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By their bills you shall know them.
One good measure of an active, effective lawmaker is his or her ability to offer legislation and guide it through the process to become law.
To gauge Cincinnati's delegation in the Ohio General Assembly, we studied how many pieces of legislation each legislator submitted as principal sponsor during calendar year 1997 and tracked how these measures fared.
The chart below lists the results, along with each legislator's "batting average" - the percentage of 1997 bills that have become law. Results are complete as of June 2, the end of the legislature's spring session.
Some cautions:
Submitting or passing a large number of bills doesn't automatically make one a top-notch legislator. Crafting a few good laws is better than churning out dozens of unnecessary ones, and sometimes a legislator's best contribution may be preventing bad bills from becoming law.
A lack of bill production isn't necessarily bad. As Senate President, Sen. Richard Finan has submitted no legislation - but he runs the whole show. Others, as committee chairs and in other leadership posts, influence a wide range of bills.
A low pass rate doesn't mean failure. Some members excel in creating ideas that wind up in other bills, or in improving bills through amendments. Former Rep. Mike Fox, who resigned from the House in September 1997, submitted nearly as many bills as the rest of the Cincinnati-area House delegation put together. Not a single one passed - but many of his ideas bore fruit in other bills and in the legislative debate.
Party affiliation matters. Republicans control both houses of the General Assembly, so Democrats have a difficult time getting any of their measures past committee.
GOP domination in Columbus also helps explain why the Southwestern Ohio delegation - 16 Republicans out of 19 - has a higher pass rate than the legislature in general.
Several members have bills that are pending a final passage or Gov. George Voinovich's signature, so many of these totals should rise this fall.
Bills submitted during 1998 weren't included, because hasn't been sufficient time for them to go through the process. General Assembly sessions are scheduled to resume in mid-September.
Sources: Ohio Legislative Service Commission; Enquirer archives. Enquirer research by Ray Cooklis
