Ohio House Republicans can’t seem to understand, let alone respect, city and village home rule, although the Ohio Constitution has guaranteed it to Ohio voters since 1912.
In the last 20 years, the General Assembly has written a slew of laws forbidding cities and villages from taking care of problems residents want addressed. The fake Statehouse excuse: Because Ohio has more than 900 cities and villages, it’s just too hard for Statehouse lobbies – gun peddlers, frackers, etc. – to obey all those local ordinances.
Funny thing is, the General Assembly didn’t seem to notice that “problem” until fat-cat lobbies (frackers, gun peddlers) made big donations to state legislators’ campaign committees. You could call that a “quid pro quo,” except Latin is a foreign language and using it might touch off Statehouse terror alerts.
So far, the legislature has forbidden communities from regulating oil and gas drilling inside their boundaries; told cities and villages they can’t require residency of municipal employees – even if voters approve that; banned firearm regulation by cities and villages; and forced on cities and villages a state law to purportedly “streamline” collection of the municipal net profit tax (the municipal income tax on business profits). Cities and villages are challenging that tax-collection mandate in the state Supreme Court.
In contrast, Ohio’s Republican-run legislature is solicitous of rural Ohio. Consider, for example, legislation (House Bill 401, Senate Bill 234) introduced this week. The two bills would give residents of townships a potential veto over wind energy projects if certain t’s are crossed and i’s dotted. The bills’ respective sponsors are state Rep. Bill Reineke, of Tiffin, and state Sen. Rob McColley, of northwest Ohio’s Napoleon. Both are Republicans.
Ohio already has setback limits on wind projects, setbacks that have the effect of discouraging wind energy investment in Ohio. The bills that surfaced last week would make that worse. Meanwhile, Ohioans living in cities and villages would still be powerless to block, say, fracking in their neighborhoods or regulate firearm sales in their business districts. If that’s fair, water runs uphill.
True, a forward-looking energy policy has never been a Statehouse specialty. House Bill 6, the FirstEnergy Solutions bailout, was further proof. (In fairness, McColley voted “no” on HB 6; Reineke voted “yes.”)
And Ohio’s House has always had a pro-rural tilt, even when Democrats ran the joint. Until 1991’s reapportionment of House districts, Democrats had held some rural seats (20-year Speaker Vern Riffe’s was one) thanks to Ohioans who’d hated Prohibition and been saved by the New Deal. Democrats lost those districts due to gerrymandering and GOP shrieks about “guns, gays and abortion.”
Today, Statehouse Republicans’ one gaping vulnerability in rural Ohio is the state’s unconstitutional school funding “system.” Ohio’s Supreme Court outlawed that setup in 1997, but the General Assembly has never really, truly reformed school funding. Maybe that’s why Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County’s Glenford, seems determined to overhaul school funding. Coincidentally or not, the lawsuit that sparked 1997’s school funding ruling originated in Perry County’s Northern Local School District, based in Thornville.
The legislature’s tender regard for rural Ohio is something Ohioans witnessed this summer. In 2018, agribusiness lobbyists and legislators had stymied then-Gov. John Kasich’s bid to curb agricultural runoff in western Ohio because runoff helps pollute Lake Erie.
Surprise, surprise, this summer’s algal bloom in Lake Erie “rated 7.3 on a severity index of 1-10,” cleveland.com’s Laura Johnston recently reported, “twice as severe" as 2018’s, whose index had been 3.6. And the General Assembly yammers on. Thanks, guys. Ohioans owe you.
Playing nice won’t get Gov. DeWine his gun package
Rostrum-pounding isn’t Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s style. Oh yes, behind the aw-shucks stuff is a wide-awake politician who is every bit as steely as other highly successful Ohio officeholders. But that’s not how the governor likes to conduct business, not in public, anyway.
DeWine’s let-us-reason-together approach on gun legislation doesn’t seem to be working with the legislature’s Republicans, Jell-O-like whenever gun lobbyists come calling, and panting for their endorsements. Clearly, the General Assembly’s Republicans are stalling till memories dim of Dayton’s Oregon District killings. If DeWine doesn’t start naming and shaming, nothing will change in Ohio.
Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens.
To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-408-9474
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