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Ohio House Speaker Supports Pay Hike for Elected Officials

photo of Ryan Smith
DAN KONIK
/
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU
Smith added that he believes lawmakers will have a better relationship with the DeWine administration than Kasich's.

State lawmakers could return during their holiday break to override expected vetoes on the so-called Heartbeat Bill abortion ban and on the Stand Your Ground self-defense bill, though they did remove a provision Gov. John Kasich didn’t like.

The Republican leader of the House is suggesting there may be another veto in the works that they could push back on.

Speaker Ryan Smith told a statewide gathering of county commissioners that he’s backing a plan to hike the pay of all local, county and state officials and state lawmakers starting next year. But he said Kasich might oppose it.

“It’s also not welcomed by this administration that we take on a pay raise bill right now – probably to the extent that they’ll try to veto that,” he said.

And Smith suggested that the relationship state lawmakers will have with incoming governor Mike DeWine will be better than the one with Kasich.

“I think the conversation going forward is going to be much more amenable to how we can do things together instead of just being told how we’re going to do it.”

Lawmakershave overridden 12 vetoes in the last two years, and Smith is hinting that they won’t try to override any of Kasich’s 36 remaining vetoes, but could be called back to override new ones.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.