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Joe
Uecker
State
Representative
12/22/06
This General Assembly closed and started
The Ohio Core
The 126th General Assembly officially closed
this past week and with it many good pieces of legislation
that simply did not have enough time to get through. A
couple of those now dead bills I had sponsored but two
very important pieces of legislation did get through that
I initiated. The first of my bills to make it all the way
through both Houses was HB 251, the State’s Energy
Efficiency Policy. This bill sets the official policy of
energy conservation for the State of Ohio. It starts by
requiring all public buildings funded in whole or in part
with state dollars to follow certain energy efficiency
guidelines. The entire process for this bill required the
cooperation and patience of several state departments and
bureaucracies that did come together in a rather
unprecedented way. This bill awaits the Governor’s
signature sometime next week.
The second bill that I sponsored that made it through to
the end is House Bill 443, the Ohio Department of Natural
Resources Omnibus bill. This became a very large and
complex bill full of mostly text changes to update current
laws that govern how the Department of Natural Resources
works. It will help them to become more efficient and
manage in a more modern way. I am looking forward to this
bill signing as well because it took up many hours of work
to get through. At one point on the second last day of
session, I was running (not just walking fast) from the
House session floor during voting to the Senate Committee
Hearing room to give testimony and had to run back to vote
again. It was a maddening day and night as that session
went until 1:00 A.M.
While there were several contentious bills up for votes at
the very end, one that gets a lot of media attention is SB
311, The Ohio Core bill. By re-prioritizing what high
schools are supposed to teach to better prepare graduates
for college and life, this bill works to raise the core
academic standards for every high school graduate. Did you
know that 40 percent of Ohio college freshmen must take
remedial math or English before they can even begin
coursework toward a college degree? For many students
that's simply a waste of time and money. It's a waste of
taxpayers' money if you think about the originating end.
What will the Ohio Core cost? With $120 million planned
to be spent over the next 5 years to recruit new teachers
and to help retrain existing ones, this can hardly be
called an “unfunded mandate”. Because it increases the
number of math and science courses (but the number of
units needed to graduate remains the same), some schools
will have to use some creativity and also make use of
current high tech solutions such as distant learning.
The list of those who endorse this legislation of more
rigorous standards for our children to achieve include
those in both private industry as well as school
administrators and most importantly, parents polled were
in favor of this 2 to1. This bill is good for our
children, good for those in my district, and good for
Ohio. I was proud to vote in favor of it.
The last bill we worked on was another portion of campaign
finance reform. If you heard it once you heard it a
thousand times by the democrat opposition, “we must stop
this culture of corruption, the idea of pay to play”. This
surrounded allegations that the Governor and Attorney
Generals’ office awards contracts to high end
contributors. To combat this, we passed a bill that puts
severe limits on those types of contributions. It passed
along party lines 53 to 32…with the democrats voting
against it.
Thus ended the 126th General Assembly. See you
next year. Have a safe and happy New Year!
As always, if you have any questions, concerns, or
comments about any item in this article, please give me a
call or drop me a line.
Joe
Uecker
State
Representative
Ohio’s
66 District
Representing
Batavia, Goshen, Miami and Union Townships as well as the
Cities of Loveland and Milford and the Villages of Batavia
and Amelia.
Columbus Phone:
614-466-8134
Email:
Joe@JoeUecker.com
Website:
http://JoeUecker.com |
