School choice: EdChoice, while he was Speaker
What they say
His Senate biography says that as Speaker of the Ohio House he expanded educational freedom for Ohio children through the creation of the EdChoice Scholarship.
“As Speaker, Husted expanded educational freedom for Ohio children through the creation of the EdChoice Scholarship.”
What the record shows ·
The Ohio House lists him as Speaker from 2005 to 2009. Amended Substitute House Bill 66 of the 126th General Assembly, the state budget effective June 30, 2005, lists him among its House cosponsors, and its enacted text adds section 3310.02 of the Revised Code: "The educational choice scholarship pilot program is hereby established." The section is still in force. As Speaker he voted Yea when the House agreed to the conference report on the bill on June 21, 2005, 53 to 46 (House Journal, page 1382).
Limit: The record shows the program created by a budget bill he cosponsored and voted for in his first year as Speaker. A state budget carries hundreds of provisions, so his cosponsorship and vote show support for the whole bill; what he did to put EdChoice into it is not recorded. The legislature's bill page records no votes online; the vote is in the House Journal. The same biography's claims that this budget was the most conservative in four decades and carried the largest income tax cut in Ohio's history are comparisons this desk did not test.