SENTINEL-TRIBUNE
Thursday, July 17, 1997

Politics overshadow education policy debate
By Paul Souhrada

COLUMBUS - In the midst of the legislative wrangling over a new school funding plan, a top Senate Democrat got a lesson in Politics 101 - never put in writing anything your opponents can use against you.

Sen. Leigh Herington of Kent learned the hard way Wednesday after Republicans got hold of a memo he wrote to Senate Minority Leader Ben Espy and leaked it to the media. In the memo, Herington had urged his colleagues to oppose Gov. George Voinovich’s school funding proposal as a way to gain political advantage in next year’s elections.

“It is imperative that we distinguish our program from that of the Republicans and that we not give up our political advantage by agreeing to their program,” Herington wrote.

He added that his strategy would “significantly enhance the chances of the Democrats recapturing the governor’s office, the Apportionment Board, the Attorney General’s Office and the House and the Senate.”

Republicans were quick to jump on the memo and accuse Democrats of playing political games with the future of Ohio’s children and refusing to come up with a solution of their own.

Unfair, Herington countered.

“Even if we came out with a ‘Plan B,’ do you think they’re going to accept it? We want to be at the table, but they won’t let us.”

Herington said the memo was merely a collection of his personal thoughts, not a caucus position. Republicans, meanwhile, faced political problems of their own. The president of the conservative public policy group that successfully campaigned for term limits and against the casino gambling initiative warned the Senate Finance Committee that his group may oppose a ballot initiative to increase the state sales tax to raise $1 billion a year for schools.

“Tax increases without tax-payer protection is a formula for disaster,” said David Zanotti, president of the Ohio Roundtable Freedom Forum.

Zanotti urged Republican legislative leaders to reconsider a decision to dump a proposed constitutional amendment that would take the courts out of the debate over what constitutes a “thorough and efficient” system of education.

The Ohio Supreme Court angered conservatives when it tossed out the current school financing system, and Zanotti wants the Legislature to reassert its control over the issue. Republican leaders in the House and Senate, however, say there is no way they could win the support of enough lawmakers to place the issue on the November ballot.

But rather than try to gather enough signatures to win a ballot spot for the issue itself, Zanotti said his group would spend its money on candidates who will support its position - and on challengers to the four Supreme Court justices who voted against the current school funding system.