Still, in even-numbered years, as 2026 will be, the legislature parlays hundreds of millions of Ohio taxpayers’ dollars into state construction projects.
Sure, some’ll be plausible, such as the zillion-dollar, bipartisan prison construction marathon that began after then-new-Gov Richard F. Celeste, a Greater Cleveland Democrat, took office in 1983.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, Ohio had about 12,500 county jail and state prison inmates combined in 1978. Today, according to Department of Rehabilitation and Correction data, there are 45,932 inmates in Ohio’s state prisons alone. Of them, 46.3% are African American in a state whose population is 13.6% African American. Thus, a then-Democratic-run state administration and Democratic-led Ohio House of Representatives – during Ronald Reagan’s presidency – came across as Ohio’s Party of Law-and-Order.
Now that Ohio has licked crime, the legislature is turning to circuses to distract Ohioans from, oh, ramshackle funding of public schools.
The legislature has already fired the first volley in its “pork-first” campaign by showering the Cleveland Browns with cash to help the team move inland, away from Lake Erie to Brook Park, near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
The legislature’s move was OK’d Dec. 9 by U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. in Columbus, though parts of the lawsuit challenging the legislature’s scheme may continue. The judge’s ruling touched off the Statehouse equivalent of an Oklahoma Land Rush, with team-and-stadium owners large and small sniffing around Capitol Square for public money.
For example, Nationwide Arena, home of the Columbus Blue Jackets National Hockey League franchise, is expected to seek $100 million from Ohio’s unclaimed funds pool – the source of the Brook Park money – for improvements to the team’s arena, northwest of the Statehouse, which has touched off a race to claim other state subsidies.
So, complete coincidence, it appears professional sports franchises with Ohio teams and allied organizations have deployed more than two dozen lobbyists at the Statehouse in Columbus. (Yes, Ohio law forbids a registered Statehouse lobbyist “to actively advocate in exchange for compensation ... contingent in any way upon the passage, modification, or defeat of any legislation.” But lobbyists who can’t bring home the bacon don’t get to eat, do they?)
Meanwhile, what should be the state’s first priority – education for citizenship, that is, public education – continues to get shortchanged by a General Assembly that seems to think public schools, which roughly 90% of young Ohioans attend, should be after-thoughts, not statewide priorities.
So, earlier this year, the legislature, while stinting in its support of public schools, agreed to spend about $965 million this fiscal year, then about $1.05 billion in the year that’ll begin July 1, to help Ohio parents pay for parochial and private school tuition for children who are K-12 pupils.
The General Assembly first earmarked state aid for pupils in parochial and private schools in 1967, spending $15 million over two year at the request of Republican then-Gov. James A. Rhodes. (The 1967 allotment was about 1.5% of fiscal 2027’s $1.05 billion voucher appropriation.)
The1967 private-school earmark required Rhodes to twist arms with fellow Republicans. In contrast, this year’s voucher payout was business as usual at the Statehouse. That’s what passes for checks-and-balances in Columbus today.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com