The time between Election Day and the end of the year is known for its "lame-duck" politics — a time when state legislators pass more bills than usual in preparation for the general assembly.
As the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives wrapped up their legislative year last week, some legislators might have tweaked their behavior.
“It’s kind of like having terminal cancer,” said Richard Vedder, a Distinguished Professor of economics at OU. “If you know your time is up and you only have two months to live, maybe you’ll behave a little different in the last 90 days.”
But state legislators representing Athens noted this “lame-duck” session has contributed to the passage of a number of new bills — for better or for worse.
Senator Lou Gentile, D-Athens, said there is often a rush to pass bills during lame duck season because the bills that aren’t passed will not carry over to the next year.
“To (understand) the process, try taking a drink out of the firehose,” he said, adding sometimes the senate passed as many as 23 bills a day.
Gentile described this year’s lame duck season in terms of “the good, the bad and the ugly.”
“We ended on a really good note,” he said. “There were other things that were not so good.”
The legislature passed one measure attempting to make reapportionment — or determining which representatives represent which districts — more fair.
Currently, congressional districts are reapportioned every 10 years, after the state census is taken.
The concern is that the majority party will skew the district map to give its party the advantage.
The new law will make it so that if any of the members of the minority party on the reapportionment board oppose the district map, then the map will be redrawn after four years.
Gentile said this bill passed with bipartisan support in both the house and the senate, which likely would not have happened outside of the lame duck legislative season.
Gentile also noted some pitfalls.
Lawmakers passed House Bill 5, which Gentile argues will create too many loopholes for businesses to evade income taxes.
Another bill, Senate Bill 490, was dropped by the senate leadership because of the many extraneous bills tacked onto it.
Gentile said that these types of “Christmas tree” bills are common during lame duck season as legislators try to get as many of their bills passed as possible.
“(That bill) was the poster child of everything that is wrong with lame duck season,” he said.
Rep. Debbie Phillips, D-Albany, whose district includes Athens, said she was successful in passing a school safety drill bill, which she said was suggested by Athens residents.
The bill relaxes regulations on school fire drills in order to place a greater emphasis on safety drills, preparing students in case of emergencies such as school intruders.
“I hope that there will be people from the community who will be glad to see that went through,” she said.
The end of the legislative year is typically referred to as the “lame duck” session, the time after Ohioans have already elected the next general assembly but before the current session is over. Some senators and representatives are awaiting the end of their terms and seeking to tie up loose ends on their sponsored bills that have not yet passed.
If lawmakers’ terms are ending in January, Vedder said, they often feel less of a need to answer to their constituents and are more likely to act according to their own convictions or interests.
Vedder said he believes this year’s lame duck session to have been relatively tame for the Ohio legislature because there has not been a large shift in political power.
Like the one before it, the next general assembly, which convenes Jan. 5, will see a Republican majority. However, Vedder noted the incoming Speaker of the House, Rep. Cliff Rosenberger, R-Clarksville, will be a much more aggressively conservative leader than his soon-to-be predecessor, William G. Batchelder.
