COLUMBUS Term limits lead to legislative action

Before limits, lawmakers had more time to get things done.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- In a matter of weeks, Ohio lawmakers have passed bills allowing concealed weapons and banning gay marriage that stalled for years in the pre-term limits era.
Even a bill to make the smallmouth bass the state fish, stalled for years by backers of the bass, the perch and the walleye, is finally moving.
"In the past when we've had some of these types of bills where it was a social-political kind of thing, that causes a lot of emotion," said Leigh Herington, the former Senate Democratic Minority Leader from Ravenna forced out by term limits last year. "The veterans were able to provide a perspective."
That perspective was lost when term limits took effect, said Herington, now running for a common pleas court judgeship.
Voters in 1992 overwhelmingly approved limiting state representatives to four consecutive two-year terms and state senators to two consecutive four-year terms. The limits took effect in 2001 when more than 40 freshmen were sworn into the House and several into the Senate.
Ban on gay marriage
Last month, the Republican-controlled House approved a gay marriage ban considered one of the country's most far-reaching with a 69-23 vote along largely partisan lines.
A divided Senate, which also has a GOP majority, passed the bill last week 18-15 with four Republicans breaking ranks to oppose it.
Conservative lawmakers had unsuccessfully pushed the gay marriage legislation for seven years. But they were held up by Senate President Richard Finan, a Cincinnati Republican who felt that current Ohio law -- which defines marriage as between a man and woman -- was sufficient.
Finan was forced out by term limits in 2002 after a 30-year legislative career.
Earlier this month, Gov. Bob Taft signed the state's concealed weapon bill, ending a 10-year struggle to allow Ohioans to carry hidden guns.
The Senate passed a concealed weapons bill in 1995 but it never moved out of a House committee under then House Speaker Jo Ann Davidson, a suburban Columbus Republican.
Taft, a Republican, finally agreed to a compromise bill that had the support by police groups he had sought and made the names of permit holders available to reporters.
State fish
In November, walleye proponent Chris Redfern of Port Clinton, the House minority leader, reached a compromise that led to House approval of a bill favoring the smallmouth bass as state fish, legislation sponsored by Rep. Anthony Core of Rushsylvania.
Redfern got a walleye license plate in return.
Term limits have led to more lawmakers who -- because of their limited time -- focus more directly on their constituents' concerns and less on the impact of legislation on the entire state, said William Batchelder, the former No. 2 House Republican who retired in 1998 after a three-decade career ended by term limits.
They also see the clock ticking on their ability to enact laws, he said.
"The whole frame of reference changes," said Batchelder, now a state appeals court judge in Akron. "People there know their time is short, so you talk about things, you do things, you accomplish things. You have to do it short term."