The same poll says most Ohioans think the state’s new casinos will be good for the state, and most Ohioans do not want to move away from the practice of electing state Supreme Court justices.

The poll also says 47 percent of Ohioans oppose same-sex marriage, compared to 45 percent support, and voters are evenly split on legalizing marijuana.

Click here for more details on the poll from Ohio Public Radio’s Bill Cohen.

But Republicans say that ad isn’t going anywhere.

The ad from the Ohio Republican Party supports Justice Robert Cupp and takes sharp aim at his opponent, Democrat Bill O’Neill.

“When crime occurs, victims deserve justice. But as a judge, Bill O’Neil expressed sympathy for rapists,” a woman says in the ad.

The spot targets a 12-year-old ruling that reversed a rape conviction and sent the case back for retrial.

Cupp wasn’t involved with the ad, but a letter from bar association chair Maxine Thomas says Cupp has to go beyond distancing himself and demand it be pulled. Cupp’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment, but state GOP spokesman Matthew Henderson says the ad will stay on the air.

“This is something that we’re running ourselves. This is something that’s not affiliated with the campaign,” Henderson says.

Ohio Democrats called the spot a new low, and a bar association committee has voted to review the ad.

Click the play button above for details on the proposal from Rep. State Representative Courtney Combs.

In a unanimous decision Wednesday, justices rejected claims by a Columbus tavern owner that argued the fines it was charged for violations were an illegal taking of property, violating the state’s legitimate police powers.

Zeno’s Victorian Village had been cited 10 different times between July 2007 and September 2009. The bar argued the smoking ban should have been enforced against smokers, not businesses.

Justices said there was evidence that the bar tacitly allowed smoking and had plastic cups partially filled with water that were placed around the bar as ash trays. They further noted the bar had access to an appeals process and did not take advantage of it eight of 10 times.

Ohio is one of the key players.

For Mike DeWine, this trip to Washington has taken 14 months.

“When I ran for Attorney General, I made a commitment to take Ohio into the lawsuit against Obamacare,” DeWine says.

DeWine is in Washington for the three days of arguments before the high court, which will then decide the case that Ohio and 25 other states have filed against the federal government over the Affordable Care Act.

Meanwhile, on the first day of arguments, advocates for the law will be demonstrating in favor of it. Col Owens is the co-chair of Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage.

“Almost all people insured in Ohio have received benefits from the elimination of the lifetime limit on their coverage under insurance, and under protections that do not allow insurance to be stopped when they become ill,” Owens says.

Owens ticks off a list of what he says the federal law has done in Ohio – it’s allowed 2,600 Ohioans who are uninsurable because of serious health conditions to join a high risk pool till the federal law is fully in effect in 2014; he says 83,000 Ohioans under 26 are now allowed to stay on their parents’ policies; and he says the way the law deals with the “donut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug program has saved 185,000 Ohio senior citizens $95 million.

“And when the health care exchange is put into place, and something like almost a million and a half uninsured people in Ohio will begin to receive coverage through the exchange,” Owens says.

But while DeWine admits some parts of the plan have been received well, that’s not enough to save what he feels is unconstitutional public policy.

“The people of Ohio understand it. When they think about Obamacare, I think there are some things about the bill that they like, but by a 2-1 vote, Ohioans have said no to this individual mandate,” DeWine says.

DeWine refers to last fall’s Issue 3, the amendment to the Ohio Constitution that states that no federal or state law will require any person, company or health care provider to participate in a health care system.

Critics have said there’s no way a state constitutional amendment can trump the federal law if it’s upheld, but its supporters say they may take legal action if the state sets up exchanges, the marketplaces dictated in the law where uninsured people would buy health insurance.

State officials have said some of the intricacies of the Affordable Care Act that have them resisting the requirement on setting up exchanges for now.

Greg Moody is the head of Gov. John Kasich’s Office of Health Transformation – and he was asked in testimony about the governor’s budget update bill what was happening with the state-run exchange.

“We’re in a situation where that is one part of the Affordable Care Act that guidance from the federal government came later. Where we had guidance earlier, there are things related to federal reform that have already been acted on. Health insurance exchanges are different because the federal guidance has been slow in coming,” Moody says.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision may settle the question – or not, if the justices uphold or toss out parts of the law. Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is a strong supporter of the law, but he isn’t especially confident.

“This is a very activist court that writes new laws. And the new laws they’ve written have clearly biased government towards Wall Street, towards the insurance companies, towards the oil industry, and I have no idea what they’re going to do,” Brown says.

A decision from the court isn’t likely until the end of June.

The court on Monday issued an unsigned opinion that reverses the dismissal of Archie Dixon’s death sentence.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Dixon’s conviction because he was not read his Miranda Rights before being questioned by police.

The case went before the U.S. Supreme Court because of an appeal by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.

Democrats said they lost a couple of weeks while Ohio Secretary of State’s office refused to approve petition language to put the issue on the ballot and subsequently, the court initially ruled there was grounds for referendum.

But the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled it will not allow the party more time to gather petition signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

Party Chair Chris Redfern says his party can get the job done, with or without the extra time on the clock. Democrats have until Christmas to collect petition signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

In the meantime, some Democratic lawmakers are holding closed-door talks with Republican legislative leaders, hoping a compromise can avoid the proposed referendum.

The owner of the Columbus bar called Zeno’s has $33,000 in fines from 10 citations for violations of the state’s smoking ban. The bar claims the ban is unconstitutional. Maurice Thompson from the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law agrees, and said the court has a clear question to answer.

“Will the court protect a fundamental right to own and use property, or will it essentially unleash a police power completely untethered from nuisance principles that knows essentially no limit?”

Thompson says the law amounts to “spot zoning” – because it allows for exemptions of the smoking ban for certain places, such as retail tobacco stores, but doesn’t allow for smoking at other places where there could be a similar economic hardship.

Beyond that, Thompson says, it doesn’t allow owners to use and enjoy their property, when the Ohio Supreme Court has held that property rights are fundamental rights.

“We have a bundle of rights in property. Ownership is only one stick in that bundle. And ownership is often irrelevant if you can’t also use your property in a gainful way. And that’s what we have here,” Thompson says.

But the attorney representing the Ohio Department of Health says Thompson’s argument is off base.

“Nearly every regulation under the police power is going to interfere with the enjoyment of liberty or property,” says attorney Elisabeth Long.

Long agreed with Thompson that an Ohio Supreme Court case involving eminent domain did recognize that there is a higher standard for property rights holders in Ohio than nationally.

“But that says nothing about the police power. And if the court were to refashion its test for police power regulations in such a way as to apply some form of heightened scrutiny as Zeno’s is advocating, that would essentially lead to the future invalidation of countless laws that have been enacted to regulate the public health, safety and general welfare,” Long says.

Thompson also blasted the law for citing bar owners 33,000 times for violating the smoking ban, when not one patron has ever been cited.

“…Even though we have two co-equal sections of the law, one prohibiting the business owner from permitting smoking, and another saying that once the business owner has asked the patron to discontinue smoking, that that patron must in fact discontinue,” Thompson argued.

But Long said the tipline that leads to investigations of violations of the ban has only received complaints about bars, not about individual smokers in them.

“Proprietors are held responsible for the conduct that goes on in their establishments in other contexts as well, such as under the liquor laws. Proprietors are responsible for making sure that patrons do not become overly intoxicated or start behaving in improper ways.”

The outcome of this case has widespread interest – among activist groups, businesses and, of course, bars. So far, 50 bars across Ohio have racked up more than $10,000 in fines.

The High Court today refused to hear the argument from Richland County Common Pleas Judge James DeWeese. The judge hung the poster in his courtroom in 2006 after the U.S. Supreme Court said another poster he hung in 2000 violated the separation between church and state.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio Foundation sued and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the display endorsed religious views and was unconstitutional.

The ACLU also sued in the case of the first poster.