Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Transportation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Senate transportation committee tables amendment to remove BMV voter-registration language from HB 54 and forwards bill to rules
Summary
At the ninth hearing on Substitute House Bill 54, the Senate Transportation Committee voted 5–2 to table an amendment that would have removed provisions tying voter registration to Bureau of Motor Vehicles transactions, then voted 6–1 to send the amended bill to the Rules and Reference Committee.
The Senate Transportation Committee, at the ninth hearing on Substitute House Bill 54, voted to table an amendment that would have removed the bill’s provisions tying voter registration to certain Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) transactions and then voted to forward the amended bill to the Rules and Reference Committee.
The committee first accepted an amendment offered earlier in the session and then considered a motion from Senator Smith to strike the BMV voter-registration language by adopting amendment 0002-4. Senator Smith said the change would “remove the bill’s provisions regarding voter registration involving the BMV transaction” and restore the executive’s version of the bill. He argued that the citizenship-check issue raised for BMV clerks was substantial and merited standalone legislation and a full hearing rather than placement in the transportation budget. Smith also cited research suggesting “about 55% of the state of Ohio has the real ID right now,” saying that made the matter complex for clerk staff handling license upgrades and registrations.
Vice Chair Schafer moved to lay amendment 0002-4 on the table. The committee voted 5–2 to table the amendment; the motion to table prevented the amendment from being adopted, leaving the BMV-related language in the bill as drafted at that point.
After the table vote, Vice Chair Schafer moved to report the amended substitute of House Bill 54 to the Rules and Reference Committee. The committee approved that motion by a 6–1 vote, and the bill will proceed to Rules and Reference.
Committee materials distributed at the hearing were made available to the public on the LSC website, the committee chair said. The transcript records no further changes to the bill during the session, and no formal roll-call breakdown tying individual yes/no votes to every name appears in the public excerpt of the transcript beyond the recorded final tallies.
Next steps: the bill will appear for consideration by the Rules and Reference Committee; no date for further action was given in the transcript.
