There's a good chance Ohio lawmakers will be in Columbus late into Wednesday evening, with more than 50 bills getting a vote between the House and Senate chambers.
June 26 is the last session on the schedule before the legislature goes on recess through summer, which has historically meant it鈥檚 also the last chance to move bills until after the November election鈥攊n which many lawmakers are running for reelection.
The big agenda item in both chambers is to pass the biennial capital appropriations budget that has gone through months of negotiations. It puts $4.2 billion total toward infrastructure projects, including a $700 million package of one-time funds that come from excess money during the latest fiscal year. John Fortney, spokesperson for the Senate majority caucus, said the slew of appropriations are now largely set in stone.
But 32 unrelated bills are scheduled for a vote on the Ohio House floor.
They include House Bill , which would reclassify nuclear energy as green energy, and House Bill on energy efficiency. Also on deck for a House vote are Senate Bill , dealing with Medicaid daily rates among other health care measures; Senate Bill , enabling human trafficking survivors to erase some criminal records; and House Bill , making the walleye the official state fish.
On Tuesday morning, lawmakers also rolled a number of different bills鈥攊ncluding the CAMPUS Act, a recent bipartisan proposal $4 million to security and student safety grants for protests at public colleges鈥攊nto Senate Bill .
Senate Bill is not on the House schedule. The partisan legislation to concerns conservatives have about higher education cleared the Senate more than a year ago and is stalled in the House.
When asked Tuesday, House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) said he didn't know anything about whether it would come forward via a floor amendment.
鈥淚t's been a bill that was introduced a year ago,鈥� Stephens said. 鈥淎 lot of events in the world have changed and I think some of the things could be changed in it.鈥�
The Senate will set its schedule late Wednesday morning.
But senators will vote on two dozen or more items, Fortney said Tuesday afternoon. Senate President Matt Huffman told his colleagues during a rules and reference committee hearing Tuesday that session will last 鈥渕ost of the day鈥� and 鈥渕ost of the evening.鈥�
Changes to the state's cannabis law could be among the votes Wednesday. But lawmakers have yet to successfully enact changes to the initiated statute ratified by voters last year.