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    • How Ohio races in the 2024 election affected the Republican supermajority in the House of Representatives
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    How Ohio races in the 2024 election affected the Republican supermajority in the House of Representatives

    Sakege Posted on

    The Ohio House of Representatives remained in Republican hands when final results came in Wednesday morning, but a few Democratic challengers boosted their party’s numbers and changed the Legislature’s power games, if only slightly.

    Democrats gained two seats in the state Senate and needed to flip two seats to move the state House away from the two-thirds Republican supermajority that allows them certain privileges without having to consider the opposing party. They did, thanks in part to the latest iteration of the Ohio’s ever-complicated redistricting saga creating some new battleground districts across the Buckeye State, some of which are in central Ohio.

    Most of the seat flips occurred in central Ohio.

    Former Rep. Beth Liston (D-Dublin), a doctor, defeated Republican consulting firm owner Besa Sharrah in what was one of the closest seats in 2020. But Liston reversed the decision. Senate District 16by obtaining 60% of the votes.

    Term-limited Sen. Stephanie Kunze (R-Dublin), who holds Liston’s new seat until January, lost to Crystal Lett, a Democrat and former social worker, in House District 11. The race was a rematch of a 2020 Senate race in which Lett lost by just over 100 votes.

    Mark Sigrist, a Democratic Grove City Council member, defeated Republican Brian Garvine, a Grove City attorney for House District 10, a deep blue seat in Franklin County.

    A little west of central Ohio, Rep. Willis Blackshear (D-Dayton) won Senate District 6 over State Board of Education member Charlotte McGuire in the seat of Sen. Niraj Antani (R-Miamisburg). Antani did not seek re-election this cycle after an unsuccessful bid for the United States Congress.

    Why a supermajority is important

    Republicans now hold 65 of Ohio’s 99 House seats and 24 of 33 state Senate seats, each beyond the simple majority of 50 House members and 17 Senate members, giving certain powers to the supermajority party.

    The composition of the Ohio Senate changed slightly, thanks to the victories of Liston and Blackshear for the Democrats, but very little.

    In the state House of Representatives, Democrats did not gain the eight seats needed to break the 3/5 supermajority, or 59 seats, that gives Republicans the power to override a governor’s veto without support from the other side of the aisle. .

    But the two seats that Democrats won in the House broke the two-thirds supermajority, or 66 seats, in the lower chamber, eliminating some of the privileges that the supermajority grants to Republicans, such as emergency clauses in bills or ignoring some state spending limits.

    Samantha Hendrickson is the Dispatch’s health care and medical affairs reporter, but she’s putting her political reporting hat back on to help with the election. She can be contacted at [email protected]

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