Ohio gov to give State of the State speech in Lima

This photo from Feb. 7, 2012, shows Ohio Gov. John Kasich deliv­er­ing his State of the State address at Wells Academy/Steubenville High School. Kasich plans to deliver his annual State of the State speech in Lima, tak­ing the address out­side the cap­i­tal city for the sec­ond year in a row. If law­mak­ers agree, Kasich will deliver the speech at Vet­er­ans Memo­r­ial Civic Cen­ter on Feb. 19. (Asso­ci­ated Press file | Tony Dejak)

JULIE CARR SMYTH

AP State­house Correspondent

COLUMBUS — For the sec­ond year in a row, Gov. John Kasich is mak­ing plans to deliver his State of the State speech out­side the cap­i­tal city, a prac­tice he says exposes more Ohioans to their gov­ern­ment but which crit­ics say sets a bad precedent.

Assum­ing state law­mak­ers agree, this year’s venue will be Lima, a rebound­ing Rust Belt city of 38,000 that sits equidis­tant between Toledo and Day­ton in north­west Ohio. Kasich would give the speech on Feb. 19 at Vet­er­ans Memo­r­ial Civic Center.

In another depar­ture from tra­di­tion, Kasich hopes to deliver the speech in the evening this year, rather than the usual noon­time start.

In 2012, Kasich became the first gov­er­nor in mod­ern mem­ory to take the year’s big pol­icy speech out­side the Ohio State­house in Columbus.

The first-term Repub­li­can chose Steubenville for the occa­sion, using the award-winning Wells Acad­emy, named the best school in the state, to tout edu­ca­tion suc­cesses and the ben­e­fits of the region’s bur­geon­ing shale gas industry.

Jus­tices were unable to attend last year’s speech because court was in ses­sion the day it was deliv­ered, and some statewide offi­cials and leg­is­la­tors couldn’t or chose not to attend.

Choos­ing Lima this year gives Kasich a chance to high­light eco­nomic suc­cesses he has touted on both the state and national stages.

Unem­ploy­ment in Allen County has fallen since he took office, mov­ing from 10.8 per­cent to 6.7 per­cent. The selec­tion of Lima, the county seat, was first reported by The Lima News.

The newly elected pres­i­dent of the Ohio Sen­ate, Repub­li­can Keith Faber, also resides nearby. He issued a state­ment Fri­day prais­ing the governor’s efforts to use the State of the State speech to high­light new areas of the state.

“I’m espe­cially hon­ored to host the gov­er­nor and my leg­isla­tive col­leagues in Lima, one of the eco­nomic hubs of my dis­trict,” he said. “We’ve got a great story to tell, and I know Gov. Kasich has an incred­i­ble record and vision to share in this impor­tant address. This is how gov­ern­ment ‘of the peo­ple’ should work.”

Law­mak­ers, Supreme Court jus­tices, Cab­i­net offi­cials and statewide office­hold­ers would need to make the trip to con­vene the joint leg­isla­tive ses­sion where the speech is deliv­ered. Lima is about 100 miles west of Columbus.

Before 2012, the Ohio Gen­eral Assem­bly last con­vened a joint ses­sion out­side Colum­bus in 2003, when law­mak­ers trav­eled to the first state cap­i­tal, Chill­i­cothe, to cel­e­brate the state’s bicen­ten­nial. The time before that was in the 1950s.

Some Demo­c­ra­tic law­mak­ers have called on their col­leagues to reject Kasich’s request to take the speech out­side the State­house, say­ing it breaks a long-held and impor­tant tra­di­tion. Oth­ers have crit­i­cized the added costs of the event.

To counter them, Kasich sent a let­ter to state law­mak­ers along with his venue request Fri­day ask­ing them to sup­port his decision.

Posted by AP News on Jan 18 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.