HOUSE WILL VOTE ON RESIDENCY TODAY; WATCH DALE MILLER

Ohio Senate Bill 82, which would void employee residency requirements created by voters in more than a hundred Ohio municipalities, is up for a vote in the House of Representatives today.

It will pass despite the fact that it's almost certainly unconstitutional (see the "Comment" in the Legislative Service Commission's analysis). It will pass despite the overwhelming opposition of Ohio municipalities of all sizes. It will pass, because Republicans don't really give a crap about preserving the rights of local communities against centralized government power, and too many Democrats have promised their votes to the police and firefighter unions in exchange for campaign support.

I don't often agree with the PD's Brent Larkin, but this column gets the issue exactly right.

Most Cleveland legislators will vote against SB 82, unlike our two Senators. It's strongly opposed by Mayor Jackson, City Council, and the large majority of Cleveland voters. Required residency for city employees was voted into the Cleveland City Charter in 1982 and clearly remains the will of the people... which is why its opponents had to go to Columbus to try to get rid of it, instead of repealing or amending it by going back to the ballot.

The one Cleveland Representative who's likely to vote for Senate Bill 82 is Dale Miller, term-limited out of his House seat and running for the Senate seat of his term-limited friend Dan Brady -- who was Senate Bill 82's co-sponsor in the Senate. Like Brady and East Side Senator C.J. Prentiss, Miller is a loud, proud "progressive" who would have been horrified, earlier in his career, at the idea of joining with Republicans to thwart grassroots democracy in his own community. But there are lots of city employees living in southwest Cleveland who'd rather be living in the suburbs, and lots of cops and firefighters throught the Senate district (Parma, Lakewood, Brooklyn, Brook Park, Linndale, Middleburg Heights, and Parma Heights as well as Cleveland) for whom residency is Issue Number One. So Miller will vote for their idea of "fairness" and hope the majority of voters won't notice, or care that much.

Is he right? Stay tuned.