Senate Democratic leader votes no on Blackwell's legislative TEL

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Contact: Brian Rothenberg,

Communications Director

614-221-6563

Below is a press release from Ohio Senate Democratic Leader C.J. Prentiss on the TEL vote yesterday in the Senate.

Senate Democratic leader votes no on Blackwell's legislative TEL
Gimmicky measure will force taxpayers to pay more in fees; education/social services will be hit hard

(Columbus)- Today the Ohio Senate passed two bills to remove the Tax and Expenditure Limitation amendment (TEL) from the November statewide ballot and place a similar version of TEL in state law. Strong opposition from local governments and other local agencies made state Republicans question whether TEL might harm the chances of their gubernatorial candidate.

The statutory version of TEL was placed in the state's tobacco budget bill or Senate Bill 321 after only one hearing in the House Finance and Appropriations Committee. The final vote on the floor of the Senate for SB 321 was 21-12. The leader of the Ohio Senate Democrats- C.J. Prentiss- cast a no vote on the measure for several reasons including the following:

Fails to protect funding of local governments, police and fire services, and libraries.
Fails to protect social programs including food banks, Medicaid, PASSPORT along with all levels of education from being impacted.
Forces the legislature to potentially increase fees taxpayers will pay at various agencies to make up for the loss revenue (For example, the Ohio Secretary of State's office, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency).
Further prevents the state from fixing school funding and its over-reliance upon property taxes.
Creates bad public policy that is only a temporary fix which the next General Assembly can change.

"Let's call this what it is-a pure political gimmick," said Senator Prentiss of Cleveland. "The legislation was created only to fix the political problems of Ken Blackwell and his flip-flop on his cornerstone issue- TEL. Passing this so-called TEL-lite will only harm Ohioans. It severely impacts social programs (Medicaid, Medicare, food banks, Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services), all education levels, and prevents the state from ever fixing Ohio's school funding formula and the system's over-reliance upon property taxes to pay for education."

The Ohio Senate also voted on House Bill 312 which was amended to allow the TEL issue committee to formally remove the measure from the November ballot. House Bill 312 originally increased the number of handicapped parking spaces at polling locations. The final vote for the amended HB 312 was 24-8, but not without several amendments offered by Senate Democrats to improve the bill. The Democratic caucus offered the following series of amendments today to HB 312:

Require the Secretary of State to remove his/her likeness from all materials distributed to voters regarding registering to vote or voting rights, if he/she is running for public office
Require that the Secretary of State can not be the tie breaker if there is a vote recount and if he/she is one of the candidate's in the race
Require random audits for electronic voting machines
Delay the effective date of House Bill 3's voter identification requirements until the primary election in May 2007
Include a provision that would sunset the TEL ballot petition removal language to December 2007
Require that all petitioners be notified of ballot committees' intention to remove language from ballot, also requires 10 percent of petitioners to support decision to remove language from ballot

"Ken Blackwell's constitutional amendment was poorly written and ill-advised from the get go," Senator Prentiss said. "Let's face it, we are here today voting on these measures to clean up a mess he and his Republican party created. For more than a decade, Republicans have been in control of the state's spending. They've shifted the tax burden away from the wealthy and big corporations and onto middle-class families. They are admitting they have failed by putting this into a bill and saving Blackwell who has criticized them for the last decade."

Senator Prentiss continued, "Passing legislation which allows TEL to be removed from the ballot proves that it was a flawed ballot initiative. This is nothing more than a bait and switch on the behalf of Ken Blackwell. It's a political decision. Meanwhile he has angered Ohioans who supported the TEL and who now feel their signatures can be walked over by the legislature. That is not democracy."