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Joe
Uecker
State
Representative
02/05/07
Priorities and Committees:
Gearing up for the new 127th General Assembly,
the Republican Caucus, still the House Majority, met for a
legislative retreat last week. This retreat consisted of
two and a half days of intense policy making, analysis,
and brainstorming. It was fascinating and at times very
intense. Everyone had an opportunity to bring up their
ideas for legislation and in the end we compiled ideas and
determined priority bills.
We also had the opportunity to have dinner with the new
Governor and meet his cabinet members that he has
appointed so far. Governor Strickland appears to be a
good hearted person with a pretty good sense of humor. So
far has made a couple of promises I hope he keeps. He is
fully aware of the limited amount of revenues he has to
work with for the new budget he is preparing and to that
end he has stated that he will not be raising taxes nor
will he allow his various departments to raise their
fees. This is a surprisingly good start.
Another position he agrees with the Republicans is the
elimination of state income tax on military pension
income. This was set to be one of our top priority bills
and it seems the new Governor has beaten us to the punch
by announcing his position at a recent press conference.
This income on military pensions tends to drive our
military retirees out of Ohio and into the arms of other
states that already exempt veterans. I whole heartedly
embraced this suggestion for legislation.
We discussed many other topics of interest that we will be
pursuing over the next two years. From school funding to
school choice, from immigration to adoption reform, from
eminent domain to sales tax reciprocity between states,
these are but a few of the many topics we will be working
on for the next two years.
On the topic of school funding, our 2 hour slot of time
dedicated to brainstorming actually extended by popular
demand into a 6-hour session. We picked apart a couple of
ideas that have been passed around over that last few
years and have come up with a couple of good ideas and
compromises that deserve some very real attention. I look
forward to working on these.
As for committee assignments, I was very pleased with the
four committees I was assigned to. I was appointed to be
Vice-Chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and
Labor. There are some volatile bills coming up and I am
very interested to work with them. I have also been
assigned to the Local and Municipal Government and Urban
Revitalization Committee, the Pubic Utilities Committee,
and the Alternative Energy Committee. There are already
dozens of bills in the pipeline waiting for committee
hearings and I am looking forward to getting started.
It is going to be very different in Columbus for the next
few years and I take that to be a challenge to make sure
my district and Clermont County as a whole is well
represented. I’ll keep you informed!
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 |
