Ohio lawmakers will be summoned back to Columbus next Wednesday, the leaders of the House and Senate said, for a rare and politicized last-minute session.
It will come just days before early voting in the November election kicks off.
The main item on the agenda is a bill, right now still being drafted by the Legislative Service Commission, to immediately enact a 90-day gas tax holiday.
Halting state excise taxes on motor fuel, just for 90 days, could leave the state with a more than $600 million hole in revenue, according to House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima), of which the state will then have to absorb. Ohio taxes gasoline at $0.385-per-gallon and diesel at $0.47-per-gallon.
To be enacted immediately, some Democrats will need to vote for the GOP-led effort.
“Democrats who vote against this are doing it at their peril,” House Speaker Matt Huffman told reporters Wednesday. “This is a very easily understood issue: Should you not have to pay the gas tax for the next 90 days?”
Both Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP nominee for governor, and Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for governor, called for gas tax holidays earlier this week—Acton, hours before Ramaswamy. As the U.S. conflict with Iran nears its seventh month and the Strait of Hormuz remains heavily restricted, costs to consumers are very high.
“Ohioans are suffering at the pump, through no fault of their own,” Ramaswamy told a crowd of state lawmakers, aides and reporters Wednesday morning at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
Before Wednesday, the legislature was not scheduled to come back from their recess until after the election.