Ohio lawmakers introduce a bill to protect their privacy

An Ohio lawmaker introduced a bill in the State Senate to protect his and other lawmakers’ privacy in a bid to end threats they have allegedly been receiving for the past several years.

State Sen. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, is a sponsor of Senate Bill 327, also known as the Protect Elected Officials Against Coercion and Extremism, or PEACE, Act.

“This legislation ensures that elected officials can serve their constituents without exposing their families to unnecessary risks,” Cutrona said, according to Statehouse News Bureau. “You are continuously seeing an uptick in violence, threats and intimidations.”

He added that the elected officials “need to be able to do their jobs and be able to make tough decisions, and at the same time not have to worry about who is looking to attack the family members or themselves because of the tough decisions they make.”

“There are mailed items to people’s homes,” Cutrona said about threats against Ohio lawmakers. “Threatening envelopes containing an unknown white powder have been sent to top elected officials. The list kind of goes on and on.”

According to Cutrona, the bill would block the addresses of a lawmaker and their family from public websites, allowing lawmakers’ information to be handled similarly to the way judges’ and police officers’ addresses are handled.

Cutrona said that a reporter or any other person seeking the address of a lawmaker could still get it, but they’d have to request it in person, list their name and explain the reason for the request. The lawmaker would be notified of the request along with who’s making it within three days.

The recent news came after the Ohio Supreme Court sided with the city of Columbus over the Columbus Dispatch by saying that a state statute meant to protect the identities of crime victims can apply to on-duty police officers.

Justice Patrick DeWine wrote that, according to Marsy’s Law, any person against whom a criminal offense is committed or who is directly harmed by a criminal offense could be classified as a victim.

“Applying the plain text of the amendment, we have no difficulty concluding that an ordinary understanding of Marsy’s Law’s definition of victim encompasses the officers in this case,” DeWine wrote.

Beryl Love, the regional editor for the USA TODAY Network Ohio, criticized the ruling, claiming that the law was “not intended to shield the names of police officers involved in fatal shootings.”

“The court today green-lighted this overreach and, in doing so, reduced the transparency that is vital to preserve the community’s trust in law enforcement.”