Ohio General Assembly
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The Ohio General Assembly is the state legislature of the
U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. It consists of the 99-member
Ohio House of Representatives The Ohio House of Representatives is the lower house of the Ohio General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio; the other house of the bicameral legislature being the Ohio Senate. The House of Representatives first met in ...
and the 33-member Ohio Senate. Both houses of the General Assembly meet at the
Ohio Statehouse The Ohio Statehouse is the state capitol building and seat of government for the U.S. state of Ohio. The Greek Revival building is located on Capitol Square in Downtown Columbus. The capitol houses the Ohio General Assembly, consisting of the H ...
in
Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio Columbus may also refer to: Places ...
.


Legislative agencies

The Legislative Service Commission is one of several legislative agencies. It serves as a source for legal expertise and staffing and drafts proposed legislation, also helps serve as an advertisement to the general public as to what is happening inside the assembly.


History

The General Assembly first convened in Chillicothe, then the Ohio capital, on March 1, 1803. The second
constitution of Ohio The Constitution of the State of Ohio is the basic governing document of the State of Ohio, which in 1803 became the 17th state to join the United States of America. Ohio has had three constitutions since statehood was granted. Ohio was created ...
, effective in 1851, took away the power of the General Assembly to choose the state's executive officers, granting that right to the voters. A complicated formula apportioned legislators to Ohio counties and the number of seats in the legislative houses varied from year-to-year. ''The Ohio Politics Almanac'' by Michael F. Curtin (Kent State University Press) described apportionment thus:
The new
851 __NOTOC__ Year 851 ( DCCCLI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Asia * Bagrat II Bagratuni, Armenian prince and leader of a rebellion against the Abbasi ...
constitution ... contained a complicated formula for apportionment, the so-called "major fraction rule." Under it, the state's population was divided by 100, with the resulting quotient being the ratio of representation in the House of Representatives. Any county with a population equal to at least half the ratio was entitled to one representative; a county with a population of less than half the ratio was grouped with an adjacent county for districting; a county containing a population of at least one and three-fourths the ratio was entitled to two representatives; a county with a population equal to three times the ratio was entitled to three representatives. To determine Senate districts, a similar procedure was followed; the starting point, however was figured by dividing the state's population by 35. The ratios for the House and Senate and the resulting apportionment was determined by a board consisting of the governor, auditor, and secretary of state.
In 1903, the apportionment system was modified by the Hanna amendment, which also gave the
governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
veto power over the assembly's acts, which could be overridden by a two-thirds vote of both houses. The last state constitutional convention, held in 1912, gave the governor a
line-item veto The line-item veto, also called the partial veto, is a special form of veto power that authorizes a chief executive to reject particular provisions of a bill enacted by a legislature without vetoing the entire bill. Many countries have different ...
, but reduced the supermajority required for overriding the veto to three-fifths. In 1956, a referendum increased the terms of state senators from two to four years. The Hanna amendment (which guaranteed each county at least one representative and all members elected at large) guaranteed that rural areas of Ohio would dominate the legislature. However, several decisions by the
U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
surrounding the legal principal of
one man, one vote "One man, one vote", or "one person, one vote", expresses the principle that individuals should have equal representation in voting. This slogan is used by advocates of political equality to refer to such electoral reforms as universal suffrage, ...
mandated apportionment proportional to population. Reapportionment was ordered in 1964. Starting with the 1966 election, the number of seats in the two chambers were fixed at their present numbers of 33 and 99.
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
activists, led by Fred A. Lennon, began pursuing term limits in the 1980s, in 1992, a referendum set
term limits A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potenti ...
of eight consecutive years in office: four consecutive terms in the House or two consecutive terms in the Senate. Years in office are considered consecutive if they are separated by less than four years. A former member of the legislature who had served eight years becomes eligible for election to the legislature after four years out of office.


Vacancies

The Ohio House and Ohio Senate use slightly different methods to fill vacant seats. In both chambers, a replacement is first elected by the members of the relevant chamber who are affiliated with the same party as the departing member. In the House, the replacement will serve for the remainder of the term. In the Senate, the replacement will serve for the remainder of the term only if the vacancy occurred after the first 20 months of the four-year Senate term. If the vacancy occurred during the first 20 months of the term, then a special election will be held during the next regularly-scheduled even-year statewide election. The replacement selected by the party members will then serve until the end of December following the special election, with the winner serving the remainder of the term.


See also

*
Representative history of the Ohio Senate The Ohio Senate has elected members from 33 districts since 1967. Currently, each district consists of approximately 345,000 Ohioans. Defunct districts Until 1982, the 31st District existed in the eastern Cleveland metro, dating to 1967. It was ...
*
Representative history of the Ohio House of Representatives The electoral history of each district in the Ohio House of Representatives can be traced from 1966 to the present. Originally, The 851constitution ... contained a complicated formula for apportionment, the so-called "major fraction rule." Under i ...
* List of Ohio state legislatures


References


Further reading

* * * * *


External links


Official Ohio General Assembly Website
{{Authority control Government of Ohio Bicameral legislatures