Since our constitutional government is failing to the point of a shutdown: Let's get rid of the Senate!

With it's staggered terms and now constitutional terms limits, the State Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body that is further removed from the shifting passions of the electorate as House.  As George Washington described in discussing the U.S. Senate, it is the saucer that cools hot public sentiment eminating from the House in policymaking.

Ohio is overdue on its constitutionally required two-year budget.  The Governor has gone back to the drawing board to indicate what changes he's willing to make to reconcile the House and Senate en passe.  The majority leadership in the House seems willing to take that course of action.  The State Senate is doing that other notorious things Senates do: deliberate without deciding... fillibuster the whole mess.  (The State Senate is literally talking Ohio to death.)

Ohio cannot afford to continue to pass temporary budgets that continue the spending levels that need to be cut to balance the budget.  Schools need to know how much money in state aid they are going to receive when the school buses start ruining Ohio children's summer next month.

The Senate GOP leadership is saying "No" to the Governor's plan to fill the revenue gap by expanding slot machines at Ohio's horse racetracks, but they have offered no real alternative than to punt the issue for another year.

This is exactly not what the framers had in mind for the kind of leadership the Senate, in particular, would provide.  The staggered Senate terms which are longer than the House terms is supposed to permit the Senate to make the hard choices-- additional cuts or find a way to increase revenues (taxes or gambling--which is nothing more than a tax on those think they'll win on less odds than they expect to be struck dead by lightning).

An associate of mine heard that a group was thinking about a constitutional amendment to reduce the already part-time General Assembly's hours since they obviously have too much time on the hands to actually deal with the essential tasks of governing.  Let me propose something else instead: eliminate the Ohio Senate altogether.  The distance from the voting public has not made the Senate wiser in making public policy, just more the entrenched representives of the political lobbying class.  The fact that a legislative body with staggered terms and bountiful lame ducks cannot find the political will to reach an agreement on a state budget is an indictment to Ohio's need of a bicamercal legislature.  Other than the fact that the federal government has one, why does Ohio have a State legislature.  And since when did the party of the 10th Amendment believe that state government should look to the federal government as a model of efficient and wise governing? Come on Republicans, by giving up your last bastion of control, you'd show you're willing to put reform over your political self-interests.  Hell, even I'd consider starting to support Republicans if you did that for a change.

Nebraska is already an unicameral legisative state.  Last month, Maine's House passed a bill to put the issue to voters in 2010.  Ohio could be third in line of innovation in the laboratories of democracy that is our State governments.

A part-time legislature governing a population the size of Ohio does not need an internal legislative check on top of the checks among the separation of power to keep the legislature under control.  That's a job for voters.  After all, the refusal to take an active role in keeping the legislature in check is exactly why Ohio has a balanced budget constitutional and legislative term limit amendments.  A constitutional amendment creating an unicameral legislature is the next step.

The average rank-and-file State Senator makes $60,000 a year.  Eliminating the Senate would easily save the State over $4 million in legislative salaries alone in this budget, not counting employee benefits like health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, disability insurance, and retirement benefits.  Then there's the Senators' staff.  Poof!  More savings!  Then there's the office supplies (all that paper!  So 19th century!), the clerk's office, etc.  Heck, we could probably fully fund every library just on the printing and postage spent on Senator's newsletters to their constituents alone (unlike their federal colleagues, the State Senate does not have franking privileges.)  Then there's the revenues that could be generated from renting out their vacant office spaces and parking spots.  Why, with 33 less state legisltive races, there'd be less money influencing politics, too!

Ohio doesn't need a State Senate.  You can tell Ohio's founders didn't expect the Senate to survive long.  They only built one rotundra and the building for the Senate offices were built away from the General Assembly.  A fact that they memorialized during the 1996 renovations by placing a pigeon statute in honor of all the birds that, literally, reguarly defecated on the State Senators on their way to and from the Senate chamber (perhaps it was a divine omen?)  Besides, what downsized Ohioan is going to oppose a constitutional amendment to downsize of 33 politicians with one vote?

In so doing, they could take cues from the inspiration leadership(?) of Governor Sarah Palin who last week announced she would save the State the wasteful money being spent on investigating her abuses of executive power and resign... for the good of the taxpayer.  Ohio needs you to realize that Ohio doesn't need you.  Come on, State Senate.  If you truly love this State, you'd do it.  You aren't more valuable than a library or a scholarship, and not even a slot machine at a horserace track.