COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio lawmakers are entering into a special session on Tuesday to fix an obscure law that is preventing President Joe Biden from being on the November ballot. We have been covering this debacle from the beginning — so here is everything you need to know.
What is special session?
On "extraordinary occasions," the state governor can require the lawmakers to reconvene to address specific issues.
"Ohio is running out of time to get Joe Biden, sitting president of the United States, on the ballot this fall," DeWine said during a Thursday evening surprise press conference. "Failing to do so is simply not acceptable. This is ridiculous; this is an absurd situation."
DeWine is using his executive authority to force the lawmakers to get it together and do their jobs.
Who are the major players to focus on this week?
The relationship between House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) and Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) is always one to watch at the Statehouse, as the pair are rivals and do not like each other. This debacle has exacerbated the GOP infighting. Click here to learn more.
House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) and Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) will also be involved in the process. Negotiating will likely be between House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) and Senate Majority Floor Leader Rob McColley (R-Napoleon).
The governor and Sec. of State Frank LaRose may also provide insight during the week.
What is the problem?
Right now, Biden, the presumptive nominee for the Democratic party, wouldn't be on the ballot. He will "100% be" on the ballot, every lawmaker has said, but this is just a whole mess right now.
Ohio requires parties to confirm their presidential candidates 90 days before the Nov. election, which would be Aug. 7. But Biden won’t be the official nominee until the Democratic National Convention, which is on Aug. 19.
The little-known law was passed in a major omnibus bill in 2010. In 2012 and 2020, exemptions were passed for those years — impacting both parties. In 2016, both the DNC and the RNC held their conventions before the deadline.
RELATED: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine calls lawmakers into special session to fix Biden ballot debacle
How did we get here?
Here is a timeline.
April 5: LaRose's legal team emailed Statehouse Democratic leadership and Ohio Democratic Party Chairperson Liz Walters that there was "an apparent conflict" between the nominating deadline and the DNC event, according to an email I obtained.
April 6-16: For the following weeks, lawmakers went back and forth on what to do.
April 17: Ultimately, Republicans agreed to actively help the Democrats by making sure Biden was on the ballot.
May 7: A House committee passed their bipartisan ballot fix proposal out of committee.
They completely stripped and amended Senate Bill 92 making it a clean bill. It changed the nomination deadline to 74 days, which is Aug. 23. This would likely be a permanent fix. It also allowed for less formal declarations of candidate nomination.
The main reason why lawmakers often choose to amend bills at the last minute is due to timing. By revising an already passed piece of legislation, one that typically is ready to be passed by the second chamber, the lawmakers fast-track the process of getting it to the governor.
"It enables the notification to be a lot more flexible, whether it's email or whatever," Stephens said about his bill. "This gives the flexibility."
This doesn't just help the Democrats, Stephens added.
"Just four years ago, we had this issue," the speaker said. "The party in power in the White House usually goes last for the convention, so hopefully this will take care of that issue."
Russo, who has a good relationship with Stephens, was pleased.
"I think everyone agreed this is good for democracy," Russo said. "We want people to have full access to the ballot, and that's good for both parties."
May 8: The Senate passed H.B. 114 out of the chamber. It changed the nominating deadline from Aug. 7 to Aug. 23 — but only for 2024, so it wasn't a permanent fix.
The lawmakers also added in S.B. 215, a campaign finance bill. In early March, Republican senators passed legislation meant to stop foreign donations to state and local ballot-issue campaigns. This could be by directly donating from outside the country or by donating to an entity, like a political action committee (PAC).
"Most Ohioans would agree that we shouldn't have foreign dollars affecting our ballot initiatives," Huffman said. "Foreign money needs to be out of these statewide elections."
This addition was unacceptable to the Democrats, Antonio said.
"The language that has been embedded into 114 is yet another attempt to try to silence the voters of Ohio when they disagree with the supermajority of Republicans and go on their own to put together a ballot initiative," Antonio said.
It has provisions that could make it harder for grassroots movements to get on the ballot — even with U.S. dollars.
RELATED: Biden ballot debacle continues in Ohio Statehouse as deadline passes
It would require all groups rallying for a cause that is receiving donations and spending money to register as a PAC. This means that groups would have to file disclosures with the government, and it could make it more difficult to collect signatures to get a proposal on a township ballot.
The bill also prohibits a lawful permanent U.S. resident, also known as a green card holder, from making contributions or expenditures regarding ballot issues or candidates.
All the Democrats voted no because of S.B. 215. Still, it passed 24-7.
"Republicans in both the House and the Senate aren't going to vote for a standalone Biden bill," Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said, defending why he put the bills all together.
Across the Statehouse, the House "informally passed" its version of the Biden fix, S.B. 92. This means it stays on the calendar but doesn't actually pass and isn't put up for a vote. It can be brought up for a vote at a later date.
The Senate sent over their bill to the House, who ignored it.
"We had those conversations and ended up not doing it today," Stephens said about not concurring.
May 20: House lawmakers introduced H.B. 609. The bill prohibits the committee in charge of a statewide initiative or referendum petition from asking for or knowingly accepting money from a foreign entity or person. It also declares the bill as an emergency.
This bill has bipartisan support, as it doesn't have significant negative impacts on local community members, House Minority Whip Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) said.
May 22: When the Senate saw that the House wasn't taking their bait with H.B. 114, they amended yet another bill to further their elimination of foreign contributions in state ballot campaigns.
H.B. 305, when it comes to campaign finance, does relatively the same as S.B. 215 and H.B. 114.
May 23: DeWine staged a surprise evening press conference, calling for a special session.
"This is an extraordinary situation when we have [a] ridiculous situation that we have not taken action to deal with a problem," DeWine said.
Session will last from Tuesday through the special voting session on Thursday.
Siding with the Senate, the governor urged the House to take up any of their three bills. However, his proclamation did state that legislators can also consider S.B. 92. He did not include H.B. 609, but the document states that lawmakers can review "other similar legislation effectuating this purpose."
We agree with the Governor. It is time to protect Ohio’s elections by outlawing foreign campaign contributions, while at the same time fixing the Democratic Party’s error that kept Joe Biden off the November ballot. We encourage the Speaker and Minority Leader to allow a vote on House Bill 114 which does both.
The House leaders — both Democrats like Isaacsohn and Republicans like Stephens — continue to say that it isn’t the foreign interference ban that they are rejecting; it is the new restrictions to access to the ballot for citizens.
Stephens says he is willing to compromise — by making sure that a bill doesn't "limit the rights of citizens to have their voices heard."
"For weeks, we have been pushing to find a legislative solution to having President Biden on the ballot. Ultimately, the will to do so wasn’t there in the Republican caucus.
Everyone agrees that we need to ban foreign political contributions from ballot issue campaigns in Ohio, and we have been driving towards a solution.
We have language that has input from campaign finance experts and important interested parties to deal with the issue. This is language that squarely and directly bans foreign influence in Ohio’s issue campaigns, while not also inadvertently limiting the rights of citizens to have their voices heard.
We look forward to real solutions that will actually pass both chambers next week and solve problems.”
What happens if the lawmakers don't find a compromise by the end of the legislative session?
Nothing, actually. All the proclamation does is force the lawmakers to "consider" his pleas, according to Seitz. Also, this situation is now much more complicated than the governor made it out to be, Seitz seemed to suggest.
"These are snap decisions that have to be made sort of in a big hurry," he said about DeWine's surprise presser. "Our original plan in the House was to have session on June 12 — We wanted to give everybody plenty of notice so that they could rearrange their plans and rearranged to be in Columbus on June 12."
For an emergency clause, two-thirds of the representatives must vote yes. That is easily done in the Senate, considering that there would be 22 members and there are 26 Republicans in the chamber. In the House, one in which the GOP is fractured, an emergency would need 66 votes. There are 67 Republicans, and at least four refuse to vote for anything that helps Biden at all, according to Seitz. He doesn't think the Democrats would vote in favor of the foreign money ban, so he has to make sure that 66 Republicans not only show up but also support the bill.
"We do not think there is a ghost of a chance of getting an emergency clause on any bill that would put Biden on the ballot," he said. "We don't think that's even feasible."
But there are significant challenges with this. Bills must be heard on three separate days, and with the governor calling the session on Tuesday, that means the bill needs to be done and in committee the same day and then continued on Wednesday and Thursday. They must be done by then when their legal team advises them they must be done by Wednesday, and they don't even have the vehicle to get this done.
Click here to read more from Seitz.
Other options?
The DNC can announce early. Or the lawmakers can do something within a tight time frame that even Seitz seems nervous about.
Lawmakers have been suggesting Democrats can go to court to get the president on the ballot.
Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Entin said no court case would work. Learn more about his analysis here.
"What seems to be going on reflects yet again how dysfunctional the Ohio government is," Entin said. "There's plenty of faults to be laid on just about everybody."
You can fault the Democrats for not knowing the law, the entire legislative leadership for being uncooperative and constantly bickering and LaRose for "waiting until virtually the last minute to raise the issue," the professor added.
"It's hard to imagine that anybody could go broke underestimating the irresponsibility of Ohio officials dealing with this situation," Entin sighed.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
