Mystery bill recalls ‘midnight amendments’

They didn’t teach this in “How a Bill Becomes a Law.” A mysterious amendment makes its way into a state budget bill. One by one, lawmakers, including the Speaker of the House, express surprise that the three-paragraph provision was part of the measure they just approved, and all deny knowing how it got there. A Legislative Service Commission staffer eventually gets the blame.

That’s the official version of how a proviso was slipped into the House-passed budget last week that could provide an “out” for poorly performing charter schools.

Old-timers might recall something similar coming to light more than a quartercentury ago. Lobbyist Robert F. McEaneney inserted a $2 million state purchase of a rugged Highland County area known as 7 Caves into a 1987 spending bill without going through a single lawmaker.

McEaneney, who bragged of adding “midnight amendments” into various bills without legislators’ OK, was later nailed by the feds for providing thousands of dollars and luxury cars to state officials as “compensation” for steering more than $7 million in telephone-leasing contracts to a company he represented.

The weird thing was, back in spring 1992, no lawmaker spoke a word about getting to the bottom of how a $2 million outlay of taxpayer money could make it into official legislation without the knowledge or consent of a single legislator.

It will be interesting to see whether the book is closed on the latest incident.

Budgets have been altered before

If the 7 Caves case seems too ancient, lawmakers need look back only to Gov. John Kasich’s first budget for another example of legislation materializing without direct involvement of a state lawmaker.

In 2011, lobbyist Tom Needles worked out of the Legislative Service Commission office to draft budget amendments benefiting his client, charter school magnate David Brennan. One difference: The House speaker’s office blessed the arrangement.

“This is very typical, very standard. It happens routinely every day of the week and is entirely appropriate,” Needles said at the time.

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