Ohio’s state senators and representatives bid adieu to Columbus late last month for a long summer and fall sojourn. In their absence lies a plethora of unfinished business on dozens of critical bills that have yet to cross the finish line.

From enacting or rejecting reforms in higher education to approving alternative capital punishment protocols to providing hundreds of thousands of Ohioans some relief from skyrocketing property taxes to stiffening penalties for traffickers in fentanyl and other illicit drugs, state legislators effectively have pressed pause.

And what a long pause it will be.

The Ohio Senate is not scheduled to return to work until Nov. 13 after elections that likely will cost some incumbent state lawmakers their jobs. The Ohio House has no further meetings scheduled this year, though it, too, likely will return in November for some lame-duck house cleaning..

The problem of state legislative unfinished business is compounded by the fact that once the clock strikes 12 a.m. on Jan. 1, a whole new General Assembly will convene with a completely blank slate. Legislation that has languished for more than a year in the 2023-24 General Assembly will instantly disappear. Much of it will rise from the ashes and start from ground zero after being reintroduced in the 2025-26 Legislature.

Is it any wonder then that frustrated Ohioans continue to lament the wheels of lawmaking — much like the wheels of justice — too often creep along at tortoise-like speed?

After all, according to the National Council of State Legislatures, the Buckeye State is one of only 10 in the nation to have a “full-time” lawmaking body. Given our Legislature’s typical Tuesday through Thursday schedule of actual full sessions and committee meetings and hearings, and given its generous holiday breaks and four months-plus of summer-fall recess, that definition of “full-time” is stretched to the limits.

As a result, reams of important legislation affecting all facets of life in Ohio are held hostage until much of it eventually dies an ignominious death.

To be sure, our full-time legislators — paid approximately $70,000 for their part-time stints at the Statehouse — will counter that much of their service as elected representatives deals with constituent service and outreach, services they take seriously throughout the summer and during all extended breaks.

That may be true, but the major reason they were elected in the first place was to serve as lawmakers. Their prolonged absences from the machinery and forums required to enact those laws almost guarantees less than stellar performance.

All of which no doubt contributes to the sense of apathy or ignorance many among us have toward our state government. A recent survey found fewer than 20% of Americans can even name the state legislators who represent them. Such is likely the case in Ohio. How many among us, for example, can name the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives? (It’s Republican Jason Stephens, by the way.) As a result, participatory democracy, as our state and federal founders had envisioned it, lies wounded.

Toward healing those wounds, responsible and civic-minded legislative leaders should seriously consider making their “full-time” position more so by extending sessions and hearings so that more of the people’s work can have a fighting chance of making its way through the long and circuitous path of hatching a law out of a bill. If that requires simple revised scheduling, so be it. If it requires any change in operating rules of the Legislature, so be it as well.

Our state lawmakers need only look eastward 300 miles to Washington, D.C., where even our Congress, sometimes demeaned as a “do-nothing” Congress, finds it possible to actually meet and conduct business during the long hot summer month of July and into August.

Of course, we cannot begrudge too harshly our current crop of state legislators, many of whom from the Mahoning Valley have performed admirably and have spearheaded efforts to bring funding and jumpstart needed projects in our region. The system as we know it has been in place for decades.

But there’s no time like the present to reinvent that system to give the legislative process the time it needs to fully gestate. Yes, it may cut into incumbent state lawmakers campaign time come September, October and November. But constituents who visibly see their elected leaders spending more time legislating and less time politicking no doubt would be pleased to see the wheels of lawmaking move at a noticeably faster clip.

editorial@vindy.com