BuckeyeBlog

Several years ago, I wrote a commentary on the abuses of the asbestos liability system, the system’s negative impact on Ohio’s economy, and the need for reform. Shortly thereafter, the General Assembly enacted legislation reforming the asbestos liability system and the Ohio Supreme Court recently upheld that law, including its applicability to pending cases. As a result, nearly 30,000 cases that had been clogging Ohio’s court system have been dismissed. Recently, additional abuses have come to light, including plaintiffs filing multiple, inconsistent claims against different defendants for the same injury. I wrote this in-depth discussion of such abuses, exemplified by a recent Cleveland-area case, for the Federalist Society’s Class Action Watch publication last year. In this new Buckeye Viewpoint, I give a brief overview of Ohio’s successful efforts to reform the asbestos liability system and describe a new bill that is designed to address the problem of “double dipping” that was exposed in the recent Cleveland case. Hopefully, Ohio will continue to lead on reforming the asbestos liability system.

To effectuate such change, Sen. Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) introduced legislation in the Ohio Senate that mandates any plaintiff bringing an asbestos tort action must disclose any previous claims he or she has filed with asbestos trusts. Passage of this legislation would help restore fairness, transparency and accountability to the asbestos liability system, which has been subject to fraud and abuse for too long.”

try, try again” to close Ohio’s public charter schools.  That must be the motto of school choice opponents, but freedom continues to win the day.

Disgraced former Attorney General Marc Dann tried to convince Ohio’s courts that public charter schools should be designated “public charitable trusts” so that he could put them out of business.  Well, strike two!  Montgomery County shot down one of these frivalous lawsuits in September and Hamilton County just shot down the second. (more…)

Today in Columbus a miracle occured: 2 Democrat State Representatives and 1 Republican Speaker of the House came together and agreed, wholeheartedly, that all American kids deserve school choice.  The Ohio Coalition for Quality Education held a Legislative Discussion about ‘Improving Public Education through Choice and Accountability’ that included Speaker Jon Husted (R-OH) and two gentlemen from out of state, Rep. Jason Fields (D) of Wisconsin and Rep. Jabar Shumate (D) from Oklahoma.

The conversation was decidedly one sided — all three supported the rights of kids and parents to choose the school they attend and all agreed that the education monopoly does not have the answers to improving education.  In fact, these three gentlemen believe the free market and parents are better at determining the best direction for education in the US than government and special interest groups.

Rep. Shumate called the issue of education in this country ‘the new civil rights movement’.  He said things need to change, because “…more black males are in prison than in higher education, (this) can’t continue.”  And Rep. Fields shared that behind closed doors most of his democratic brothers and sisters support school choice.  They just need to get rid of the fear of opposition groups.  “If you’re in this job with fear that a group or organization may come after you, get out!  Because you’re doing a disservice to all of us,” Rep. Fields declared.

The usual question about academic accountability and charters schools came up.  Speaker Husted quickly dispatched that red herring by stating, “Choice IS accountability through parents who make better choices than government can.”  He added two additional points:  public charters should be compared with urban public schools, apples to apples, not to average or suburban schools, because charters and failing urban schools have the same populations they are trying to educate.  He also noted that accountability standards are stronger for charter schools because they can be closed, while failing district schools can exist indefinitely.  The market works through kids who leave bad charter schools.

Rep. Fields agreed the “greatest accountability is where someone chooses to send their child. (It’s) not for us to determine which school is best…it’s for those individuals who are choosing.  Telling parents they don’t know what’s best means you’re telling parents they are idiots.”

Rep. Shumate’s views on the accountability issue were that those who are involved in supporting choice are not afraid of being tested and monitored, unlike many in the public system.  He acknowledged, “Where resources are limited, we begin to pick at each other.  Let’s look at what’s best for kids.”

All three gentlemen agreed that government is not the solution to improving education, but parental choice is.  And a key component to facilitating this change will be allowing education funding to follow the child.  Look to the Buckeye Institute to provide more information on this important policy issue early next month.

In the meantime, it would be wise for Ohio Democrats and some Republicans to pay attention to the political environment in other states.  School Choice can be a bipartisan issue for those who have the courage to support kids over special interests.  Ohio should lead the way instead of lagging behind.

Public charter schools have been under attack in Ohio since their creation in the ’90s. People and organizations who benefit from the status quo have worked overtime to either regulate or intimidate charters out of business. With the new anti-freedom, big government candidates that voters swept into office in Ohio and nationwide, expect the attacks against charter schools to increase with fervor.

In light of this expected negative climate for school choice, a new and timely report from the Buckeye Institute was unveiled last Friday. Matthew Carr and I have researched the numbers from the Ohio Department of Education’s own documents and found that, contrary to opponents’ claims, charters are INCREASING per pupil funding in each of the Big 8 schools. Additionally, if anti-school choicers succeed at their ultimate goal, eliminating charters altogether, property owners can expect substantial tax increases in Ohio’s urban districts.

The report includes data showing:

• Local property tax dollars do NOT fund charter schools;
• Each of the big 8 districts gain in per pupil funding for each child who leaves for a charter because while the state dollars go to the charters, the local dollars that remain are higher than the state dollars they lose, resulting in net per pupil gains;
• Property owners in the Big 8 districts can expect to see attempts to raise their taxes in order to maintain current per pupil funding levels if charters fail and kids return to the public schools; and
• Tax increases just to maintain funding would range from $300 to over $3,000 a year for a $100,000 home.

To see the complete report, look here.

The Buckeye Institute’s Education Policy Director, Matthew Carr, spoke with 610WTVN’s Bob Connors this morning about education issues.  They discussed Matthew’s new report on Public Charter Schools, the Governor’s education agenda, the State School Board’s new funding plan and teachers’ unions.  Listen for yourself.

Yesterday, WLWT in Cincinnati ran a story questioning the use of traditional public school buses to provide transportation for private school students.  The opening paragraph of the piece sums up the issue: “Every day across the Tri-State, public school buses are used to take kids to private schools. It’s costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year and in this financial crisis some wonder if it’s time to stop.”

One of the many enduring quotes of Milton Friedman is that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”  Perhaps someone should have reminded the folks at WLWT that there are also no free bus rides.

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Another payday lending company is shuttering many of its Ohio stores, depriving 75 people of their jobs. Do those who pushed for the passage of Issue 5 still want to tell us that there would be no job loss?

In the next few months Ohioans will hear and read about many recommended changes to our K-12 education system.  Governor Ted Strickland intends to unveil his plans for change early in the year, while the State School Board is going to be considering a plan to revamp education funding.

While it is certainly premature to judge the plans without having seen them–it would be wonderful if the recommended changes provided much needed help for children and taxpayers–I am choosing not to hold my breath.  Why the cynicism?  As our own David W. Kirkpatrick reports at www.freedomfoundation.us:

• Kirkpatrick’s First Law of Reform: major change rarely lives up to the hopes of its supporters or the fears of its opponents.

David and I are not the only cynics.  Consider these quotes:

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Sometimes the only thing worse than “no” is “yes.”

Congratulations to President-elect Obama.

It’s worth remembering that he has performed a great, great service to the country in ridding us of dominating Clinton influence. Richard Posner has a line about how lies are used, to the effect that the liar whom everyone knows is lying is the most damaging, because it “disparages the very notion of truth.” That was the Clintons all over. The most interesting thing about them was not them, but the willingness of important organs of society to tolerate them.

Obama hasn’t really lied to any greater degree than any politician does. Of course he played himself as much more moderate than he is, but that’s pretty standard. Indeed, it’s even good news for conservatives. We’ll certainly get our full dose of socialism, but it would have been much worse if he were running outright as a socialist. On the big issue, free market economics, the vocabulary and the ideas, which are the most important things, are still ours. The question is whether this is a dying ember or one that will reignite. Certainly it won’t burn again without serious work by serious people.

Congratulations to state Sen. Steve Stivers, who won the Pryce seat and will go to Congress. He’s a good person, an unusually good one, and it’s nice to see such a one go to such an institution.

Bad news for Ohio school choice. The Ohio House of Representatives is gone Democrat. Will the state senate be able to protect our children? I’d have to rate it as doubtful. Political action, parents and interest groups, might save those children, but the prospects are not good.

Tremendously good news that state Rep. Josh Mandell was returned. There are some free market, free individual elected officials left. He joins John Adams. Maybe the now minority Republicans will elect a principled conservative as their leader in Bill Batchelder. The cynical political strategists will be delighted or appalled by that possibility, depending on who is signing their checks, as they all believe principles are a sure route to failure. Never mind that they’ve been free riding on Ronald Reagan’s political capital for more than a quarter century.

We are about to see what socialism can bring us, with the only restraint being the socialists’ own fears of the weakness of their ideas and their views about how to lie to people-plus, one hopes, Americans’ belief in the individual. Astonishingly, McCain was tanked by a market collapse brought on by government, when he really should have been tanked by half a dozen other things. Just as astonishingly, though not surprisingly, government wasn’t blamed, but free choice was. We’re going to see a similar attack on health care, which is also largely socialized, but is discussed as if it is a free market. Government messes things up, and the fix is more government. Good luck on that spiral.

Well, back to the 1970’s it is. Reagan and Friedman are dead, but like Marx and Roosevelt, they’ll be back.

UPDATE: Of course it’s being reported now that the Ohio 15th race has not been decided, so congratulations to Sen. Stivers is premature.

While there is an understandable preoccupation with the presidential race here in Ohio as both campaigns have made the buckeye state a priority, the battle for control of the Ohio House is shaping up to be razor thin as well. The Republicans have a 53-46 majority in the Ohio House of Representatives, which means if the Democrats have a net gain of four seats, they will take control for the first time since 1994. Statehouse insiders are watching several races that will likely determine which party controls the Ohio House next year. Those races include:

16th House District - Rep. Jennifer Brady (D-Westlake) vs. Westlake City Councilwoman Nan Baker (R- Westlake)

18th House District - State Board of Education member Colleen Grady (R-Strongsville) vs. Matt Patten (D-Strongsville)

20th House District - Rep. Jim McGregor (R-Gahanna) vs. Nancy Garland (D-New Albany)

22nd House District - Dublin City Councilman Mike Keenan (R-Dublin) vs. John Carney (D-Columbus)

28th House District - Sharonville Mayor Virgil Lovitt (R-Sharonville) vs. Connie Pillich (D-Montgomery)

42nd House District - Rep. Richard Nero (R-Hudson) vs. Hudson City Councilman Mike Moran (D-Hudson)

46th House District - Rep. Barbara Sears (R-Sylvania) vs. Darlene Dunn (D-Sylvania Township)

50th House District - Todd Snitchler (R-Uniontown) vs. Tuscarawas Township Trustee Celeste DeHoff (D-Tuscarawas Township)

58th House District - Former Huron County Commissioner Terry Boose (R-Norwalk) vs. Amherst City Councilman Terry Traster (D-Amherst)

63rd House District - Rep. Carol-Ann Schindel (R-Leroy) vs. Mark Schneider (D-Mentor)

85th House District - Rep. John Schlichter (R-Washington Court House) vs. Raymond Pryor (D-Chillicothe)

91st House District - Rep. Dan Dodd (D-Hebron) vs. William Hayes (R-Pataskala)

92nd House District - Athens County Auditor Jill Thompson (R-The Plains) vs. Athens City Councilwoman Debbie Phillips (D-Athens)

94th House District - Troy Balderson (R- Zanesville) vs. State Board of Education Vice President Jennifer Stewart (D-Zanesville)

The above races will likely determine which party controls the Ohio House of Representatives and elects the next Speaker. Current Speaker Jon Husted (R-Kettering) is leaving the House due to term limits and is running for the Ohio Senate. Regardless of which party has control for the new legislative session beginning in January, it will undoubtedly be by a very slim majority. Nonetheless, the party with the majority has significant advantages. If Republicans retain the majority, the Republican caucus will likely choose either Bill Batchelder (R-Medina) or Matt Dolan (R-Novelty) for Speaker. There will likely be some changes in committee assignments and chairmanships, but nothing like the changes that will occur if the Democrats take control. The Democrats would not only elect the new Speaker, likely Armond Budish (D-Beachwood), but would also significantly change the composition and even structure of the committees and set the agenda for the House. The Columbus Dispatch ran a recent story, written by Jim Siegel, on what it would mean for the Democrats if they took control of the Ohio House of Representatives.

It will likely be a long night for leaders of both parties.