Ohio’s gerrymandered legislative majority has been captured by special interests robbing taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars. School privatizers are diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools to private/parochial schools. Special interest groups are creating legislation, and lobbyists are writing lawmakers’ testimony. And these are the same legislators that frequently warn us about the influence of special interests.

In April, the Ohio House proposed a two-year budget proposal that would supply $600 million in bonds for the Cleveland Browns owners, Dee and Jimmy Haslam, to build a taxpayer-funded domed stadium in Brook Park.

It was also revealed that the Haslams gave Ohio GOP leaders $120,000 in the months before making the $600 million request for stadium funding. Speaker of the Ohio House Matt Huffman received significantly more than any other Ohio politician, with almost $110,000 since 2020.

Matt Huffman supported the Cleveland Browns stadium idea, but he did not support our public school districts, saying the Fair School Funding Plan was unsustainable. The House Speaker, a rabid school voucher proponent, submitted a proposed budget to slash funding for public education in April of 2025.

Huffman’s generous donor, Dee Haslam, serves on the board of Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd, an ALEC organization with policy goals of expanding taxpayer funded vouchers for private schools, as well as charter schools. ExcelinEd is a special interest group that is very much a part of the education priorities shaping Ohio’s biennial budget.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has received $116,908.40 from the Haslams since 2017. His 2023 budget mandated the Science of Reading (SoR) curriculum for all public-school districts, costing $86 million for professional development, $64 million for curriculum and instruction, and $18 million for literacy coaches.

Sadly, there’s a close connection between education initiatives like the Science of Reading and the organizations that seek to privatize our public schools.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who chairs ExcelinEd, an organization that supports the science of reading, has advised DeWine  about reading instruction and other education matters.

“We have people on the ground that are helping his great staff and the Ohio Department of Education craft these policies, not just this policy but other policies as well,” Bush said in a call to promote his agenda.

Dee Bagwell Haslam, CEO of the Haslam Sports Group which owns the Cleveland Browns, appears to be one of Bush’s “people on the ground.”

When it was revealed that the Haslams gave a total of more than $100,000 to top legislative leaders as their team lobbied for lawmakers’ approval of $600 million to help build their stadium, Matt Huffman, who accepted $61,000 in campaign contributions from the Haslams last year, responded, “There is no donor or group that is so important in terms of what they do or how much money they give that it can really affect the outcome of legislation.”

The role of Haslam money in Ohio elections is so widespread that many political candidates think nothing of it- it’s just business as usual.

It’s unconscionable that money from special interests played a major role in destroying Ohio’s Fair School Funding Plan at a time when the federal administration was trying to do away with the U.S. Department of Education.

Last year, the state of Ohio was $740 million short on the implementation of the Fair School Funding Plan. School voucher funding accounted for $742 million out of the same pot the Fair School Funding Plan came from!

Eve Bolton, VP of the Cincinnati Board of Education and member of Vouchers Hurt Ohio, a coalition of public school districts that have come together to sue the state over the unconstitutional and harmful EdChoice school voucher program, said it best:

Ohio legislators have to get their priorities straight.

It’s not funding private schools.

It’s not helping building sports stadiums.

It’s giving Ohio kids a good, fully funded public-school system!