At the starting gate this month to the second session of the 136th Ohio General Assembly, hopes run low that this will be a banner year for enactment of significant milestone legislation.

After all, 2026 rises as a hotly contested political year for 99 representatives, 17 senators as well as a slew of state executive officers, including governor. If past is prologue, much of their activity will focus inward on politicking at the expense of public service. That likely means sidestepping controversial and divisive issues that could affect their reelection prospects.

To be sure, however, the priority looming largest this year will be expanding tax relief for Ohioans zapped with historic astronomical surges in their property tax assessments in recent years. As we have previously urged in this space, it should remain Priority No. 1. The sooner Ohio adopts a more fair, equitable and affordable property tax system, the sooner the anguish and outrage of many property owners can cease and the sooner an extremist initiative to abolish all property taxes can be kaboshed.

But believing that our august state lawmakers also can function as multi-taskers, it is hoped that 2026 may at last be the year that Ohio finally decides how to move forward with its capital punishment policy, a policy that has been ensnared in limbo since its last execution in 2018. Since then, Gov. Mike DeWine has placed a moratorium on all executions through the remainder of his term.

That same governor last month proclaimed that sometime in January, he would make a major announcement about the future of the death penalty in Ohio. As of press time midweek, he had stayed mum. Some analysts predict he may follow the lead of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who commuted the death sentences of all 167 inmates on the state’s death row to life in prison. That action led to the Land of Lincoln’s formal abolition of capital punishment several years later.

We strongly urge DeWine not to follow Ryan’s lead. Such an action would legally be irreversible and would singlehandedly slap in the face the still very large contingent of capital punishment proponents in our state and region, most notably Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins.

Even DeWine’s own attorney general, Dave Yost, vehemently opposes any blanket commutation, arguing such action would override the valid and thoughtful decisions of juries, courts and established legal processes. Any get-out-of-execution card issued by one lone man would represent the “opposite of democracy and justice,” Yost said.

Nonetheless, signs of public sentiment shifting toward a pro-abolition stance have emerged. Public opinion polls now show a majority (56% in a 2023 Terrance Group poll) of Ohioans favor life in prison with no possibility of parole over the death sentence for the worst of the worst offenders.

Then late last year a group of 27 former state legislators — including the Mahoning Valley’s former representative Joseph Vukovich — urged repeal of the capital punishment law they enacted in 1981. In their public letter, they call the current law “broken” and “grievous[ly] flawed” over its failure to achieve its intended goals, its high costs, and its systemic inequities.

Amid all this yammer and clamor, our state lawmakers largely have stood shamelessly silent. Over the past 15 years, a hodgepodge of capital punishment bills ranging from complete abolition to tweaks in how the punishment is carried out have gone literally nowhere.

It appears then as if state House and Senate members simply lack the political will to fix what Yost most accurately describes as “a broken system.”

Now it appears as if legislators have three options to end the stalemate once and for all this year. They can:

● Expedite and enact House Bill 36, which would permit the use of nitrogen gas as a viable execution method as other states have done successfully. After all, the seemingly never-ending moratorium on executions by DeWine resulted from problems that cropped up with botched executions when Ohio attempted to use common execution drugs.

● Expedite and enact Senate Bill 134, co-sponsored by Sen. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, which would abolish any and all uses of capital punishment. It, too, has withered in committee. Its counterpart in the lower legislative chamber is House Bill 72, co-sponsored by Valley legislators Monica Robb Blasdell, R-Columbiana, and David Thomas, R-Jefferson. But it, too, has been tucked away virtually unnoticed in committee.

● Draft a constitutional referendum issue to place before all voters in the earliest possible statewide election or special election to abolish the death penalty. If it passes, the debate would be settled. If it fails, the Legislature would be forced to obey the majority will of the electorate and ensure the law is carried out with all due speed.

Given the Legislature’s history of lollygagging on capital punishment, we suspect Option 3 may be the best passageway out of lethargy. But as the fiery debate rages on, one thing is clear. Ohio must not allow the death penalty’s state of limbo to endure much longer. It’s costly to Ohio taxpayers, and it’s insensitive to heartbroken survivors of victims still waiting for justice such as Warren’s Miriam Fife, mother of 12-year-old Raymond Fife who was tortured and murdered 41 long years ago.

As such, legislators must respond to the well justified pleas of Watkins, Yost and others by taking concrete steps toward using or losing the death penalty in our state as expeditiously as possible.