OHIO Lawmakers consider big changes
The issues they are dealing with affect young and old.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Lawmakers, much of their summer spent trying to get re-elected, are also quietly plugging away on committees that could make big news after the election.
The issues they are examining affect Ohioans young and old, from changing the way the state pays for schools to trimming costs from the multibillion-dollar Medicaid program that provides health care for poor families and children.
Whether the recommendations ultimately become law is another question.
Some proposals stalled
Some proposals from the committees become stalled in the fall because of partisanship and opponents lobbying against them, said Peter Lawson Jones, a former House lawmaker who is now a Cuyahoga County commissioner.
"You feel almost euphoric while you're involved in these, there's a high level of discussion, you're getting the best level of information, but then nothing happens," said Jones, who served on two special school-funding committees.
Summer is a popular time for in-depth looks at legislative issues, with the pressure off from regular committee hearings and sometimes lengthy voting sessions.
Two summers ago, for example, newly ordained House Speaker Larry Householder created eight special committees to study everything from taxes to energy policy.
In June 2000, a special school-funding committee held hearings in reaction to the Ohio Supreme Court's second decision declaring the state's education system unconstitutional. Three years earlier, lawmakers spent much of the summer trying to craft a new funding plan after the court's first decision in March 1997.
Despite the work of those committees and additional funding for schools over the years, the Supreme Court ruled again that the system was unconstitutional before ending courts' involvement last year.
Who sits on committees often determines how successful they'll be, said former Senate President Richard Finan. The committees often consist of lawmakers and Ohioans interested in the issue being examined.
"If you have them heavy on civilians, non-legislators, then they can get utopian ideas and they tend to fall by the wayside," said Finan, a Republican. "If you allow the makeup to include a number of legislators, then they don't get so utopian and they can have some real hard-core results."
Special committees
This summer, special committees are continuing hearings on school funding and Medicaid. A new committee is trying to learn more about the number of autistic individuals in Ohio and the best way to provide services for them.
Regular legislative committees are holding summer hearings on bills to limit lawsuits in personal injury cases and change the way Ohio taxes businesses.
Lawmakers are expected to vote on the lawsuit legislation after the election and to put recommendations on taxes and school funding into the next two-year budget beginning in January.
In Kansas, lawmakers are poised to start their own study of school finance issues this summer.
In Florida, lawmakers often address issues with special summer committees, then sponsor bills in the fall based on those committees' results.
Summer meetings run into the problem of vacations and, this year, big national events like the Democratic National Convention in July, said Paul Marshall, head of Gov. Bob Taft's school-funding committee.
But there's no question the incentive is there to finish, he said. "There's pressure building to wrap it up," Marshall said of the committee, which has been meeting since July 2003.