{"id":4673,"date":"2016-06-15T17:16:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T21:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=4673"},"modified":"2016-06-15T17:16:32","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T21:16:32","slug":"ohio-license-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/15\/ohio-license-law\/","title":{"rendered":"License suspension reform spreads to Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Ohio this week, Governor John Kasich <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2016\/jun\/15\/law-lets-ohioans-with-drug-offense-convictions-kee\/\">signed a bill into law<\/a> that allows judges to choose whether to suspend driver\u2019s licenses for non-driving related drug offenses. Prior to this reform, these suspensions were mandatory.<\/p>\n<p>The bill\u2019s sponsor, Senator Bill Seitz, argued that the suspension policy created an unnecessary barrier to employment. The governor of Massachusetts cited similar concerns when he <a href=\"\/blog\/2016\/03\/30\/license-bill-signed\/\">ended automatic license suspensions<\/a> for drug offenses unrelated to road safety in March.<\/p>\n<p>Several states, including Texas and New York, still enforce this outdated law, but momentum is on the side of reform. In Seitz\u2019s words, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cleveland.com\/open\/index.ssf\/2016\/04\/bill_allowing_ohioans_with_dru.html\">We\u2019re not doing anything radical &mdash; we\u2019re kind of catching up to the crowd<\/a>.\u201d Which state will be next?<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned for a Prison Policy Initiative report on the remaining states that have yet to repeal this regressive law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ohio follows in Massachusetts&#8217; footsteps by ending unnecessary driver&#8217;s license suspensions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[32],"class_list":["post-4673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shorts","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4673"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}