New House Speaker Smith needs to make his mark quickly
OThomas Suddes
hio’s House has 99 members. On Wednesday, Rep. Ryan Smith, a Gallia County Republican, by drawing 44 votes of 91 House votes cast — a plurality — was elected House speaker. Two Smith votes came from Democrats: Reps. John Barnes of Cleveland and Bernadine Kennedy Kent of Columbus.
So, with 61 of 66 House Republicans present and voting (four were absent, and the seat of Republican ex-Speaker Cliff Rosenberger of Clinton County’s Clarksville is vacant), Smith drew support from 41 House Republicans (net of his vote for himself).
That is, in a House with the biggest GOP majority since Ohio began electing it from single-member districts in 1966, Smith was backed by about two-thirds of the Republicans present — and fewer than half the 91 House members voting. That doesn’t look like a resounding mandate.
Still, Smith’s weak tally among Republicans may be as much an opportunity as a peril. He wants to win a full two-year speakership when the next General Assembly meets in January. If, this year, Smith nudges members into passing substantial legislation, not the House’s customary softserve (naming highways, designating annual “day of” observations), Smith will have demonstrated focus and clout.
In that connection, it surely wasn’t a coincidence that on Thursday, first session of Smith’s speakership, the House, in a 71-17 vote, passed House Bill 123, a payday-loan reform bill that the relentless payday-loan lobby had blocked for more than a year. Among the 17 House members who opposed HB 123 were Republican Reps. Andrew Brenner of Powell and Mark Romanchuk of Ontario.
When Rosenberger left the House in April, he said he was under federal investigation. One area of federal curiosity is said to be a junket Rosenberger took to London. Among those on the trip: payday-loan lobbyists. So Thursday’s passage of HB 123 put some distance between Rosenberger’s old caucus and the payday-loan lobby.
Besides a need for legislative results, Smith’s tight margin also means he has to be on guard politically. Another House Republican also wants to be elected speaker in January: Rep. Larry Householder from Perry County’s Glenford, who was House speaker from 2001 through 2004. There’s a four-letter word for anyone who underestimates Larry Householder: fool.
Footnote: The required but slow procedure the House used to elect Smith (a House-member-by-Housemember roll call) works this way:
State law says someone running for speaker must win a majority of the votes cast. If, after 10 roll calls, no one has a majority, then a candidate who wins a plurality (the single largest number of votes) on an 11th or later roll call wins. That’s what Smith did on Wednesday’s 11th roll call.
The other candidates, and their vote totals on the 11th roll call, were: Rep. Andy Thompson, a Marietta Republican, 13; Minority Leader Fred Strahorn, a Dayton Democrat, 27; and Rep. Jim Hughes, an Upper Arlington Republican, seven. Among those voting for Hughes on that last roll call were Householder and Rep. Keith Faber, a Celina Republican and this year’s GOP nominee for state auditor. (The Democratic nominee for auditor is former U.S. Rep. Zack Space, a native of Tuscarawas County’s Dover.)
An 1853 law requires that cumbersome speakership election procedure. Before that, to win the speakership, a majority vote was required no matter how many roll calls it took. It’s not clear if the 1853 law was connected to the House’s 1850 speakership battle, but that contest required 11 roll calls, and might have required even more, if the lineup of candidates hadn’t changed. The eventual winner in 1850: John F. Morse of Painesville, of the anti-slavery Free Soil Party.
Correction: Last week’s column said that, thanks to the Crofters scandal, Republicans won just one statewide executive office in 1970: Secretary of State Ted Brown won re-election.
But as reader Tom Spring of Circleville pointed out, Lt. Gov. John Brown, a Medina Republican, also won re-election. (Before 1978, governors and lieutenant governors were separately elected, so John Brown was lieutenant to Democratic Gov. John J. Gilligan.) And Spring noted that Republicans also retained three Supreme Court seats in 1970. Duly noted — and much appreciated.