Heartbeat Bill backer Janet Folger Porter said that’s the heartbeat of an 18 week old fetus. The sweet-looking bears were given to Senators to encourage them to pass the heartbeat bill that was passed in the house in 2011.

Then a few weeks later, on Valentines Day, the sweet smell of red roses filled the Statehouse as Folger Porter’s group sent lawmakers flowers to, once again, urge passage of the bill.

Republican Representative Lynn Wachtman, the sponsor of the legislation, assured reporters the roses were not a gimmick.

I don’t think it’s a stunt. I think sending a message about roses speaks volumes about how many of us in the house and senate care about the unborn. I’m not sure there’s anyone you can care for more than them.

But while heartbeat bill backers were sending bears and roses, opponents of the legislation were sending messages to Senators, urging them to thwart the bill. Opponents said the climate at the Statehouse had become a war on women and dubbed male lawmakers supporting the legislation the “masters of the uterus.” Democratic Senator Charleta Tavares:

We are no longer chattle. We no longer belong to condescending patronizing men who want to tell us what’s best for us. They don’t live in our bodies.

As the battle over the heartbeat bill continued, its backers took a harsher tone….airing television ads in Senator’s districts, urging abortion opponents to put pressure on their senator to pass the bill.

But Republican Senate President Tom Niehaus, a main target of those messages, remained concerned about the bill’s constitutionality.

“There are a lot of well meaning people who are sending emails to take action on a piece of legislation where frankly, they had no indication of what the implications are.,” Niehaus says.

Senators weren’t the only ones questioning the bill’s constitutionality.

Ohio’s largest anti-abortion group, Ohio Right to Life, came out against the bill, and county Right to Life organizations began splitting off from the state group because of that opposition.

Ohio Right to Life made some leadership changes over the summer, and after the presidential election, the group’s opposition to the Heartbeat Bill was silenced.

But Senate President Niehaus continued to oppose the bill, so much so that he used a maneuver to put it in committee where it couldn’t be passed by the end of the year.

That’s when Folger Porter issued this warning to Senators to pass a discharge petition in an attempt to go around Niehaus.

Because if they don’t care enough to sign that discharge petition, then I don’t care enough to ever help them again.

But outgoing Senate President Niehaus wasn’t swayed, and the bill eventually died.

But it wasn’t the only one that sparked controversy. Ohio Right to Life backed another bill that would have taken government money for family planning away from Planned Parenthood.

Gonadakis – “We have over 290 facilities in the state of Ohio; approximately 160 community health centers and about 130 local departments of health where young women are going that are need based,” said Ohio Right to Life president Mike Gonadakis.

“And that’s where these funds should be going. They should not be going to the nation’s largest abortion provider.”

Planned Parenthood stressed no government funding is being used for abortions. And the organization pointed out that abortions make up a small part of its services. Backers of the group, like Democratic State Senator Nina Turner, criticized opponents who wanted to do away with the organization.

They’ve got this illusion about abortion that is the rhetoric of the ridiculous.

In the end, it was Senate President Niehaus who stopped the Planned Parenthood defunding bill, just like he did with the heartbeat abortion legislature.

Niehaus said the Senate got the bill too late to give it the serious consideration it deserved.

The new Senate could make a big difference in women’s issues next year: Backers of both the Planned Parenthood bill and the Heartbeat Bill promise to resurrect them with lawmakers.

And next time around, the Senate will be headed by Senator Keith Faber, a Republican who’s considered to be more conservative than Niehaus. But opponents of these bills vow they’ll be back, and if the contentious tone of the debate this year was any indication, the fight over women’s issues in 2013 will be hard fought.

Click the play button above for more on yesterday’s year-in-review session, and why Gov. Kasich and others are being mum on their plans for next year.

The bill would replace the current six categories – excellent with distinction, excellent, effective, continuous improvement, academic watch and academic emergency – with the letter grades that most students get – A through F. Republican Rep. Gerald Stebelton of Lancaster said it’s time to replace that complicated ranking system which has low performance expectations for schools and students, imprecise and wide ranges of performance, and a lack of content and benchmarks from outside Ohio.

“There was nobody who testified in opposition to this bill. So. It’s a good bill. It’s a comprehensive bill. It’s a bill that’s been a long time coming. Could it be better? Probably. Will it get better in the future? We hope so.” Says Stebleton.

And indeed, several Democrats rose to complain about the bill – specifically, about what they felt was the rush in getting it to the floor. Nicki Antonio from the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood said there’s too much uncertainty with a new nationwide curriculum being implemented, with new teacher evaluations from the current budget and with no school funding formula yet from Gov. John Kasich.

“I think we would give it an incomplete on many scales that really means an F. Let’s fix this, let’s do the right thing. Let’s get Ohio’s children and the education system on the right path to passing a grade. A bit of remediation could go a long way.” Says Antonio.

Democrat Matt Lundy of Elyria said the new system would hit in the middle of the school year. He compared this issue to the continuing coverage of the so-called “fiscal cliff”.

“I would suggest that Washington has the fiscal cliff, but Columbus has the “education cliff”. And public education is being driven right off the cliff, and Gov. Kasich is the one driving that bus. Our children and our schools in 555 are being set up for failure.” Says Lundy.

Democrats tried to delay the new grading system, but Stebelton said only one area of measurement would be changed, so there was no need for delay. Republican Kristina Roegner of Hudson said in fact, she would have liked to have seen this bill sooner, because the current rankings are confusing.

“Continuous improvement? Now that sounds actually wonderful. We all strive to be continuously improving. Or academic watch – now there’s one for you. I mean, should we watch them because they’re an academic benchmark or we should follow their lead? How about excellent? That really should be the best there is – but wait. There is excellent with distinction. Now everyone who went to school in the United States understands the A through F grading system.” Says Roegner

Democrats also blasted the process, saying they hadn’t been heard during hearings and that the bill was being fast tracked because of the Governor’s desire to see it enacted this year, and urged Republicans to be independent and slow it down. But the bill passed the House easily, and now heads to the Senate, and President Tom Niehaus has said passing it is a priority.

Republican House Speaker Bill Batchelder has one word to describe the work that’s been accomplished by the GOP dominated house and senate during this session: incredible.

“I’ve been here, let me see now, for 19 sessions and this is without question the most meaningful, the most reform minded, the most enthused that I have seen the legislature in the legislative process,” Batchelder says.

“I think it has something to do with the man that is our Governor.”

Senate President Tom Niehaus added to the praise.

“It’s been a remarkable run the last 18 months.

“I am a little concerned when I hear the Governor say ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’ I’m not sure where we are going to go the last six weeks of the year.”

It’s clear the legislature and Governor Kasich have been successful in passing a lot of legislation into law. And some of it has been bipartisan.

Take, for example, the law that cracks down on human trafficking or the bill to reform the Cleveland schools….or the bill that makes it easier for former criminals to get a job.

Kasich says he’s exhilarated by the passage of those bills on a bipartisan basis.

“Public will never quite get it. You see it. It’s amazing. I mean to put the politics in last place and put the public in first place, it’s astounding.”

Kasich says the power of the ideas is so strong that the Democrats are supporting these bills. Indeed, some Democrats have been trying for years to get some bills similar to these passed in the legislature.

But there have been other bills, like the election reform bill repeal, the mid term budget and other legislation that hasn’t received bipartisan support.

When asked why Kasich only included Republican majority leaders at his news conference to talk about the last six months, the Governor admitted minority leaders had not been invited.

“You invite normally the speaker and the president of the senate and if that should happen to change, that will be who is at the next press conference.”

There has been at least one point on which Kasich and other GOP leaders have disagreed……a severance tax on oil companies that will be doing fracking in Ohio. Kasich wants it but many GOP lawmakers don’t because they view it as a tax increase.

Kasich says he’s not too disappointed about that.

“It’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of when and what it’s going to look like. I’ve had a number of offline conversations with industry. They understand this has to happen. The speaker and the president have said look, we have to take a good hard look at this.

“I think with the Ernst and Young report which still puts us at the bottom of the heap in tax policy, I think is good. Sometimes you have to give them space. I do push hard….but once in a while, they will call me up and say ‘…could you just give us some time on this?”

Members of the legislature are poised for time off…..they are wrapping up business and won’t be back until after the November election.

And many people who watch the Statehouse with interest think that lame duck session in November and December will be a time when a lot of controversial legislation will be passed into law.

Senate President Tom Niehaus says it’s time to pass the recommendations that the management of the five pension funds have requested.

“It’s been over two years. And I have said before I am personally embarrassed that we have not dealt with this issue before, because every day that we delay it’s costing some of these, it’s costing between a million and two million dollars a day every day we delay.” Says Niehaus.

But over in the House, the chair of the committee that would hear pension reform is urging lawmakers to slow down. Rep. Kirk Schuring is a Republican from Canton, and says he wants to wait till the release of a report on those changes commissioned by the Ohio Retirement Study Council, a panel of lawmakers, appointees and pension fund executives who advise the legislature on policy that affects the funds.

“Certainly the five systems have very competent people, competent actuaries, and they have offered their opinions to us. But just like if you or a loved one was contemplating major surgery, you’d want to get a second opinion, The repercussions of what we do with this pension reform will last for a long, long time, as well they should.” Says Schuring.

The report is expected sometime this summer. As for the concern about the money that the pension funds are losing – Schuring says in the time he’s been on the Ohio Retirement Study Council, he’s seen funds go up and down, but he doesn’t feel passing pension reform is as urgent as Niehaus does.

“Changes are needed; we need to do it sometime this year.” Says Schuring. “I don’t think we’re at a crisis yet. Pew has done a number of different reports on the status of our five retirement systems in Ohio, and I have not heard the word ‘crisis’ used yet. Other states are in that situation. We are not.”

But Niehaus says Schuring’s reservations don’t change his timeline of getting pension reform through the Senate by summer recess.

“That’s not my problem. It’s my hope that the House will reconsider. They will have an opportunity to do that as we pass legislation or they could take it up in the fall, but that’s their schedule.”

Niehaus says he’s also worried about retiree health care, which isn’t required by law but is available. But Schuring says he’s concerned that the retirement funds’ recommended changes might cut benefits to retirees to make more money available for health care, and that the study expected this summer would examine that issue.

But now, Ohio’s top elections official is suggesting lawmakers repeal that law so it doesn’t go before voters.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted says he wants legislators to repeal the law so the referendum won’t be needed.

But legislative leaders are not happy because they say Husted didn’t talk about that suggestion with them first.

“Do you sense a little frustration?” Senate President Tom Niehaus rhetorically asked reporters. “When you make an effort to reach out to a state office holder who has jurisdiction over this area and you are saying we have some ideas, we’d like your input on this. And they answer in the press. Yes, that bothers me. When people put a headline in front of good public policy? yes, that bothers me.”

Niehaus says lawmakers have been questioning their options on the election reform measure and wondering what, if anything, they can legally do to stop it now….before it goes to the ballot this fall. And he says those questions led him to seek advice from Secretary of State Husted in the first place.

“If you have rules in place for a primary, then could the rules be different in the general? I don’t know the answer to that question. That’s frankly why we went to the Secretary of State to ask….here’s what we are thinking about. What do you think we can do? And we weren’t getting anything back until I read the press release.”

But Husted says his comments about the need to repeal the elections reform measure came about as he was speaking to workers from local boards of elections, whom he says find the whole election reform matter confusing.

While the election reform plan has been put on hold until voters decide its fate, there have been questions by poll officials as to exactly what they should and should not be doing.

“Understand, I was specific not to wade in and tell them what to do,” Husted said. “I was specific to not advocate for any specific reform. All I was trying to do is to make the point that if it’s not going to become law before November and we were going to look at other ideas, wouldn’t it make sense for everybody to just repeal the bill so we didn’t have the controversy?”

Husted says he didn’t realize that his ideas were not expressed to Niehaus before Husted made them publicly.

“I know I talked with several senators about this. I know I talked with them in advance of the senate retreat and they were well aware of my desire to look at the issue of repealing the bill.”

If lawmakers do repeal the law, and it’s legal to do so, there wouldn’t be a ballot issue on it this fall. And it would render useless the efforts and expenditures of Democrats who fought to put this referendum on the ballot in the first place.

That’s a point Kevin DeWine, the head of the Ohio Republican Party, jokes about with reporters. He says repealing the law could get back at Ohio Democratic Party Chief Chris Redfern.

“If I can figure out a way to make a complete waste to make of the money Chris had to spend to get the signatures, I want to do that.”

Another question is what impact, if any, repealing the law would have on candidate elections in November. Election reform has been thought by political pundits as an issue that might help bring Democrats to the polls. And opponents of election reform who have been looking forward to voting on the issue could see repealing the law as a way of preventing their voice from being heard at the ballot box.