Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman. (Photo by Morgan Trau, WEWS.)
Nearly five dozen advocacy groups in areas from reproductive rights to higher ed to voting rights have signed on to a letter opposing Ohio House rules for this General Assembly, including a ban on public gathering near the House chamber at certain times and decreasing public notice for floor votes.
The open letter — signed by 59 groups including Common Cause Ohio, Honesty for Ohio Education, Equality Ohio, Moms Demand Action on Common Gun Sense Laws, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, the YWCA of Columbus, the ACLU of Ohio, the Ohio Council of Churches, and the National Council of Jewish Women/Cleveland — claims that the new rules implemented in the Statehouse “blatantly attack Ohioans’ First Amendment rights to assemble and be heard at the People’s House.”
“Legislators should not be hiding from the constituents they claim to be representing,” the letter reads. “The House Rules package is a thinly veiled attempt at suppressing opposition voices in the People’s House.”
At the beginning of every general assembly, new rules are approved with the swearing-in of new leadership, and this year was no different. When the rules were first approved, Republicans said they would create more efficiency in legislative business, whereas Democrats questioned the transparency going forward with the new rules.
The new rules, passed by the legislature on Jan. 22 removed a provision that required the House Rules and Reference Committee to set the calendar for a session “not later than 24 hours before that session is scheduled to begin,” and changed the deadline requirements for amendments to a bill or resolution, reducing the deadline to one hour before a House session begins.
“The removal of the 24-hour notice deprives Ohioans of their right to assemble and have a say in the government we elect and pay for,” according to the advocates in the open letter.
The rules also state, as they have in the past, the Speaker “or presiding officer shall have general direction and control of the hall and shall provide for the security of the hall.”
“In case of any actual or anticipated disturbance or disorderly conduct in the galleries, lobby, rooms or hallways adjacent to the hall, the Speaker or presiding officer may order those places to be cleared.”
The rules also bar “signs, banners, placards and other similar demonstrative devices” from the chamber or adjacent galleries, lobbies, rooms, or hallways.
The area outside the House chamber will be off limits to anyone without floor privileges for 30 minutes before and after session, according to the new rules. Floor privileges are extended to representatives and House staff, along with media who hold credentials.
“The hallway outside the Ohio House Chamber has always been a critical space for free speech and direct engagement with elected officials,” the advocacy group letter stated. “This area is essential for the public to be involved with the laws that ultimately will impact them.”
Those hallways (and those outside the Senate that House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, presided over in the last legislative session) saw particular action over the past few years, as the legislature worked to pass, then override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of House Bill 68, a measure that banned gender-affirming care for minors in Ohio.
More recently, silent (and then not-so-silent) protests were used during a committee hearing for the controversial Senate Bill 1, a higher education bill to ban strikes by faculty and staff and “bias” in classrooms, among other things. The bill received significant pushback in the previous General Assembly as well, when it was Senate Bill 83, but couldn’t get across the finish line before the end of the two-year legislature.
A spokesperson for Speaker Huffman said members of the Ohio House “are committed to promoting safety and order in and out of House spaces.”
“Members of the public are still welcome to watch session in-person in the gallery,” press secretary Olivia Wile told the Capital Journal, adding that what she called the security changes made by Huffman are permitted in the House rules “to maintain a secure environment in and around the House chamber.”
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