Ohio House’s odd mission goes on and on
The Republican-run Ohio House of Representatives never forgets why Ohioans send it to the Statehouse — to limit women’s access to abortion and boost gun peddlers’ profits.
Ohio House Republicans don’t let themselves get distracted by trivial side-issues, such as public school funding (ruled unconstitutional 21 years ago). No sir.
For 1997, the year that Ohio’s Supreme Court ruled Ohio’s school funding “system” unconstitutionally over-relied on property taxes, owners of Ohio real estate were charged $7.2 billion in property taxes.
For 2015, latest data at hand, owners of Ohio real estate were charged $15.7 billion in property taxes. And school districts receive about two-thirds of every $1 in real estate taxes.
Meanwhile, women obtained 20,893 abortions in Ohio in 2017. In 1997, year of the “DeRolph” school funding ruling, women obtained approximately 35,000 abortions in Ohio.
So: (Unconstitutional) property taxes, up. (Constitutional) abortions, down: Hey, guys – and (white Republican) guys who run Ohio’s House – let’s do the logical thing: Go after abortion.
And never forget that consistency is the enemy of imagination: No question, we Ohio House Republicans revere the right to life – but we positively worship the right to shoot.
In theory, the Ohio Senate could slam on the brakes. After all, that’s why Ohio (in theory) has a two-chamber legislature. The Senate is supposed to check and balance Ohio’s House, and the House is supposed to check and balance the state Senate.
Two problems: Both chambers are Republican-led, and too many of those Republicans daydream about yammering on C-SPAN as members of Congress. That means you don’t rock the GOP’s boat. You get with the program: Ignore the real burdens of real people and distract those voters by grandstanding over abortion or guns or sexuality.
In that connection, come 2020, when Donald Trump will seek re-election if he’s still president, don’t be surprised if GOP operatives cook up a statewide Ohio ballot issue to, in effect, attack transgender Ohioans, just as those operatives did in 2004, to deny marriage to gay or lesbian Ohioans: Rousing the rabble takes some doing, even in an Ohio that longs for the days of, say, William McKinley.
Meanwhile, after the election ...
Ohio’s Nov. 6 election has spawned an interesting side effect: Out-ofstate Democrats who just know that Ohio is now a red state or a purple state, or something other than what it always has been and remains — a generally Republican state.
Ohio twice cast its electoral votes for Bill Clinton, and twice for Barack Obama. Matter of fact, Obama’s 2008 popular vote in Ohio (2.94 million votes) exceeds Trump’s 2016 popular vote in Ohio (2.84 million votes), and Obama’s 2012 popular vote in Ohio (2.83 million votes) virtually matched Trump’s 2016 tally. For that matter, the re-election of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, hardly suggests that Ohio is lost to Democrats.
The antics of the (gerrymandered) Ohio General Assembly and of Ohio’s prize congressional specimens (e.g., Urbana Republican Jim Jordan), elected, like all Ohio’s U.S. House members, from a gerrymandered district, seem to cloud the eyesight of those gazing at Ohio from afar.
In fact, Ohio is far more diverse than, say, Indiana, in Ohio’s number of metropolitan regions and range of ethnicity. The proportion of Indianans with ancestors south of the Ohio River (that is, likely conservative-leaning) is likely greater than the corresponding proportion of Ohioans, and Ohio’s proportion of black residents (12.9 percent) is greater than Indiana’s (9.7 percent).
For good (Northeast Ohio’s Western Reserve, in the fall), or for bad (the Ohio General Assembly, any day of the year), there’s no place like Ohio. Not even a state next door.
And never forget that consistency is the enemy of imagination: No question, we Ohio House Republicans revere the right to life – but we positively worship the right to shoot.