Ohio Senate: Life on the lifeless track

I SELDOM WRITE about the Ohio legislature. I have found the place to be a bore. I know. Those senators and house members in Columbus shape our daily lives, from taxes to such diversions as slot machines. For their part-time labors they are well paid and receive other benefits that those of us back home seldom see. On many days they predictably sit around doing nothing at all.

As Plain Dealer columnist Tom Suddes rudely pointed out on Sunday, ignoring the minor courtesies you might expect for the near-unemployed, of the 219 bills introduced in the Republican-controlled Senate, only three made their way to the governor. And as Suddes, a veteran of seizing indolent politicians by the neck, also pointed out, they did give a hint of exhalation by forwarding to Gov. Strickland a measure to create an 18-member War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, an event still three years away. Bless 'em! It was bipartisan. That will give them a little something to write home about when the next check arrives in their $60,584 a year payday.

Meantime, the sedentary senators don't seem to be in a hurry in plugging up a desperately current $850 million hole in the state budget, creating an aching impasse that is stalled on the issue of whether to delay a tax cut for Ohioans. You'd think they are trying to resolve the issues in Cornelius Vanderbilt's will. A foolish Ohio tax cut should be a no-brainer for the GOPers to go along with Democrats who insist it would further deepen the state's budgetary woes. But Republicans are genetically wedded to such dumb considerations. And who knows? Since they are term-limited, some may even move on to Congress to advance their troubled concepts of tax math.

All of this led Beacon Journal Statehouse columnist Dennis Willard to report that there is still a lot of gravy in doing next to nothing down in Columbus. In addition to the lawmakers' base salary for a few days a week, they are entitled to huge tax deductions by various self-serving devices amounting to the efforts of living ghosts. Legislators not only get tax breaks for days they are in session but also for those in-between idle days if the legislature adjourns for four or fewer days. They also qualify for deductions on holidays and weekends.

Willard figures it's possible for a state senator to reap $55,144 in tax deductions if he or she lives outside of Columbus. That would make the tax burden akin to that of the underemployed. Depreciation will likely come next.

None of this accounting might have surfaced if the Senate had been doing what it's paid to do.

It seldom does.

Another chapter in Morrison epic!

THE BEACON JOURNAL's Dennis Willard reports today that Jack Morrison has now moved his case to the Ohio Supreme Court, still another chapter in his epic effort to demonstrate that an immovable object can overcome the evil effects of an irresistible force. In insisting that he was wronged by two ethics convictions in a court of law last July, the Akron lawyer and University of Akron trustee is moving on more legal fronts to protect his honor from court-decided guilt.

In the meantime, he has ignored repeated calls from the governor on down to remove himself from an embarrassed Board of Trustees (and University) as well as his seat on the Summit County Board of Elections.

But that raises other questions about a simple case of guilt or innocence. You might understand how any person would want to clear the slate of a couple of convictions. But how that bears on his persistence in hanging on to his two politically appointed jobs despite official demands that he do otherwise remains a mystery.

If his honor is at stake, that question won't be resolved by standing (or sitting!) rigidly pat but rather by a court decision that is handed down on his appeal. Are there other reasons apart from his hope that his ethics convictions will be reversed? As a powerful politician who is Summit County Republican Alex Arshinkoff's lawyer, isn't there a point where guilt or innocence intersect with the county party? As Arshinkoff, who has remained rather silent on the sidelines, once noted, if Republican Morrison leaves the board, his replacement would be a....eh....a Democrat. And is it mere coinicidence, as some legislators have noted, that State Rep. Tim Grendell, an Arshinkoff ally, has entered the fray to delay action on a Senate vote to kick Morrison off the board. Grendell, a teabagging Chesterland politician, says more time is needed for "fact checking". Good grief!

That's where we are and all of us could use a few more facts on whatever political subplots are in play.

UPDATE: A ruling judge appointed by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has upheld her demand that Morrison be removed from the Summit County Board of Elections. But she has given Morrison until Dec. 4 to respond to the ruling.