Urgent Call to Action: Veto needed to State Budget Line Items
What do I need to know?
The state budget has officially passed out of the Conference Committee, as of June 25, and is heading to Governor DeWine’s desk for his signature.
Gov. DeWine has to sign this before June 30, so your URGENT action is needed!
There are many remaining (or newly added) harmful provisions in the final version Gov. DeWine will review and sign; he has line item veto power over whether these remain. Depending on what he vetoes, the legislature will also have a final opportunity to override his vetoes before June 30.
How can I be involved?
Please call and/or write to Governor Mike DeWine, who holds line-item veto power over the Conference Committee’s final budget proposal. This is our last opportunity to remove the harmful provisions that remain. Governor DeWine cannot add anything new at this point.
Click here for a list of contact info for him as well as his staffers. Because he is in high demand, calling and/or emailing the people who interact with him daily may be just as (or even more) helpful than contacting him directly.
Based on his past actions, DeWine is likely to support continued Medicaid expansion, maternal and infant health programs, and early childhood investments, so we can thank him for past commitments while urging him to protect or strengthen funding for things like doula services and Help Me Grow. He has also previously vetoed anti-LGBTQ+ language, especially around healthcare discrimination, so if those provisions remain in the final budget, we can call on him to use his line-item veto power to remove them.
Below are specific existing line items you can ask him to veto: (***Click here for a spreadsheet with more detail on the below including the actual line item #s; you don’t need to know those to ask for the vetoes but they might help).
Line Items Harmful to Children and Families
Medicaid Trigger Language — Will likely end Medicaid expansion in Ohio
Federal Mirror Language — Lets Ohio gut programs if the federal government guts programs
Restrictions that could close libraries — Forces libraries to find space to hide books from kids (read more here: daytonmetrolibrary.org/Budget/ )
Gives college “intellectual diversity center” directors total control over curriculum approval
Line Items Harmful to Voter Rights or Government Power
Heavy restrictions on politicians’ public records — shields nearly all legislator and staff communications from public records
Heavy restrictions on criminal justice public records — Bans public access to victim statements, personal notes, incident reports, arrest reports, videos, and more
SB 4 — Create an “Election Integrity Unit” and expand prosecutions for election law violations
SB 107 and HB 153 — Make all local school board elections partisan
Line Items Harmful to Healthcare/Reproductive Rights
3D diagnostic ultrasound machines for fake clinics — “Crisis pregnancy centers” are non-medical clinics intended to persuade women not to have abortions
Tax deduction for donating to anti-abortion clinics —Tax deduction for “pregnancy resource center” donations
Line Items Harmful to LGBTQ+ Ohioans
Defund mental health — bans $$ for mental health services “that promote or affirm” trans Ohioans
Additional information and areas for veto requests can be found in this document (the above list is shortened based on Wild Hope’s collective advocacy priorities, but all of the information in the linked document here is also helpful and may be meaningful to you personally.
Where can I find additional resources?
Check out the following resource links/documents, and let us know if there is anything else you’d like to see more of!
State of Ohio ‘26-’27 Operating Budget - Wild Hope’s internal working summary and notes
2025 social justice/advocacy events/webinars
Wild Hope bill tracking