Arguing over whether Ohio should or shouldn’t ban single-use plastic bags isn’t the pivotal issue in House Bill 242, now pending in Ohio’s Senate. The real question is whether General Assembly Republicans have the constitutional right in Ohio to forbid cities and villages – and their voters – from making that decision for themselves.
There’s a simple answer: They don’t.
What’s more, that “home rule” right is more than 100 years old -- and designed by a Clevelander.
The Ohio Constitution’s city and village home rule amendment, which Ohio voters ratified in 1912, was drafted by Newton D. Baker, perhaps Cleveland’s most celebrated mayor.
Before voters ratified home rule, a special interest lobbyist could coax the General Assembly to override a city decision if it displeased that special interest, or if it attacked the graft that special interest sought to protect.
Examples abound: To undermine Toledo Mayor Sam “Golden Rule” Jones, an anti-corruption crusader, the General Assembly tried to deny him control of the Toledo police department. Lawmakers earlier had tried to force a one-sided streetcar franchise on Cincinnati.
In that pre-home-rule era, legislators could safely ignore voters of the cities or villages micromanaged at the Statehouse.
Which brings is to House Bill 242, which Ohio’s House passed 58-35 on Dec. 11. Its prime sponsors are Republican Reps. George Lang, of suburban Cincinnati’s West Chester township, and Don Jones, of Freeport, in Appalachian Ohio’s Harrison County.
Their bill would forbid Ohio’s local governments from imposing “a tax, fee, assessment, or other charge on auxiliary containers," of which plastic or paper bags are examples. It also would also prohibit similar regulation of "the sale, use, or consumption of auxiliary containers, or on the basis of receipts received from the sale of auxiliary containers,” according to the nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission.
The main argument advanced by those who support HB 242 -- and a companion measure, Senate Bill 222 -- is that grocers and other retailers can’t reasonably be expected to cope with an in-state patchwork of anti-littering laws.
That's nonsense. Grocers and other retailers already deal with Ohio’s mosaic of local zoning and planning rules. And to obtain an Ohio alcoholic beverage sales permit from the Division of Liquor Control, a retailer must locate in a precinct whose permit quota isn’t filled – and whose voters haven’t voted it dry.
Yet retailers seem readily able to meet those rules, clearly more complicated than a ban on single-use plastic bags -- which, parenthetically, Pittsburgh’s Giant Eagle, one of Ohio’s major grocery retailers, just embraced, starting in Northeast Ohio and the Columbus suburb of Bexley.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine also opposes forbidding Ohio communities from banning single-use plastic bags.
“I think this would be a mistake," said DeWine, as quoted by cleveland.com’s Andrew J. Tobias, of the proposed state legislation. “I think the state government should allow local communities to do what they think is best in regard to this area."
He’s absolutely right.
There are fair arguments for and against banning single-use plastic bags. But the place to make that decision is at a city, village or township hall, or in a county council chamber – not at the Statehouse.
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