Statehouse Republicans once knew what that was like: In January 1983, the only Republican holding a statewide elected office after Democrats’ November 1982 Statehouse sweep was the late Supreme Court Justice Robert E. Holmes.
It didn’t take long for turnabout: In November 1984, Democrats, partly because of budget-balancing tax increases that Democratic Gov. Richard F. Celeste proposed, lost control of the state Senate (and have never regained it).
Then, in the mid-1980s, business lobbies – irked by state Supreme Court Democrats’ pro-consumer, pro-worker rulings – elected enough justices to give the GOP control of the high court. And in 1990, by electing Cleveland’s George V. Voinovich as governor and Cincinnati’s Bob Taft as secretary of state (unseating a younger Sherrod Brown), the GOP won control of the Statehouse panel that then drew General Assembly districts (the former Apportionment Board).
That cemented permanent Republican rule of the Senate and set the stage for GOP rule of the Ohio House of Representatives for all but two years since January 1995. Bottom line, Statehouse Republicans handily run all three branches of Ohio’s government.
True, Democrats briefly emerged from exile in 2006, when their gubernatorial candidate, Ted Strickland, beat a weak GOP nominee, Cincinnati’s J. Kenneth Blackwell. Except for Holmes County (Millersburg), Blackwell failed to carry a single county east of I-71.
But legislative Democrats soon lost Statehouse clout partly via such blunders as 2010′s refusal by the then-Democrat-run House to require public disclosure of “dark money” donations to Ohio campaigns, a requirement unanimously OK’d (by Democrats and Republicans alike) in the GOP-run Senate.
Today, after the Trump-Vance victory, are there potential traps for currently high-riding General Assembly Republicans? Yes: Loony “social-issues” bills regularly surface at Broad and High streets, often as not in Ohio’s House. And when constituents wake up, voters may ask why General Assembly Republicans get their Dockers in a bunch over fringe issues, not Ohioans’ kitchen-table challenges.
Consider one hot-button “issue” for Statehouse busybodies: Transgender Ohioans. Supposed reason (besides bullying): Purported GOP concern that Ohioans categorized as males at birth, but later medically transitioned to female identity, have unfair advantages in competing with female athletes.
But as cleveland.com reported earlier this year, the “Ohio High School Athletic Association says fewer than 15 transgender students a year have used [an OHSSA policy] which requires students to demonstrate they’ve been taking hormones for at least a year or show by way of sound medical evidence that they don’t possess any physical or physiological advantages over genetic females in the same age group in bone structure, muscle mass and testosterone.”
Meanwhile, why is it that General Assembly members claiming they’re advocating for playing-field fairness for female athletes don’t also take on a demonstrable and far, far bigger, indeed massive, issue of gender equity?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a year ago that “in 2023, Ohio women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median usual weekly earnings of $998, significantly below the $1,215 median usual weekly earnings of their male [Ohio] counterparts.”
Why isn’t that fueling Statehouse debate? Because tackling pay-gaps would anger some very powerful Statehouse business lobbies.
Instead, the General Assembly’s politically no-risk quest for supposed gender equity is to bash a tiny, powerless minority that just wants to live life authentically.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.
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