And then there were two
May God help us all.
Before we begin today, here’s a quick correction: The Senate Education Committee will meet TODAY (Tuesday)—not Wednesday, as I incorrectly stated in yesterday’s dispatch—in the South Hearing Room of the Statehouse at 3 p.m.
Wear black to show your opposition to mandating that public school districts allow students to leave campus for religious instruction.
For more information on the committee meeting, please see yesterday’s dispatch about SB-293.
Today, however, is all about the Speaker’s race that’s loomed over the lower chamber for nearly two years. And folks, it’s not looking great.
House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) shocked many on Capitol Square yesterday—including the author of this humble operation.
In a surprise impromptu press conference on Monday, Stephens announced he would not seek to retain his title in the 136th General Assembly starting in January.
The announcement came shortly after State Rep. Tim Barhorst (R-Fort Loramie) officially entered the Speaker’s race against current State Senate president Matt Huffman (R-Lima), who, in my opinion, has a striking physical resemblance to Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh.
All that drama came with the Republican House Caucus set for a private-ballot vote on Wednesday, which will ostensibly crown the next Speaker.
Happy Trails, Jason Stephens!
Yesterday, I was of the belief that Stephens exited the race as a way to throw Wednesday’s vote to Barhorst, thus clearing the way for another return from the dead to ally with the Democratic Caucus in January as he did in January 2023 against State Rep. Derek Merrin (R-Monclova Twp).
While I didn’t speak to Stephens yesterday, I spoke to several folks in his orbit. And they were all of the belief that this really the end of his Speakership. But, to be fair, that’s exactly what they would be saying if Stephens had another trick up his sleeve.
But given the conversations I had yesterday, I’m going to take Stephens at face value and assume he’s making this final move in an attempt to deny Huffman his long-awaited ascension to the Lincoln Chair. At least for now.
For today’s purpose, we’ll only examine the race as it relates to the Republican-only vote on Wednesday
But if this is the end of the Stephens era, I’ll always be thankful for that time he conspired to throw Merrin into a pit of alligators in front of his supporters who had traveled from across the state to see the boy prince coronated.
The vote launched The Rooster into a new era of Statehouse relevancy. The euphoria in that immediate aftermath is as close as I’ll ever come to shooting Afghani heroin into my jugular.
And because of that, Stephens will always be welcome at my hearth.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man?
I spoke with Rep. Barhorst on the phone last night for about five minutes.
In our short conversation, he stressed that he was “no kamikaze pilot,” meaning that he wouldn’t have challenged Huffman’s long-plotted bid if he didn’t feel he had the votes to win.
On one hand, it’s easy to see his pathway to the tipping point of 33 votes if the remaining Stephens supporters join a bloc of hardline Republicans disaffected with Huffman’s Senate diluting their bills over the past two years.
Barhorst, for example, pointed to how the Senate gutted HB-49, which was a rare bit of good business from the House that would have mandated some transparency in hospital prices.
Far-right grassroots organizations like the pro-polio Ohioans Advocating for Medical Freedom and Ohio Gun Owners have also turned up the heat on Huffman, who, at his core, is an establishment politician that has shit on Ohio’s term limits in pursuit of political power.
There’s also an argument, which I don’t believe for reasons I’ll soon explain, that the secret ballot nature of the Caucus vote will aid Barhorst. After all, it’s easier to knife a guy like Huffman when you don’t have to put your name on the hilt.
Staring into the abyss
Yesterday, I remarked that it didn’t strike me as a position of power seeing Huffman supporters like State Reps. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville), Phil Plummer (R-Dayton), Gary Click (R-Vickery) and Josh Williams (R-Sylvania) taking to social media to tout letters from Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-Urbana) and Warren Davidson (R-Troy) endorsing Huffman.
After some conversations last night, I’ve changed my tune.
It’s still a nakedly obvious power play, but the message is being sent to the incoming freshmen class, many of whom were elected thanks to Huffman’s campaign team, to keep them in line in the face of the grassroots pressure.
Some freshman class members might be enticed by the allure of a secret ballot—especially if they have political ambitions and don’t want to live under the thumb of Huffman’s potential eight-year reign.
But those letters from Jordan and Davidson are a threat against going against the powers that be in the Republican Party. It’s the kind of overhanded threat that will probably work on a class that hasn’t even been sworn into office yet. Especially when they saw how Huffman’s dark-money machine found and put many of them into office while also toppling an unprecedented four incumbents.
Weighing all that… you begin to ask yourself, if Vegas were taking odds on this bout, what would they look like? Huffman, who has operated in the political realm for decades, versus a restauranteur in his second tour in the Ohio House of Representatives who only officially launched his Speakership bid yesterday.
And I say that with no disrespect toward Barhorst, who I believe is genuine and well-liked among his colleagues. Despite our differences, I could see myself drinking 100 beers with him during an Ohio State football game if I were still an active alcoholic.
However, in this game, it’s better to be feared than respected.
And given how Huffman whittled Stephens into publicly ceding his position before the Caucus vote, you start to feel that Huffman’s ascension is inevitable.
If Huffman emerges victorious in that secret ballot vote on Wednesday, then don’t expect the rug to be pulled from under him during the official vote in January. Not after the retribution the so-called “Blue 22” faced for the high crime of throwing a prick like Merrin overboard in the most humiliating, albeit funniest manner possible.
Maybe I’m wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time, and I would gladly throw rose petals at Rep. Barhorst’s feet while begging for forgiveness.
Unfortunately, I can’t, in good faith, bet against Huffman, given the current stakes.
The silver lining, however, would be that Huffman would have to deal with the imprudent, right-wing, hardline kooks in the House while the FBI undoubtedly looks over his shoulder at a state government thrown open to mostly nefarious Big Business interests.
It’s hard times, folks. Hard times indeed. But for now, that’s a fight for another day.
THOSE WMDs. The vet and the cattle prod… The rise and fall of the trad wife… The betrayal of Sandra Birchmore… How Wisconsin lost control of the strange disease killing its deer… Schools vs. Screens.
D.J., I love your newsletter, and I often use Substack's text to voice feature to listen to your words while driving to work. I have enjoyed hearing the evolution of the Substack narrator from robotic monotone to spunky female to friendly man speaking in hushed tones. This latest iteration, though, has come with an interesting quirk. Some sentences, seemingly at random, are read in another language. I find this development both perplexing and hilarious. Keep up the great work!