The circus — doing business as the Ohio General Assembly — left the Statehouse last week, aiming to stay home until sometime in 2024. Given that Ohio’s primary election will be held March 19 — 2 1/2 months into the New Year — don’t expect much Capitol Square boat-rocking before then.
Many, if not most, contests for (gerrymandered) state Senate and Ohio House of Representatives seats are filled in the primary. The last things any incumbent General Assembly member wants just before a primary election are tough Statehouse votes on controversial statewide issues.
For those Ohioans who keep an eye on the Statehouse, many are interested in how and when the legislature will mess with Issue 2, the November ballot measure in which 57% of the Ohioans voting backed the legalization of adult-use recreational marijuana.
The law took effect this month — with some ifs and buts. (Ohio had already legalized medical marijuana in 2016 in a bill whose prime sponsor was then-Rep. Steve Huffman, a suburban Dayton Republican, now a senator, who is a physician.)
Voter-passed Issue 2 allows Ohioans to possess up to six marijuana plants per person (and no more than 12 per household). Initially, the Senate’s GOP buzz-killers had the politically suicidal impulse to forbid homegrown plants altogether. The Senate instead opted for a maximum of six plants per household.
Because the House failed to act on the Senate scheme Wednesday, what Ohio voters legalized in November — up to six plants per individual, 12 per household — remains the law.
The intermediate challenge — for now — is that Ohioans likely won’t be able to legally buy marijuana from licensed vendors until mid-2024 because Issue 2 gave state officials up to nine months to enact a framework for legal recreational marijuana. That’s why home-grow matters.
Currently, and unless something changes, an Ohioan who doesn’t have a medical cannabis card cannot buy marijuana from an Ohio medical marijuana dispensary.
The Senate plan, in perhaps a tradeoff for crimping home-grow, would allow the sale of recreational adult-use marijuana by Ohio’s existing medical dispensaries within, one legislator estimated, 90 days of the Senate amendment’s passage. (The House, as noted, hasn’t acted on the Senate’s idea.)
Of course, none of this would be at issue if the legislature had readied Ohio for legalization, given that voters’ OK of Issue 2 was easily foreseen. But that implies Statehouse work, rather than Statehouse showboating.
Ohio rates: Gov. Mike DeWine, state Budget Director Kimberly Murnieks and key General Assembly members deserve an ovation for good news about Ohio’s finances.
DeWine announced Dec. 8 that Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings has upgraded Ohio’s general obligation bond ratings to “AAA,” highest rating possible, citing the strength of Ohio’s financial management.
The S&P upgrade means Ohio, for “the first time, has been rated ‘AAA/Aaa’ by all three bond rating agencies,” the governor’s office said. The higher a state’s bond rating, the lower the interest rate a state must pay the buyers and owners of its bonds.
That is: Higher bond ratings = lower interest costs to taxpayers.
The other rating agencies are Moody’s Investor Services and Fitch Ratings, which have also top-rated Ohio’s general obligation bonds. The Bond Buyer, the leading publication covering the bond market, headlined it report on Ohio’s bond ratings boost this way: “Ohio wins ’triple-A Triple Crown.’“
For all the General Assembly’s bluster on gender, guns and other hot-button issues, the legislature’s budget-writers have arguably bolstered Ohio’s finances. (How they’ve done so is open to robust debate, but the credit ratings speak for themselves.) The current budget chairs in the Senate and House, respectively, are state Rep. Jay Edwards, a Nelsonville Republican, and state Sen. Matt Dolan, a Chagrin Falls Republican. Dolan is running for the GOP nomination for a U.S. Senate seat now held by Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat.
Budget strength can’t mask the fact that some policy choices are wrong-headed: A good example is privatizing public schooling via vouchers. Still, as to the bond-rating boost, an Ohio maxim comes to mind: When Ohioans elect a governor, they’re hiring a manager. In DeWine, financially speaking, they got one.
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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