ALTHOUGH it's a small item in the context of Ohio's new, $52 billion budget, the state's long-time utility watchdog has finally shaken off a legal leash that kept it from fielding consumer complaints by telephone for much of the past two years.
Gov. Ted Strickland, diligent legislators like Rep. Peter Ujvagi, of Toledo, and even the suddenly cooperative Republican leadership of the General Assembly should be commended for this move.
A provision in the massive budget bill will restore the authority - effective Oct. 1 - of the Office of Consumers' Counsel to resume operation of a toll-free hotline to take complaints about investor-owned utilities that supply electricity, natural gas, telephone services, and water to Ohioans.
The Consumers' Counsel has represented the interests of state residents in utility matters for more than 30 years, but the hotline was cut in 2005 in a snit of anti-consumerism on the part of Rep. Tom Raga (R., Mason), one of the legislature's right-wing doctrinairians.
Mr. Raga claimed that he was only trying to save the state money, but that was a bogus argument because the agency is primarily funded not by taxpayer dollars but by assessments on utility companies.
Mr. Ujvagi introduced a bill to restore the hotline authority and, like many recurrent legislative efforts, it found refuge in the budget, which was signed into law last Saturday by the governor.This is one more sign, albeit a small one, that the atmosphere in Columbus has changed now that Mr. Strickland, a Democrat, occupies the governor's office after 16 years of Republican rule. GOP leaders, who still control the legislature, no longer have the unfettered ability to simply ram through pet initiatives as they once did.
In short, the era of one-party rule is over. The art of compromise is again a valued part of the legislative process, and the people of Ohio are likely to be better served from a policy standpoint.
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