Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland who now reports from Ohio University.
update: Late Thursday, a visibly frustrated Gov. Mike DeWine ordered the state Legislature to convene a special session on Tuesday and Wednesday to address Biden’s vote problems. His actions are likely to produce results, but they’re not certain. If they don’t, everyone will be facing another day in court.
Like people trapped in an abusive relationship, Ohioans are at the mercy of a bickering, dysfunctional and rigged Republican-run Legislature, whose shenanigans are made possible in part by the passivity of state legislative Democrats.
For example, infighting and shoddy behavior by Republicans in the Ohio House and Senate means that, as of this writing, there is no guarantee that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will appear on Ohio’s November ballot, and, as of this writing, state legislative Democrats seem both indifferent to what appears to be a low-class coup and, like Charles Dickens’s Mr. Mikaba, expect something to happen.
more:Governor DeWine directs lawmakers to put President Biden on Ohio ballots, calling the situation “absurd.”
Indeed, last week the Ohio General Assembly sharply criticized the state for repeatedly violating promises of home rule for cities and villages dating back to 1912, a primary goal of reformers such as Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland and the Rev. Washington Gladden of the First Congregational Church of Columbus.
Franklin County District Court Judge Mark Cerrotto blocked a bill lawmakers passed over a veto by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, House Bill 513, sponsored by Reps. John Cross of Findlay and Bill Romer of Richfield. The bill would have prohibited cities and villages from regulating tobacco products or alternative nicotine products, such as flavored tobacco products, according to a Legislative Services Committee report.
This latest surge in preemption was an attempt by Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly, in collusion with private interests, to force Ohioans to turn to the State Legislature, rather than city and village halls, to solve their local problems.
Starting about two decades ago, the Legislature began to increasingly restrict the rights of local voters on local issues, most notably in 2004. That session, the Legislature passed House Bill 278, sponsored by Thomas Niehaus, a Republican congressman from suburban Cincinnati who later became president of the Ohio Senate.
The Niehaus bill denied, and continues to deny, over 900 cities and villages in Ohio the authority to “permit, site, and spacing of oil and gas wells.” If you don’t want a fracking rig in your neighborhood, don’t complain to your mayor. Instead, complain to Columbus, the state’s oil and gas bureaucracy. Good luck.
Meanwhile, in what can only be described as a breathtaking risk to Ohio’s parks and wilderness areas, the state Legislature authorized (and Governor DeWine implemented) hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas under state parks, something that then-Republican Governor John R. Kasich blocked (to his credit).
The state Legislature’s record of voter misfortune is lengthened by publicity, not policy, being prioritized among lawmakers, divisions among Ohio House Republicans and a feud between the state Legislature’s GOP leaders, Speaker Jason Stevens of Kitts Hill, Lawrence County, and Senate President Matt Huffman of Lima. Huffman was elected to the House in November and is trying to wrest the legislative gavel from Stevens.
One bitter consequence of that rivalry was Due to personal conflicts and the stubborn and mindless partisanship of some rank-and-file members of Congress, Senator Huffman and Representative Stevens are unwilling to agree to a bill that would ensure that Biden appears on Ohio’s presidential ballot in November.
In this era of state legislatures, bickering between special interests and Republicans has thwarted the public interest virtually at any one time. Indeed, the HB 6/FirstEnergy scandal sent a former House speaker (Perry County Republican Larry Householder) and former Republican State Chairman Matt Borges (Bexley) to federal prison. The HB 6 affair also likely contributed to the suicides of lobbyist Neil S. Clark and Samuel Randazzo, the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, who was appointed by Governor DeWine.
But HB 6 still costs Ohioans millions of dollars in additional monthly electric bills, benefiting AES, American Electric and Duke Energy because the Legislature won’t repeal it entirely. (And HB 6 only became law because nine House Democrats voted in favor of it.)
Conclusion: Unless Ohio voters demand fairness in the state’s currently partisan rigged districts, there is virtually no hope of correcting the Legislature’s irresponsibility, or the clowns will continue to run their circus and ruin Ohio.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland who now reports from Ohio University.
