Ohio Legislature Lame Duck Session

I've gotten so busy trying to figure out how to get the interactive portion of this blog up and functioning, I've sort of forgotten about the local spin this blog is supposed to have. Let's fix that, shall we?

A few interesting things have come out of the Ohio Legislature's lame duck session this month. Normally, you'd hear "lame duck" applied to outgoing President Bush. It also applies in this case because, in theory at least, many of the people at the Statehouse will be leaving office after this month, making it a group of "lame ducks."

Three of these bills got the kebosh from Governor Strickland--a tax credit for film making, paying bonuses to recent war vets from the rainy day fund, and eliminating the "golden week" for voter registration/voting (where you can show up at a designated spot to register, and then vote at the same time).

Another bill sort of tries to address human trafficking, by making it a first degree felony to force people into prostitution. However, this is merely an ammendment to another bill, one that would force abortion clinics to display "No one can force you to have an abortion" signs. (Satire warning) I would hate to see the Ohio legislature do anything that didn't somehow advance a productive, conservative agenda.

A more useful bill is one that will allow Cuyahoga County to buy up some of the multitude of foreclosures they have and use them in a land bank to help neighborhoods recover. Good to see someone taking action on that, since the empty houses in Cleveland are now legendary.

And now there's one less legal way to get your buzz--or hallucinations--on. The Ohio legislature did in fact add salvia to the list of controlled substances, right along side heroine and marijuana.

Other interesting noise out of the Statehouse is all about the budget cuts: another 5.75% across the board, except for education, veterans aid, and prisons. This is starting to scare me. The governor is talking about federal aid and a lack of fat left in the budget. The Columbus Dispatch did a story not long ago about what some of these cuts could look like, and it's not a pretty picture.

It's not just state agencies that would feel the hurt, it's all the poor communities that rely on state grants and other funds to operate. What happens when counties can't pay their deputies, road crews, crime labs, prisons, and health departments because the money from Columbus has dried up?

Unless some of that half a trillion dollars I keep hearing about from the Obama transition team trickles down to states in the form of Medicaid, education, or public works help...we could start looking like a third world nation here in the "Heart of it All."