Ohio House Speaker Stephens and allies mostly victorious in primary election, likely keeping gavel

Ohio House Speaker Rep. Jason Stephens, R-Kitts Hill, holds the gavel during the Ohio House session, May 24, 2023, at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)

The Republicans seeking to oust Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens after a bitter, two-year-long rivalry have failed, according to the initial results from the Secretary of State’s website and analyzed by WEWS/OCJ.

Votes are still being counted, but so far, Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) seems to have been victorious, likely holding onto the gavel for two more years when the next General Assembly begins in 2025, as long as he keeps a 50-vote coalition together.

“The shadowy out-of-state dark money groups who outspent us 2 to 1 learned a valuable lesson last night: the Ohio Statehouse is not for sale,” Stephens told WEWS/OCJ. “We look forward to getting back to doing the work for the people of Ohio and continuing to pass good conservative legislation that benefits all Ohioans.”

Prior to the election, Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau found that Stephens could afford to lose four seats in March and remain speaker with the 50-vote threshold.

Of the people who are likely to support Stephens, 15 faced challengers.

He only lost four:

• State Rep. Sara Carruthers (R-Hamilton) lost to challenger Diane Mullins 53-47%
• State Rep. Brett Hillyer (R-Uhrichsville) lost to Jodi Salvo 58-41%.
• State Rep. Gail Pavliga (R-Portage County) lost to Heidi Workman 61-38%.
• State Rep. Jon Cross (R-Findlay) lost to Ty Mathews 65-34%. Cross was the Assistant Majority Floor Leader, meaning Stephens will need to find a new member to join leadership next term.

The internal Ohio Republican lawmaker battle stems from political drama in January 2023 and how Stephens came to power. The Republican caucus had previously chosen state Rep. Derek Merrin (R-Monclova) as their speaker months before the full House floor vote.

Twenty-two Republicans (known “affectionately” by the other faction as the “Blue 22”) and 32 Democrats voted for Stephens for speaker during the actual vote, while the majority of Republicans voted for Merrin. Stephens, still conservative, is significantly more moderate than Merrin.

Five of Stephens’ original supporters were not running for reelection, either due to term limits or, in the case of former Rep. Bob Young, needing to resign due to multiple arrests and subsequently being found guilty of domestic violence. However, Stephens seemed to pick up five additional members during the year.

To break it down further, Stephens is looking at 22 Republican votes and 32 Democratic votes once again. That equals 54 members. Thus, the speaker could afford to lose four in primaries and still hit 50 in the next vote for speaker in January 2025.

The anti-Stephens faction claims that it isn’t fair to say all of the people who previously voted for Stephens would vote for him again. From Trau’s conversations with the incumbents, and with talking to both the new allies and/or following their rise in leadership or gains in fundraising, it is evident that they still support the Speaker.

Trau found that if the allies of the speaker had lost their jobs, that could make the Statehouse significantly more conservative. Click or tap here to find out why.

Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman is expected to challenge Stephens for House speakership next January. He has a faction of supporters within the House currently. Candidates, some of whom have now won, have told WEWS/OCJ that Huffman has helped support their bid to knock out the Stephens’ team incumbents.

Claims of possible flip-floppery checked

Now comes the back-and-forth between supporters of Stephens and Huffman — where people on each side claim they have more allies than they do.

Lobbyist Bobby Ina, who is supporting Huffman, claims that at least one member of the Stephens team has said she will flip to the senator’s team.

“She said she’s not going through that [expletive] again,” Ina said, saying the lawmaker made a deal Wednesday morning.

He is referring to state Rep. Tracy Richardson (R-Marysville), who emphatically denies this allegation.

“I have been attacked unfairly for eight weeks during the most negative campaign ever experienced in my lifetime in Ohio. Sadly, Republicans fought Republicans in an unprecedented way with outside groups interfering to control the power in the Ohio Statehouse. Given this difficult campaign and the work I did until close of the polls last night, it is outrageous to think or to gossip that I ‘made a deal’ over the speaker race today or any time in the recent past. I resent the gossip,” Richardson told WEWS/OCJ exclusively.

When asked for documentation or evidence of Richardson flipping sides, Ina said he didn’t have anything to provide and hadn’t been a part of her conversation with the senator’s team. He said that people will never admit to journalists how they are actually going to vote.

The Ohio Republican Party is going to pass another resolution that says it will “kick” voters for Stephens out of the party “if they do it again,” Ina claimed.

“False,” ORP Chairman Alex Triantafilou told WEWS.

He did note that the party’s State Central Committee passed a resolution in December that urges members of the General Assembly to support the candidate who wins the caucus vote.

“Any person not honoring the respective vote of the caucus process and who aligns with Democrats to select presiding officers shall be subject to censure and a consideration for no future endorsement by this committee,” the resolution states.

These are “possible repercussions,” Triantafilou added, saying no one is getting kicked out of the party for voting for Stephens.

What’s next?

This isn’t the end. Numerous seats are newly competitive, and Democrats could realistically gain between one and four seats. Every new Democrat is likely to be a vote for Stephens.

While the primary election infighting is now over, the Ohio GOP infighting only seems to be heating up — even after it was already scorching.

Expect more whispers and accusations to come. The final vote for Ohio House Speaker isn’t until January 2025.

This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook .

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