Editorial: Hot-potato bills add drama to General Assembly's holiday crunch

by Lee Leonard
Columbus Dispatch
December 1, 2003

There’s something about December at the Statehouse, and it’s not just the holiday choirs performing each day in a main corridor or the lighting of the huge evergreen outside near Broad and High streets.

It’s a sense of urgency to pass certain bills that have been lying around, in some instances, for months.

Even in an odd-numbered year, when the legislative session will continue for another 12 months, the leaders have their priorities for finishing work on certain items.

The major issues this year are prescription-drug discounts for the uninsured, slot machines at horse racetracks, reform of state pension systems and the right to carry concealed handguns. As lawmakers anticipate their Christmas break, some of these issues may be resolved and others will carry over into 2004.

Prescription drugs and pension reform are so complicated they probably need some more work. But the concealed-weapons and video-slot-machine issues are at crossroads. They might pass or they might go on to the next crossroads.

The issue of concealed weapons is at the precipice. Householder and Senate President Doug White of Manchester want a bill to pass.

"It’s an important bill to get done for Ohio," the speaker said last week.

Gov. Bob Taft does not want a bill to pass. House Bill 12 had been reduced to a pair of law-enforcement-related disagreements between the House and Senate, until Taft made a public-records issue part of the debate.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

Just how much Householder and the gun-rights advocates want a bill was evidenced when the the Glenford Republican agreed to break the established rules for the House-Senate conference committee and consider Taft’s request.

It takes deadline pressure to get anything substantive done around the legislature. There will be plenty of pressure in the next couple of weeks to push House Bill 12 across the line. The State Highway Patrol, which did not oppose the Senate version, will have to be satisfied with the way handguns are carried in motor vehicles. The final product will have to bend toward the governor.

But once the gun-rights advocates get a permit law on the books, they will be able to work to modify it to their liking.

We will soon see who wants these bills badly enough to compromise and who is willing to live to fight another day.

Click here to read the entire editorial in the Columbus Dispatch.

Related News:
On December 1, Gongwer News Service reported on what can be expected the next two weeks at the Statehouse.

"We're just going to be doing some housekeeping stuff" in committees this
week," Senate President Doug White (R-Manchester) said. "We're looking at a
full schedule next week."

Another priority, the long-sought concealed-carry legislation (HB 12), was
jammed recently by Governor Bob Taft, who is now demanding public access to
some permit records. Senator White said he had hoped to wrap up work on the
CCW bill this year, but those plans are now severely in doubt.

"I was hopeful we were going to be able to move forward, but I don't know
what this is going to do," Senator White said. "The governor's wrinkle, the
public records wrinkle, has put another unknown in there."