2 more suits seek federal jobless benefits
Want to restore $300 unemployment money
As the Labor Day deadline ticks closer, attorneys trying to restore $300 in weekly federal pandemic unemployment benefits are pulling out all the stops.
Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and his colleagues filed two lawsuits Tuesday, trying to force Gov. Mike Dewine to reinstate unemployment benefits approved by Congress in March 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dewine halted benefits on June 26 before President Joe Biden’s administration planned to end them on Sept. 6. Dewine and business groups argued that the $300 in additional weekly benefits were preventing Ohioans from returning to work.
Dann’s firm disagreed, arguing in a lawsuit that Dewine was required under Ohio law to accept available benefits. The 10th District Court of Appeals ruled that Dewine should restore the payments, but that case got tied up in appeals.
What are the new lawsuits?
So Dann filed two new lawsuits: a class-action one that includes every Ohioan entitled to benefits that Dewine cut off early and another asking a judge
to command Dewine to ask the Biden administration for the rest of the benefits.
“It’s a new ballgame. It’s a new day,” Dann said.
Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Holbrook said Friday that he would reinstate the unemployment benefits if his hands weren’t tied by the Ohio Supreme Court. So Dann says he’s hopeful that the lastminute legal maneuvers could work.
If the Dewine administration doesn’t get the nearly $1 billion in unemployment benefits from the federal government, the state could be on the hook for the bill, Dann said.
“They stopped the train and made it harder for us to get the relief that we want for the folks we’re trying to protect,” he said.
Where is the case at in the Ohio Supreme Court?
The Ohio Supreme Court hasn’t yet decided whether to rule on the case. On Tuesday, they ruled that Holbrook could hear testimony about the broader impact of halting benefits without the high court’s OK.
Justice Jennifer Brunner went a step further in a dissent, saying she would allow Holbrook to reinstate the benefits as the 10th District Court of Appeals directed. She wrote that it was clear that Dewine “sought refuge from that apparent eventuality by appealing to this court to delay this matter past Sept. 6.”
Jessie Balmert is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Akron Beacon Journal, Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.