As the Ohio General Assembly reconvenes in Columbus this month, meaningful and tangible property tax relief coupled with fair and equitable remapping of Ohio’s 15 congressional districts must rise as paramount priorities for speedy action.

Clearly, the state’s 99 state House of Representatives members and 33 Senate members will have their work cut out for them to achieve those necessary but long-elusive ends. With luck, cooperative compromises can replace the partisan squabbles that have impeded progress on both fronts for far too long.

Failure to act decisively could have devastating long-term consequences, particularly with property tax reform. After enduring years of skyrocketing levels of increases, many ticked-off Ohioans will readily gravitate toward support of an ongoing referendum campaign to abolish all such taxes in next year’s election.

As state Attorney General Dave Yost has argued, legislative action is required now or “the people will surely blow up the property-tax system,” which would unleash chaos by axing $20 billion in revenue for schools and local governments.

One of the most promising legislative initiatives that could thwart the “abolish all taxes” movement comes from a set of Republican House legislators who agree with Yost that time is of the essence. That group includes state Rep. Dave Thomas, R-Jefferson, who represents portions of Trumbull County and who has emerged as one of the state’s most thoughtful and passionate leaders in the property tax relief movement.

Those initiatives, collectively known as the Taxpayer Freedom Trilogy, take the form of three bills recently introduced and assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee. The trilogy seeks to increase transparency, accountability and voter control over tax rates from ballooning to stratospheric heights. They are:

● House Bill 420: Discontinuing the Continuum. This bill phases out and eventually eliminates perpetual continuous tax levies, requiring all to have an end date.

● House Bill 421: Arresting the Inside Millage. This legislation provides a way for voters to challenge their “inside millage,” which is the amount of property tax that county commissioners can approve without voter approval.

● House Bill 422: The Triumph of the Taxpayer. This bill would change the voting thresholds required for new tax levies, making it harder to pass larger tax increases. According to the bill, levies between one and two mills of additional taxation would require a 60% majority for approval, while levies of two mills or higher would need a 66% majority.

Clearly if enacted these bills would give voters greater control over the size and duration of taxes. Other initiatives such as so-called circuit breakers to cap maximum tax payments and further expansion of the Homestead Exemption discounts also merit attention. Findings to be announced soon by a governor-appointed working group on tax reform also should be studied.

If all goes well, meaty and measurable tax reform could be in place by year’s end.

But just as the clock is ticking to act on property tax relief, so, too, the days and hours are numbered to act decisively on redistricting for next year’s U.S. House races throughout Ohio. State law mandates a system be in place by year’s end.

So far, the signs are anything but encouraging.

The first deadline — next Tuesday — for the full General Assembly to adopt a plan clearly will be missed. That is the date on which lawmakers needed to have adopted a map with at least 60% approval in each chamber and at least 50% support of Democrats.

The can is now kicked onto the field of the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, which has until Oct. 31 to adopt a map. Given the commission is dominated by Republicans and given the vastly different priorities they have with Democrats, meeting this deadline will be difficult, but it need not be impossible.

Democrats introduced their proposed map, but as of press time earlier this week, Republicans had not. The minority party’s map includes eight Republican-leaning districts and seven Democrat-leaning districts. But if past is prologue, the GOP will reject that ratio that approximately represents party voting patterns in the state.

We are not enamored with that map either. It carves out a chunk of northeastern Mahoning County from the 6th Congressional District and inserts it into the 14th Congressional District with Trumbull, Geauga and portions of Lake and Ashtabula counties. First, it divides Mahoning County into two districts, a practice that mapmakers generally try to avoid. Second, it fails to reunite Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties into one common district to reflect the Valley’s shared demographics and values, as we have repeatedly advocated for several years now.

We also hope the commission works totally free of any outside pressures — specifically those from President Donald Trump. To his credit, Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman said that he won’t be pressured into giving the administration its desired maps.

Though a range of other issues, including a decision on the fate of capital punishment in the state and crackdowns on animal abuse and human trafficking, should get prompt and speedy action, property tax relief and redistricting must rise as the most pressing responsibilities. House and Senate legislators of all political stripes must commit to acting decisively and effectively on both fronts by year’s end.