Pandemic can’t explain Statehouse irresponsibility
As the curtain falls on Ohio’s 133rd General Assembly, words from the Book of Common Prayer come to mind: “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done. And” — especially apt, given the Ohio House’s fecklessness about COVID19 safeguards — “there is no health in us.”
The session opened on Jan. 7, 2019, when ex-House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County’s Glenford, regained the speakership, 52-46, besting fellow Republican Ryan Smith, of Gallia County’s Bidwell, speaker for 2018’s last six months. Of the 52 pro-Householder votes, Democrats provided 26, a fact Democrats don’t ballyhoo these days.
In July 2018 came passage of Ohio’s two-year operating budget, 17 days late. Six days later, the House sent House Bill 6 to Gov. Mike DeWine, who promptly signed it. Beginning next month, unless repealed, House Bill 6 will force Ohio electricity customers to subsidize the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants, once owned by First Energy Corp., and two coal-fueled power plants, including one in Indiana. Among the coal plants’ owners: the Dayton Power and Light Co.
Like the forest-fire smoke that darkened California, HB 6 casts a pall over everyone who touched it. As with Householder’s speakership victory, HB 6 only became law because enough Democrats in Ohio’s House and Senate voted for it. And this July, a federal grand jury charged Householder and four others for alleged corruption in getting HB 6 passed.
At this writing, the legislature hasn’t repealed HB 6, or even delayed its implementation. The 133rd has delayed a promising school funding package, further stalling repair of Ohio’s school funding mechanism for what’ll be the 24th year since Ohio’s Supreme Court ordered it reformed.
As with many of this year’s features, COVID19 explains much about slowdowns – in family life, schools, business. But the pandemic can’t explain the General Assembly’s irresponsibility, which is chronic, seems to grow worse, and damages
Ohio.
Meanwhile: As noted earlier, 42 GOP members of the Ohio House of Representatives asked Ohio Attorney David Yost on Dec. 10 to join in a U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit, filed by the Texas attorney general, aimed at overthrowing Democrat Joseph Biden’s election as 46th president. (Yost said no. Kind of.) And the Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit
Meanwhile, five of the 12 Ohio Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives were among 126 House Republicans who filed a brief siding with the Texas lawsuit. The Ohio Five were Reps. Jim Jordan of Urbana; Bob Gibbs of Holmes County’s Lakeville; Bill Johnson of Marietta; Bob Latta of Bowling Green; and Brad Wenstrup of Cincinnati.
If the Westminster Kennel Club recognized publicity hounds as a breed, Jordan would be a grand champion. Latta’s carrying on the family business: His father was the late
Rep. Delbert Latta. All five Ohio Republicans have safe seats; like members of the British House of Lords, they hold no-sweat and virtually lifetime jobs.
The last time Ohioans’ per capita personal income was at least 100% of nationwide per capita personal income was in 1969. By 2019, for every $1 in per capita personal income earned nationwide, Ohioans were earning slightly less than 89 cents.
Jordan and Latta took their seats in 2007; Gibbs and Johnson took theirs in 2011, Wenstrup, in 2013. Evidently, they don’t know what the word “priorities” means. Otherwise, they’d have spent less time kissing Donald Trump’s ring – and more time, a lot more, working to make life better for the Ohioans they are paid to represent in Washington.