What You Need To Know

• Republican Derek Merrin (R-Monclova Township) reached out to media outlets to share his proposal to combat ethics in the legislature


• This would create more oversight over lobbying groups


• The bill would create a money trail to share with the governor and public

Merrin said this new bill would require all lobbying income to be disclosed and would require the public utilities commission of Ohio to disclose past business relationships. 

The legislation would make this information available to the public before a nominee in government is selected. 

This way, he said the governor and the public will have a full disclosure of the ties the individual has before taking office. 

It would prohibit any elected official from getting money from any corporate board unless the board seat was held prior to taking office. 

"It also expands the disclosure of all legislation," Merrin said. "So many times, lobbyists only report legislation that they worked on where they were out to dinner with a specific lawmaker. This makes it crystal clear that they are going to report on their disclosure statements every bill that they have been involved with."

Merrin said he hopes this legislation will fix ethical indiscretion. The timing of this announcement comes just days before former House Speaker Larry Householder goes on trial in a public corruption case. Merrin also spoke to Spectrum News about the current house speaker seat that went to Representative Jason Stephens instead of him.

"The House right now is effectively not functioning very well. I mean, the official function of the house is not moving forward. I mean, we can't we can only, you know, turning bills, the clerk offices, they're not being formally introduced," said Merrin. "They're not getting bill numbers or not being referred to committees because we don't have committees. We know not only do we not have committees, we don't even know what committees they're going to be. So a lot of times you hear about, well, what committee are you going to be chair of what committee you're going to be appointed to? We don't even know what committees are going to exist."

Merrin told Spectrum News he has been in touch with House Speaker Stephens and hopes they can handle things privately.