Ohio SB 35 Supported Decision-Making Act — Plain English Decode
Ohio SB 35 would legally recognize "supported decision-making" as a formal alternative to guardianship for adults with developmental disabilities, granting new autonomy rights while sparking a pointed debate over whether it adequately protects the most vulnerable from exploitation.
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What It Does
Ohio SB 35 creates a formal legal category called a "supported decision-making plan" and establishes two tracks: a formal written plan and an informal arrangement based on natural supports. An adult with a developmental disability (the "principal") designates one or more "supporters" who help them understand their options, communicate their choices, and carry out decisions — but critically, the principal makes the decision, not the supporter. The bill explicitly states that executing an SDM plan is *not* evidence of incapacity and cannot be treated as such. Supporters owe the principal a fiduciary duty, must act in accordance with the plan, cannot contradict the principal's expressed wishes, and must disclose any conflicts of interest. The Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities must create a model written SDM plan form and educational materials for disabled adults, their families, and service providers. Adults must enter SDM agreements voluntarily and while of "sound mind" — a protection added by Senate Judiciary Committee amendment. The principal can revoke or modify the arrangement at any time, verbally or in writing, with no court involvement required.
The Real Story
The underlying conflict is autonomy versus protection. Disability rights advocates, backed by APSI's executive director Kristen Henry, argue that guardianship is a legal sledgehammer — it strips adults of *all* decision-making rights — and that SDM lets people stay in charge of their own lives with trusted backup. On the other side, some parents of adults with developmental disabilities fear the bill creates a backdoor to challenge existing, protective guardianships: if informal help given "from time to time" can be presented as evidence that a guardianship is unnecessary, family members who fought hard for guardianship to protect a vulnerable adult could find that arrangement destabilized. What looks like a clean civil rights bill is actually a complex restructuring of who controls the lives of Ohio's most vulnerable adults.
Who Benefits
- Adults with developmental disabilities who retain legal capacity — the bill's core beneficiaries. They can now formally appoint supporters without surrendering their legal rights, giving them a recognized alternative to guardianship if they can manage with assistance.
- Advocacy and Protective Services, Inc. (APSI) and Ohio disability rights organizations, which have advocated for SDM for years and gain a formal legal framework to deploy in their work.
- Trusted family members and friends who want to help a disabled adult navigate decisions without taking on the full legal burden and liability of guardianship.
- Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities (DODD), which gains a recognized planning tool to use in individual service plans and reduces pressure to pursue guardianship for people who can function with support.
Who Gets Hurt
- Current legal guardians — including many parents of adults with developmental disabilities — could face renewed legal challenges to their guardianship if courts accept evidence of informal support as proof that guardianship was unnecessary. Carolyn Larman's testimony specifically flagged this risk.
- Adults with developmental disabilities who genuinely need guardianship could be pressured by third parties or supporters into SDM arrangements they don't fully understand, despite the "sound mind" requirement — which remains untested in Ohio courts.
- Attorneys and courts handling guardianship proceedings will face new, ambiguous questions about what level of informal support qualifies as evidence against guardianship necessity, with no clear precedent in Ohio.
Red Flags
- Evidentiary loophole: After committee amendments, opponents including testifier Carolyn Larman warned that removing the word "plan" from the bill's evidence standards means that even casual, informal assistance — not just a formal SDM agreement — could be used to argue against the necessity of an existing guardianship. This could expose established guardianships to legal challenge based on minimal evidence.
- No court vetting of supporters: Anyone a principal designates can become a "supporter" — there is no court approval, licensing, background check, or adult protective services screening required before someone assumes the fiduciary role. The only safeguards are self-disclosure of conflicts and the fiduciary duty itself.
- "Sound mind" standard added late: The requirement that a principal be of "sound mind" to enter an SDM agreement was added by Senate Judiciary Committee amendment after opponents raised the concern — meaning the original bill lacked this protection. The lateness of that amendment signals the bill arrived imperfect and may still need House-level fixes.
- Scope gap: The bill covers adults with *developmental* disabilities specifically, leaving adults with acquired disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, or serious mental illness facing the same guardianship pressures but outside the bill's reach.
- DODD mandate without specified funding: The bill requires the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities to create a model SDM plan and public educational materials, but sources do not identify dedicated funding for these obligations — creating an unfunded mandate risk.
Hidden Riders
- The bill creates a new class of legally-recognized "supporters" with fiduciary duties, but it does not clearly address how that legal status interacts with *existing* legal instruments like powers of attorney, healthcare proxies, or Social Security representative payees. An adult who already has a power of attorney arrangement could find legal ambiguity about whether their attorney-in-fact is now also a "supporter" under the Act, with overlapping or conflicting obligations — the bill is silent on this interaction.
Current Status
Ohio SB 35 passed the Ohio Senate unanimously during the 136th General Assembly, sponsored by Senators Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) and Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester). It then moved to the Ohio House of Representatives, where as of the week of June 8, 2026, it was scheduled for its second committee hearing with proponent and interested party testimony. An updated Ohio Legislative Service Commission fiscal/research analysis was issued on March 20, 2026, indicating the bill was still being refined. The bill has not yet received a full House floor vote. It can be tracked at the [Ohio Legislature's official bill page](https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/136/sb35).
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Sources:
- [Senate Bill 35 | 136th General Assembly | Ohio Legislature](https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/136/sb35)
- [Ohio Senate unanimously adopts bill recognizing supported decision-making | Citizen Portal](https://citizenportal.ai/articles/6688935/Ohio/Legislative/Committees/Senate/Ohio-Senate-unanimously-adopts-bill-recognizing-supported-decision-making-as-alternative-to-guardianship)
- [Supporters say bill formally recognizes SDM; some parents warn protections insufficient | Citizen Portal](https://citizenportal.ai/articles/6702384/Ohio/Legislative/Committees/Senate/Judiciary/Supporters-say-bill-formally-recognizes-supported-decision-making-some-parents-warn-protections-are-insufficient)
- [Opponents urge clarity on evidence standards after committee amends SB 35 | Citizen Portal](https://citizenportal.ai/articles/6707135/Ohio/Legislative/Committees/Senate/Judiciary/Opponents-urge-clarity-on-evidence-standards-after-committee-amends-supported-decision-making-language-in-SB-35)
- [Senate Passes Bill Supporting Adults with a Developmental Disability | Sen. Cirino](https://ohiosenate.gov/members/jerry-c-cirino/news/senate-passes-cirino-and-reynolds-bill-supporting-adults-with-a-developmental-disability)
- [SB 35: Ohio Supported Decision-Making for Adults with Disabilities | StateLawImpact](https://statelawimpact.com/sb-35-ohio-supported-decision-making-for-adults-with-disabilities/)
- [Texas SDM Law — Chapter 1357, Estates Code | Justia](https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2015/estates-code/title-3/subtitle-i/chapter-1357/)
- [Supported Decision Making & the Problems of Guardianship | ACLU](https://www.aclu.org/issues/disability-rights/integration-and-autonomy-people-disabilities/supported-decision-making)
- [Senate Bill 35 | 136th General Assembly | Ohio House of Representatives](https://www.ohiohouse.gov/legislation/136/sb35)
Ohio SB 35 would legally recognize "supported decision-making" as a formal alternative to guardianship for adults with developmental disabilities, granting new autonomy rights while sparking a pointed debate over whether it adequately protects the most vulnerable from exploitation.
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Why now
Texas became the first U.S. state to codify supported decision-making (SDM) agreements in 2015, and since then more than 20 states have enacted some form of SDM law, creating sustained national pressure on holdouts like Ohio. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has framed guardianship as a human rights concern, lending international weight to the reform movement. Ohio's disability advocacy community — particularly organizations like Advocacy and Protective Services, Inc. (APSI) — pushed the bill into the 136th General Assembly as part of a broader national reckoning with guardianship being over-applied to people who have real capacity to make their own decisions.
The real story
The underlying conflict is autonomy versus protection. Disability rights advocates, backed by APSI's executive director Kristen Henry, argue that guardianship is a legal sledgehammer — it strips adults of *all* decision-making rights — and that SDM lets people stay in charge of their own lives with trusted backup. On the other side, some parents of adults with developmental disabilities fear the bill creates a backdoor to challenge existing, protective guardianships: if informal help given "from time to time" can be presented as evidence that a guardianship is unnecessary, family members who fought hard for guardianship to protect a vulnerable adult could find that arrangement destabilized. What looks like a clean civil rights bill is actually a complex restructuring of who controls the lives of Ohio's most vulnerable adults.
Red flags
▸ Evidentiary loophole: After committee amendments, opponents including testifier Carolyn Larman warned that removing the word "plan" from the bill's evidence standards means that even casual, informal assistance — not just a formal SDM agreement — could be used to argue against the necessity of an existing guardianship. This could expose established guardianships to legal challenge based on minimal evidence.
▸ No court vetting of supporters: Anyone a principal designates can become a "supporter" — there is no court approval, licensing, background check, or adult protective services screening required before someone assumes the fiduciary role. The only safeguards are self-disclosure of conflicts and the fiduciary duty itself.
▸ "Sound mind" standard added late: The requirement that a principal be of "sound mind" to enter an SDM agreement was added by Senate Judiciary Committee amendment after opponents raised the concern — meaning the original bill lacked this protection. The lateness of that amendment signals the bill arrived imperfect and may still need House-level fixes.
▸ Scope gap: The bill covers adults with *developmental* disabilities specifically, leaving adults with acquired disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, or serious mental illness facing the same guardianship pressures but outside the bill's reach.
▸ DODD mandate without specified funding: The bill requires the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities to create a model SDM plan and public educational materials, but sources do not identify dedicated funding for these obligations — creating an unfunded mandate risk.
Who benefits
• Adults with developmental disabilities who retain legal capacity — the bill's core beneficiaries. They can now formally appoint supporters without surrendering their legal rights, giving them a recognized alternative to guardianship if they can manage with assistance.
• Advocacy and Protective Services, Inc. (APSI) and Ohio disability rights organizations, which have advocated for SDM for years and gain a formal legal framework to deploy in their work.
• Trusted family members and friends who want to help a disabled adult navigate decisions without taking on the full legal burden and liability of guardianship.
• Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities (DODD), which gains a recognized planning tool to use in individual service plans and reduces pressure to pursue guardianship for people who can function with support.
Who gets hurt
• Current legal guardians — including many parents of adults with developmental disabilities — could face renewed legal challenges to their guardianship if courts accept evidence of informal support as proof that guardianship was unnecessary. Carolyn Larman's testimony specifically flagged this risk.
• Adults with developmental disabilities who genuinely need guardianship could be pressured by third parties or supporters into SDM arrangements they don't fully understand, despite the "sound mind" requirement — which remains untested in Ohio courts.
• Attorneys and courts handling guardianship proceedings will face new, ambiguous questions about what level of informal support qualifies as evidence against guardianship necessity, with no clear precedent in Ohio.
What it does
Ohio SB 35 creates a formal legal category called a "supported decision-making plan" and establishes two tracks: a formal written plan and an informal arrangement based on natural supports. An adult with a developmental disability (the "principal") designates one or more "supporters" who help them understand their options, communicate their choices, and carry out decisions — but critically, the principal makes the decision, not the supporter. The bill explicitly states that executing an SDM plan is *not* evidence of incapacity and cannot be treated as such. Supporters owe the principal a fiduciary duty, must act in accordance with the plan, cannot contradict the principal's expressed wishes, and must disclose any conflicts of interest. The Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities must create a model written SDM plan form and educational materials for disabled adults, their families, and service providers. Adults must enter SDM agreements voluntarily and while of "sound mind" — a protection added by Senate Judiciary Committee amendment. The principal can revoke or modify the arrangement at any time, verbally or in writing, with no court involvement required.
Hidden riders
- The bill creates a new class of legally-recognized "supporters" with fiduciary duties, but it does not clearly address how that legal status interacts with *existing* legal instruments like powers of attorney, healthcare proxies, or Social Security representative payees. An adult who already has a power of attorney arrangement could find legal ambiguity about whether their attorney-in-fact is now also a "supporter" under the Act, with overlapping or conflicting obligations — the bill is silent on this interaction.
Precedent
Texas enacted the nation's first SDM law in 2015 under Estates Code Chapter 1357, and uniquely required judges to *consider* SDM before establishing any guardianship. The Texas model became a national template: more than 20 states have since passed some form of SDM legislation. The state-by-state spread has been broadly positive for disability rights advocates — SDM frameworks have been used to help adults exit unnecessary guardianships and to prevent new ones from being established during transition-to-adulthood periods. Ohio's version adds the fiduciary duty and "sound mind" requirements not present in some earlier state laws, suggesting the legislature learned from gaps in earlier models — though opponents argue those additions still don't go far enough.
Current status
Ohio SB 35 passed the Ohio Senate unanimously during the 136th General Assembly, sponsored by Senators Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) and Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester). It then moved to the Ohio House of Representatives, where as of the week of June 8, 2026, it was scheduled for its second committee hearing with proponent and interested party testimony. An updated Ohio Legislative Service Commission fiscal/research analysis was issued on March 20, 2026, indicating the bill was still being refined. The bill has not yet received a full House floor vote. It can be tracked at the [Ohio Legislature's official bill page](https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/136/sb35).
---
Sources:
- [Senate Bill 35 | 136th General Assembly | Ohio Legislature](https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/136/sb35)
- [Ohio Senate unanimously adopts bill recognizing supported decision-making | Citizen Portal](https://citizenportal.ai/articles/6688935/Ohio/Legislative/Committees/Senate/Ohio-Senate-unanimously-adopts-bill-recognizing-supported-decision-making-as-alternative-to-guardianship)
- [Supporters say bill formally recognizes SDM; some parents warn protections insufficient | Citizen Portal](https://citizenportal.ai/articles/6702384/Ohio/Legislative/Committees/Senate/Judiciary/Supporters-say-bill-formally-recognizes-supported-decision-making-some-parents-warn-protections-are-insufficient)
- [Opponents urge clarity on evidence standards after committee amends SB 35 | Citizen Portal](https://citizenportal.ai/articles/6707135/Ohio/Legislative/Committees/Senate/Judiciary/Opponents-urge-clarity-on-evidence-standards-after-committee-amends-supported-decision-making-language-in-SB-35)
- [Senate Passes Bill Supporting Adults with a Developmental Disability | Sen. Cirino](https://ohiosenate.gov/members/jerry-c-cirino/news/senate-passes-cirino-and-reynolds-bill-supporting-adults-with-a-developmental-disability)
- [SB 35: Ohio Supported Decision-Making for Adults with Disabilities | StateLawImpact](https://statelawimpact.com/sb-35-ohio-supported-decision-making-for-adults-with-disabilities/)
- [Texas SDM Law — Chapter 1357, Estates Code | Justia](https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2015/estates-code/title-3/subtitle-i/chapter-1357/)
- [Supported Decision Making & the Problems of Guardianship | ACLU](https://www.aclu.org/issues/disability-rights/integration-and-autonomy-people-disabilities/supported-decision-making)
- [Senate Bill 35 | 136th General Assembly | Ohio House of Representatives](https://www.ohiohouse.gov/legislation/136/sb35)
What to watch
As of June 8, 2026, the bill was in its second House committee hearing, receiving both proponent and interested party testimony — meaning it has not yet cleared the House. The key question is whether the House adds stronger language on the evidentiary standard for guardianship challenges, which was the central unresolved concern in the Senate. Ohio citizens with family members under guardianship or facing guardianship proceedings should monitor the bill's House committee for any new amendments and contact their state House representative before it reaches a full floor vote.
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