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