FINDING: Ohio’s democracy and state government face serious challenges, including public corruption, a flagging economy, and relatively low levels of educational attainment.

For several years, the Republican Party has enjoyed a position of total dominance in state politics in Ohio. Governor Taft completes his second four-year term in 2006, extending GOP control of the Governor’s office to sixteen consecutive years. All of the other statewide administrative offices were held by the Republicans: Auditor Betty Montgomery, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, Attorney General Jim Petro, and Treasurer Jennette Bradley. Indeed, Republicans have held all of these offices from 1995 through 2006. Republicans also control both chambers of the state legislature by comfortable margins — the House by 60 to 38 and the Senate 22 to 11 — and control of both chambers dates back to 1995. The Ohio Supreme Court is composed of six Republicans and one Democrat, while both United States Senators and 12 of the 18 Ohioans in the U.S. House of Representatives are also Republicans.

As is often the case with one-party control over an extended time period, allegations of scandal and corruption have become widespread, touching officeholders such as the Governor, a former state Treasurer, a former Speaker of the House, and the Attorney General. In 2005, the Governor pleaded guilty to four charges of failing to report gifts, and other officeholders were alleged to have engaged in improper, heavy-handed fundraising practices.

Probably the most serious scandals surrounded Tom Noe, a well-connected Republican businessman, who ran afoul of both federal and state law, as described more fully below in the “Campaign Finance” section of this report. Yet another Ohio scandal involved U.S. Representative Bob Ney, the first target in the ongoing investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his activities. On September 15, 2006, Representative Ney reportedly agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and making a false statement in connection with the Abramoff matter.

All of these specific misdeeds have unfolded in a state in which the ethical climate is often labeled as “pay to play.” The most general definition of “pay to play” is that the best way to secure state contracts, appointments, favorable regulations, and the like is to contribute financially to the party in power. While such contributions may not be illegal, they raise concerns that state decisions are swayed by the flow of money.

Adding to the sour mood of many Ohioans is a state economy that lags behind the national economy in job creation and wage growth. As a major manufacturing state, Ohio has suffered job loss due to foreign competition and globalization, resulting in a greatly diminished steel industry and an automobile industry facing severe challenges. At a time when enhanced educational opportunity and achievement are seen as the best response to global challenges and the best path to a productive life and career, Ohio has experienced problems in the funding of both lower and higher education. Multiple decisions of the Ohio Supreme Court have declared the funding system for primary and secondary education unconstitutional, in part because of its excessive reliance on the property tax. Meanwhile, tuition at Ohio’s public universities is among the highest in the nation.

These funding problems serve as a backdrop to another problem: Ohio is an undereducated state, with the educational attainments of its 25 and over population consistently below the national averages, no matter how one measures educational achievement. One reason for this gap is that when well-paying manufacturing jobs were plentiful, Ohioans did not need a college degree or in many cases even a high school diploma to get these jobs. But as these jobs disappeared, many Ohioans found themselves unprepared for the new economy.

The task of addressing these major challenges is even more daunting due to the adoption of eight-year term limits in 1992, which had their first impact in 2000. The conventional wisdom about the impact of term limits is that they tend to strengthen the executive branch at the expense of the legislature, mainly because of the loss of legislative expertise and memory. It appears that the conventional wisdom was correct in most states, but not in Ohio where most observers believe that the Governor was the loser because of term limits. This outcome may be a function of the political skills (or lack thereof) of the present Governor and the political abilities of the first House Speaker of the term limits era. Whatever the reason, it meant that strong gubernatorial leadership has been absent, leading to a rural-oriented legislature dominating policy discussions of many issues.

FINDING: Ohio’s tradition of regionalism impedes the state government’s ability to address the state’s pressing needs, including development of a comprehensive urban agenda.

Policymaking and governance in Ohio are complicated by the state’s longstanding regionalism. More than 50 years ago, Ohio was the only state in the nation to have eight cities with populations in excess of 100,000 — Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Youngstown, and Canton. Located in various parts of the state, these cities were known as the “eight that made the state great.”

Today many of these cities, with the major exception of Columbus, have lost ground in population and economic growth, but they still anchor distinct regions of the state. Surrounding these cities are first ring suburbs, some of which are doing well, others less so. Surrounding these older suburbs are some rapidly growing exurban communities and outlying counties. Ohio has very distinctive rural areas, some reasonably prosperous in western Ohio and others quite poor in the Appalachian region of southeastern Ohio. In this respect, Ohio politics is more complicated than that of a state like Illinois, divided between the Chicago/Cook County area and downstate areas, or a state like New York, divided between New York City and upstate areas. In Ohio, every region has its own interests, distinct from those of every other area.

The regionalism of the state has many consequences. For example, it is difficult to create a common urban agenda since the cities themselves are so different. Columbus is a prosperous white collar community, while Youngstown is a declining manufacturing city. Cleveland’s ethnic and racial tapestry resembles many of the older cities of the East Coast, while Cincinnati has more of a southern influence. Running for statewide office in Ohio is difficult because of the state’s complexity. If one wants to blanket the entire state with television ads, it may be necessary to buy air time in as many as six media markets including one in West Virginia. A maxim of Ohio politics is that the first time a candidate runs for statewide office, he or she is likely to lose because of the difficulty in mastering the diversity of the state. Having learned how complex the state is, the candidate may be more successful the second time around.

Policymaking is also more challenging in Ohio, since each region wants its share of the pie and the legislative delegations from these regions often fight hard for their share. Even higher education can be viewed as part of the pork barrel. There are six publicly funded medical schools in Ohio — an almost unheard of total for a state of Ohio’s size — in the northwest, northeast, central, southeast, southwest, and west central areas of the state. When proposals were made to eliminate duplicative Ph.D. programs at Ohio’s thirteen publicly funded four-year universities, regional warfare broke out. The broader issue of the allocation of state resources led the Toledo Blade to lead a movement called “The Other Ohio” in the 1990s. Its aim was to unite the rest of Ohio against the three C’s — Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati — on the grounds that the three C’s got the bulk of the state dollars while the other areas received mere crumbs.

The regionalism of the state also makes it more difficult to establish a statewide agenda. Each of the regions and major cities has its own significant daily newspaper. But these newspapers are not read widely outside of their own major circulation areas. When one newspaper has a major investigative series on some problems in state government, the other newspapers may ignore these stories or perhaps run short wire service stories. One exception to this pattern occurred in 2005 and 2006 when after the Toledo Blade took the lead in investigating and exposing corruption in Ohio, other newspapers, especially the Columbus Dispatch, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Dayton Daily News, acknowledged the work of the Blade and added their own investigation and coverage. This had the effect of making ethics and corruption a more serious concern than would otherwise have been the case.

FINDING: A hallmark of Ohio’s political culture is the major political parties’ success in using public offices to serve their own partisan interests.

The State of Ohio faces major challenges as it elects its new leadership team in 2006. Whoever is elected will have to face the long-term reality of how business has traditionally been conducted in state politics. Governance has focused largely on the spoils of victory, how to reward one’s friends, and how to stay in office, rather than on overarching policy debates. States with such individualistic politics are more likely to experience graft and corruption, partly because the dominant party sometimes overreaches — especially if it controls all branches of governments and has enjoyed control for a long period of time. Victorious parties and their supporters are rewarded with tangible benefits, such as jobs, contracts, and favorable public policies, while the interests of ordinary citizens may be disregarded.

In the electoral arena, this political culture leads the major parties to undermine minor parties and independent candidates. For example, Ohio made it more difficult than most states for independent candidates to get on the ballot. Back in 1968, George Wallace and his American Independent Party successfully challenged Ohio’s signature requirements in the United States Supreme Court. Even today, it is more difficult for independent candidates to gain access to the ballot in Ohio than in other states. And of course the major parties also attempt to enhance their competitive position with respect to each other, through redistricting and other means discussed later in this report.

In Ohio, it is not considered surprising when elected judges decide cases in favor of the political and economic interests of the political parties with which they are affiliated. In fact, there is more likely to be an outcry when a judge does not decide a case in his/her own party’s interest. Two Republican judges (Andy Douglas and Paul Pfeifer) on the seven-member Ohio Supreme Court were attacked as traitors by their fellow Republicans and the business community — for example, when they voted to declare the funding of primary and secondary education to be unconstitutional and to overturn Republican-passed legislation dealing with tort reform and workers compensation. Likewise, no one is shocked when the Secretary of State breaks two-two ties on county boards of elections in favor of his own political party.

The composition of many state boards and commissions is statutorily defined as being from the major parties. The Ohio Ethics Commission has three Democrats and three Republicans, with no independents or unaffiliated Ohioans. Each of the public universities has a board of trustees appointed by the Governor. It is taken as a given that the Governor will typically appoint members from his own political party, often ones who have supported the Governor’s election campaigns. In the past, Ohioans renewed their driver’s licenses and automobile plates through registrars who were political appointees — and kicked back some income to the dominant political party.

One can add endless examples of how the major political parties look out for their own interests and, in particular, how the dominant party tries to game the political system to its advantage. There is probably no better example than the issue of legislative redistricting, the topic to which we now turn.