DDN: Sounds of bickering rumble Republican paradise

By William Hershey
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COLUMBUS | There’s trouble in paradise.

Paradise, of course, is where you find it.

Republicans have found it here in Columbus since 1994. That’s the year they took control of both Ohio House and Senate and every statewide nonjudicial office.

Democrats have scrambled for crumbs since then.

With all that power on their hands, Republicans have taken to squabbling among themselves.

Lots of Republicans in the legislature never had much use for Gov. Bob Taft, even if he is the grandson of the U.S. senator known as "Mr. Republican," the late Robert A. Taft.

The hard-charging conservatives consider him a closet moderate and too willing to see too many sides of an issue, even if it’s a complicated one.

During this year’s budget marathon, Republican legislators ignored most of Taft’s ideas for tax reform. Instead, they gave him a take-it-or-leave-it proposed penny-on-the-dollar increase on the state sales tax to balance the state budget.

Taft took it, but continued to irritate Republican lawmakers on proposed legislation giving Ohioans the right to carry concealed handguns.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

House Republicans considered the Senate-passed bill that Taft endorsed worse than no bill at all. It included too many restrictions, they said, and didn’t even get the endorsement of the National Rifle Association, which probably has more clout in the legislature than the Democrats.

House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, using reporters as couriers, sent nasty messages to Senate President Doug White, R-Manchester.

The Senate, said Householder, turned its lawmaking authority in the concealed handgun dustup over to Taft and Taft’s buddies in the Ohio Highway Patrol. Taft’s support for the Senate bill resulted mainly from the state patrol’s decision to stay neutral on the Senate bill, after opposing the House version.

The Senate president said he’d done no such thing.

One longtime Republican strategist, who declined to be identified, said many Republicans in the legislature don’t know what it’s like to participate in a competitive two-party system.

They think the current Republican dominance is somehow predestined and will go on forever, the strategist said. He suggested that they believe no matter how many goofy things they do or no matter how often they let selfish spats get in the way of public policy, there will be no consequences.

The Democrats, still busy looking for the crumbs, so far haven’t given them much reason to think otherwise. Paradise, however, is turning into a tough neighborhood.

Click here to read the full column in the Dayton Daily News.