Ohio

Ohio Governor John Kasich has signed a state budget that continues the expansion of Medicaid, the Associated Press reports. The plan would require about 1 million low-income Ohio residents to pay a monthly charge for Medicaid health coverage.

However, federal regulators would have to approve requiring some adults to pay into a health savings account regardless of their income: "Beneficiaries, except pregnant women, could be cut from the program if they don’t annually contribute 2 percent of their family income or $99, whichever is less."

More than 2.9 million Ohio residents are on Medicaid, making up about a quarter of the state's population.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled last week that a prosecutor must pay attorney fees to The Cincinnati Enquirer for withholding 911 recordings, that newspaper's Kevin Grasha reports. The prosecutor did not have legal authority to withhold the recordings from a murder case, the court ruled, and must pay attorney fees to the newspaper.

The Associated Press reports that Ohio is changing the two-drug cocktail it uses in executions after it was administered to an "inmate who repeatedly gasped and snorted during a troubling 26-minute execution."  The inmate's children are suing the state, arguing their father endured needless pain and suffering.

Instead, the state is going to use thiopental sodium, but that drug is no longer readily available in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Black ordered Ohio to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, calling the ban "arbitrary discrimination," WKSU Public Radio reports. The order is a global one in comparison to an order in Indiana from late last week that allowed for recognition of an out-of-state same-sex marriage because one spouse has stage 4 ovarian cancer.

The cause of same-sex marriage and LGBT  rights advanced in several states around the country this week:

* The Idaho Supreme Court will now allow the adoption of a same-sex partner's children, The Washington Post's Eugene Volokh writes: "More broadly, the court concludes that such a second-parent adoption doesn’t require that the parties be married to each other, so that adoption of an opposite-sex partner’s (or even friend’s) children would be allowed as well, so long as the other requirements for adoption are met."

* Nevada has withdrawn its appeal to uphold that state's same-sex marriage ban, Bloomberg reports: "Nevada was defending a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages established by a voter-approved amendment. A federal judge in 2012 ruled that the state law didn’t violate the equal protection rights of eight same-sex couples that sued to overturn it. Yesterday, the state dropped its defense of the ban in the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco" due to the 9th Circuit's ruling that heightened constitutional scrutiny would not allow a gay man to be excluded from a trial involving an AIDS drug.

* Same-sex couples have filed a lawsuit to challenge Texas' same-sex marriage ban, Reuters reports.

* Same-sex couples have filed a lawsuit to challenge Ohio's ban on allowing both same-sex partners on children's birth certificates, the Associated Press reports. A similar Ohio lawsuit over death certificates had success, and the attorney prosecuting the cases says his tactics "will give the U.S. Supreme Court a wider variety of legal arguments to consider when appeals from various states reach their chambers."

The Associated Press reports that U.S. District Judge Timothy Black ruled today that Ohio's 9-year-old ban on same-sex marriage cannot extend to refusing to recognize valid same-sex marriages from other states on death certificates. The ruling is likely to have a broader impact than just on death certificates because of the judge's sweeping language. According to the AP, the judge reasoned: "'The question presented is whether a state can do what the federal government cannot — i.e., discriminate against same-sex couples ... simply because the majority of the voters don't like homosexuality (or at least didn't in 2004). Under the Constitution of the United States, the answer is no."'

Judge Timothy Black, a federal district judge in Ohio, questioned the authority of state officials to refuse to recognize same-sex unions entered in other states, the Associated Press reports. Black heard arguments this week on a narrower question than other same-sex marriage lawsuits: not on whether Ohio's ban on same-sex marriage ban can stand, but on whether same-sex marriages from other states must be recognized on Ohio death certificates.

Legal news from last week: A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit can proceed on whether same-sex marriages from other states can be recognized on death certificates in Ohio despite the statewide ban on same-sex nuptials. The Associated Press reported the presiding judge "rejected a request from state attorneys asking to have a funeral director removed from the lawsuit, a move that essentially would have squelched it."

An Ohio federal judge who ruled valid same-sex marriages entered into in other states must be recognized on Ohio death certificates is facing calls for his impeachment. Ohio bans same-sex marriage. Judge Timothy Seymour "Black’s friends and colleagues defend him as a highly intelligent, thoughtful judge who closely examines every case before delivering rulings free of personal bias," the Associated Press reported.

The Ohio Supreme Court chief justice doesn't pick opinion writers. Instead, it's marbles.

The Times Reporter, out of Philadelphia, Ohio, reports on a talk given by a new justice on the Ohio Supreme Court: "When the seven justices of the Supreme Court meet, [Justice Judith L. French] said they listen to oral arguments from both sides. Then they go into a small conference room with seats personally assigned in order of their seniority on the court. Beginning with the chief justice, each of the justices takes their turn giving their thoughts and opinions — without interruption, she explained. That can produce what she called “robust” debate. The justices then vote regarding the case, and one of the justices is chosen to write a majority opinion about the decision.

On the United States Supreme Court, the opinion writer is chosen by the chief justice, she said.

'In Ohio we have marbles,' she said, adding that each justice has a number on a marble that is selected. Anyone can write a concurring or dissenting opinion."