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Abortion Bills Could Be On Lame Duck Agenda, And Small Towns Are Grappling With Big City Problems

With the election done and Thanksgiving break nearly over, lawmakers will be back at the Statehouse soon for their lame duck session – taking up bills that either need to pass or will die at the end of the year. And among them are measures that deal with charter schools, when or if state agencies need to be abolished, the two year freeze on the green energy standards on electric utilities, changing unemployment compensation, and abortion.

Donald Trump won 70% of the vote in 30 Ohio counties, all of which are removed from the state’s biggest cities and suburbs. The report “Big City Problems In Ohio’s Small Towns” looks at 47 small hub towns and cities, all but two of which are in counties carried by Trump. The report concludes people in these communities are struggling with a mounting quiet crisis, featuring the same kinds of problems that residents of the big cities are dealing with - with employment, education and overall health of their residents. The author of the report is John Begala, a Democratic former state representative from northeast Ohio and the former head of the Center for Community Solutions, a Cleveland based think tank that looks into policy and problems related to health, social and economic issues. He talks about the report with Gene Krebs, a Republican former state representative from southwest Ohio who’s worked with the Center for Community Solutions as well as the Local Government Innovation Council and the land use policy non-profit Greater Ohio.