What an Ohioan sees seems to be what he or she usually gets with Lima Republican Robert R. Cupp, the Ohio House’s new speaker: quiet, mannerly, more conservative than he may at first appear
Cupp was a highly capable Ohio Supreme Court justice. In 2012, he was unseated by William M. O’Neill, a Greater Cleveland Democrat. Earlier, Cupp was a state senator and appellate judge.
House Republicans elected Cupp speaker on Thursday after they’d removed Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County’s Glenford, from that job. He’d won it in 2019. (Householder remains a House member.) Earlier Thursday, a federal grand jury indictment filed in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio charged Householder and four others (including ex-Republican State Chair Matthew J. Borges and prominent Statehouse lobbyist Neil S. Clark) with an alleged $60 million racketeering conspiracy. Its alleged aim: to elect Householder speaker of the House and pass House Bill 6, to subsidize, with customers’ money, the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants once owned by FirstEnergy Corp.
The bill, which GOP Gov. Mike DeWine signed, also subsidizes two coal-fueled power plants, one in Indiana, whose owners include FirstEnergy and American Electric Power Co. “This [coal] subsidy alone costs residential consumers $1.50 per month and businesses much more. The nuclear plant subsidy will cost residential customers about $0.85 a month through 2027,” John Funk reported Wednesday in the Utility Dive newsletter. Funk, a veteran utility reporter, was formerly on The Plain Dealer’s staff.
* Householder wouldn’t have won the speakership if Democrats hadn’t voted for him. Yet House Democratic leaders called the House GOP majority “pathetic” for trying to deflect attention from Householder. “Ohioans are smarter than that,” Democrats said.
Yes, they are. Many know that among the 26 Ohio House Democrats who voted to elect Householder speaker were these Northeast Ohio Democrats: House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, of Akron; Reps. Juanita Brent, Stephanie Howse, Bride Rose Sweeney and Terrence Upchurch, all of Cleveland; Janine Boyd, of Cleveland Heights; Jeffrey Crossman, of Parma; Tavia Galonski, of Akron; Michelle Lepore-Hagan, of Youngstown; Michael O’Brien, of Warren; Philip Robinson, of Solon; Michael Skindell, of Lakewood; Kent Smith, of Euclid; Casey Weinstein, of Hudson; Thomas West, of Canton; and then-Rep. Glenn Holmes, of suburban Youngstown.
House Republicans alone made Householder speaker? Here’s hoping the health insurance plan for Ohio’s legislature covers amnesia.
In fairness, Democrats who backed Householder did so because he vowed not to mess with organized labor. That’s a fair trade-off, given the Republican right’s quest to weaken Ohio’s prevailing wage law for construction workers on public projects, or pass an Ohio Right to Work (for Less) bill.
* One angle about Cupp’s speakership is that it may make life easier for Gov. Mike DeWine. For reasons that are unclear, Householder wasn’t a big fan of DeWine. That likely would have stoked headaches for DeWine when, as is very likely, he and the General Assembly will have to do surgery on Ohio’s budget, thanks to the coronavirus. A personality conflict would make budget talks tougher.
* Long before the legislature passed, and DeWine signed, HB 6, Ohioans got a clear warning about what relentless lobbying can do at the Statehouse.
On Nov. 4, 2008, Ohio voters overwhelming approved a statewide ballot issue to curb the injustices of payday lending. Almost 64 percent of the Ohioans voting on the issue voted “yes.”
Then somehow, some way, payday lenders found loopholes that let them defy the voters. Not until July 24, 2018 – that is, 10 years after Ohio’s voters unmistakably said they wanted payday loans genuinely reformed – did the General Assembly finally pass a payday loan bill that closed lenders’ loopholes.
Coincidentally or not, the 2018 bill passed only after then-Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, a Republican from Clinton County’s Clarksville, resigned when it became known he was under federal investigation. (Rosenberger has not been charged with any wrongdoing.)
House Bill 6 isn’t a fluke. The brazen Statehouse stall over payday lending wasn’t a fluke. And the General Assembly’s failure to constitutionally fund public schools dates back to 1997. Something is very wrong at the Ohio Statehouse. Anyone who says otherwise is in denial – or in trouble.
Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens.
To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-408-9474
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