OHIO — Hundreds of thousands of Ohioans are suing Governor Mike DeWine, alleging he withheld federal unemployment benefits during the pandemic.
They are awaiting a ruling from an appeals court, and their attorney stated that time is of the essence, with the country’s next budget hanging in the balance, and they risk losing everything.
The court case involves 330,000 Ohioans who may have money owed to them by the state. Candy Bowling, a former factory worker who was laid off during the pandemic, is one of them.
“Whenever that happens, people become depressed, and you just have to move on, I suppose. “We couldn’t move on from there,” Bowling said.
Bowling and others were surviving on unemployment benefits, but in June 2021, DeWine joined nearly two dozen other states in declining supplemental pandemic unemployment funds for the remaining 10 weeks, totaling $900 million.
At the time, the government had shut down nearly everything.
“Just because the world stopped, our bills didn’t,” Bowling said. “That was my rent payment right there $1200 a month that he denied from the assistance from the federal government.”
Marc Dann, managing partner of Dann Law and the case’s attorney, claims DeWine prematurely cut pandemic benefits from the federal government.
“(DeWine) said that businesses were having trouble filling jobs and that somehow giving people who were unemployed less money would make them more likely to apply to fill those jobs,” Dann told the media.
A lawsuit followed.
Initially, a trial judge ruled that the governor was not required to pay, but Ohio’s 10th District Court of Appeals later ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
“They’ve already said back in 2021 that there’s a clear legal duty for the governor to maximize benefits for people who are unemployed,” Dann informed the audience.
However, the governor filed an appeal last month, and the case has been paused since then.
Dann then requested a court order directing DeWine to go get the money while they sorted things out legally.
“The risk is that if the governor doesn’t go ask for the money now, with all the craziness that’s going on in Washington, that it’s very likely that that money will be re-appropriated someplace else,” Dann told the media.
Spectrum News 1 contacted the governor’s office, but a spokesperson said they would not comment beyond the statements made and filed in court.
Bowling stated that she is speaking up because some Ohioans may have lost everything.
“I am more fighting for those people who were hurt way worse than I was and don’t have the voice to stand up or don’t have the courage to stand up or don’t know how to stand up,” Bowling told the crowd.
