Saturday, February 18, 2012
COLUMBUS
Lawmakers left town last week in advance of next month’s primary, and they’re not due back until a week or so after Election Day.
When they do return to the Statehouse, they’ll have about two weeks of sessions before their spring recess.
And when they return from that, they’ll have a month and a half or so before they head home for a busy summer campaign season.
That doesn’t seem like a lot of time, given the number of bills they’re expected to introduce, debate and send to Gov. John Kasich for his signature.
Consider the list:
Budgets: Kasich has said he’ll be offering mid-biennium budget, to be chock-full of new policy change. There’s also a capital budget, outlining state-backed construction projects.
There’s plenty of progress being made on both behind the scenes. Last week, in a first-of-its-kind happening, state universities submitted their combined capital budget proposals, outlining roughly $350 million in improvements.
Tim Keen, Kasich’s budget director, said, “This will be a restrained capital bill.” Restrained or not, capital bills and mid-biennium budgets require legislative deliberations, which take time. Both have to be signed, sealed and delivered to the governor before summer.
Elections: Republicans in the Ohio Senate are moving forward with legislation to repeal House Bill 194, the controversial GOP-backed election reform package that is the subject of a November referendum.
The bill likely will be a focus of debate when lawmakers come back after the primary, with Republicans in the Senate supporting, Republicans in the Ohio House questioning the constitutionality of the move and Democrats stuck somewhere in the middle, wanting a repeal but not a repeat of House Bill 194 to replace it. The whole point of a repeal is to remove HB 194 off the November ballot.
Animals: A long-debated bill that attempts to regulate so-called puppy mills finally moved out of the Senate.
A long-debated bill that would increase criminal penalties against kennel owners who abuse animals in their care finally moved out of the House.
And a citizens group finally gathered enough signatures to force lawmakers to consider legislation that would regulate dog auctions.
All three are things that lawmakers may deal with before the summer recess.
That’s not even mentioning the whole wild, dangerous animal issue. Republicans in the Ohio Senate are still working on their bill to keep bears, tigers, lions and the like out of average citizens’ backyards.
Disagreement
Once it’s made public, it’s sure to stir disagreement among those who don’t want to see another incident like the one that occurred in Zanesville in October and those who aren’t ready to part with their pets, using the term in the loosest of sense.
There’s a lot more on lawmakers’ plates: increasing interstate speed limits, banning smoking in cars when kids are present, regulating horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The list goes on and on. It’s hard to believe lawmakers can get it all done before they turn their full attention to November.
Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.