Months of internal vote wrangling and plenty of drama concluded early Wednesday evening with the House GOP's speedy, anti-climactic election of Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) as the next House speaker.
His unopposed vote for election in the closed-door meeting that commenced at 5 p.m. and concluded 35 minutes later. Earlier this week, Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) departure from the race Monday.
Huffman's leadership team for the 136th General Assembly includes: Representative Gayle Manning (R-N. Ridgeville) as speaker pro tem, Representative Phil Plummer (R-Dayton) as assistant speaker pro tem, Representative Marilyn John (R-Shelby) as majority leader, Representative Adam Bird (R-Cincinnati) as assistant majority leader.
In an unusual move, Huffman named four lawmakers to serve as majority whips: Representative Steve Demetriou (R-Bainbridge Twp.), Representative Riordan McClain (R- Upper Sandusky), Representative Nick Santucci (R-Howland Twp.), and Representative Josh Williams (R-Sylvania Twp.).
McClain is the highest ranking among them, as he has served the longest, Huffman said.
Since it will be Huffman's first term in his second stint in the House, he's eligible to serve as speaker for eight years. Huffman said he opted for a supersized leadership team after learning from the National Conference of State Legislatures that Ohio has a relatively small leadership team compared to the size of the body.
"One of my problems when I was in the House is effectively communicating, getting the message out to our caucus," he said. "Being able to communicate, especially on increasingly complex issues and making sure that people give feedback or at least know what's going on: that's one of the things that helps eliminate upset stomachs."
"If you keep people waiting, and if you don't tell them what's going on, you're going to have more problems with a large group of people," he continued. "So I think we need more communicators."
He said he also wanted to add the assistant speaker pro tem role in order to keep sessions moving should he have to leave the floor. The future speaker said it is not his intention to have leadership members serve as committee chairs.
Huffman said his priorities remain school choice, reform of higher education, professional licensure reform and tax reform.