Ohio speaker exits after almost 4 decades in House

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

After nearly four decades as a state lawmaker, House Speaker William Batchelder has laid down the gavel in the job he had long sought.

Batchelder, 72, presided over his last voting session as leader of the Ohio House on Wednesday. Term limits are forcing the legislative fixture and influencer to retire.

Still, the Northeast Ohio lawmaker leaves with the second-longest tenure in the House at 38 years. He plans to teach next year at Cleveland State University and the University of Akron.

The son of a prosecutor and county Republican Party chairman, Batchelder had always wanted to run for elected office.

The Medina Republican first won his House district in 1968, at age 25. He served for 30 years before leaving to become a judge. He then returned in 2007 with the desire to become speaker, having sought and lost the leadership position during his first legislative stint. He finally took the top job in 2011, after two years of Democratic control.

To Batchelder, serving in the House has been the pinnacle of his public service.

“I’ve always said the Ohio House of Representatives is the highest office there is,” he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “I mean, we can really deal with problems. I’ve been involved so often when we were there.”

One such time was in 1985. Democratic Gov. Richard Celeste tapped him for his financial expertise when Ohio faced a crisis in its savings and loan industry. Batchelder helped write legislation to solve it but declined to vote for it on philosophical grounds: He cringed at government intervention.

That experience along with others during the Vietnam era taught him about governing in times of turmoil.

“I’m a history major,” Batchelder said. “And one of the things you learn is that when people’s lives and property are threatened, government better be in a position to move quickly.”

Batchelder often weaves history lessons into debate and conversations, frequently invoking favorite Ohioans, former President Ronald Reagan or 18th century economist Adam Smith, author of “The Wealth of Nations.” He proudly shares an affinity for Smith with his son and young granddaughters, who, he said, once burst into tears during a visit to Smith’s grave.

“There are probably very few children who have been raised to the point that they are so much Adam Smith fans that they would cry upon learning that he’s no longer with us,” Batchelder said of his granddaughters.

Despite his success on the state level, Congress never really appealed to Batchelder.

“The process in Washington is obviously screwed up,” he said. “But more importantly, their ability to solve things is not what they think it is. How in the hell can you decide that Wyoming and New York ought to have the same laws?”

Batchelder exits the House after having bolstered the Republicans’ majority. The GOP will have a record 65 seats in the 99-member chamber next year.

That’s quite the shift from the more than 20 years he spent in the minority, most in the iron grasp of a man simply called “Mr. Speaker” — Vern Riffe, a Wheelersburg Democrat.