Here we go again

The 136th General Assembly kicks off today, which is generally horrible news for anyone who doesn't own a utility company or a suburban car dealership.

Left to right: State Reps. Tim Newman, Kevin Ritter, Matt Huffman, Diane Mullins and Michelle Teska.

The 136th General Assembly of Ohio kicks off today. It’s becoming a familiar predicament: What will be a grim affair for our polluted, backwater outpost of a state will probably offer a bonanza of content.

This week will feature five dispatches, so set your alarms accordingly.

Going forward, I will attempt to keep more of my humor, observations and on-the-ground reporting off my award-winning Twitter account. I’m running a business here, and the brave and noble people that subscribe to the newsletter are the ones that sustain my lifestyle.

If you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, I’d be honored if you took the plunge today. The Rooster is the largest independently owned voice in Ohio politics, and I plan to expand the horizons with supplemental coverage from the halls of Congress later this year.

A paid subscription comes with the knowledge you’re helping sustain a menace inside the Statehouse. You’ll also gain access to over six years of publishing archives, the ability to comment on all dispatches, and multiple chances to win free giveaways of books and merchandise.

And now, with the self-promotion out of the way, let’s get on with the show.

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Meet McVeigh’s Minions

Ohio voters enacted term limits on Statehouse politicians in 1992. To say it’s been a disaster for our state would be an understatement.

I won’t complain about losers like Derek Merrin being termed out of the House.

However, term limits have generally created a constant churn of highly unqualified candidates more interested in self-promotion and headlines than substantive policy work. Or maybe they’re just there to take orders from caucus leadership and collect their publicly funded paychecks, pension and benefits package.

Make no mistake: That applies to both sides of the aisle because the dirty secret of gerrymandering and term limits is that they dilute candidate talent in both parties.

We see it in this freshman class. There are about three to five prospects that have piqued my interest. I’ll have to see them in action during committee hearings and talk with their colleagues before I’m confident enough to name them.

But the rest of the crop is disappointing, which makes sense considering large swaths of the Republican freshman class were recruited by Speaker-Elect Matt Huffman (R-Lima), who, in my opinion, is a domestic terrorist who should be serving a life sentence in the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”

Huffman isn’t looking for opinion-havers or dynamic legislators. He’s looking for lapdogs since he’ll be responsible for a 65-member caucus rather than the 26 Republicans in that rancid retirement home, the State Senate.

Here are four suspect State Representatives that have caught my attention during early perusals of the biographical details of the incoming class:

• Diane Mullins (R-Hamilton): Mullins should be handling snakes and speaking in tongues in a traveling fundamentalist revival show. Instead, she’s set to be Butler County’s latest shame in the Statehouse. I expect she’ll be the subject of multiple embarrassing national political stories. I also think she’s under the belief she got elected to Congress, and not the Ohio House of Representatives.

• Pastor Jonathan Newman (R-Troy): Colluded with former State Rep. Jena Powell (R-“Powell”) to earn a free ride to the Ohio House of Representatives. Newman filed to challenge Powell in a primary and presented himself as an “aw, shucks” challenger to Miami County officials despite knowing damn well that Powell would quit the primary because she was living 75 miles outside the district in Mason. According to State Senator Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City), Powell said she colluded with Pastor Newman because Miami County voters “weren’t smart enough” to select “a true pro-life candidate” like Newman in an honest primary.

• Kevin Ritter (R-Marietta): I thought he had potential, considering he was a teacher personally recruited by former Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill). However, Ritter is a charter school operator who betrayed Stephens and voted for Huffman in the hotly contested Speaker race. I’ll be curious to see if he plans to abstain from voting for the numerous charter school issues that Huffman will undoubtedly push in his reign.

• Michelle Teska (R-Centerville): According to Buckeye Ballot, Teska would ban abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother. She also owns a “senior care” home, one of the shadiest industries in Ohio. Teska strikes me as someone who took the job primarily as a vehicle for self-enrichment.

Suspicions aside, it’s a new era in my rules of engagement for the 136th General Assembly.

Unlike the 135th Assembly, I don’t need to announce my arrival with hijinks. I feel I’ve done enough to show that I’ll stand and have a normal conversation with anyone that doesn’t run like a bug.

So, I’ll be giving all freshmen an opportunity to do things “the easy way” with me, which I believe is much more informative for the types of folks who read and digest my newsletter.

If they want to do things the hard way, well, we can rumble that way, too.

The choice is theirs!

Danger for Leader Russo?

If Speaker-Elect Huffman is to fall through the floor today, as Derek Merrin once did before him, then that would be hilarious as it would be shocking. Huffman’s victory was, from all appearances, that thorough in defeating even the idea of a breakaway faction of Republicans uniting with the Democratic Caucus.

As such, the most intriguing vote today will be for the House Minority Leader. State Rep. Allison Russo won a unanimous caucus vote last month.

However, House rules allow the majority caucus to pick the leadership of the minority caucus. This has never happened, at least in modern history.

But Majority Assistant Majority Floor Leader Adam Bird, Assistant Speaker Pro Tempore Phil Plummer and incoming House Finance Chairman Brian Stewart have been vocal in the past about wanting to send a message to Russo—and any future Democratic leadership—about the perils of uniting with breakaway Republicans to crown a Speaker not ordained by the majority caucus.

A source close to Huffman told The Rooster that the incoming Speaker “didn’t want to start that way” with Democrats. However, the source also cautioned that Huffman wants to lead the House for eight years. If the majority of his caucus is baying for Russo’s head (figuratively) on a pike, Huffman probably wouldn’t stand in their way.

But that source also revealed that barring the atomic option, the plan is to freeze Russo out of House leadership meetings and refuse to negotiate on any bills with her.

The hope is that would do enough to undercut Russo with her Democratic colleagues to the point they’d replace her on their own.

The Bust Up List Starts Anew

Reps. Sedrick Denson and Mark Johnson are charged with dereliction of duty.

I said earlier that all sins of the 135th General Assembly have been washed away, and everyone will more or less start on my good side.

The only exceptions will be State Reps. Sedrick Denson (D-Cincinnati) and Mark Johnson (R-Chillicothe).

For reasons only known to them, these two gentlemen chose to take luxurious vacations during last year’s Lame Duck Session, which is generally one of the most productive couple of weeks on the biannual calendar.

Denson telling his constituents to “live a little” was wildly tone deaf, considering most workers can’t feed their boss some bullshit excuse to jet-set to the southern hemisphere to relax in a hot tub while wearing a shirt.

Johnson at least had the intelligence to keep his trip to the Vatican off social media, but he could not stay out of his wife’s pictures that she posted to her feed.

Both these jokers will probably say something like, “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

Well, nobody forced them to run for the Statehouse. Lame Duck Session is held at the same time and place every two years. If you want to go on vacation whenever you want… stay out of public life! It’s that simple.

Given how seriously I take dereliction of duty, these guys are getting the Old Testament treatment if only to show the freshmen what can happen if they try to disrespect their constituents.

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