The Ohio House plans to come back to the Statehouse next week to override three of Gov. Mike DeWine’s 67 vetoes on line items in the budget. Those three are all related to property taxes. But so far, the Senate has not set a date for an override session.
Lawmakers have until the end of the session next year to override vetoes. But the pressure may be on to deal with those related to property taxes, with the next round of tax bills coming in January. The House will return for a veto override session on July 21. But Senate Finance Chair Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) said his chamber won't be meeting on that date.
“It's a matter of corralling all the members, many of whom are on vacation. Some people are probably out of the country," Cirino said in an interview for "The State of Ohio". "We might need to be coming back to later in July, or possibly even early in August.”
The House will hold its override session in the Senate, because of maintenance work on the air conditioning system in the House chamber.
The House plans to take up three of DeWine's four property-tax related vetoes: provisions allowing county budget commissions to reduce voter approved levies, requiring emergency and other levies to be used when calculating the 20-mill floor that is the effective tax rate, and limiting districts’ power to ask for emergency levies. But representatives won’t take up the veto on the limit of property tax that districts can hold at 40% of their operating budgets, with the rest refunded to taxpayers. Republican leaders had described that as immediate property tax relief, but districts have said would send many into financial chaos. They warned the provision could lead to more levies, which DeWine noted in his veto message.
It's unclear how much support there is among Republican lawmakers to override that veto. No Democrats voted for the budget, and a total of six Republicans voted against it: five in the House and Sen. Bill Blessing (R-Cincinnati).
"I haven't been doing a very recent vote counting, but I do think there was a lot of interest," Cirino said. "I'm not sure what the rationale is, as the House has stated, in terms of why they are not planning to pursue that one again. That's one of those things that perhaps that's something that is pursued at a later date. And again, I don't know the vote counts in the House, but obviously there's reasons why they're not bringing that one forward."
Cirino also said there are other vetoes that could be considered for overrides later.
"I don't know that there's a consensus yet within the Senate of which those are, and which ones are so important that we can't deal with either in other legislation separate from the budget bill, or that they are worthy of a veto override consideration," said Cirino. "We're still working through those issues right now."
DeWine has vetoed a total of 15 bills since 2019, and has issued 152 line-item vetoes in six bills, including all four budgets. Republican lawmakers have overriden two of DeWine's vetoes in the past: House Bill 68, which bans gender-affirming care for minors and trans athletes in girls' sports, and the line-item veto of a ban on local regulations of flavored tobacco products, which was in the previous budget. Legal battles continue over both the ban on gender-affirming care and the flavored tobacco products ban.
