Columbus Update: Sen. Cates Edition

A couple of stories involving our state Senator Gary Cates hit my e-mailbox that I wanted to share. Up first, is this piece from the Columbus Dispatch on the teacher license bill that Cates has championed:

After some tweaks, the Senate Education Committee voted to support the proposal by Sen. Gary Cates, R-West Chester. The full Senate is expected to act on the bill this afternoon.

Cates said the legislation is a “very responsible and meaningful response” to a Dispatch investigation this past fall that found Ohio's teacher-discipline system was allowing many teachers convicted of crimes to continue working in the classroom.

“Nothing we do will ever be foolproof,” Cates said. “But I'm optimistic (the bill will) protect our school children from people who may do them harm.”

Senate Bill 270 would require a school district to immediately remove a teacher from the classroom if he or she is charged with one of more than 80 criminal offenses — the same crimes that prevent a person from obtaining a teacher license in Ohio.

If the teacher is convicted, the State Department of Education automatically would revoke the person's license. That way, Cates said, law-breaking teachers could not work in another unsuspecting school.

Regular readers of WMD know that I am pretty critical of the Catholic Church sweeping their problems under the rug, but does it surprise us to find out that our government schools are doing similar?

The other piece comes from the Canton Repository and asks the age old question: "How many legislators does it take to change a lightbulb?"

Before the Ohio Senate voted unanimously to approve the latest version of Senate Bill 221 — the state's new energy regulations — state Sen. Robert Schuler explained some of the changes made by the House.

The much debated and controversial bill was proposed by the governor, changed by the Senate and then went through many versions in the House before returning to the Senate.

Schuler, a Cincinnati Republican who managed the bill in the Senate, held up an old-fashioned incandescent light bulb he said was given to him in 1999, the last time the Legislature went through electric regulation.

Then he held up a new energy-efficient light bulb given to him by state Sen. Gary Cates, R-West Chester.

The question, Schuler said, was how many legislators does it take to change a light bulb?

"I think it takes 132 (99 representatives and 33 senators)," Schuler told the chamber, "with a lot of help from the staff."

That explains a LOT...