At long last, state lawmakers get back to work
It was a long and ugly trip getting there, but the Ohio House of Representatives arrived at the right conclusion yesterday by approving House Bill 123, designed to curb abusive fees and rates by payday lenders while allowing a reasonably regulated short-term, small-dollar lending industry to survive.
Passing the payday bill was the most consequential vote by the House in its first full session in two months, but it was just one item in a rush of pent-up lawmaking. In newly elected House Speaker Ryan Smith’s first day with the gavel, the chamber approved 12 House bills, three Senate bills, a House resolution and a Senate concurring resolution.
Then, they concurred with amendments made by the Senate to 11 House bills and rejected Senate amendments to one.
The House had been unable to vote on bills since April 11, when former speaker Cliff Rosenberger resigned unexpectedly because of an FBI investigation into travel he had taken with lobbyists. The looming scandal is an unfortunate shadow on the state, but it seems to have had the beneficial effect of finally rocketing the paydaylending bill, which had been stalled for more than a year, to quick passage.
One of Rosenberger’s questionable trips included payday-lending lobbyists, which raised questions about his unwillingness to advance House Bill 123 for so long while objections by lending lobbyists were entertained at length. Before his resignation, Republicans — many of whom have benefited from lending-industry campaign cash — were poring over possible amendments, some of which would have rendered the bill toothless.
Within a week of Rosenberger’s departure, the bill got unanimous committee approval on April 18 without a single amendment.
Its journey to a final vote then had to wait eight weeks while House members waged a nakedly political battle over who would replace Rosenberger as speaker through the end of the year.
Smith had the benefit of presiding over a boatload of bills ready to go, but Thursday’s two-hour session nonetheless was impressive.
Skimming the list of votes taken gives an idea of the wide range of issues that lawmakers were neglecting during two months of canceled sessions. It should remind them of what they’ve been sent to the Statehouse to do.
Thursday’s secondmost-important action was to approve spending up to $104.5 million to help counties buy new voting machines. The days of those china-cabinet-sized analog counters that lasted for decades are long gone; most Ohio counties are using electronic machines bought in 2005 or 2006, and they’re getting balky and hard to repair.
Passage of Senate Bill 135 will allow new ones to be in place by 2019 — with time to work out bugs before the 2020 presidential election.
Not every action on Thursday had such broad application. There was a resolution to “recognize the existence of two alfalfa products” in new agricultural rules and a bill to allow accountants’ fees in determining economic losses in court disputes.
One bill sent to the Senate would give veterinarians continuing-education credit for providing free spaying and neutering. Another would protect nurses from being forced to work overtime or lose their jobs.
Thursday’s bills likely include misses as well as hits, but debating and deciding nuts-and-bolts issues is how lawmakers serve the public. They should remember that when the next partisan squabble erupts.