DeWine signs order on domestic violence
Associated Press
COLUMBUS
Gov. Mike DeWine has signed an executive order expanding Ohio’s policy on workplace domestic violence to offer more protection to state employees who are victims of such violence.
The Republican governor signed the order Wednesday. It adds new protections and expands the definition of domestic violence to include dating violence.
DeWine’s said in a release that it “makes sense” that dating-violence survivors receive the same support and services as other domestic-violence victims.
The order requires all state agencies, boards and commissions to maintain and post lists of resources for survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence and take appropriate and necessary protective and corrective actions.
Corrective actions could include firing an employee who commits or threatens domestic violence on state property, at state-sponsored events or when using state resources.
State of the state
DeWine plans to deliver his first State of the State address in Columbus, breaking with his Republican predecessor’s pattern of taking the annual speech on the road.
Spokesman Dan Tierney said the governor intends to give his speech at the Statehouse, the traditional location. No date has been set.
The speech is traditionally delivered to the Legislature, with Supreme Court justices, state officeholders and other officials attending.
Former Gov. John Kasich moved the address away from Columbus for the first time in 2012. That speech was in eastern Ohio’s Steubenville. In subsequent years, Kasich took it to Sandusky, Lima, Medina, Wilmington and Marietta. Last year’s address was at Otterbein University in the Columbus suburb of Westerville, not far from Kasich’s home.