Life has bigger mysteries, but there is one that’s peculiar to Ohio that masks which General Assembly members slip special-interest amendments into the state’s mammoth operating budget every other spring. (Now pending: House Bill 96, to authorize Ohio to spend billions of dollars for the two years beginning July 1.)
But as cleveland.com’s Jeremy Pelzer recently reported, finding out which of Ohio’s 132 state legislators gets to slip pet amendments into the proposed budget (current length: 5,048 pages) is close to impossible.
True, right before the vote, when it likely would have been impossible for all House members to educate themselves on the details, the House GOP caucus distributed a budget “highlights” list of about 160 GOP amendments to the budget — going well beyond the 2025-27 budget proposed early in February by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. But the 12-page summary list doesn’t list the authors of any of the House Republicans’ budget amendments…