...Sen. Robert F. Hagan, a Democrat from Youngstown, a state legislator since 1987, said he's never seen such sweeping policy changes spliced into so many bills during the final days of a session.
"Removing members from a committee to get the votes needed is unheard of in my 20 years here," Hagan said, referring to the House Speaker Jon Husted's attempt to get Gov. Bob Taft's CORE curriculum mandate passed by placing five handpicked loyalists on the House Education Committee, including two from the Cincinnati area.
Hagan said the Republican leadership of the General Assembly "hasn't heard the voters basically want bipartisan government," based on the Nov. 7 election results. "That cry is falling on deaf ears. I don't see compromise. I don't see bipartisanship. ... I just see people running roughshod over both houses of the legislature."
In my personal opinion, Husted is one politician who should be watched. He has been trying to get his pet projects done for his district before Strickland takes over.
**Ohioans applying for workers' compensation aren't feeling any love for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Comp, according to the Toledo Blade:
“People at the bureau handed out money like it was candy to their friends,” he said.
Mr. Switala has an intense personal interest in the agency, which sets rates and collects premiums from employers to pay medical bills and lost-wage benefits to more than a million injured workers in the state.
He is among the injured workers who claim that beyond the big headlines of the bureau’s scandal is a 16-year effort by two Republican governors to deny treatment and retraining to claimants so businesses can lower their costs....
... A decade after then-Gov. George Voinovich referred to the workers’ compensation system as the “silent killer of jobs,” many injured workers say their frustration about not being able to return to work is aggravated by bureaucrats and managed-care companies focused on making big bucks....
....Bureau critics say that the plight of injured workers has deepened because two Republican governors, George Voinovich and Bob Taft, have thrown the system out of balance to reward their business backers.
Mr. Taft had the opportunity to appoint his own bureau administrator-CEO when he took office in 1999, but he chose to keep James Conrad, whom Mr. Voinovich picked after persuading the GOP-controlled legislature to hand over control from an “independent” board to the governor.
“Taft did not have the sense or the backbone to get rid of Conrad,” said Henry Eckhart, a board member of Common Cause-Ohio, a watchdog group. “The claimants have suffered. That is what the employers liked, and the employers are the big contributors. They supported Voinovich and Taft. They wanted a pro-business BWC — and Conrad was it.”
Mr. Conrad, who was brought down by the rare-coin investment scandal, resigned in 2005. He did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment....
The Ohio Republicans have had a reverse Midas touch in this state. Everything they've touched has been corrupted, ruined, and destroyed.