Now there’s bipartisan support for a bill in the state legislature that would try to reduce drug deaths.

Republican state representative Terry Johnson is a doctor. He says more needs to be done to help Ohioans who are addicted to opium, heroin or opiate pain killers.

“Once you are addicted to an opioid, it is a very difficult process to recover from,” Johnson said.

But Johnson says there is a drug called narcan or Naloxone that can stop an opioid overdose at the point it is administered.

It reverses opiod or opiate overdose and it does so almost instantly. It’s a very remarkable drug, high safety profile, very easy to use.

“The trouble is, in the past, we’ve primarily used it in the ER because there’s no other place to use it,” Johnson says. “But it turns out that now people are overdosing, it would be a very good idea to put it in the hands of people who can save lives.”

Johnson wants to put the drug in the hands of family members of drug addicts. He says they are the ones who are most likely to use it since the drug users are often not physically able to when they are overdosing.

The problem is that Ohio law does not allow family members to get the drug directly.

So Johnson and Democratic State Representative Mike Stinziano want to change the law.

Stinziano other states are finding when they put the drugs in the hands of family members of abusers, lives are saved.

Nine other states have removed these regulatory barriers and they’ve seen success when properly applied in reducing the overdose rate in those states.

You don’t have to convince Lisa Roberts, a Scioto County nurse. She works with drug addicted people in her county where she says drug abuse is rampant.

“Rural communities like mine have seen an epidemic of prescription drug addiction leading to heroin addiction and consequently, lots of consequences that go along with that” Roberts says. “We have the highest hepatitis C rate in the state of Ohio. We have the highest homicide rate in the state of Ohio now. So these are new developments for rural counties like mine. We are not used to dealing with these sorts of problems.”

Roberts says she’s been involved with a pilot project from the state health department to allowing relaxed use of narcan. And she says it’s helping to lower the number of deaths and the number of new cases of Hepatitis C.

That doesn’t come as a surprise to Dr. Joan Papp of Cleveland. She is hoping the state will pass this bill to allow family members to possess the anti opiod drug. Papp says something needs to be done to stop the growing number of deaths in Northeast Ohio.

“In the emergency department, we are seeing a drastic increase in the number of heroin overdose deaths particularly. In Cuyahoga County last year, we saw the highest number of heroin deaths that our county has ever experienced – 161 deaths total. That’s up from 2006 when the number was 52,” Papp says.

Papp agrees putting the anti opiod drugs in the hands of family members of abusers can save lives. So does Miles Dawson of Southeast Ohio. He himself has almost become a statistic by overdosing and living to tell about it.

“I had just gotten home from rehab and my Mom was coming over to visit me and I had relapsed again and she found me with my baby brother on my bed lying unconscious. She had to wait for the paramedics to get there and then them take me to the hospital.”

By the grace of God, I did make it through to make it to the hospital but what could have been my success rate if she could have just given it to me right then and there?

Dawson, who has overdosed twice, says he would not have used the knowledge that his Mom had the drug as a security blanket because Dawson never thought he’d overdose in the first place. Dawson says he’s been clean for three years now.

Ohio legislators will be considering this bill soon and with bipartisan support, the lawmakers backing it hope it will pass.

It happens every budget cycle – the vote in the House, where the budget starts, to reject the changes that the Senate made. House Finance Committee chair Ron Amstutz of Wooster introduced the vote.

“The question is, shall we concur in the amendments that the Senate has made to the budget bill? And I think we should do the honorable thing and indicate that further work is required,” Amstutz said.

In the last two budget years, this vote has been nearly unanimous, with little debate. Not this time. Democratic Rep. Bob Hagan of Youngstown started off the discussion.

“I want to address briefly the opportunity that we have and could miss, and that the suggestion that I’m making now is that we invest in Ohio’s developing shale drilling industry and I’ll tell you why….”

Hagan then began to talk about the drilling process known as fracking, which he opposes. Rep. Amstutz then stood up and said that Hagan wasn’t speaking to the budget bill, and Speaker Bill Batchelder ruled Hagan out of order. Then Rep. Ron Young, a Republican of Lake County in northeast Ohio brought up a Medicaid reform amendment that Senators had taken out of the House budget.

“And as long as I’m mentioning Medicaid, I’m hopeful that we don’t slip in some sort of Medicaid expansion or even some of the reform programs that I’ve seen to date, and let me just share briefly why I feel that way,” Young said.

Young talked for several minutes longer than Hagan, and eventually Democratic Rep. Mike Foley of Cleveland rose to say that Young also wasn’t speaking to the bill. Batchelder quickly moved to a vote, and the budget is off to the conference committee. After the vote, Amstutz, who’s on that committee, was asked about the short debate.

Amstutz: “Those are statewide speeches.”
Kasler: “Well, do you feel they set a tone that maybe is going to be making the conference committee’s work harder?”
Amstutz: “We always have our challenges, but I think we’re reaching out to the members that are focused on the members that are trying to make our state, to develop strong programs, policy programs, policy-based programs and ultimately, hopefully we’ll find convergence even of those that have statewide aspirations.”

Young and Hagan, who are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, greeted each other after the vote. Hagan said standing up to speak against the budget is the kind of thing he does all the time.

“There’s nothing that was politically inspired,” Hagan said. “It was inspired by the fact that we should be talking about the revenue that is out there available and we should be using – that three others states are using – and I wanted to make that point because this conference committee is meeting and this would be the only time I could say it publicly what we should be doing.”

And Young says he felt this was the time to bring up his concerns as well.

“We’ve had a lot of discussions on the floor about Medicaid expansion. But not many folks that have my perspective have stood up and defended that perspective in a cogent, coherent way. And since there was an element of Medicaid in the House version of the budget, there’s a possibility that it could turn up in the concurrence committee.”

Hagan is running for the Democratic nomination for US Senate in 2016, but Young hasn’t announced any statewide campaigns.

The conference committee starts its work Thursday – the budget needs to be passed by the House and Senate by the end of the month, and there are clearly issues that both sides feel very strongly about.

Speaking at the City Club of Cleveland, Keith Faber says the bill would likely be a departure from the Medicaid expansion endorsed by Gov. John Kasich.

The Ohio House has rejected Kasich’s proposal to go along with the federal Medicaid expansion plan, which would cover hundreds of thousands of additional Ohioans.

Faber says senators know there’s a need for coverage among people with disabilities, mental health problems and addiction. And, he says, lawmakers are still open to what he calls Medicaid “reform.”

But he declined give definitive details.

“Will it mean the expansion that the governor proposed, or will it mean something else. My guess is that it will mean something else.

He says lawmakers are looking into getting a waiver from the federal government to depart from the Medicaid expansion as laid out by the Affordable Care Act.

Robin Bachman at Sisters of Charity Health System heard Faber’s remarks, and says she’s glad there’s still a chance the state will offer Medicaid coverage to more people.

He didn’t seem to shut the door on that, so it was hopeful in my mind. I would love to hear that it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

Bachman says she’s still hopeful Ohio will approve a full expansion.

Faber says he’d like to pass a bill by the end of the year.

But it’s starting to get some pushback.

What’s being called the Violent Career Criminals Act would more than double the required sentence for using a gun during a crime if the offender has two or more violent felony convictions. Supporters say data from 1974 to 2010 shows that people in that group with two or more felonies on their records is less than 1% of the population, but people in that group committed 57% of violent crimes in Ohio during that period.

Sponsoring Republican Sen. Jim Hughes of Columbus says in his experience in the Columbus and Franklin County prosecutors’ offices says deterrence through mandatory sentencing requirements works.

“It’s amazing how the thugs and those type people who commit these offenses against our citizens, how they understand the system, sometimes better the rank and file, because in fact they know ‘well, if I do this, how long am I going to be in for?’ And they learn that really quickly,” Hughes says.

But the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio says it’s doubtful. Nick Worner says research shows mandatory minimum sentencing laws don’t accomplish what’s intended.

“I think the biggest thing to ask is, is it results based?” Worner says. “Will it work? And if you don’t think it will work, as we don’t, then there really isn’t a way to justify it.”

Prison officials say the proposed law could force the reopening of sections of the Toledo Correctional Institution and the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, which would also need to be reconfigured, and over the next 20 years would result in more than a thousand new beds and cost more than $880 million dollars.

But Hughes says those estimates don’t take into account the inmates who would be moved out of the system through reforms in sentencing for lower-level crimes, and that the cost to communities would be lowered if the same people aren’t constantly cycling through the system.

“In addition, we ought to think about we as a society. Do you want these people that murder, rape, robbery and burglarize people – what is government supposed to do? We’re supposed to protect our people, I mean the citizens, from these types of people. And what I think we need to do is redefine some money to make sure we go here because these are the worst of the worst. They’re committing the crime,” Hughes says.

In a statement, the prisons department confirms those figures, but a spokesperson says the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction will work with the bill’s sponsors during the process.

The House on Wednesday agreed 87-7 to Senate changes made to the bill. Kasich’s signature is likely.

These so-called health navigators will help educate consumers and small businesses about the online marketplaces created by President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Through these exchanges, consumers will be able to buy individual private policies and apply for government subsidies to help pay their premiums. Open enrollment starts Oct. 1.

Ohio’s bill would require navigators to pass criminal background checks, and it specifies they can’t sell, solicit or negotiate health insurance.

Democratic Party officials say Wilson died Sunday afternoon in a Florida hospital from complications of a stroke he suffered in February.

Before being elected to Congress, Wilson served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1997 to 2005. He then served two years in the Ohio Senate before winning his first congressional campaign in 2006, filling the seat vacated by Gov. Ted Strickland.

Wilson had failed to gather enough petition signatures to qualify for the state’s primary, requiring him to run as a write-in.

He lost bids for Congress in 2010 and 2012.

More than 300 people attended the event, and Statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen reports it was an unusual mix. Click the play button above to hear his full report.

Statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen reports the proposal is backed by a Kansas woman whose daughter was kidnapped and murdered. Click the play button above for more details.

Statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen reports there wasn’t much debate on the House floor over the merits of the crackdown, and it passed by a wide margin. Click the play button above to hear a full report.

But many Republicans says Yost lacks the authority for such an audit.

Ohio’s Republican Auditor, Dave Yost, has issued a subpoena to JobsOhio, asking the private development agency to hand over financial records through the end of last June. That follows a private audit that shows JobsOhio received more than $5 million in state grants that many lawmakers say they didn’t know about.

And they say that money had not been disclosed in previous financial statements.

When asked by reporters about the subpoena, Republican Governor John Kasich minimizes the notion that he has a big disagreement with Yost.

The thing is they want to audit more than the public money and it gets to be problematic. If we give an incentive to a company here and they want to go in and audit their books, it gets to be really unworkable and disruptive.

“But if a company takes public money, that money ought to be audited by the Auditor of the State. It’s no more complicated than that,” Kasich says. “Look, I mean sometimes you read things and it appears one way. It’s just a little disagreement about how we should proceed.

When Kasich was asked if he knew about the $5 million grant amount, the Governor responds this way:

“You need to understand how this all works. It’s a complicated entity and I would suggest that you go talk to the development service agency and get over to JobsOhio and talk to them so you will understand how this all comes together.”

Kasich says Yost does not have the right to audit anything beyond public dollars and if an amendment spelling out a clarification in law about how JobsOhio can be audited is needed, he says lawmakers will get it.

But the Republican Speaker of the Ohio House, Bill Batchelder, says he was key in writing the rules to begin with and says it is already clear that Yost is overstepping his authority.

He doesn’t have that authority to go into a private corporation to audit it. I’m waiting for him to try to get in to Chrysler Motors or Fiat or whatever they call it now. You know we bought a lot of cars from them this year. What’s going on over there?

Batchelder says that last part in jest because he says private businesses do not allow public oversight of their books. He says there’s no reason to think there’s anything improper happening at JobsOhio.

“There might be a perception problem created by the auditor, but I think most people understood that board, you’ve looked at the list of board members. These are people above reproach. I mean this is not some group of cowboy,” Batchelder says.

But Ohio’s Democratic Party Chairman, Chris Redfern, says he can’t understand the Governor’s response to these questions.

The fact of the matter is it all seems so defensive, so reactive, if the first response from the Governor’s office is it’s complicated and oh yeah, we are going to get an amendment added to a bill that would essentially strip away the state auditor’s ability to audit the books. In the old days, you’d be a little less transparent if you are a crook on how you would steal the money.

Redfern says there’s no legal way nearly $5 million of state money could have been transferred to JobsOhio without the authority of the Ohio legislature.

And Redfern says that authority has never been given for those dollars.

“And no one is down at the Statehouse right now threatening to storm the door saying what on Earth is going on….there are 4.3 million dollars missing.”

Recently, the state offered 100 million dollars in state bonds to provide more money for JobsOhio.

Democratic State Representative Jay Carney says until these questions are answered, that transaction should be put on hold.