Keep your hand on your wallet; lawmakers are about to recess

The General Assembly is expected to recess for the summer sometime this week, good news for the state’s taxpayers, although it’s probably bad news for Columbus barkeeps.

Ohioans aren’t safe yet, though. The most dangerous week of a legislative session is its last one before a recess. That’s especially so given that two mid-biennium budget review bills, or MBRs, are pending in Senate-House conference committees, sixmember sausage-stuffers that can amount to House No. 3 of what’s supposed to be just a two-house legislature.

For taxpayers who are interested, two notable MBRs now awaiting surgery by hacksaw in conference committees are Amended Substitute House Bill 483 and Amended Substitute House Bill 487.

Bills that might never pass the Ohio House or Senate on their own can be slipped into a conference committee’s “report” — what might be called “Buckeye law-wurst.” Sometimes those morsels are tucked into the original bill by one chamber or the other. Or, sometimes, a conference committee itself gets (what it thinks are) brilliant ideas.

And because a conference report can’t be amended on the floor of the Senate or House, but only voted on, unchanged, in straight yes or no roll calls by each legislative chamber, many a surprise can emerge months later in the Ohio Revised Code.

America’s founders knew that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Today’s Ohioans might add to that wise warning a close reading of the General Assembly’s conference committee reports.

Consider House Bill 483. It’s considered the “general” MBR. Among other features, 483 includes that universal elixir of eternal Republican happiness, income-tax cuts. But that’s a marquee item. Consider another one — while keeping in mind that HB 483 is supposed to be a budget bill.

The bill, for instance, now includes a provision, inserted by the Senate, to allow optometrists to write prescriptions for handicap-parking placards or license plates. It’s unclear why this is in a budget bill, as opposed to a stand-alone bill.

If you ever wonder why it seems Ohio has so many handicap plates and cards, state law already lets physicians, chiropractors, advanced practice nurses and physicians’ assistants write prescriptions for them.

The other big MBR, House Bill 487, has quirks, too. For example, according to the Ohio State Medical Association, one Senate-inserted amendment in HB 487 would open the door “for non-physicians to have the authority to independently assess and clear youth athletes to return to play after suffering a head injury and/or concussion.” (Evidently, it’s illegal to practice medicine without a license in Ohio — unless you’re a state senator.)

The medical association and allied groups are fighting the Senate amendment, and rightly so: Counting on the Senate to prescribe treatments for concussion is about as rational as burning incense to fight the flu.

Last June, Republican Gov. John Kasich vetoed a similar legislative maneuver. It would have authorized chiropractors, specifically, to clear young athletes to return to sports after a head injury. That was in Ohio’s 2014-15 budget bill. Kasich lined out the item.

As noted, a legislative recess has both positive and negative possibilities.

On the upside, Ohioans’ liberties and bank accounts are safer during recesses than otherwise.

The downside: Ohioans’ ears and eyes won’t be. Champion windbags will be home from the Statehouse, back in their House and Senate districts. They’ll tell anyone who’ll listen (and some who’d rather not) about the great things they do in Columbus. And they’ll ask, if they’re eligible, for another General Assembly term, because, hey, if you like where Ohio is now — why not keep it there?

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.