Badin vs. Fredericktown
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Valley View vs. Greenville
Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.
Scott Elliott is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He writes about education, city and suburban issues, politics, business, workforce and consumer issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > August > 02
Monday, August 2, 2010
Editorial: The Netzley phenomenon can’t happen again
State Rep. Robert Netzley used to complain about reporters in Columbus, insisting they should have to take a course in state budgeting to learn what determines how much money the state has, and the like.
But now, in the age of term limits, the members of the House of Representatives are more likely to be trying to figure out how things work than instructing others. They find themselves knowing less than senior staff members, bureaucrats, lobbyists, party leaders and sometimes even the occasional journalist.
Rep. Netzley, who died Thursday, July 29, at 87, was a phenomenon that can’t happen again, that has been outlawed.
Representing mainly Miami County, he spent 40 years in the legislature, more than anybody ever. He was chairman of the Miami County Republican Party for 42 years.
He was a thorn in the side of governors of both political parties. In a time when even the recurring Republican governor, Jim Rhodes, and, later, George Voinovich, were relative moderates, he was a staunch anti-spending, hard-right conservative.
More than most right-wingers these days, he seemed to be just a man being himself, rather than playing to organized groups such as religious fundamentalists, the gun lobby, the anti-abortion people, the talk-radio crowd or any forerunner of the Tea Party.
His basic politics reflected the conservatism of the world from which he came. But he took that conservatism further than most. His world view made few concessions to Ohio’s urban nature. He was often wrong, sometimes appalling. (He famously pushed for sterilizing parents on welfare; talk about big government.)
But unlike some other politicians on the edges of the political spectrum, he managed to carve out a role, something beyond casting votes.
He sponsored legislation to allow school districts to levy income taxes — not just property taxes. He made state officials sweat from his position on the state controlling board, a body that has to sign off on spending certain state money. He proposed big ideas, such as imposing income taxes at the county level, rather than the state; and earmarking the entire state income tax for schools (in part, because, in his time, it always grew).
He was known to sometimes find common ground with ideological foes. He had a good relationship with Democrat Rhine McLin when she was the state senator representing his House district. He worked with Democrats on welfare-reform legislation.
He came from the part of the political spectrum that was strongest in its support of term limits. But he became a victim of term limits, and was replaced by somebody just as conservative but never as effective, Diana Fessler.
One reason term limits were enacted was that a lot of people have the sense that there are a lot of Robert Netzleys, that a lot of old legislators have been around forever. It was never true. In Congress — the real target of the term-limits campaign, though term limits don’t apply there — the average House member has about nine years in; about one in seven members have been around 20 years or more. From there, the numbers drop off.
Government benefits from having a few people around who know all the games, all the predictions that have not come true, all the cycles of opinion that have come and gone. And who know that being on opposite sides doesn’t necessarily mean becoming enemies.
Some political activists today who would have liked Bob Netzley are the type to worry that if a man spends too many years in a capitol, he is likely to go soft, to become too friendly with the wrong kinds of people, to mellow. Not Bob Netzley. For better and worse, his longevity just made him a legend.
For some, of course, it’s a good thing that he couldn’t happen again. But they aren’t the people who pushed term limits.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, Ohio government, Ohio politics
Editorial: Ohio can’t prosper if it doesn’t export
Ohio is a perfect place to have a debate about increased trade and the value of exports.
The timing is right, too, what with a fierce U.S. Senate race in the making, and the two candidates coming from different places on trade.
Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, a Democrat, knows that U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown won election in 2006 after adamantly opposing major trade treaties. Mr. Fisher is taking a page from that book. Not that he wants to be seen as anti-trade: just for “fair trade.”
Former Congressman Rob Portman, a Republican who was the first Bush administration’s trade representative, is a free-trader, but he doesn’t want voters to think he’s oblivious to the job losses in Ohio that have occurred because so much manufacturing has gone overseas. Into this political environment, the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, D.C., recently dropped “Export Nation,” a study looking into which areas of the country are exporting the most.
The researchers argue that, if the country is to prosper, it has to ramp up the export business.
The case is simple: To create jobs, businesses need new customers, and the potential to find them in India, China, Brazil and elsewhere — not just in Canada and Mexico — is huge.
Moreover, competing globally keeps companies at the top of their game. It’s a big world, and a lot of places and people are getting good at things this country has been a leader in.
Arguably, Ohio, which last year was the seventh-largest exporting state, has an advantage in the export game. It has seven major metropolitan areas in the top 100 exporters in the country, and Brookings says it’s the metros that are producing far and away the most exports.
A troubling thing, though: Ohio’s metros are running behind other areas in turning out patents. That is at least one important measure for calculating the sophistication of work being conducted.
Inventiveness matters in a knowledge economy. Fortunately, Ohio Republicans and Democrats have generally both been behind the Third Frontier program. It provides grants for research and development, and links universities with private companies to do R&D.
According to Brookings’ numbers, Dayton ranks 56th among the top 100 metros in total exports annually; 47th in export-related jobs and 16th for the share that exports represent in the total local economy.
That suggests a pretty good connection to the future economy. Unfortunately, though, the numbers are based on data from 2008. Because of problems at Delphi and General Motors, the region is presumably not doing as well today.
There’s no question that Ohio, more than some other states, knows the downside to foreign competition. But it also has experienced the upside, what with more than 350,000 jobs linked to exports. That represents almost 8 percent of the state’s private sector.
Brookings’ pitch that the country has to understand the potential from exports is the right one. That’s especially true for a place like Dayton, which is trying to re-invent itself as an innovator and producer of sophisticated products such as sensors, nano-materials and aviation-related equipment.
The world over is ripe for those sorts of products.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher
