Ohio Senate - 3-10-2026 - State of the State Address

The House will come to order. The House will come to order. I asked members of the General Assembly to take their seats. In the category of I love old houses, the air conditioning is not what it once was or hopefully will be sometime. So if you feel it's necessary to remove your coats during this session, in this case that would be appropriate. it, we'll all take our lead from President McCauley. If he removes his coat, then we can too. How about that? It is my pleasure to introduce the Ohio Senate President, Rob McCauley, and invite him to

Mr. President, a quorum of the Senate is present.

The chair recognizes Speaker Pro Tem, Representative Manning.

A quorum of the 136th General Assembly being present, this joint convention will come to order. We invite our guests to please rise as we open with prayer. We will be led in prayer today by Roy Hall, Jr. of the Driven Foundation.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Mr. Hall. Please remain standing for the presentation of colors by members of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Honor Guard and the Pledge of Allegiance of the Flag and to the Republic.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to introduce to all of you the Governor of the State of Ohio, Mike DeWine.

Ladies and gentlemen, Governor Mike DeWine.

Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Attorney General David Yost, good to be with you, Charger Sprague, Auditor Faber, Lieutenant Governor Trestle. Members of our cabinet, my fellow citizens of Ohio, my first inaugural address, which I delivered in this beautiful rotunda of this historic state house, I promised to be the governor for all the people of our state and that I would remember each and every day that I am their servant. what I've tried to do over these past seven years, to remember that each day we serve the people of Ohio, and that our job is to do everything within our power to remove barriers, create opportunities, so that every single Ohio citizen can live up to their God-given potential. Whatever our administration has achieved has been with the help of so many people. My friend, Lieutenant Governor Trestle, reminds me how important it is to begin each day with an attitude of gratitude And so it is with deep gratitude that I begin this speech today With gratitude to all of you in the General Assembly, and to all who have served here in the two bodies in the last eight years, I thank you. I thank you for your service. I thank you for your dedication to Ohio. Now, gratitude to my former lieutenant governor and current U.S. senator and his wife, John and Tina Houston. We thank them for their tremendous service to our state and to our country. And gratitude to Jim, Ellen Trestle, who really took a leap of faith to join us in our mission to help all Ohioans succeed. I want to extend my gratitude to our cabinet and all their staffs. You have changed lives. You have served with excellence. you have made Ohio stronger, and I thank you. I offer my gratitude to the troopers in our Ohio State Highway Patrol and to the members of our Ohio National Guard. You repeatedly step up when Ohioans need your help and when our fellow Americans need you. Today, more than 600 National Guard soldiers and airmen are deployed across the globe supporting our nation's interests. And they have helped our communities recover after severe ice storms and tornado outbreaks in Ohio. And they've supported our fellow Americans in Texas after last year's Guadalupe River tragedy, in Florida after Hurricane Milton, in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. Both our Ohio State Highway Patrol and our National Guard have also deployed to Texas to keep our border secure, and they have worked with local law enforcement as well in Ohio to keep the public safe. At this very moment, we have members of the Ohio National Guard along that border. When our nation's capital needs safety support, our National Guard once again answered the call. So we thank you. We thank you for your great service. Today, I also want to thank the Highway Patrol troopers who are in the Executive Protection Unit. You have sacrificed a lot. You have a tough job. But Fran and I will be forever grateful for what you have done. Thank you. I also want to convey my gratitude to the staff of the Governor's office, the Lieutenant Governor's office, and the Governor's residents. None of us could get anything done if it were not for the extreme dedicated, hardworking, and loyal people on our teams. You have made a huge, huge difference. Most importantly, my gratitude to my wife, Fran, and to our family, many of whom are with us here today. You inspire me, you keep me going, and without you, I would be simply lost. Finally, I want to thank the citizens of Ohio for giving me the chance to serve as governor. Since 1803, only 64 Ohioans have had such an honor. My first inaugural address, I also talked about my grandfather and how he planted trees late in his life, knowing really that he would not live to see them grow big and tall. But he planted them nonetheless because he believed in the future, because he believed in building a better world for generations to come. Just this past week, his great-grandson, our son John, finished tapping those same maple trees for the last time this year, something he does every year to produce maple syrup to sell and for our family to enjoy the same trees. To the members of the General Assembly, we planted many trees together and they are in fact growing. We have mandated the science of reading so that every child in the state of Ohio can learn to read. Together we have banned cell phones in every Ohio classroom so teachers can teach and our children can learn. And because of our historic investments in moms and babies, last year we reached our lowest infant mortality rate in 20 years. We balanced the budget, cut taxes, increased the amount of money in the rainy day fund. And over the past seven years, we've been strategically focused on making Ohio literally the go-to state in this country for business. And the progress we've made is truly remarkable. Last year, CNBC named Ohio as one of the top five states in the nation for business. And number one, number one in all the Midwest. Just last week just last week Site Selection Magazine ranked Ohio as number three nationally for economic development projects and number one for attracting new business and investments to our mid cities Over the past few years, we brought many companies to Ohio and secured significant expansions of Ohio-based companies at the same time. Yet many of these businesses are just now starting to hire and to ramp up. We have planned the seeds. We are about to see the results. Here's just a few examples. Let's start with three of the many companies that we brought here from California. Andrel. Last week, Fran and I ate lunch with his founder, Palmer Luckey. What a guy. What an amazing person. His company is building our future defense industry right here in the state of Ohio. They plan on starting production this year and will build up to 4,000 well-paid employees in the next few years. Employees who will be making the world's most high-tech defense systems. Then there's Joby Aviation. They've already started producing propellers and will soon be building flying taxis. Flying taxis. Up to 2,000 Ohio workers will be employed. Amgen, Ohio's largest life science and pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, will soon be adding 350 more workers to package temperature-sensitive life-saving drugs. Moving here from Nevada to Grown Ohio is Sierra Nevada Corporation, who just opened two hangars for high-end aircraft engineering and expects to open two more in the next month and add 350 more workers to modify military aircraft weapons. And the list goes on and on. We have not even begun to fully feel the economic impact of these victories yet. And this, what lies ahead, is truly, truly going to be great. What we're seeing now is just, just the beginning. Because of our new Governor's Merit Scholarship, 85% of our top high school graduates are now staying in Ohio each year to go to college. Increasing the chances they will get a job in Ohio and stay in Ohio. In fact, each year, that's approximately 700 more of these students are enrolling at Ohio colleges than before we created these scholarships. 700 each year. With your help, we've also made a historic half-a-billion-dollar investment in Ohio's 32 Appalachian counties, supporting the people and places in Ohio who have been overlooked for far too long. This will improve access to health care, revitalizing historic downtown districts, transforming riverfront communities into destinations for recreation and for tourism. For the third year in a row unintentional drug overdoses have decreased this time by an astounding 34 And we have decreased the number of children in the custody of children's services by 13% and improved stability for families. Last year, our highest number of foster youth graduated from high school, helping them reach their full, full potential. Today, every Ohio child, no matter where they live, now has access to mobile mental health services. So if they're experiencing a mental health crisis, a trained professional will be at their door within one hour to help that child and to help their family, anywhere in the state of Ohio. And at least 50,000 Ohioans with developmental disabilities, they depend on direct support providers so they can enjoy maximum independent living and live up to their full potential. The budget that you passed last year and that I signed into law ensures that those vital support providers get paid a competitive wage and therefore can continue helping more Ohioans live fuller lives. Today, Ohio families can compare nursing homes. They can compare nursing homes by using our nationally award-winning Nursing Home Navigator. This enables them to make more informed decisions about long-term care for themselves or for their loved ones. From the start of our administration, we have prioritized clean, safe water for Ohio families, bringing reliable drinking water to many communities that otherwise did not have it. Through our innovative H2Ohio program, we've improved the quality of water in our rivers, in our streams and in the lake area. And we've done it in the lake area and the other water by partnering with thousands of farmers to reduce nutrient runoff. And we've built and restored hundreds of wetlands. And we should all take pride that because of many years of conservation efforts by many people, the Trumpeter Swan and the American Bald Eagle are now thriving once again in Ohio. And finally, Ohio's 76 state parks were just recognized as the best state park system in the entire country. While we can be proud of all the things that we've accomplished together for our fellow Ohioans, this state does have unfinished business. And I want to talk about that now. Let's begin with reading. Reading is the key to everything. So it's essential that children learn early about the importance of books and reading. That's why my bride, Ohio's First Lady, has made it her mission to get books into the hands of Ohio's youngest children at the most crucial time in their young lives by expanding Dolly Parton Imaginations Library now into every single corner of the state of Ohio Let me now introduce formally Ohio First Lady my bride friend Now, during my first campaign for governor, I remember her telling me, and this is kind of the way she said it, if you get elected, I kind of thought about that a little bit, If you get elected, I want you, the thing that I'm going to do is to grow the Dolly Parton Imagination Library so it's available to everybody. At the time, it was only available to a small number of Ohio children. So when she became First Lady, Fran got to work. and with your generous support in the legislature and the support of our local partner organizations, she has now taken Dolly Parton's Imagination Library statewide so that every child between birth and five can have access each month to a free book in the mail. With 70% of households with a child under five now receiving those books, Ohio continues to have the highest number of children enrolled in the entire country.

This month nearly 419,000 Ohio children will receive a book in the mail and since the start of our administration over 25 million Imagination Library books have been mailed to Ohio children

And there's more. Today, every one of Ohio's foster children under the age of five are now automatically enrolled in the program. Just in the last year, nearly 8,000 Ohio children who are in foster or kinship care received a book, and many times, many, many books. Not only that, today Ohio remains the only state in America, the only state in America where parents can enroll their child at the hospital immediately at birth. Since last summer, when we started this new program, parents of more than 37,000 Ohio newborns have signed their child up right at the hospital. And finally, a groundbreaking new study on the impact of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library really confirms what we know anecdotally. Compared to children not enrolled in the program, those who receive these free books are nine times more likely to be read to four or more days per week. They're 15 times more likely to want to read with a loved one. Children's early literacy skills are also significantly stronger in those who receive these books, if you compare to those who do not receive the books. Their understanding of print is three times stronger. Their vocabulary is six times stronger. Their ability to recognize and manipulate spoken sounds is seven times stronger. These are all critical skills that help children learn how to read when they enter kindergarten and put them on a path to long-term success right from the very start. Now let's talk... About the science of reading. I want to again thank you. I want to thank the members of the General Assembly for standing with us every step of the way to require that the science of reading be taught in every single classroom in the state of Ohio. The evidence is clear that the best way to teach children how to read is through the science of reading. Fran and I have watched as we travel the state, we've watched dynamic and energetic teachers use it in over 40 schools where we've been, 120 classrooms across Ohio. And I will tell you, to see a teacher teach with the kids' focus is an incredible, incredible thing to see. In one of the first schools we visited in 2023, Fran and I met a truly remarkable young man. a remarkable young man by the name of Liam Kramer. Liam was at that time a sophomore at Wapakuneta High School. Dyslexia had made it extremely challenging for him to read. No matter what teachers tried or what Liam did, Liam, by the way, a very intelligent person, he never made it, he never was able truly to read. made it when Liam started working, Bell, with a reading specialist, Nikki Barger, who taught him using the science of reading, things really started to click, and everything changed for Liam. Liam learned to read. He learned to really read. Now, since then, he's graduated from high school. He's got a job. He just showed Fran and me a picture of the house he owns, and is planning for his next career move to operate his own truck and to haul livestock and other things. Liam says the science of reading changed his life. Please welcome in the gallery and give a hand to Liam Kramer and his former reading specialist, Nikki Barger. Liam, we're very proud of you. You know, our goal is that every child be taught by a teacher who is well-conversed in the science of reading and who is committed to changing the culture and previous ways of teaching. While we're certainly making great progress, this is really not easy. Just think about it. We have over 3,500 public school buildings, and we have tens of thousands of classrooms. Training seasoned teachers who, through no fault of their own, were taught the wrong way, and now have to learn new methods, is certainly an exercise in perseverance. This shift we're making takes time. However, when you look at our youngest students, we're starting with a clean slate. The results, much like those from the Imagination Library study, are really outstanding and are really promising. We've extended our focus on the science of reading to our youngest learners. In 2024, we required our public preschool programs to use it and be informed by it. Every year, children in this state going from preschool to kindergarten take our kindergarten readiness assessment This past fall kindergarten readiness statewide in Ohio improved by 8 This represents an additional 7,300 Ohio children who entered kindergarten ready to succeed. You know, certainly some of the most important people at Ohio colleges are those who prepare our future teachers. Because these future teachers will impact thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Ohio students throughout their careers, they must be trained in the best way to teach our children to read. The law that you passed requires all our teacher colleges, public and private, to train our future teachers exclusively in the science of reading. And so we recently completed an audit based upon that law, reviewing every teacher preparation program in Ohio. We are making good progress. Today, two-thirds of those colleges are aligned with the science of reading. And I have every confidence that every college will be in full compliance by the end of this year. If they aren't, Ohio law will require them to close their program. But I'm optimistic. You've done that. It's been a sea change. It makes a huge difference. So to all of you, congratulations on passing such an important law. It is having meaningful results. Our law is the toughest in the country. In fact, that's why people from across the country are now calling us, calling Ohio, because they, too, want to follow what they call the Ohio Plan.

We know that a complete transition to the science of reading is challenging, can't be achieved overnight. And so we're going to do the following four additional things to ensure that our kids are taught to read the right way. So today, I'm directing our Department of Education and Workforce to create regional Science of Reading instructional implementation teams. They will be made up of trained experts whose sole focus will be on helping K-12 schools to fully execute the science of reading in their classrooms. Even with the requirement in the law that the science of reading be taught in all Ohio classrooms. We are finding too many instances where our high-quality science of reading instructional materials are still on the shelf, in the wrapper, on open, or that intervention materials are not being used correctly, if at all. It's not acceptable. And so we will deploy those instructional implementation teams into our lowest-performing schools. They'll conduct need assessments and they will work with teachers and work with principals to make sure they have the right instructional materials, are using them appropriately and are properly trained in the science of reading and have the knowledge necessary to teach it in the classroom. Number two we will also send these teams to any school in the state of Ohio that wants it any school that wants assurance that they are effectively implementing the science of reading We will assess their progress we'll give them whatever help that they in fact need. Number three, I'm further directing our Department of Education and Workforce to add 50 more Read Ohio coaches in the fall, extending their reach to at least 70 more schools. Currently, we have 97 coaches and 151 schools who work side by side with teachers to help them unleash the full power of the science of reading in their classroom, showing them how to teach it well, how to track each child's progress, and how to step in quickly with extra help when a student starts to fall behind. We know that Read Ohio coaching works. An example, look at Claremont Primary School in Eurexville in Tuscarora County. At the beginning of this school year, only 14% of their kindergarten students were on track with their reading skills for their age. That's when their kindergarten teachers began working with Christy Hobson, a fully certified Reed, Ohio coach. Now, already, the number of kindergartners on track with their reading skills has jumped to 50%, And we expect those results to improve even more by this spring. Improvement like this in such a short period of time takes great coaches, strong principals, dedicated teachers. So please join me in recognizing Claymont Primary, Reed Ohio coach Christy Hobson, Principal Kelly Cook, kindergarten teacher Amber Roberts for their incredible work.

And number four, to build a broader, more cost-effective coaching pipeline, I'm also directing the department today, with the help of our education service centers across the state, to offer free Reed, Ohio coaching training and credentialing to literacy coaches who are already employed by the school district. With those additional credentials, they then will be able to train even more coaches at their schools. One of the biggest barriers to children not learning to read is not being able to see clearly. While Ohio law requires that all grade school children in Ohio be screened to determine if they need a full eye exam, only a fraction of the kids who actually need one, only one in four, receive one. and get glasses if they need them. One in four. Based on vision screening data from Ohio elementary schools, every year approximately 37,000 children in grades K through 3 are referred for comprehensive eye exams. Yet, shockingly, of that figure, 37,000, only 29,000 of them never receive an exam or glasses if needed. So only one in four are receiving them. Stunning. It's a scary number. When I learned it, I could not believe it. And so with your help and your investment, we recently launched OhioSea. OhioSea is a free, brand-new children's eyesight pilot program for kids in kindergarten through third grade in the 15 Ohio counties with the greatest needs Vision providers either bring a mobile vision van to the school or they will set up equipment in the school building so that students can receive eye exams from an optometrist right there. Then if a child needs glasses, that child gets to pick their own frames, their own color, whatever they want shoes, and it's just great. In a few weeks, that van comes back and kids get fitted with their new glasses. Fran and I have visited five elementary schools in the past few weeks that are using this program. I will tell you it is a pure joy to watch these kids. When you watch these kids put on their glasses for that very, very first time, and they can see clearly. We recently met Tashana Brown, a second grader at Prairie Lincoln Elementary School right here in Columbus. Here's what she said when she got her new glasses. They helped me look at things much better. When I didn't have my glasses, I felt very confused. I was getting scared trying to read a book. I didn't have anything to help me. Now the glasses help me see the small words, and I'm not scared anymore. No child should ever be scared to read because they can't see the words on the page. Today, I'm urging all public and private superintendents, all school leaders in those 15 counties, to sign up your school to get this free help. Just send us an email. Send an email to OhioC through the Ohio Department of Health at OGH.Ohio.gov. And to all the superintendents, all the principals, by doing this, you will truly, truly change lives. Another significant barrier to a child's future success is just not being in school. Last year, one of every four of our Ohio school children were chronically absent, which means they missed the equivalent of nearly one month of school. If we want our children to thrive, they need to be in school. Students with good attendance are three times more likely to be proficient readers, nearly four times more likely to be proficient at math, almost 12 times more likely to graduate on time, and ultimately then to be much more likely to get a job after high school. Chronic absenteeism is not, though, just a school problem. This is a community problem, and it's going to take parents and whole communities to drive the solutions. I want to tell you about what's going on in East Cleveland. By asking the right questions, East Cleveland school officials learned that many students were not skipping school because they didn't care. Rather, they were facing real barriers, transportation challenges, health issues, difficult situations at home, and on and on. So the district changed its approach. East Cleveland now uses attendance data to identify students at risk of chronic absenteeism. If a student misses just a couple of days, staff reaches out immediately to family to find out why and how the school can help, sometimes visiting families in their homes. They work to find the root causes of absenteeism. They connect family with resources, and they strengthen relationships with the community. The results speak for themselves. East Cleveland reduced chronic absenteeism by over 10 percent last year, and at the same time reading proficiency among their third graders won up by more than 10%. Please join me in congratulating East Cleveland Superintendent Dr. Henry Pettigrew, East Cleveland Mayor Sondra Morgan, and the entire city of East Cleveland.

Thank you for your commitment to keeping kids in school. Congratulations. Great, great, great job. I think every school can learn from East Cleveland. And it starts with having a plan. That's why in our past budget, we included language to ensure that every school district in Ohio, starting this fall, will be required to have a clear attendance policy. This policy must identify students who are at risk, offer ways to step in early and work directly with families to understand and remove barriers to attendance, and increase the level of support for students who miss school. Further, we know that having real-time data is always important. So today, I'm announcing that on April 15th, our Department of Education and Workforce will launch a new statewide attendance dashboard. This new tool will provide parents, the public, people in the community with simple, fast and transparent attendance data each week for every district, for every school. This will offer early information about the effectiveness of attendance strategies so that schools, districts and communities can take actionable steps to improve attendance. Of course, improving school attendance is going to take more than that. Students have to want to go to school. For many students, CareerTech is what lights up their world and keeps them in school. So I want to talk a little bit about CareerTech. I think this underscores your support, your invaluable support, for CareerTech during the last seven years. For example, together in 2023, we invested an additional $300 million to build new CareerTech facilities, expand existing ones, and allow schools to purchase new state-of-the-art equipment. These efforts are paying dividends. These efforts have opened up 10,000 new seats for CareerTech students in the state of Ohio. Now, But I also want to be candid with you. However, we still have, by last count, over 13,000 students on waiting lists for their preferred programs in Ohio. So we must continue pushing to create more opportunities for our students who want to pursue career tech. Not only will this help students discover their interest and stay in school, but it will also put them on a pathway potentially to a rewarding and profitable career You know another way we keeping kids in school is by creating school health centers We now have 135 of these centers across Ohio that thousands of children can access into those clinics right on that school's campus, saving thousands of hours of missed class time. Because of our investment in this past budget, even more will be opening very, very soon. Another issue that we must address for every Ohioan to reach their God-given potential is developing healthy habits. In his 2024 book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt advocates not only for cell phone bans in schools, but also for restoring what he calls a play-based childhood. He argues that unstructured free play helps support a child's mental health and the development of important life skills, such as creativity, collaboration, resilience, and social skills. Now, an age-old form of unstructured play for children is recess. But today, Ohio schools may count up to only two 15-minute recess periods for students in kindergarten through sixth grade as part of their school day. That's simply not enough. Recess gives children the chance to get outside and just be kids. It increases their physical activity. It improves their memory, their attention, their concentration. It helps them stay on task while they're in the classroom. It reduces disruptive behavior in the classroom. It improves children's ability to learn how to share and negotiate. A lot of life skills. I want to commend Representative Tom Young, Melanie Miller, both of them, for the provision they've included in a bill that would double the amount of recess time for schools from 30 minutes to 60 minutes per day and would require these recess periods for all students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Thank you for your work. Now, no one understands the importance of children being physically active more than Lieutenant Governor Jim Trestle. What a whirlwind of a year it has been for the Trestles. I really don't think they knew what was in store when Fran and I just showed up at their door and asked them to join this team. But I can tell you, we are sure glad that they did.

Let me give a shout out to Mrs. Trestle, who is up by Fran in the gallery. Now, when Fran and I visited Trestle household, I'd asked Jim to do some things, some specifics. Then as I was walking out the door, I turned around and I asked him, oh, can you come up with a challenge for our schools to promote physical fitness? He said thought he could do that Well he did more than create a challenge He has started a movement across the state of Ohio Let me tell you So at the beginning of this school year, he launched Team Trestle Fitness Challenge to help students in grades three through eight to build lifelong healthy habits around fitness, nutrition, and sleep, while also encouraging an attitude of gratitude during quiet times or periods of reflection. The energy, the enthusiasm that he and his all-star team of challenge captains have generated is absolutely remarkable. Today, more than 390,000 students in 1,300 schools across Ohio are participating in this challenge.

The Lieutenant Governor has enlisted the help of former Ohio State Buckeye greats and legendary Ohio athletes to encourage students through the fitness challenge and to serve as role models. We're thrilled that a few of them have joined us today. Please give a round of applause to Braxton Miller. All right, now we've got a few more here, guys. Just a few more here. Roy Hall, who gave the invocation, did a great job. Devere Posey. Donnie, Donnie Evidge. Donnie. And Drew and Melissa Basil. Thanks, guys. The lieutenant governor and his challenge captains have visited over 100 schools across Ohio, holding pep rallies to show the kids how to do some of the exercises, and to hear from students about their progress, setting and achieving their health goals. Now, I hear, I've not been to one, but I hear, looking at some videos, I hear that the atmosphere of these events is electric and that many of you in this room have attended one of Lieutenant Governor Fitness' challenge and assemblies. And you have maybe been a part of the down wall sits and planks and jumping jacks and push-ups and all that crazy stuff he does. It's great. We love it. When a few hundred third graders are counting your push-ups out loud, that's real accountability, right? It is indeed. And it turns out push-ups are bipartisan. Everyone struggles equally. Now, if you have attended a Team Trestle Fitness Challenge school visit, please stand up. All right. Get this. Now, I'm going to be careful how I say this, but by attending these assemblies, you showed students something very important. It's not really about being an athlete. It's about being the best version of you. And that's what really, truly matters. Just look at Braxton Manley an eighth grader at Gibsonburg Middle School in Sandusky County When Team Trestle came to his school and started the challenge Braxton set a goal to run a full lap around the track without stopping something he had never done before Day after day, he practiced and he prepared, but most importantly, he didn't give up. He just kept going. When the day came for Braxton to run that lap around the track, his entire class ran with him, cheering him on every step of the way. And not only did Braxton run that lap without stopping, the village of Gibsonburg named his whole class Citizens of the Year. Please welcome Braxton Manley, who is in the gallery today, and give him and his eighth grade class a round of applause. So this is what the Team Terrestrial Fitness Challenge is really about. It's about confidence, encouragement, and learning what we can all accomplish together. more than we could ever do alone. So we need to build on Braxton's example. What a great example. Members of the General Assembly, we ask you today to work with us to make this challenge, this movement really, a permanent opportunity for our students in Ohio so that every child each year can discover how good it feels to become the best version of themselves. A child's mental health is equally important to their physical health. And one of the most meaningful things we have done together is ban cell phones in our K-12 schools. The culture change in our schools has been miraculous. miraculous. Our children are interacting and talking with each other again. School lunchrooms are vibrant, echoing with laughter, loud. Our kids are getting their lives back. And so we all have to remain vigilant, ensuring that each and every one of our thousands of school buildings are really enforcing the cell phone ban. We know it makes a huge, huge difference. To do anything less, unless anything else truly, truly, lessens our children's ability to learn. But what is happening to our young people today goes beyond phones and schools. It's a larger issue about their access to screens and phones and social media and the Internet when they're outside of the classroom. Just listen to these sobering statistics. In 1985, 35% of American teenagers said they read almost every day in their spare time, with only 15% reporting that they hardly ever read in their spare time. Today, that's completely reversed. Only 15% of teenagers say they read in their spare time, and nearly 50% say they hardly ever do. So then what are they doing with their spare time? Well, I think we know. Increasing number of teens are using social media more than seven hours a day. Seven hours a day. 59% of children say they have seen a violent video online this year. 60% of children ages 8 to say they are concerned about someone using AI to make inappropriate pictures of them. Excessive screen time is really a thief. Social media is a thief. All stealing from our children the most precious thing in life. That is their time. Hours on a cell phone or an iPad or a Chromebook is time our children are not outside playing with their friends. Time they're not getting enough sleep. Time they're not reading enough books. times they're not exercising or playing sports, times they're not learning real social skills, and so many of the other important skills that will help them live up to their full potential. Kids grow up so fast, so fast, and this stolen time, these lost opportunities can never be recaptured. Now, most of the problems that I was just talking about are best addressed by parents. But there are things that we as public officials can do to help parents protect children, things that we can do to help them protect these children. In fact, some of these things can't be done without our actions. So today I'm asking you to pass legislation to do the following things. Number one, pass legislation, to make it illegal in the state of Ohio to possess, create, or distribute child pornography that is created by artificial intelligence, much like the bill that's sponsored by Senator Blessing and Senator Johnson. Thank you. Number two, hold tech companies accountable. Second bill, hold tech companies accountable for allowing their artificial intelligence to encourage, assist, endorse or instruct anyone, much less a child, to kill themselves, harm themselves, harm others, or kill others. Ohio law needs real consequences connected with it. The Ohio Attorney General and county prosecutors must have clear legal tools to hold these tech companies criminally and civilly accountable. We need that bill. Number three I asking you to pass a law to require cell phone and tech companies to automatically implement parental control features to empower parents to easily monitor and control what content their kids are using when they using it and for how long Make it easy to do But you know this is not just about enacting new laws There are so many other things that parents and our communities can do to help give our children back their childhoods Something as simple as putting your child's phone away an hour before going to sleep, which Lieutenant Governor Tressel has been urging children across the state to do in his fitness challenge. That can be a good first step. Or parents can restrict their children's devices so they cannot have access to apps maybe between 10 and 6 a.m. Up to parents, not us, but these are two things, two simple things. Pretty good way to start. You know, Fran and I were recently talking to a young English teacher, high school English teacher. He told us about the impact excessive screen time is having on his students and their lack of interest in reading whole books. instead of just bite-sized passages. Here's what he said. I truly think we've advanced too much in technology and need to just step back to a more analog model in almost every aspect of our daily life. End of quote. Now, we can't roll back the clock on technology. We know that. But all of us as adults can work together to control this technology to better protect all of our children. We have, as adults, a moral obligation to do that. In 2022, standing in this very spot, I asked you to pass a bill strengthening, distracting, driving laws in Ohio. You did it. Let's look at the results. If you compare the first two years of enforcement of this law to the two years before the enforcement began, Ohio has had 18,000 fewer crashes and 280 fewer traffic deaths. Thank you. Thank you for saving your lives. We now have another opportunity, a great opportunity to save lives. We can do this with a primary seatbelt law. We know that in states that have passed such a law, seatbelt compliance goes up and lives are saved. Right now, 35 states have a primary seatbelt law, including our neighbors in Indiana, our neighbors in Kentucky, our neighbors in Michigan, and our neighbors in West Virginia. And some of the other, among the other 35 states, Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and we could go on and on. We know these laws save lives. Let's look at another statistic. Today 88 of people in Ohio wear seatbelts The 12 of people in Ohio who don wear seatbelts though represent more than 60 of those killed in car crashes Now, let me repeat that. Only 12% of Ohioans do not wear seatbelts, yet they represent more than 60% of all the fatalities in car accidents. And then there's the duty an Ohio driver has to children in the backseat of the car. Picture this. In Ohio, under current law, an officer, incredibly, does not have the authority to stop a car solely for seeing a child that's old enough to be out of a car seat who is crawling or jumping around unbuckled in the back seat. Officer has no power to stop that car today. We must change the law. We must change the law to protect our children. Now, I know some of the counterarguments. I've heard them. And one of the arguments, of course, is that those who choose to travel and belt are just endangering themselves. But, you know, we all know that, and just hurting themselves. But we all know that's not really true. You've all likely seen the commercial with Lieutenant Governor Trestle, where he talks about the importance of wearing a seatbelt. not just to protect that person, not just to protect you, but to protect everyone else in the car. You may also remember the statistic he cites. You can see the graphic, the commercial, if you remember it. An unbelted passenger in a car that's going 50 miles per hour can be propelled into another passenger with eight times the force of a 240-pound linebacker running at full speed. Unbelievable. Further, according to the Ohio Insurance Institute, crashes involving those who are unbelted cost Ohioans roughly $2.8 billion per year through medical bills, lost productivity, property damage, and more. The vast majority of these costs are borne not by the unbelted person, but by all the rest of us. Those are the facts. Enacting a primary seatbelt law is about so much more than economic losses or even the safety of those individuals who are okay with risking their own lives by not wearing a seatbelt. It's about other things. It's about protecting families, communities, people who depend on us every single day. As we saw with the distracted driving bill, the law is a great motivator. And we know that more people will buckle up if we pass a primary seatbelt law. One more fact. Our Ohio Traffic Safety Office looked at data from surrounding states with primary seatbelt laws, and they have calculated that if Ohio were to adopt a stronger seatbelt law, the results that would result in increase in seatbelt use and that would on average save five lives each and every month Passage of that bill would save five lives each and every month based on what we're seeing is happening in other states. These are mothers, these are fathers, these are sisters, brothers, children, whose lives can be saved. people know that people who knew my dad knew that he knew a lot about trees. So they would ask him, Dick, when's the best time to plant a tree? His answer was always the same, now. Well then, now is the time to teach our kids to read. Now is the time to get our kids back into the classroom. Now is the time to protect our kids from the harms of too much screen time. Now is the time to commit to the physical and well-being of our kids through more recess and a permanent statewide fitness program. Now is the time. Now is the time to protect all Ohioans with a primary seatbelt law. Now is the time to do these things. You know, Fran and I are optimistic. when we see the seal of the great state of Ohio we see a rising sun. That's what it is. It's not a setting sun. That rising sun represents hope. Hope for a future of unlimited possibilities. And we know that each tree that we plant represents that hope for the future. I will leave you with something Lieutenant Governor Trestle shared with me a few months ago. He told me that when he was leaving his legendary coaching days at Ohio State, a longtime mentor of his told him this, pulled him aside and told him this, Jim, your greatest accomplishments and your greatest days are ahead of you, if you believe they are. Well, I've never believed more strongly that Ohio's greatest accomplishments and greatest days are truly ahead of us. The greatest days for our workers, the greatest days for our children, and the greatest days for every Ohio family. May God bless America. God bless Ohio. O-H-O.

Mr. President, I move that the joint convention adjourn.