With or without gavel, Householder stands to gain power

Win, place or show in Monday’s Ohio House speakership election, Perry County Republican Larry Householder, the House’s speaker from 2001 through 2004, seems to be playing a long game — arguably sending a blunt message, something like this, to other House Republicans, including speakership rival Ryan Smith and Gov.elect Mike Dewine, who’ll be inaugurated Jan. 14:

“Larry Householder isn’t going away, regardless of whether Ryan Smith wins the 2019-20 speakership. Matter of fact, Larry Householder, unlike Smith, can seek a fourth House term in 2020 and run again for speaker then — and every day between now and then. And he will. Deal with it.”

And Dewine and the state Senate, and Statehouse lobbyists, will likely have to.

Smith, elected speaker in June for the remainder of the 2017-18 session, declined to comment, and Householder didn’t return calls. So, subject to post-deadline developments:

There’s a slight chance neither Smith nor Householder will win the House’s gavel; a GOP compromise speakership candidate — if there is one – could. Or, given House Republicans' caucus split, a Democrat could, in theory, become the House’s speaker. That did happen in 1935, when an Ohio House with a 68-67 GOP majority (the House had more seats then) elected Ashland Democrat J. Freer Bittinger speaker; two House Republican rebels voted for Bittinger.

The Senate presidency (held by Medina Republican Larry Obhof ) is the speakership’s parliamentary equal. But the speakership, which dates to 1803, has been far more visible than the Senate presidency, which in its present form dates to 1979. Larger-than-life Vern Riffe, House speaker from 1975 through 1994, made “speaker” a synonym for “power.” A bill will never come to a vote in the House unless the speaker lets it. That’s the power Householder held from 2001 through 2004, the power Smith’s held since June, power that can make or break a lobby, a cause or a government agency.

This year and next, Ohio’s 99-seat House will be composed of 61 Republicans and 38 Democrats. To become speaker, a House member must win 50 votes. If that doesn’t happen on the first roll-call, the House votes up to nine more times till someone does capture 50 votes. If no one does, then, on the 11th roll call, a House member need only win a plurality to become speaker.

On June 6, Smith, of Gallia County’s Bidwell, won 44 votes on the 11th roll call and thus became speaker. He succeeded Clinton County Republican Cliff Rosenberger, who’d resigned April 12 in the wake of a federal investigation. The reason Ryan Smith didn’t win a House majority June 6? Because Larry Householder and his allies want Household to be speaker again.

People who question why Householder is waging what could be considered an uphill fight may be missing a key point. If Householder’s faction holds together inside the 61-member House GOP caucus, that could mean there’d be three “go-to” people if someone wants the House to pass anything more controversial than a Mother’s Day resolution. Usually, the go-to people have been the speaker and the House’s minority leader, currently Democratic Rep. Fred Strahorn of Dayton.

A House with, say, 30-plus Smith backers, 20-plus Householder allies, and Strahorn’s 38 Democrats — and with 50 House votes needed to pass a bill – could put Householder in the catbird seat.

Add two more complications: First, the Senate’s Obhof and the House’s Smith have said, in so many words, that Republican Gov. John Kasich’s administration tended to tell, rather than ask, GOP legislators to vote as Kasich wished. Legislative touchiness spawned during the Kasich era could make it harder for Dewine to pass his program.

Second, by March 15, Dewine must propose a state budget for the two years that’ll begin July 1. In June, after the House, Senate and conference committee stage their customary theatrics, the budget’s real deciders — the governor, House speaker and Senate president — determine what’ll be in the budget’s final version.

That highlights what looks like another prong of Householder’s strategy, whether or not he’s speaker: In June, if passing a state budget for Ohio requires “yes” votes from Householder and his House pals, that fact alone would empower them. And that’s the whole point.

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