Their district includes all of Miami County and the southern portion of Darke County. Both candidates spoke with this news outlet to lay out their stances on the issues and their goals, if elected.
November’s winner will assume office in January 2025 and serve a two-year term with a base salary of $63,007.
Republican Johnathan Newman
Newman started a church upon moving to Troy 26 years ago. Today, he says his views on political topics are shaped through the issues impacting his congregants and those within his own family.
In an interview with this news organization, he vouched for: lowering taxes; replacing the state income tax with a higher sales tax (a “consumption tax,” as he called it); generally banning schools from teaching critical race theory and “social learning” topics such as gay marriage and transgender issues; increasing access to homeownership for first-time buyers and young families; making Ohio energy independent; building new jails in Miami and Darke counties; and advocating for farmers.
Abortion
Newman said a major priority if elected to the Ohio House is working to curb abortions.
“I think the passage of Issue 1 to put abortion into the Constitution was the worst mistake Ohio ever made,” Newman said. “And I realize it was the constituents who voted to do that — so that means my neighbors, my fellow Miami countians and Ohioans did that.”
Newman said the abortion-rights amendment, passed by 57% of voters last year, now makes the Ohio Constitution conflict with itself and the U.S. Constitution, given that both foundational documents contain the right to life and to defend life.
“At what point is the baby allowed to enjoy his or her constitutionally assured right to life or defending his or her life?” Newman asked rhetorically. He later posed a similar question: “At what point is the father allowed to enjoy his right to defend the life of his baby?”
Newman believes life starts at conception, and doesn’t believe the state should grant exceptions for instances where the mother is a victim of incest or rape.
“My personal understanding and starting point is that every human life is created in the image of God,” Newman said.
Newman acknowledged that the abortion-rights amendment puts folks with his goals in between a rock and a hard place. He said he would support putting another measure on the ballot to entirely negate the amendment, but doesn’t expect such an effort to come soon.
“You know, the constituents of our state just voted that way, so I don’t expect everybody to just realize, ‘Oh hey, let’s change our mind.’ I don’t expect that,” Newman said.
Education
Another topic Newman said he is passionate about is education. He’s in favor of the state’s new universal school voucher system and said he’d like to make even more taxpayer dollars available to even more students to attend private schools.
Newman said this is a necessity because, in his view, public schools are infringing on the rights of parents. “Their parental right to raise their children according to their values and their views, religiously, politically, those values are being violated by schools and parents are seeking private schools where their values are not being harmed or threatened by the school,” he said.
Newman also views this trend as a threat to public schools and a sign that they need to be reigned in. He pointed to anecdotal examples of a 10-year-old student being taught about gay marriage, and more broadly to “social engineering” topics, such as race theory and LGBTQ+ issues. He called those topics distractions from fundamental, or classical, learning.
“I think a school’s duty is to broaden their world, not through progressivism but exposing them to the classics, exposing them to a rich history, world history, not progressivism,” Newman said. He told this outlet he would not want public schools to teach about Obergefell v. Hodges, a 2015 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage, at all. On race, he said students should be exposed to teachings on the American Civil Rights Movement around 11th grade, at the earliest.
Democrat Melissa VanDyke
VanDyke, a Democrat who ran a write-in campaign in 2022, told this news outlet that her top priorities this time around are to increase mental health access for rural communities; eliminate the state’s newly-expanded school voucher system; protect access to abortion; and incentivize sustainable farm practices around her community.
Farming
VanDyke grew up on a farm and went on to earn degrees in environmental science. She told this news outlet that the state could benefit from an incentivization program — not a mandate — to have more farmers try organic and sustainable farming practices.
She said much of the soil in Ohio’s fertile farmland has lost its nutrients, which in turn has caused farmers to rely on heavy additives and chemicals to get their crops to grow. As a byproduct, she said, food is less nutrient-rich and those heavy chemicals end up in Ohio’s rivers, streams and aquifers, which in turn kills vital ecosystems.
“We have so much farmland and we use so much chemicals,” said VanDyke. “We can definitely put a dent in it if we gave farmers incentives to go into the future as organic and/or sustainable farmers.”
She said this would eventually allow nutrient-rich soil to return to Ohio’s farms.
Education
VanDyke’s top education issue is school vouchers, which she said she wants to eliminate entirely. “I don’t want it anywhere close to our public (schools),” she said.
She was originally optimistic about the state’s expanded school voucher system — she even tried to use it for her own son who was struggling in public school — but her opinion changed when he was denied from a private school, even with the voucher.
“Now, in a public school, they can’t deny you, right? You go to school, you get the help you need. If there’s other things you need, a public school will accommodate that,” VanDyke said. “...I’ll never know why that private school didn’t accept him for that voucher program, because they don’t have to tell you why, they don’t have to tell you how they’re spending their money, they don’t have to abide by the state regulations, they don’t have to do any of those things. So, I get the argument, but I also know, personally, that I can’t argue for it anymore.”
VanDyke said she thinks the state will eventually prioritize private school vouchers over public education, and public schools will suffer for it. “I know that’s where it’s going,” she said.
Mental Health
VanDyke expressed interest in capitalizing off the state’s momentum toward increasing mental health access to specifically increase access in rural counties like Darke and Miami.
“There’s just too much space between healthcare providers. We live in a huge rural area, we just do not have the resources for mental health issues,” she said, specifically noting that the nearest professionals that specialize in children’s mental health are in Dayton or Cincinnati.
“If we don’t have the mental health resources to support these people and support anybody with depression, anxiety, bipolar (disorder), all of those things, they’re not going to be living their full lives. They’re not going to be out participating in the economy, they’re not going to be out working,” VanDyke said. “Mental health resources are so vital.”
Abortion
VanDyke said she was concerned about the future of abortion access, even with 2023′s abortion-rights amendment, and believes that the state would benefit from people like her in the legislature given that some Republicans have expressed interest in trying to undo the newly placed protections. But, she said it can’t be boiled down to a Democrat vs. Republican issue.
“There are huge flocks of GOP people who are not into this banning female healthcare. They don’t want anything to do with this, it’s not just Democrats,” said VanDyke, who framed anti-abortion advocates as a sizable-but-loud fringe group.
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Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, on X, via email, or you can drop him a comment/tip with the survey below.
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