Clock ticking for DeWine to sign, veto bills
Jan 02, 2025
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was sent more than two dozen bills by lawmakers in the final session of the 135th General Assembly, and the governor still has to take action on several of them.
House Bill 315 was a last-minute pass by lawmakers before the end of the year and must be fully or partially signed or vetoed by Friday. It includes a “medical free speech” provision.
“I intend to line-item veto that that provision,” DeWine said. “This would totally strip our regulatory boards of authority.”
DeWine said he is against that part of the bill because it would, by his understanding, strip healthcare regulation. He said, for example, it would give a doctor who is abusing their power to over-prescribe opioids an easy out.
“All the doctor would have to say [as a defense] is, ‘Well, it was my opinion,’ so this would just totally gut our ability to regulate health professionals at all,” DeWine said.
That same bill also includes a provision allow every public office, like a police department, to charge up to $750 for a public record, like body camera footage of an officer-involved shooting, up front. The governor did not directly indicate whether he would line-item veto that part, and said public records requests should be “fulfilled swiftly,” but did defend the concept of the possible law.
“If you have, for example, a small police department, a very small police department, and they get a request like that, that could take one person a significant period of time,” DeWine said. “What this amendment would do is allow them to recover some of the cost that is involved. This is a very heavy burden.”
Another bill that DeWine has to take action on by Friday is one that would create more transparency in hospital pricing for patients.
“I'm going to review every bill and our team is looking through every bill to make sure there's not anything in there that we were surprised about or that we did not catch before,” he said.
But a bill that DeWine has a little more time to mull over is House Bill 8. That bill requires public schools to let students leave during the day for religious instruction and allows parents to pull students out of certain “sexuality content” in the curriculum. DeWine said he expects to sign it.
“There were changes that were made in this at our request, and I think it's likely that I will sign the bill,” DeWine said.
The governor has until late next week to take action on House Bill 8.