Monday, June 22nd, 2026

Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Pennant. To listen to this newsletter, click the “Listen Online” link in the top right corner of this email.

On this day in 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland when oil-soaked debris ignited on the water, a blaze out within minutes but soon a national emblem of industrial pollution that helped fuel the Clean Water Act and the creation of the EPA the following year.

The most recent bill to give data centers tax breaks stalled before legislators could vote on it. Find out what the next steps are in the Top of the Fold.

Also, ten Ohio representatives recently sided with Teamsters and passed the Faster Labor Contracts Act. Read what this means for our state in the Editorial section.

COLUMBUS — Ohio's effort to regulate data centers and trim their sales-tax break collapsed before recess when House-Senate talks broke down, stalling House Bill 646.

Speaker Matt Huffman says the House will reconvene June 24 to chase a deal, but with the Senate gone until after November, nothing becomes law that day.

COLUMBUS - Ohio Democrats are urging Gov. Mike DeWine to veto House Bill 173, which sets rules for companies that resell wholesale electricity to tenants at a markup.

Critics say it rolls back protections from an April Supreme Court ruling regulating submetering firms as utilities, while sponsor Rep. David Thomas (R-Jefferson) defends it as balanced.

MANSFIELD -  More than 1,800 people have signed a petition opposing a planned Buc-ee's near Interstate 71 and Lucas Road, weeks after the Mansfield City Council unanimously approved a development agreement for the travel center.

Opponents cite traffic, environmental, and safety concerns, while city and county officials tout an estimated $9 million annual payroll.

See why neighbors say the 24/7 megastation would steamroll their community.

On June 9, the U.S. House passed the Faster Labor Contracts Act, and ten members of Ohio's delegation voted yes — five of them Republicans who got elected calling themselves friends of business. 

The bill rewrites the National Labor Relations Act so that the moment a union is certified, an employer gets ten days to start bargaining and ninety to reach a deal before mediation, and if another thirty days slip by, a federal arbitration panel imposes a binding first contract — wages, benefits, even how the schedule gets set — that neither the workers nor the company ever gets to vote on.

The clock starts the day the National Labor Relations Board certifies the union. The NLRB is a five-member federal panel whose majority shifts with whoever holds the White House, and it has a long habit of tipping toward labor when the votes matter. That's the referee this bill puts in charge of the countdown — the same federal government, by the way, that's still chasing the Medicaid fraud it wrote the rules for and never could stop.

Five Republicans looked at the way Ohio employers pay and reward their own people and decided it needed a federal third-party riding shotgun. The math makes that look even stranger: in 2025, just 11.6 percent of Ohio's workers belonged to a union, and across the private sector nationwide, barely six percent carry a card at all. 

A House majority rewired federal labor law around roughly one worker in ten, and these five voted to impose it on the other nine: Mike Carey (R-15), Dave Joyce (R-14), Max Miller (R-7), Michael Rulli (R-6), and Mike Turner (R-10).

It doesn't stop at the House. Ohio's own Sen. Bernie Moreno signed on as an original co-sponsor of the Senate version — and Moreno, of all people, made his fortune on a string of Cleveland-area car dealerships that never operated under a collective bargaining agreement. Turns out it's a lot easier to fast-track union contracts onto somebody else's business than to ever run one of your own under the same rules.

Between the five who voted yes and the senator carrying it across the rotunda, not one of these Ohio Republicans has had to make a Friday payroll with the receivables still out, or watched the 401(k) match and the health-plan premiums clear the account in a month when the work never showed up. They just voted to hand those calls to an arbitrator who's never met you — and they'll be home for dinner.

Questions, comments and letters to the editor are welcome at [email protected].

Should Ohio build more wind and solar farms?
- Yes - 17%
- No - 17%
- Unsure - 66%

The Pennant welcomes letters to the editor and guest columns from readers. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity, and AP style. The Pennant reserves the right to verify all information contained in submissions before publication.

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