Speaker: Ohio House GOP discussing repeal of death penalty

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — House Republicans in Ohio are discussing a repeal of the death penalty, as executions remain on hold amid the state’s struggles to obtain lethal injection drugs.

GOP House Speaker Larry Householder told reporters on Thursday that members of his majority caucus are discussing various options, including doing away with capital punishment.

“We don’t know that there is an option right now,” Householder said. “We may have a law in place that allows for a death penalty that we can’t carry out.”

He said having a death penalty the state can’t enforce is expensive.

Current law in Ohio only allows for lethal injection as an execution method. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said in February that Ohio “certainly could have no executions” while a search for obtainable, allowable drugs was underway.

Householder said adding alternative methods is problematic.

“Well, I don’t think we want to come back to hanging, and I don’t think shootings would be good,” he said. “Electrocution is sort of off the table. I don’t know what the method would be. It seems like chemical injection is not working out very well for us, so I don’t know what else there is.”

Householder said discussion so far is internal. He and his leadership team are assessing support among Republicans for a repeal.

Such a proposal would appear to face some opposition in the Ohio Senate, also controlled by Republicans.

“I think that the majority of Ohioans support the option of the death penalty in certain cases,” Senate President Larry Obhof said in July.

His spokesman, John Fortney, said Thursday that similar discussions aren’t taking place in the upper chamber.

“We have not discussed abolishing the death penalty,” he said.