A collapse in lawmaking?

COLUMBUS

Sen. Tom Sawyer, a Democrat from Akron, made his two-hour drive down to the Statehouse last week for a mid-day Q&A with reporters.

The chamber’s minority party members arranged the informal discussion to outline their priorities for the new session.

There weren’t too many surprises — Democrats want charter school reform, a higher minimum wage, increased funding for local governments, a revamped education system to help youngsters grow into responsible adults, improved relations between police and the communities they serve, etc.

Some of those ideas likely will see action before the end of June. Statehouse Republicans and the governor say they want charter school reform, too — that issue is likely to see some movement, with increased attention this week by a report from the state auditor showing few students in attendance at some charters during surprise visits.

Everybody also wants better schools and more job opportunities for Ohioans.

Many of the other minority party initiatives, however, will languish in bill form without support from the GOP majority.

Press conferfences

We’ll see lots more press conferences and reports in coming weeks, as different interest groups line up and ask for provisions to be included in the biennial budget bill, the two-year spending plan that has to be in place by July 1, the start of the new state fiscal year.

But “budget bill” could be considered a misnomer, given the resulting document is thousands of pages long and includes lots of provisions that have nothing to do with spending.

That rubs a lot of lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, the wrong way. You’ll hear the frustration in some of their voices when the final vote on the budget takes place — there are always a few majority and minority party members who stand up and point out the ridiculousness of last-minute amendments and the passage of major law changes without the usual deliberative process.

Or, as Sawyer put it last week, “It’s like a gigantic lame-duck session.”

PUBLIC IN THE DARK

Too often, Sawyer told reporters, budget bills become the means to pass law changes that have never been considered in committees during public sessions.

After months of hearings, amendments magically appear at the last minute and become priorities without anyone in the public reading or having a chance to comment on them.

That doesn’t sit well with Sawyer, a former congressman and Akron mayor who served in the Ohio House in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“The length of the budget ranges between 3,000-5,000 pages, of which about 500 are actual budget material,” he said. “The rest of it is substantive material that ought to be covered and historically has been covered in separate, substantive referred-to-committees-of-jurisdiction legislation, where they would get a minimum of two to three weeks worth or hearings that would normally be covered by folks like you as a matter of individual articles, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, that you could cover in detail. Instead, they get five minutes worth of hearings, if that, in finance committee and they get passed out to the total vote in the budget bill.”

He added, “That’s what passes for legislating in the state of Ohio. ... I just urge you to watch for that, pay attention to it. It’s a collapse of lawmaking in the state of Ohio. ... It’s not good for the lawmaking process.”

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Columbus corpondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.