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Alas, it looks like things failed for this year. The clerk conveniently took two days to "certify" the petition which consisted of only 50 signatures of people the clerk has worked with for the last two years. The House voted to discharge the bills from committee yesterday and then the Speaker called everyone who got voted off the island to come up and say their goodbyes. Barring some kind of emergency that would result in the house being called back into session it's done.

The good news is that the bill's sponsors have insisted that they will be filing them again in January. The House will once again be in Republican hands and the new speaker was one of the ones who voted to discharge. Furthermore our new Republican governor apparently gave indications he'll sign it. So we're hopeful the only issue is how long the House spends on other matters before they get around to these bills. One positive sign is that the new speaker totally ripped this House's speaker for canceling so many sessions. In the last two years the House only met some 40-odd days, many times for only an hour or two. The new speaker said something along the lines of full time pay requires full time work.

Since the FOP came out strongly opposed to this bill there's also speculation of sticking some other things that they've been whining about into next year's bill. For instance our notification requirements have tripped more than a few people up. The thought is if the FOP is going to whine we may as well make them complain all at once.

Update! The representative circulating the discharge petition got the 50 signatures he needed. This means that tomorrow (Weds 12/8) the House will vote on moving the bill out of committee. Assuming this vote succeeds, which it should since an absolute majority had to sign the petition, the bill then gets put on the calendar for a vote.

Here's where it gets dicey. Tomorrow is the last scheduled legislative day for this legislative year. Thursday is listed as "if necessary" but statewide news outlets have been saying that it is on given the number of other bills pending. The absolute last day is next Thursday. Ordinarily this would be OK because as long as Thursday's session is held the bill would come up for a vote then. But at least one media outlet is quoting the speaker's office as now saying that the House rules require a two day waiting period before the bill can be voted on. Problem is nobody can seem to find that bit in the rules and only one paper is reporting it that way. Naturally the speaker has no intention of holding session next Thursday just to vote on two bills he hates.

We might be down to a Bush vs. Gore finish here!

Bumping my own thread ... things are getting very interesting in Ohio over the next week.

The long and short of it is this summer the Senate passed SB 239 as I mentioned in my last update. SB239 would allow carrying in any establishment with a liquor license provided that the CHLer isn't drinking. In addition it also fixes just about all of Ohio's hideous car carry restrictions. The House (currently controlled by the Democrats) has sat on it and the session ends at the end of the year. As of right now there are only two more days scheduled before the session ends and everything starts over.

There is a companion bill in the House but it never even got out of committee because the speaker won't allow it to come out. However, the sponsor of that legislation drew papers for a discharge petition on the Senate bill this week. Supposedly at 10:00 on Tuesday he'll be collecting signatures. He needs 50 members of the 99 member House to force a discharge at which point the bill would be brought to the floor for a vote at the next meeting. This representative was on Cam and Company today and from what I understand he said he's got the numbers to force a discharge. From what I gather a discharge petition hasn't been used in almost 20 years in Ohio. The only other variable remains the governor who lost his reelection bid in November. He was, however, endorsed by both the NRA and Ohioans for Concealed Carry and indicated back in July that he would sign the Senate bill if it reached his desk.

The local newspapers are starting to get wind of it and they're predictably spooling up their fear mongering and complaining about all the other bills that will be left to die while real people will be left to die in piles of blood at the neighborhood tavern.

MAJOR fingers crossed. If anyone has relatives in Ohio please have them call their house representative and encourage them to sign the discharge petition for SB 239 and support it once it reaches the floor. Supposedly the numbers are there but it's important to keep the pressure up until this baby is signed into law!

More to come!

Following up on my own post, by a vote of 23-10 yesterday the Ohio Senate passed SB 239 which would allow licensed carry in any bar, restaurant, or open air arena with a liquor license so long as the licensee is not drinking.

This bill also significantly improves the car carry provision for licensees. Essentially if you have your CHL you will be able to have your handgun anywhere in the car. For those who don't know, we currently have all sorts of stipulations on where it can be and how it must be secured. In fact if your gun is digging into your back and you reach back to shift it over while on a public highway you're committing a felony That'll all go away. As on legislator pointed out, our rules for car carry are currently longer than the Declaration of Independence.

The Democratic governor has said that he favors the bill despite lots of LEO opposition.

So that's the good news. The bad news is that it now proceeds to the House where HB203 (slightly different) has been sitting in committee. The House Speaker is a pretty rabid-anti gun east side of Clevelander who will probably try to let both bills die at the end of the session. Since the governor is in favor of it, we're hoping that he exerts some pressure on the speaker to bring the bill to a vote. The governor is also up for reelection this year and his numbers aren't too great - I'm sure he'd love to have the vote of gun owners on his side so we're hopeful that he'll make something happen behind the scenes even if that means bringing the bill to a vote after the elections.

More updates as they happen!

Slowly but surely progress is being made. Ohio House Bill 203 has been introduced with 18 sponsors and cosponsors. It has not even been assigned to a committee yet.

For those of you that have occasion to travel to Ohio, you may be glad to know that our state has started down the long road to allowing CHLs to carry in alcohol establishments. Ohioans for Concealed Carry has been working with a legislator to draft legislation that would permit CHLs to carry in a retail food establishment or food service operation that has any type of liquor license provided the CHL is not drinking and is not under the influence. The terms retail food establishment and food service operation have very specific meaning under Ohio law, and the effect would essentially be that carry would be permitted in any place that derives less than 100% of their revenue from on-premises alcohol consumption. Under the law, a place that buys pretzels and peanuts to serve to customers at the bar is considered a retail food establishment. You can read the full draft here.

Now before everyone runs and gets excited, I truly mean it when I say this is a very long road. Supposedly the feeling is that there is enough political momentum to make this happen which is why it was drafted. Nevertheless, here are some things that have to happen from here.
1. Co-sponsors have to be lined up and the bill has to be introduced.
2. The bill has to be assigned to a committee for evaluation. The committee that is most likely to hear it is now chaired by an anti-CCW guy.
3. The bill has to pass the House. The new speaker of the house is a (D) from the liberal east side of Cleveland. He's spoken against CCW before.
4. The bill has to pass the Senate. The Senate contains a good number of pro-CCW people.
5. The bill has to be signed by our governor, also a (D). However, he has expressed support for 'reasonable CCW' rules in the past, and in fact, signed our most recent bill that removed some prohibited places and created the castle doctrine.
*. At any point before step 5, the bill is subject to amendments. Even if it does pass, there's plenty of opportunity for the antis to slip provisions in that would water the bill down. They might figure out that retail food establishment is extremely broad and demand that we cut it down to a place that makes no more than X% or whatever. Or the House committee chair might refuse to give the bill a hearing, effectively killing it. Anything is possible, but those of us up here are going to be fighting to keep the bill as is but more importantly, keep it moving.

Our General Assembly terms run for two years. That means this bill could be introduced tomorrow and not get its first hearing in the House until December 2010.