COLUMBUS, Ohio — The 134th General Assembly features a number of newly-elected members in the House of Representatives and Senate.
In the House, there are 22 lawmakers serving at the state level for the first time.
Dontavius Jarrells (D-Columbus) was sworn into the Ohio House of Representatives for his first term last month.
He represents the state’s 25th House District in central Ohio, which includes northeast Columbus along with Clinton and Mifflin townships in Franklin County.
Jarrells, at 32 years old, is one of the state’s youngest lawmakers.
He said at first he wanted to follow in the footsteps of a TV legend instead of politics.
“I wanted to be Oprah. She’s always good at asking the right question and I thought, ‘man that’s so amazing,’ her ability to do that.” Jarrells said.
But as a kid who grew up in one of Cleveland’s roughest neighborhoods, Jarrells wanted to help his neighbors more than being a talk show host.
Ten years ago, he got his start in politics as a policy researcher at the Statehouse.
“I just fell in love with the ability to transform policy and be an investigator. It’s like peeling back layers of the onion and kinda getting to the bad policy and replacing it with good policy,” Jarrells said.
From there, Jarrells worked for the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and served in different political roles with the Franklin County and Ohio Democratic parties.
Jarrells is relying on that experience to lead a district that has not had a functioning representative since Bernadine Kennedy Kent was kicked out of the Democratic caucus a couple of years ago.
“There’s a weight on me that’s a little different than with other legislators just because of the situation I was walking into,” he said.
But instead of saying woe is me, Jarrells said he wants to continue to address mental health with suicides and the opioid epidemic as well as the housing crisis and the issues surrounding kinship.
“It’s time for us to really think differently about how we’re supporting our families who are taking on those family members in their homes especially when they’re an older Ohioan,” Jarrells said.
Jarrells also wants to see Ohio get out of the pandemic.
He thinks Gov. Mike DeWine has done a good job handling it and would not support legislative oversight of his executive orders.
Jarrells does support the bipartisan ‘Fair School Funding Plan’ and also wants to completely repeal House Bill 6 and expel Larry Householder from office.
He said he will have had a successful term two years from now if, “We are on a trajectory of building an Ohio where no one is unseen, unheard or uninspired and, at the end of the day, we are an Ohio that is recovering out of the pandemic that we are currently experiencing.”
