BREAKING: Ohio Teachers and Retirees Fight Back, Win Round 1

The Lawlessness of Ohio Politicians, Continued

Even though I knew it was coming, it remains one of the most egregious political acts I’ve ever witnessed.

Ohio’s politicians stripping away the voice and vote of Ohio’s teachers and retirees from the pension fund they built with their hard work and service.

And only doing so after teachers and retirees had voted for years for more transparency in how their pension fund is managed. It was only after they’d forged a new majority of the board through the democratic process that Ohio’s gerrymandered politicians stripped away their voting power and undid the results of three years of elections:

Like I said, egregious.

But in their rush to strip this power away, these same politicians look to have broken the law (happens a lot). This week, a suit was filed to stop them—and yesterday, a court stopped the illegal takeover…for the time being.

The Basics: “I’m Just an (Ohio) Bill”

Remember the old cartoon, “I’m Just a Bill?” (Back when ABC was trying to lift democracy)

Explaining how a bill becomes a law on Capitol Hill?

Well, in Ohio, that video would contain two added lyrics beyond the familiar jingle.

One would be that a bill in Ohio must contain no “more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.” That’s a requirement located in Article II, Section 15(D) of the Ohio Constitution.

It’s kind of clunky for that jingle, I know, so we can just call it the single-subject rule.

A second part of that jingle would be that the Ohio Constitution requires that “[e]very bill shall be considered by each house on three different days... and every individual consideration of a bill or action suspending the requirement shall be recorded in the journal of the respective house. No bill may be passed until the bill has been reproduced and distributed to members of the house in which it is pending and every amendment been made available upon a member’s request.” Article II, Section 15(C) of the Ohio Constitution.

Now that’s a very clunky lyric, so we can call that Ohio’s “Three Considerations” Rule.

So for a bill to become a law in Ohio, it must be both:

1) presented as a single subject

and

2) be up for consideration on three different days.

Now why do these requirements exist in Ohio’s Constitution?

Pretty obviously, it’s so there’s some measure of transparency in the legislative process. First, the people of Ohio (including those who represent them) should know what their representatives are proposing and voting on. Second, they should have an opportunity to hear and weigh in on those measures—three opportunities!

Requiring a single subject and three considerations are the barebones basics of allowing that transparency to happen, and they are guaranteed in Ohio’s Constitution. Pretty basic rules. Not very hard to follow, you’d think.

But here’s the problem: the gutting of the teachers’ pension fund representation didn’t meet either of these clear rules. In fact, the proposed change appeared early in the morning without ever having been seen before and was passed almost immediately into law. And the change did not appear as a single-subject bill.

Why did the politicians skip all this? Because they knew full well that if teachers and retirees (500,000 rely on the pension fund) had had the opportunity to weigh in on the stripping of their voting rights over their own pension, they would’ve shown up in overwhelming numbers to oppose it.

So the cowardly politicians from the most corrupt statehouse in America skipped all that to avoid transparency and the inevitable fierce blowback.

But because they did, and violated the Constitution in the process, those who represent teacher and retirees sued this week to stop it:

And here's what their suit said:

Months of Budget Hearings—But No Consideration of Pension Takeover

So how did they pass this change? Well, they stuck it into the bill that became Ohio’s budget.

Here’s a summary of how it played out, provided by the lawsuit: (Note: the teachers’ pension board is known as “STRS”).

• The budget bill (HB96) was presented to the Ohio House of Representatives on February 11, 2025. It did not include any language amending the STRS Board.

• Following that introduction on February 11, Ohio House subcommittees held 58 official hearings in consideration of the bill among various committees. Amendments to the STRS Board were not introduced at any of those hearings.

• On April 8, 2025, the House Finance Committee voted H.B. No. 96 out of committee with amendments. That April 8, 2025 version did not include any language amending the STRS Board.

• On April 9, 2025, the State House of Representatives passed H.B. No. 96. The April 9, 2025 version of H.B. No. 96 did not include any language amending the STRS Board.

• After the Ohio House of Representatives passed the April 9, 2025 version of H.B. No. 96, Ohio Senate subcommittees held 39 official hearings on H.B. No. 96. Amendments to the STRS Board were not introduced at any of those hearings.

• On June 10, 2025, the Senate Finance Committee voted the bill out of committee with amendments. The June 10, 2025 version of H.B. No. 96 did not include any language amending the STRS Board.

• On June 11, 2025, the State Senate passed H.B. No. 96. The June 11, 2025 version of H.B. No. 96 did not include any language amending the STRS Board.

• On the same day, the State House of Representatives refused to concur with the State Senate’s June 11, 2025 version of H.B. No. 96 and voted against it.

• On June 12, 2025, the State House of Representatives and Senate established a Conference Committee to reach a compromise on H.B. No. 96.

• Only at approximately 1:00 am on June 25, 2025, the proposal to amend the STRS Board was first submitted into the entire months-long process—and subsequently adopted by the Conference Committee. This was the first time that the General Assembly considered the amendments to the STRS Board regarding composition and leadership of the STRS Board as part of the budget bill

• Later that day—June 25, 2025—the State House of Representatives and Senate voted to accept the Conference Committee version of H.B. No. 96, with that provision in it.

• The legislation passed both chambers on that day.

• The Ohio General Assembly held no additional hearings on H.B. No. 96 after June 25, 2025.

• Governor DeWine signed H.B. No. 96 into law on June 30, 2025.

OK. That was a lot of process.

But amid all the process—amid all those months that the budget was being considered—the amendment to the composition of the teachers pension board never appeared until 1 a.m. on the final day of all those months, and passed both the House and the Senate within hours of that last-minute, surprise appearance.

That is most definitely not three hearings, and most definitely not three days.

Oops.

Is this a Budget Item?

And no, this nonsense is not a legitimate item in the budget either.

As the Complaint makes clear, the STRS receives no direct funding from the state. “It is funded solely by member and employer contributions, and investment income on such contributions.”

This means that last-minute amendments to the STRS Board makeup contained no relationship to the state budget or appropriation process, just as the budget bill never appropriated any money to STRS anytime during that drawn-out process.

This not only means that these changes were never granted the “three considerations” required by Ohio’s Constitution, but it also means that they were improperly placed into the budget as opposed to being a separate bill complying with the single-subject rule. As the complaint says, “they were adopted in flagrant disregard and violation of the One-Subject Rule set forth in Article II, § 15(D) of the Ohio Constitution.”

So in their rush to avoid the wrath of the teachers and retirees whose rights they have been hell-bent on violating, these lawless politicians ran roughshod over the bare minimum requirements of the Ohio’s Constitution.

And just as I was typing this up yesterday, this happened:

Good!

Call to Action

Botton line: the outrageous takeover of the pension board from teachers/retirees is temporarily halted until a preliminary injunction hearing.

Which means one thing: when that hearing is held in Columbus, all the teachers and retirees and supporters who were deprived of their three opportunities to weigh in on the change by our lawless legislature….now have their chance!

They should show up to Columbus en masse so they can be heard now.

Every step of this court case is an opportunity for those wronged by this brute-force maneuver to make their anger clear.

Let’s make sure we’re so loud that the lawless politicians down the street hear it as well.