We have all heard the analogy on the frog which ignores the water in which it is boiling, because the pot was fresh when it is mounted and the temperature was increased slowly without the frog noticing tiny temperature bumps.
The fact is that we are entering ridiculously untenable situations not in giant jumps but in series of barely noticeable steps.
My comrades Ohioans, we are frogs.
And our legislator is the boiling cauldron.
Now look at this column of boiling frogs in modern art.
Once upon a time in this state, we had legislators in good faith who proposed and adopted laws of the way we all grew up by learning the process. You know, the way they described in Schoolhouse Rock “I’m just a bill”, With committee audiences and many discussions. Anyone with an interest has had the possibility of weighing, to help refine the laws.
I must note here that in journalism, we are defenders of transparency. We write the process they sang on Schoolhouse Rock.
One of the advantages of the adoption of laws in a transparent way is that bad ideas are shredded by the public and experts in the matter. The controversy is based on bad ideas, and the legislators who push them realize that they will be held responsible and will deposit them. In a perfect world, only good legislation goes through this rigorous glove to become law.
Somewhere along the way, however, a legislator or two realized that they had an escape to pass their controversial ideas without public discharge. By inserting an idea or two in the state budget, they could adopt laws without audiences, experts or public discussion.
We should all have stopped this effort on its traces at the start. The constitution of Ohio has a unique rule, requiring distinct legislation for distinct ideas. But the legislators lied to us, saying that the terrible ideas they slipped into the budget had financial ramifications and were, in fact, budgetary. Any judicial reflection of the Supreme Court of Ohio should have seen through such nonsense and forced the legislators to follow the Constitution that they were sworn in to defend.
Instead, they got out. So they did a little more. And more. And more. Because the budget only occurs once every two years, the legislators have learned that they could do the same in their transport budget, the bills of credits and lame duck sessions, stacking several subjects in omnibus bills which have clearly violated the law of the country.
Once again, the Supreme Court should have arrested him, but the judges have become as accomplices as the governor to sign such reprehensible violations of the Constitution.
I do not know what was the first element of the twisted legislation, but I know that today, because the citizens of this state have never risen to stop this unconstitutional behavior, we are flooded terrible laws which have been adopted without transparency. No citizen had the chance to talk about them.
This is why I say that water is boiling. Year after year, our legislators have increased warmth a little, spending more and more illegal laws, and we have barely noticed citizens.
I will not provide the long list of laws that have been adopted in this way. We are publishing a story on Cleveland.com and the plain dealer to list a pile. But I want to discuss the thinnest of them, which says something, because there is a lot of competition.
Governor Mike Dewine, the Ohio Chamber and the Senate have separated much of this year secretly plotting and maneuvering to lend $ 600 million to the Cleveland Browns for their 2.4 billion dollars Stade Park plan. The team spends $ 1.2 billion. The rest comes from local loans or, perhaps, from the team itself.
As you may have heard. Cleveland opposed this move and did to court to arrest it, using the Art Modell law. (I told you that I would be my way to Modelll.) This law obliges the owners of professional sports teams to offer teams to sell before leaving their cities. Cleveland tried to force the owners of Browns Dee and Jimmy Haslam for sale.
In the middle of the night, Tuesday until Wednesday, at the 11th hour of writing the two -year budget of the State, our shady legislators rewritten the artistic law Modelll to say that it only applies if a team leaves the state. No discussion. No hearing. No chance for Cleveland to oppose. No shame.
Without regard to what Cleveland wants or how much he spent to protect his interests, the legislators acted as rodents, rushing at 1:30 am to do their damage.
Unique subject? How can you say that the MODELL artistic law is budgetary? But the legislators break the Constitution for so long and so boldly that they no longer even consider legality.
Make this even more ridiculous? The Modell law – sponsored by the Democrat of the Dennis Kucinich era – was also not adopted as a single legislation. It was included in a huge bill on credits in 1996. How long our legislature has violated the State Constitution. How long has it been supported.
So, yes, we are clearly the frogs in the analogy used in time. Are we never going to wake up the fact that we live in a state that bubbles with twisted legislators who repeatedly violate their oaths to maintain our constitution? Or will we continue to tell ourselves that water is very good?
I am at cinquin@cleveland.com
Thank you for reading
