Huffman and McColley are Republicans, as are the chambers they lead. Huffman’s House GOP caucus has a 65-34 edge, McColley’s, 24-9.
Meanwhile, legislators re-elected Sen. Nickie J. Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat, as Senate minority leader, and Rep. Allison Russo, an Upper Arlington Democrat, as House minority leader.
One key issue this new session: Property-tax relief for homeowners crushed by the higher taxes that skyrocketing home values bring; legislation to boost Ohio energy production; and bolstering (or gelding) the Cupp-Patterson school-funding reform.
Legislators didn’t act on property-tax relief last session, instead awaiting a report (released Jan. 2) by the Joint Committee on Property Tax Review and Reform. The legislator perhaps best-versed on the subject, Sen. Louis W. Blessing III, a suburban Cincinnati Republican who co-chaired the panel, commended its members and staff, but cautioned its recommendations offer “two mutually exclusive philosophies on how to deliver property tax reform.”
One, Blessing said in a statement, would require local governments (notably school districts) to cut or forego property tax receipts without make-up money from Columbus, and accompanying property-tax-cuts would be across the board, whether a home is valued at, say, $200,000 or $2 million. The other perspective, which Blessing shares, “wants to spend state dollars and means-test [property-tax] relief. Here, local governments and school districts will be held harmless, and relief will be targeted to low- and middle income Ohioans.”
That is, legislators’ debate may pivot on which Ohioans would benefit: Middle-income homeowners and their schools, or owners of high-value homes. (According to the statewide association Ohio Realtors, from January through November last year the average sales price of an Ohio home was $291,475, “a 7.4% increase from the $271,494 ... a year ago.”)
On the energy front, the lobbies say, Ohio’s demand for electricity is outstripping available supplies, in part to power the huge data centers springing up in Ohio like toadstools after a spring rain. (Footnote: Lurking in the background may be the machinations of utility lobbying, who also brought Ohio 2019’s House Bill 6/FirstEnergy bailout scandal; Huffman voted “yes” on HB 6 when the Senate debated it, McColley voted “no.”)
Then there’s this unfinished Statehouse business: Legislators’ implied promise that they’ll sustain the Cupp-Patterson plan to constitutionally) fund public schools. (Its architects: Former Ohio House Speaker Robert R. Cupp, a Lima Republican, and former Rep. John Patterson, a Democrat from Ashtabula County’s Jefferson.) Cupp-Patterson aims to comply with Ohio’s constitutional demand the state maintain “a thorough and efficient system of common schools,” something legislators long failed to do.
Still, there’s some doubt the 136th General Assembly will fully fund Cupp-Patterson rather than boost other priorities. For example, Speaker Huffman is maybe the Statehouse’s No. 1 supporter of spending taxpayers’ money to help pay tuition for Ohio pupils attending private or religious schools, despite this additional constitutional precept: That “no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.”
That’s from the Ohio Constitution that the General Assembly’s members swore to uphold on Jan. 6. In case those men and women forget that, their voters, back home, shouldn’t.
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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