Committee holds first hearing on 'Keith's Law' to create voluntary statewide disability registry for first responders

The Ohio House Community Revitalization Committee held a first hearing on House Bill 144, known as "Keith's Law," which would create a voluntary statewide database allowing people with disabilities to share information with police, fire and emergency medical personnel ahead of crises. Representatives James Klick and Mike Bruins offered sponsor testimony and described the proposal as a way to extend existing local registries statewide.

The bill’s sponsors told the committee the database would be voluntary and designed to be accessible across county lines so that information entered in one county could be available to first responders elsewhere. "Keith brought this to me," Representative Klick said during his testimony, "and he said, well, I've tried several times to get someone to take this up and to do this on a statewide basis, but no one will take it up." Klick described the bill as a response to patchwork local registries and…