilson, have been executed this century. Two others, Stanley Jalowiec and Freddie McNeill Jr., remain on death row. All were convicted of horrific crimes.)
GOP Gov. Mike DeWine has said he doubted that an execution would be carried out during the remainder of his term, which runs through the end of 2026. (Yost is widely believed to be considering a gubernatorial run.)
The unofficial moratorium is in large part the result of pharmaceutical companies’ refusal to sell the state the drugs used in lethal injections, the only legal form of execution under Ohio law.
Yost, however, argued that the state needs to find a way to carry out lawfully imposed death sentences.
“Saying that the law of Ohio should be thwarted because pharmaceutical companies don’t want to sell the chemicals is an abdication of the sovereignty of the state of Ohio, which still has this law on the books,” Yost said, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Nitrogen gas is widely available and should be used when lethal injection isn’t an option, Yost said. The bill put forward by Stewart and Plummer would allow death row inmates to decide whether they would prefer to die from lethal injection or nitrogen gas if both options were available. It also contains worrying secrecy provisions.
This isn’t the first time that death-penalty supporters have floated an alternate form of execution. For example, in 2018, then-Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, now an Ohio Supreme Court justice, proposed reviving firing squads.
The idea went nowhere in Ohio, but other states, also facing shortages of lethal-injection drugs, have brought back the option of firing squads.
We have never been persuaded that it would be a good idea to return to the brutal execution methods of yesteryear, whether by firing squad, hanging or electrocution. Those methods, we believe, crossed over into “cruel and unusual” punishment, which is specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.
Indeed, part of the reason states and the federal government shifted to lethal injection was because it resembled a medical procedure and therefore appeared less barbaric — at least on the surface.
Yet lethal injections haven’t always worked as advertised. Sometimes prison officials have struggled to find suitable veins on condemned inmates. Other times the drugs haven’t taken hold as quickly as they were supposed to, leaving inmates struggling and thrashing.
Based on what happened in Alabama, there is reason to fear that inmates might suffer an agonizing death if nitrogen gas is used again in executions.
Whether that happens in Ohio could be complicated by a bipartisan push by some state lawmakers to abolish the death penalty.
We have supported those efforts because the problems with capital punishment extend far beyond how executions are carried out.
For example, it’s up to county prosecutors whether to seek the death penalty in a particular case, which means it is unevenly applied across the state. There also are troubling racial disparities when it comes to who faces and receives a death sentence.
Death penalty cases also can drag on for years as the legal process plays out, leaving not only the condemned but the families of victims in limbo. Such reviews are necessary to ensure that no one is wrongly executed.
Which brings us to perhaps the most glaring problem with the death penalty: The justice system doesn’t always get it right.
Between 1973 and 2023, 196 death row inmates, including 11 from Ohio, have been exonerated through DNA and other evidence., according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Given those issues, Ohio would be better served to abolish the death penalty rather than to seek a new way to carry out executions.
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Sandusky Register. February 2, 2024.
Editorial: Dark money dangers
In the era of hyper-partisan politics, nothing should surprise us. But a news story earlier this week about a bill state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, has introduced did just that.
Gavarone wants to ban dark money, or some dark money, at least. Citing a left-wing dark money group that received millions of dollars from a Swiss billionaire, Gavarone wants to ban foreign contributions to state ballot issue campaigns.
We get it that foreign money spent to influence the outcome of statewide ballot initiatives in elections is not appealing, but all dark money is suspect and troubling. Who knows who is spending how much to influence the outcome of these elections.
Foreign contributions already are banned for Ohio candidates, so Senate Bill 215, Gavarone’s proposal, would close a loophole for issue campaigns.
“Ohio’s elections should be about Ohioans, not foreign individuals, governments and entities trying to influence our democracy and decisions,” Gavarone said.
Fair enough.
But Gavarone seems to be reacting to Ohio voters giving a massive win to supporters of reproductive rights in November, approving a state constitutional amendment to protect women’s reproductive freedom by 57% to 43% margin. We suspect the margin would have been even greater if the misinformation during the campaign last fall had not been so robustly distributed.
In its infamous decision in Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the Supreme Court tossed a bone to lawmakers seeking to regulate money in politics. With a few exceptions, Citizens United stripped the government of its power to limit the amount of spending on elections, especially by corporations. But the decision also gave the Court’s blessing to nearly all laws requiring campaigns and political organizations to disclose their donors.
That changed, however, with the court’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta decision in 2021, which flips Citizens United’s approach to disclosure laws on its head. The decision assumes that most disclosure laws are not constitutional.
“The upshot is that wealthy donors now have far more ability to shape American politics in secret — and that ability is only likely to grow as judges rely on the decision in Americans for Prosperity to strike down other donor disclosure laws,” Vox.com, an online news organization, reported.
There is a problem with secret foreign contributions, indeed, but secret campaign donations from anywhere are as much of a problem. Citizens United continues to harm our elections processes. That’s what needs to be fixed.
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Marietta Times. February 3, 2024.
Editorial: Yost should reconsider how he evaluates ballot measures
Voting rights groups have their hands full with state Attorney General Dave Yost.
Last month, Yost issued his second rejection of petition language a voting rights coalition has submitted for a proposed constitutional amendment.
Yost claimed the amendment’s title — “Ohio Voters Bill of Rights” — was “highly misleading and misrepresentative” of the measure’s contents.
That argument might have flown with little notice were it not for one crucial detail. Yost acknowledges his office previously certified IDENTICAL language for the Nursing Facility Patients’ Bill of Rights in 2021 and another Ohio Voters Bill of Rights in 2014.
This time around, though, the proposed amendment asks for enshrining the right for all Ohioans to vote safely and securely in the state constitution.
It includes automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration and expanded early voting options and locations.
“In the past, this Office has not always rigorously evaluated whether the title fairly or truthfully summarized a given proposed amendment,” Yost wrote the coalition’s attorney. “But recent authority from the Ohio Supreme Court has confirmed that the title for a ballot initiative is material to voters.”
It’s hard to tell whether that is a shot at previous attorneys general (Gov. Mike DeWine was state attorney general from 2011 to 2019), an admission of his own office’s failures or a knock on the intellectual abilities of voters.
Yost also wrote in a letter that “examples of past practice from this Office may be relevant,” just not this time, it seems.
One can understand there are reasons this particular proposed amendment is an irritant to Yost.
But if the best he’s got is that similar titles used to be OK, but aren’t now, he might want to reconsider his evaluation process for potential ballot measures.
For its part, the coalition of voting rights groups says it believes its efforts included “dutiful compliance with (Yost’s) previous objections.”
No matter whether one agrees with the intent of a proposed amendment, it seems obvious that advocacy groups have a right to expect consistency in the way such ideas are evaluated by the state attorney general’s office.
If nothing else, that office has given groups proposing amendments to the state constitution a road map of mistakes to avoid in recent years.
Now the question is, will the office follow it?
