General Assembly shields who pulls strings for bills

Voters ... are supposed to pay up, and shut up.

Sixty years ago, the Ohio Supreme Court said this about public records: “Public records are the people’s records, and … the officials in whose custody they happen to be are merely trustees for the people.” That ruling still applies — unless you want to see how General Assembly members and lobbyists can write bills to suit a lobbyist’s client.

Till 1999, such information was available, if, that is, an Ohioan knew where to look. The Legislative

Service Commission’s bill files.

When a General Assembly member introduces a bill, the nonpartisan LSC creates a file for it — a bill file. Besides a bill’s various drafts, the file can include memos from the bill’s sponsor — and material provided by lobbyists who asked the sponsor to propose it.

There’s nothing necessarily illegal or improper about lobbying — not when professionally conducted. And practically no General Assembly member could or would write his or her own bills. That requires special lingo used in Ohio laws. So the LSC writes bills for a legislator, once she or he tells the LSC’s staff what that bill is supposed to do.

“What a bill is supposed to do,” often as not, is what its backers tell its sponsors they want the bill to do. Again, there’s nothing necessarily improper about that. You want Ohio to designate a statewide “No Big Deal Day,” you have to ask a legislator to introduce a bill that would do that.

Still, if Fatcat X or even Charity Y helps determine what a bill says, voters might figure out that their state legislator isn’t a member of Mensa.

More perilously, voters might also figure out that a given bill isn’t about jobs-and-progress, or lollipops-and-sunshine, but about bloating someone’s bottom line. For some reason, House Bill 6, passed last year to subsidize two nuclear power plants once owned by FirstEnergy Corp., comes to mind.

The circumstances surrounding HB 6’s passage have led a federal grand jury to indict former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four other Capitol Square figures. That, naturally, stoked curiosity about what an Ohioan might find in the HB 6 bill file.

But Ohioans aren’t allowed to see it. The General Assembly slipped into 1999’s budget bill an rider making LSC bill files practically secret — or, at best, narrower-than-a-needle’seye open.

The public-relations explainer for shielding bill files from taxpayers was that rival General Assembly members could read each other’s bill files to steal, or stymie, each other’s ideas.

That’s codswallop.

The real reason: The General Assembly doesn’t want Ohioans to know who seemingly pulled what strings to pass a bill. Thanks to HB 6, keeping that quiet is more important than ever — for insiders. Voters, who always get stuck with the tab for Statehouse decisions, are supposed to pay up, and shut up.

Repealing HB 6?

After the grand jury acted, General Assembly members introduced bills to repeal HB 6. Prime sponsors of one repeal bill (Senate Bill 346) are Sens. Sean O’Brien, a suburban Warren Democrat, and Stephanie Kunze, a Hilliard Republican. Another is House Bill 738; prime sponsors: Democratic

Reps. Michael Skindell, of Lakewood, and Michael O’Brien, of Warren. A third proposed repeal is HB 746; prime sponsors are Republican Reps. Laura Lanese, of Grove City, and Dave Greenspan, of Westlake.

Cutting through parliamentary rigmarole, Senate President Larry Obhof, a Medina Republican, decides which bills go to which Senate committees. New House Speaker Robert Cupp, a Lima Republican, decides which bills go to which House committees.

No committee assignment, no hearings. None of the repeal bills has been referred to a committee. Anybody wonder if there’s a pattern here?