The Ohio Senate passed the measure on 27-6 vote Wednesday, less than a year after blocking passage of a similar bill. Testimony by owners and employees of sweepstakes parlors failed to persuade legislators that the more than 620 cafes should continue.

Gov. John Kasich is expected to sign the measure.

Senate Republicans announced a change of heart on the legality of the cafes last month after a briefing by top state law enforcers, including Attorney General Mike DeWine.

Proponents contend the cafes are legal.

Also Wednesday, the Ohio House was set to vote on a bill extending Ohio’s moratorium on the cafes and imposing a new reporting requirement.

The proposal is among roughly 200 amendments that Senate Democrats have offered to the state’s $61.5 billion, two-year budget.

Sen. Nina Turner of Cleveland said Wednesday her amendment would eliminate a proposed 7 percent income tax cut for Ohioans making more than $106,150. She says that would free up $508 million for an investment fund to provide extra dollars for schools to use in the classroom and for transportation.

Republicans overwhelming control the Senate, and any changes would need their support.

The Senate’s budget-writing committee was to meet later Wednesday.

The Senate version of the budget bill is expected to be released next week, with additional hearings planned on the changes.

It wasn’t as much a protest as it was a picketing session, with nine Republican party activists holding signs and chanting outside the headquarters of the Ohio Democratic Party.

The signs blasted Ohio Democrats for not demanding more information about the trio of scandals President Obama is facing – the attack on Benghazi, the Justice Department’s search of phone records from the Associated Press, and the IRS’s admitted targeting of conservative organizations for extra scrutiny.

Jade Overstreet is a senior at Ohio State and said she spoke for the group of demonstrators.

We are here to demand answers today. We definitely think it’s wrong that ODP is not making sure that its elected officials are not profiling citizens and it was wrong that the IRS targeted certain groups and it’s totally against what our country stands for, and we really think that some answers should come out and we should have the right to know what’s going on with this IRS scandal, so…

The drone in the background throughout the demonstration – a counterprotest of sorts, as a Democratic Party worker ran over and over a few tiny patches of treelawn throughout the event.

Reporter: “Is the lawnmower on purpose?”
Kurtz: “Well, we schedule to mow our lawn pretty regularly. It’s important to keep the party headquarters looking nice and pristine.”

Jerid Kurtz speaks for the Ohio Democratic Party, and took aim at the incoming chair of the ORP while once again previewing next year’s election.

As Gov. Kasich’s ally over at the Republican Party, Matt Borges has many tax problems of his own. Came out that he owed more than $500,000 in back taxes at one point. So it’s always interesting to see the party talking about the IRS and taxes, but hypocrisy is nothing new to the governor.

These kinds of protests aren’t unusual at political events – there are usually signholders from the opposing party at high-profile speeches and candidate appearances.

And Democratic activists protested outside the Ohio Republican Party headquarters after one of the presidential debates last year – dressed to address Mitt Romney’s comment about “binders full of women”. But this suggests the 2014 campaigns are starting early, and will be lively.

As the protest continued in Columbus, Tea Party activists from Ohio and neighboring states gathered in downtown Cincinnati to draw attention to the IRS’ ongoing scandal.

Click here to hear details on the Cincinnati protest

Several hundred people gathered on Cincinnati’s Fountain Square before marching to the John Weld Peck Federal Building. That’s where employees with the Cincinnati IRS office admittedly applied extra scrutiny to conservative and other groups applying for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status. Dee Cohen from Cincinnati calls the IRS and White House administration’s actions abusive.

“How could you not be angry? I mean, we’re going to try to suppress the press. Let’s get those reporters, we want to know who their contacts are. Let’s check their emails. Let’s make sure we don’t have free press anymore. Let’s get them (Tea Party groups) money-wise with the IRS. It’s all this intimidation. It’s outrageous. This is the US not Venezuela.”

Dave Kern of Liberty Township says he came to protest the “outrageous actions” of the IRS across the board.

“(It’s) not some so-called low-level worker at the IRS here in Cincinnati. It’s impossible that this originated from them. But the person who authorized this from the top. That’s where it should end up and they should be rightfully prosecuted and jailed. It’s outrageous.”

Tea Party organizers say an apology isn’t enough. They want the Obama administration to quote “make concrete and transparent steps” to ensure this never happens again. The IRS meanwhile says while its employees acted inappropriately they were not driven by political bias.

Dann resigned as Ohio’s chief law enforcer in 2008 amid a sexual harassment scandal and later pleaded guilty to ethics violations involving campaign and transition funds.

The Ohio Supreme Court ordered a half-year suspension of his law license in November. The suspension, which ended Monday, was half the one-year term that was at one time recommended for Dann.

The court gave him credit for fulfilling his community service obligations, paying his fines and submitting character references from judges.

But justices said Dann’s former position set him apart from other lawyers, his conduct displayed poor judgment and his reasons for the conduct were ultimately unsatisfactory.

That controversy and concerns regarding immigrants are sparking discussion about immigration reform all across the political spectrum.

There have been more than 800 cases of so-called “medical repatriation” in the past six years in 15 states, including Ohio, according to a study from the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University.

A few Ohio hospitals have confirmed that they did indeed send undocumented immigrants back to their native countries after they sought treatment for illness or injuries. John Palmer speaks for the Ohio Hospital Association, which lobbies for hospitals but does not regulate them.

I think given the situation at the federal level and the federal responsibility for illegal immigrants that that would be their jurisdiction to address the situation with illegal immigrants. But OHA doesn’t have a policy, and to my knowledge there is not an Ohio law that determines the standards or those criteria.

Palmer says there’s no way to know how many times medical repatriation has happened in Ohio.

Liberal activists have long talked about immigration law changes. And now conservative activists who are working in Ohio say the medical repatriation situation shows reform is needed soon.

“That’s why we need reasonableness,” says Joe Cole, executive director of the International Entrepreneurs of Ohio.

There are people here undocumented who are working, who are creating jobs, who are filling jobs, and driving tax revenues and economic development, and that’s why we need reform.

Cole, who represents immigrant business owners in Ohio, says immigration reform is directly related to economic development, and he says it’s especially important in Ohio, which is home to several universities with international student populations.

Cole and other conservative leaders in the business, faith and law enforcement communities are traveling Ohio to talk about the need for immigration reform. Along with them is Alex Nowrasteh from the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, who says immigration reform isn’t about charity.

The thing that bothers me the most – and this is the thing that proponents of immigration reform perpetuate – it’s about what we can do for them, what we can do to help them. And in some sense it is, but in a more important sense it’s about what they can do for us and allowing them to do for us, legally and above board, the things that make us wealthier and make us a productive nation and add to our population in the same ways that previous ways of immigration have been allowed to do.

And Nowrasteh says Ohio is a state to watch because of its role as a bellwether state in big elections, and adds that the Republican Party has come a long way in recognizing the need for immigration reform.

The coalition “Bibles, Badges and Business” is pushing for immigration reform at the state and federal level. The Ohio members will travel to Washington for a lobbying day next month.

Republican leaders of the Ohio House scrapped the governor’s plans for expanding the federal-state Medicaid program under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The Ohio Senate president also has said expansion won’t be in his chamber’s budget.

Supporters of Medicaid expansion are holding rallies, meetings and other events Monday as part of a “day of action.”

They want lawmakers to act by June 30 to extend the Medicaid program. The federal government will fully fund the expansion for the first three years, with the state’s share gradually increasing to 10 percent by 2020.

Neither chambers’ leaders have indicated a timeline for action on Medicaid changes.

Third-term state Rep. Connie Pillich, of suburban Cincinnati, said Monday she’ll focus her campaign on fighting for working families, fellow small business owners and senior citizens.

Pillich has been a lawyer, businesswoman and captain in the U.S. Air Force.

Without using his name, she criticized Mandel for absenteeism from his state position during a failed run for the U.S. Senate last year and for not wanting the job.

Ohio Republican Chairman-elect Matthew Borges (BOHR’-jihs) said Mandel, a U.S. Marine veteran, has been a responsible watchdog of state tax dollars.

Borges cited Mandel’s record of cutting his own budget, modernizing the office and maintaining the high credit rating of Ohio’s investment fund.

The standards were quietly approved in 2010. But now critics like Kelly Kohls, the head of the Ohio School Board Leadership Council, say Common Core does not reflect the values of Ohioans.

Kohls says “Common Core is a bunch of standards put forth by people who are not Ohioans, not by the state of Ohio, adopted by the state but it was developed by people outside our state.”

But Emmy Partin, who oversees Ohio policy matters at the Fordham Institute, says states are free to opt out of the program all together or change teaching materials to reflect local values.

Partin counters “The curriculum decisions about how to teach the content, the texts that you read to the kids and teach them everyday in the classroom, that is all a local decision.”

Emmy Partin of the Fordham Institute and Kelly Kohls of the Ohio School Boards Leadership Council made their remarks today on All Sides with Ann Fisher.

Republican Rob Portman says he and Senator Orrin hatch wrote the tax agency after hearing complaints from some conservative groups that they were being unfairly targeted.

“We unfortunately have now learned a year later that our suspicions that we had were correct, and that is that the IRS employees were using inappropriate political screenings,” Portman says. “They used key words like we the people, patriots, limited government.”

Three congressional committees are investigating and Attorney General Eric Holder says the FBI is looking into potential civil rights violations at the IRS.

President Barack Obama says Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew asked for and accepted Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller’s resignation.

Miller’s departure came five days after the IRS revealed that agents had improperly targeted groups with “tea party” or “patriots” in their in their applications for tax-exempt status. It came a day after an inspector general’s report blamed ineffective management in Washington for allowing it to happen for more than 18 months.

In a 98-0 vote Wednesday, the House adopted revised teacher eligibility guidelines and other changes to the program, which requires that students be proficient in reading before leaving third grade.

House Education Chairman Gerald Stebelton said school districts and educators raised concerns about having adequate staff to help meet the guarantee. Only 4,200 of Ohio’s 34,000 licensed preschool-through-3rd grade teachers would have qualified as program instructors under initial guidelines.

Stebelton said lawmakers weren’t given enough time last year to anticipate all the problems with the program before it was approved as part of Gov. John Kasich’s (KAY’-siks) midterm budget.

House changes now return to the Senate.