Minority Democrats in the state legislature have long called for more transparency from Majority Republicans and GOP Governor John Kasich. So they have made some transparency proposals augmenting the governor's budget update. Ohio Public Radio's Andy Chow reports.
House Democrats say Ohio’s growing distrust of government is what spurred them to unveil several provisions in order to expand transparency and accountability.
This includes creating more user-friendly public records laws and requiring all House and Senate committees, which are dominated by Republicans, to be televised.
Of course, when Democrats talk about transparency, especially in an election year, you can be sure that the public-private development group JobsOhio will come up. Democratic Representative John Patrick Carney of Columbus says there are too many unknown variables when it comes to JobsOhio records.
Carney: “If you are a citizen in this state you should be livid about the fact that your government right now—your elected Republican leaders—think that you should trust but not verify the manner in which they’re spending your money.”
JobsOhio has said that it’s a very transparent organization as far as nonprofits go and refers to the amount of documentation it’s required to report.
The House Democrats have brought forward these proposals before, but say they’d like to see them added as amendments to the governor’s budget update.