Each Friday, Eye on the Statehouse will announce its “Porker of the Week.” It’s our way of calling attention to a particularly big or wasteful spender.

This week’s Porker is the Ohio House of Representatives, whose members dumped an astounding 800 budget amendments onto the House Finance and Appropriation Committee (most arriving this week). The Columbus Dispatch noted that each amendment was likely at least 5 pages long. House rules mandate 50 copies of each amendment to be provided to the committee. The result is an unwieldy 200,000 page mess.

With the budget scheduled for a floor vote by the middle of next week, many of these amendments may sneak into the state budget bill without public scrutiny and debate.

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