Is it “immature” to want transparency in government?
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 By Beth Lear
Does age really matter when it comes to transparency in government? How old do you have to be to get access to information that will cost Ohioans billions? State Representative Seth Morgan is 31 – a fraction of Governor Ted Strickland’s chronological age. Does that give the Governor the right to accuse Rep. Morgan of acting “immature” because the State Representative wants an explanation of what “evidence based education” is? Rep. Morgan has officially requested the information about this key component of the Governor’s budget twice – and received nothing. The House Majority would like to vote on the budget as early as the week of April 20. Should Legislators know what they’re voting on or not? Should Ohio be like the federal government and require votes on bills that are a 1,000+ pages that no one has read or understands?
What’s clear is that if the political parties were reversed, this “age discrimination” would be headline news. The hypocrisy of big-government liberals is even more obvious here, because the Democrats had their own “youngster” in the House just a few years ago – Derrick Seaver. At least, he started as a Democrat at the tender age of 18. But our Constitution allows that and the voters chose Derrick. The real issue isn’t his “age”, Governor, it’s transparency! The taxpayers in Ohio have a right to know what your education plan is, who contributed to its creation and what it’s going to cost. And we, the taxpayers, can’t possibly know this information if our own elected State Represenatives and Senators aren’t privy to it!
Thank God two out of the three branches of Ohio government have some Constitutional sense. The Ohio Supreme Court seems intent to get this issue dealt with quickly. After Rep. Morgan filed his suit yesterday, the Justices responded immediately, and even told the Governor “The Clerk shall refuse to file any requests for extension of time in this case“.
Rather than quibble about age issues, let’s be civilized and adult about this. A little Shakespeare would be apropos: “Methinks the Governor doth protest too much”.
