Demand for coronavirus vaccine slumps in Ohio: Capitol Letter

Supply and demand: Laura Hancock and Rich Exner looked at the sudden plunge in coronavirus vaccine demand, from millions of Ohioans frustrated for not getting the shot soon enough to today, when there are open appointments in all corners of the state, with some mass vaccination clinics being scaled back or shut down. Most of it comes down to vaccine hesitancy, which appears to be higher in more rural areas of the state and among younger Ohioans.

In all fairness: When Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, was rapidly expanding eligibility for the coronavirus vaccine, there were questions over whether he was favoring smaller, GOP-dominated counties that could help his re-election bid when making those decisions. However, a thorough dive into the weekly vaccine distribution numbers compared with DeWine’s 2018 electoral figures by Seth Richardson and Exner showed that DeWine didn’t play political favorites when doling out doses.

Party poopers: DeWine’s fellow Republicans who control the legislature have blocked a number of his policy priorities, including gun reforms, a crackdown on distracted driving and a $50 million campaign to persuade people to move to the Buckeye State. They’ve also made aggressive moves to counter the governor’s coronavirus orders, even taking the extraordinary step of overriding his veto of a bill that curbs his power. Andrew Tobias looks at what it all means as DeWine heads into what could be a challenging 2022 re-election campaign.

Paying the price? FirstEnergy Corp. executives said Friday the Akron-based utility will likely end up having to pay a financial penalty to avoid criminal charges related to the House Bill 6 bribery scandal. As Jeremy Pelzer reports, FirstEnergy is negotiating a “deferred prosecution agreement” with the feds, though FirstEnergy president/CEO Steven Strah said his company “can’t currently predict the timing, outcome, or the impact” of the possible deal.

More local data: The Ohio Department of Health promises to today start publishing coronavirus positivity rates by county, based on a person’s county of residence, to its COVID-19 data website. Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, Ohio’s chief medical officer, said the new information is in response to requests from local health departments for better localized data that could be used in making decisions on how to respond to the spread of the virus. It will be updated each Monday, Exner reports.

Stuck on you: Following a federal panel recommending Johnson & Johnson shots to Americans age 18 and older, DeWine said Friday night that vaccine providers can restart the shots. Hancock reports that the Ohio Department of Health is issuing guidance to health care providers about the extremely rare cases of life-threatening blood clots that 15 women have had, including three who have died from them.

Weekend numbers: On Friday, Ohio saw 89 more coronavirus deaths on Friday and 1,788 more cases, Hancock reports. Saturday’s new case total was 1,526, and Sunday’s was 873.

De-Trumping HUD: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge has withdrawn a Trump administration policy proposal that would have let federally funded single-sex homeless shelters deny service to transgender people on the basis of their biological sex even if their gender identity matched those served by the shelter, reports Sabrina Eaton. “Access to safe, stable housing—and shelter—is a basic necessity,” said a statement from Fudge, a former Warrensville Heights mayor who represented Cleveland and Akron in Congress. “Unfortunately, transgender and gender non-conforming people report more instances of housing instability and homelessness than cis-gender people.

Jordan’s pitch to baseball: Accusing Major League Baseball of “attempted economic distortion,” Rep. Jim Jordan sent a letter last week asking its commissioner to provide him and several other conservative Republicans with documents and communications it produced about its decision to relocate the All-Star game from Atlanta after Georgia changed its voting laws, Eaton writes. “Although Democrats and some woke corporate elites like to claim that the new Georgia law constitutes ‘Jim Crow 2.0′ and ‘voter suppression,’ these claims are false and unfounded,” the letter says.

Request to reopen: Four Ohio Congress members have asked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to re-open the investigation into the death of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy killed by Cleveland police in 2014, John Caniglia reports. The request came from U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Reps. Tim Ryan, Joyce Beatty and Marcy Kaptur. It was made a week after attorneys for Tamir’s family asked the Justice Department to convene a grand jury into the boy’s death.

Racism as a public health crisis: Ohio’s Sherrod Brown has joined a group of Democratic U.S. Senators in reintroducing a resolution that would declare racism a public health crisis in America. Barriers to quality health care access, housing, jobs, wages and so much else contribute to stark health disparities for communities of color, the group said. Brown called the resolution “an important step toward recognizing the racial disparities in health care that have existed for far too long while also outlining concrete action we can take now to help reverse them.”

On board: As part of their continuing campaign to hype Democratic President Joe Biden and the coronavirus recovery plan across the U.S., the Democratic National Committee is up with another billboard near the Cleveland airport. This one touts Biden’s first 100 days in office, boosting his achieved goals for vaccines and increased stimulus checks for the public. “As we approach President Biden’s 100th day in office, we want to make sure folks in Cleveland know that America is back on track — and it’s thanks to the President’s leadership,” said DNC Chair Jaime Harrison.

Here’s how often Ohio’s five statewide executive offices were lobbied in 2020, according to a report from the Ohio Joint Legislative Ethics Committee. An “engagement” means an instance when an employer hires a lobbyist to advocate on their behalf.

Governor: 4,087 engagements (976 lobbyists, 1,675 employers)

Lieutenant governor: 2,876 engagements (791 lobbyists, 1,213 employers)

Attorney general: 2,466 engagements (778 lobbyists, 1,080 employers)

State auditor: 1,619 engagements (587 lobbyists, 746 employers)

State treasurer 1,486 engagements (553 lobbyists, 711 employers)

Secretary of state: 1,442 engagements (576 lobbyists, 685 employers)

Catherine Sulecki, public information officer for Gov. Mike DeWine

“All of this makes Ohio’s 16th worth watching as an early, distilled look at the potential limits and pitfalls of Trump’s shoot-first, aim-later style, his personality-driven, fealty-fueled, viscerally scattershot politics of retribution. …This nascent race then could help Trump cement a sweeping and lasting influence—or play out as a case study in the ways in which his inchoate urge for revenge might begin to run into reality.”

–Politico’s Michael Kruse, who visited Strongsville to take a closer look at the primary contest between Rocky River GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, and former Trump aide Max Miller.

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