Lawmakers have trouble keeping up with Kasich

By JULIE CARR SMYTH

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Elements of Gov. John Kasich’s ambitious agenda have whisked so quickly through the Ohio Legislature this month that fellow Republicans, Democrats and sidelined witnesses alike grumbled at the pace.

It wasn’t just about inconvenience. Many expressed concern that the sheer volume and speed of the legislation made it difficult to be fully vetted by lawmakers and reviewed by the public.

On the last night of floor sessions last week, Republican House Speaker William Batchelder said his chamber pulled a 565-page education overhaul bill from its calendar at the 11th hour because some in his caucus were “distressed” about having had so little time to review it.

Democratic state Sen. Mike Skindell expressed a similar sentiment a week earlier during Senate debate over a 2,712-page bill that contained the core — but far from all — of Kasich’s off-cycle budget package.

“I thought when I served in the House for eight years that the Senate was the deliberative body,” Skindell, of Lakewood, said during a floor speech. “And sometimes, as fast as things are moving around here, I’m deeply concerned for the citizens of Ohio that we are not deliberating upon these various issues.”

The anti-drilling coalition Frackfree Mahoning Valley was one of hundreds of interest groups on dozens of bills that tried to keep up.

The group had discovered an issue of concern in wide-ranging energy legislation and called for legislative delay on it Wednesday, before a committee vote went forward. The bill, 220 pages long, then cleared the Senate floor later that same day. A House committee passed it within a week and representatives sent it off to the governor the next day.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols acknowledged the governor dumped an inordinate amount of new policy on lawmakers at the Statehouse, where fellow Republicans control both the Senate and House — and in a year when they have to get elected and the governor doesn’t.

“They put in some very, very hard work, and unanticipated work, and we are grateful,” Nichols said.

Kasich is a governor who doesn’t let grass grow under his feet, and Nichols said that’s not a bad thing.

“Why would you ever put off doing the right thing?” Nichols said. “It’s the right policy: Get it in now.”