Gov. Mike DeWine wants to make changes to the state’s adult recreational marijuana and legislative redistricting laws — and is seeking cooperation from his fellow Republicans who control the state Legislature.

DeWine discussed those issues and others during a 65-minute Wednesday interview with Ogden Newspapers’ editors and reporters, including from The Vindicator and Tribune Chronicle.

DeWine wants to increase the tax rate on recreational marijuana from 10% to 20% while state Senate Republicans want to increase it to 15%. DeWine and the Senate Republicans also want to eliminate funding for local governments that have marijuana dispensaries in their communities.

DeWine said Wednesday: “How the money is spent seems to me is somewhat goofy and is not good public policy. So what I’ve proposed and what the Senate has a bill about was to say, “We’ll keep the legalization and keep a lot of parts of this, but how the money gets spent, we have a fiduciary obligation to make sure this money is spent in a proper way.'”

Ohio voters approved legalizing adult recreational marijuana with 57% support in November 2023. But because it wasn’t a constitutional amendment, state lawmakers have the authority to change the ballot language — and are planning to do so.

Removing funding from communities that host marijuana dispensaries has raised objections from officials in those localities.

DeWine said that “he’s open to any discussion on this, but this is almost a lottery. You’ve got one township with a dispensary located (in it) and four around it that don’t have one. The one with the dispensary gets the money, and the others don’t.”

DeWine said all communities would benefit from his proposal that would double the marijuana tax and use 25% of it for county jail construction and renovation with lesser percentages for police training, the 988 crisis hotline, substance use education and drivers education in schools, among other programs.

“We use this budget to more target the need for this marijuana money instead of what the current law does, which creates a lottery for who gets the money,” DeWine said.

Dispensaries have sold more than $320 million in recreational marijuana since the legalization took effect last summer.

Senate Republicans want to lower the concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in recreational marijuana from 90% to 70%.

DeWine said Wednesday he supports a reduction.

He said: “There’s nowhere that I know that there’s such a gap between what the public believes about something and what the real facts are. The facts are marijuana is two, three, four times more potent than it was in the ’60s and ’70s. It’s dramatically more potent.”

DeWine said it was “a mistake” for voters to approve the legalization of recreational marijuana, but he respects the results.

The Senate Republican bill also would not permit outdoor smoking or vaping of marijuana, which DeWine also supports.

“There are many times that I’ve experienced in Ohio and outside Ohio since this has passed where you’re on the street, you have your grandson or your granddaughter, and all they can do is smell the marijuana,” he said. “I think it is a problem that needs to be resolved.”

REDISTRICTING

DeWine said he still wants changes to how state legislative and congressional redistricting is handled in Ohio.

The state legislative map was approved in 2023 and will be in place for eight years.

But the congressional map has to be redrawn this year. The map currently favors Republicans 10-3 with two tossup seats that Democrats have won in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Those two districts, one centered in Akron and the other in Toledo, are expected to change to give advantages to Republicans.

DeWine, who sits on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, said he supports taking politics out of the redistricting process.

DeWine spoke against a failed November constitutional amendment that would have given control over the maps to a 15-member citizens commission.

DeWine spoke in opposition to the constitutional amendment and said he would work to institute a plan similar to one used in Iowa, where nonpartisans draw lines with the maps approved by legislators.

DeWine said Wednesday: “Would the Iowa plan be perfect in Ohio? We could argue you might need some changes, but I think a plan that says, ‘You’re not allowed to look at voting, voting patterns, you’re not allowed to look at registration, you can’t favor an incumbent, the lines need to be as compact as possible, you should keep the political subdivisions together as much as humanly possible;’ that’s a political approach Iowa has done for 40 years. It’s worked pretty well there. Could we make it better than Iowa? Yeah, but we ought to have this discussion. So my opinion is the same. We need to do this because this issue is never going to get resolved. We’re going to continue to have acrimony.”

He added: “If you ask the average person, ‘Should politics be taken out of this process?’ The average Ohioan would say, ‘Yes, sign me up. Let’s take politics out of this.'”

DeWine said he would again ask the state Legislature to take up redistricting this year. He doesn’t plan to seek a constitutional amendment on it, saying, “It is not the type of issue that lends itself to someone putting it on the ballot.”

HIGHER ED BILL

DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, a former Youngstown State University president, spoke Wednesday in favor of Senate Bill 1, which was approved by the state Senate on Wednesday and makes significant changes to public universities.

The bill bans diversity, equity and inclusion programs; requires each professor to post a course syllabus online effective next year; forbids colleges from taking positions on “controversial beliefs or policies” such as politics, foreign policy, immigration, marriage, abortion and climate; and prevents faculty from going on strike.

Both DeWine and Tressel downplayed the impact of the bill.

DeWine said that “colleges should be a place where there is free debate,” and all ideas discussed except hate speech.

“One of the complaints from the conservative side is that all views are OK but not conservative ones,” DeWine said.

He added: “We want to teach (students) to be critical thinkers.”

Tressel said he believes a university is “unity in diversity,” and this bill doesn’t impact that.

Republicans have said universities “indoctrinate” students.

But Tressel said during his nearly nine years as YSU president and his decades as a head football coach at YSU and The Ohio State University, he never had anyone express concerns about indoctrination.

“On the other hand, I had heard anecdotal conversations about students saying that at times they didn’t feel like all sides of a situation were discussed and my point was raise your hand and” speak up, he said.

Tressel added: “The bill’s original intent is we want everyone to feel comfortable with what we discuss, what we feel and what we think and what our view is and I think that is the intent.”

DeWine said he’s never had anyone come up to him and say they’ve been indoctrinated.

SPORTS GAMBLING

DeWine said he wants to double the tax on sportsbooks from 20% to 40% to generate at least $150 million in revenue a year that would go into a fund for professional and minor league sports teams to make improvements to their stadiums and arenas or construct new ones. A portion of the funding would go to offset the costs of pay-to-play fees for Ohio school students.

DeWine said taxpayers have been footing the bill for new stadiums in Ohio for more than 50 years, and this would put the cost of that work at the feet of sports bookmakers, who are enjoying large profits from gambling.

This is one option to fund the Cleveland Browns’ planned dome stadium in Brook Park.

DeWine said: “Could it be used by the Browns? Yes, but it’s much, much bigger than this.”

Funding of stadiums will continue, but DeWine said, “The question is: how do you pay for it? As I look at the budget, I look at the tax cuts we have done, I look at the need for money for schools, as I look at the need for money for mental health, as I look at the need for money for infrastructure and on and on. I think we would be much better off, frankly, if we had another source to fund these stadiums.”

He continued: “Now, it doesn’t mean we’re going to fully fund them. So we came up with the idea (of) let’s stop taking taxpayer dollars to do this. Let’s pay for it and have the people who are making the most money off the sports and that is the people who are running the big online gaming.”