The Ohio House is also set to take up the Republican-drawn Congressional map this afternoon, which some experts say will result in 12 districts for the GOP and 3 for Democrats. There were apparently some members of the majority who wanted to attach another controversial proposal to the map plan.
A quarter of the Ohio House Republican caucus has signed on to bills that would ban mandates for COVID vaccines and other inoculations, including childhood shots.
House Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima) a bill to and a measure to . That second bill but because of strong opposition from business groups and health care systems.
But a group of Republicans continues to push for those bills.
Fellow conservative Republican Rep. Jon Cross (R-Kenton) has signed onto a resolution but not the other bills. Cross has been an outspoken critic of COVID shutdowns and .
Cross said Wednesday morning he was aware of efforts to tie support for the map to a promise to push the vaccine exemptions bill, but he鈥檚 opposed.
鈥淭he vaccine mandate is an important issue to our caucus. I don鈥檛 think we should be mixing the two. We shouldn鈥檛 be horsetrading one for the other," said Cross. "If we have a strong consensus of our caucus to move forward on a bill like 435 (the vaccine exemptions bill), then we should handle that separately and just as importantly as the Congressional map."
Cross said the map isn鈥檛 just a political issue but an economic one, saying Ohio needs to enact policies that grow its population.
As of November 17, 14 Republicans have signed a petition to force a vote on the mandatory vaccine ban:
- Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester)
- Nino Vitale (R-Urbana)
- Scott Wiggam (R-Wooster)
- Sara Carruthers (R-Hamilton)
- Mike Loychik (R-Bazetta)
- Jay Edwards (R-Nelsonville)
- Bill Dean (R-Xenia)
- Paul Zeltwanger (R-Mason)
- Reggie Stoltzfus (R-Paris Township)
- Rod Creech (R-West Alexandria)
- Jena Powell (R-Arcanum)
- Tom Brinkman (R-Cincinnati)
- Thomas Hall (R-Middletown)
- Kris Jordan (R-Ostrander)
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