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Former Ohio House Speaker says Today's Impasse Hurts Because the House was his Home

photo of Bill Batchelder
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU
Batchelder was speaker from 2011-2014.

The infighting behind closed doors at the Ohio House has left the speaker’s post vacant for weeks and has cancelled weeks of voting sessions. A veteran leader of the House -- who once held the job -- discussed his thoughts on what’s happening…..or isn’t happening.

Bill Batchelder knows a thing or two about the Ohio House. He was its speaker from 2011 to 2014, and the Republican lawmaker served in the Legislature for three-dozen years. What does he think about the speaker impasse he’s watching now?

“The House is my home and this is difficult,” he said.

Batchelder says he’s not going to offer advice or second-guess House members as they navigate this latest controversy. But he says he had to deal with difficult people as leader and he said he always talked to them to reach an agreement.

“I would work with them to do a better job and we got along fine.”

Batchelder made his comments after a ceremony at the Statehouse where he was inducted into the Senior Citizens Hall of Fame.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.