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Jimmy Stewart Weighs In On Ohio Energy And His Political Success
By: Tim Sharp
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He was the rising star of the Republican Party in Athens County, but when then Senate Majority Leader Jimmy Stewart stepped out of elective politics he has been noticeably silent – on everything except issues related to the Ohio Gas Association.
The now-president of the Ohio Gas Association sat down with WOUB recently in Albany.
He recounted his almost serendipitous entry into politics which started when he selected Athens as his home, a location in the center of his heavy-equipment sales territory for Walker Machinery. Not long after putting up the curtains he was recruited to run for a seat on the Athens City Council.
“I went from city council to city auditor to state representative for three terms to the state senate and then majority leader of the state senate. It's not something that I thought was going to go that way,” he said.
Stewart said he thought he would be in the area for just five or six years. That was in 1997 – he’s still here.
His political ascent stopped when he accepted his current position as a lobbyist.
“It was very sudden – my predecessor suddenly announced his retirement and it came about that spring of 2011,” Stewart said.
“I wasn't 100 percent sure I was going to run for a second term but in life some of the opportunities you don't know when they're going to come up and it was a great opportunity and it made for a very smooth transition.”
His departure from the Ohio Senate coincided with his support of the controversial Senate Bill 5 which would have significantly limited collective bargaining for public employees. The bill, which was soon repealed, put its supporters squarely in the cross hairs of the widespread opposition.
But Stewart said those two things – his support of the bill and his leaving – were purely coincidental.
“I know some of my detractors probably thought otherwise. I guess if I had only one regret I would have liked to have run again if only because of the things the detractors said.”
Stewart said had he run he would have had a strong campaign and there’s evidence he could have won re-election.
“The funny thing about it is of all the Republicans that voted for SB5 there was only one who was not reelected and of the Republicans who voted against SB5 only one of those was not reelected either so I'm confident I would have run a strong campaign.“
He agreed that SB5 was flawed but he believes there were many parts of the bill which would have been embraced if they had not been overshadowed by the problems.
One of those was the bill’s allowing promotion and pay to be based on factors other than seniority.
“I think don't they really have a problem with that especially when you allow the local bargaining units to set up how they can be evaluated, that seniority could be a factor but some other things could be factors too.”
Still Stewart said he does not think there would be support for similar legislation in the future.
If he were back in the Senate Stewart said he would focus on health and human resources and being accessible to his constituents. He was quick to add he was not considering such a run.
As to the future of Ohio he is hopeful about the development of natural gas as both an energy source and a boost for the economy. Even though natural gas is a promising energy source he said its comparatively low price is moving producers to drill wells where the gas is recovered along with more expensive byproducts such as ethane, propane butane and other hydrocarbons.
As that happens he said he sees expensive processing plants and pipelines being built which will lead to more investment and more jobs.
“You're going to have to see more of these processing plants and you will see some additional large pipelines to transport both natural gas and other hydrocarbons to other parts of the country that may be using them or even to Ohio to larger industrial users.“
Stewart’s more immediate concerns are with legislation to update the state’s damage protection laws connected to “call before you dig” requirements. Hundreds of millions of dollars are lost nationwide in accidents where contractors and even utilities themselves punch into cables and pipelines when digging. While the offender is currently required to pay for damage to the line and for the lost product he said new measures should be taken to fine certain repeat offenders.
But this question is more complicated:
“Should they even be allowed to do this digging if say they are habitually not even calling to get the marks or they continually hit lines, that kind of thing? Should these people even be in business in Ohio?” he asks.
“And then you get into who do you focus on? Is it someone who has called in maybe five times and messed up one of them, or they messed up two so 40 percent; or is it someone who called in a thousand times and they nicked five of them or they only nicked one and it was a multi-million dollar mistake? What if there is a fatality?“ he said.
But Stewart isn’t thinking beyond his lobbying work helping to craft the latest legislation for his industry.
Where will he go from here?
“I haven't been very good at predicting my future,” he said. “I like what I'm doing now and I have no reason to leave and I really don't know. I'd like to continue doing what I have been doing. I don't foresee any changes in the future any time soon.”