For most of the last year, State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) had an ally in Ohio's legislature - - Ohio State Sen. Tim Grendell - - and the two of them had a little tag-team routine going where each tried to enlist their colleagues in unsupportable moves to block the Great Lakes Compact.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, which has never minced words when describing Grendell, notes now that Grendell is more isolated, but is still pursuing "crackpot" Compact blockading schemes, including passing a state constitutional amendment to solve a problem no one sees existing.
A few choice graphs from the Plain Dealer editorial, italicized;
"If Grendell can persuade enough legislators to buy into his crackpot theory of a conspiracy to steal water from every little stream and duck pond on private property, more power to him.
"As Plain Dealer columnist and editorial writer Tom Suddes told a group of downtown business executives during a speech Friday, "The senator from Geauga County thinks government is trying to steal everyone's squirt guns." The resulting roars of laughter were at Grendell, not with him.
"But when the laughter died, what remained was the undeniable reality that it would be horrible public policy to make the passage of a compact designed to protect the economic future of Northeast Ohio dependent on some bizarre constitutional amendment."
Lazich had touted Grendell to Wisconsin's legislative council committee last year, where his notions about property rights and water went nowhere except to produce a report from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources that called Grendell' arguments irrelevant to Wisconsin law.
And you wonder why that committee spun its wheels for a year?
When I was back in Cleveland, my ancestral home, last week, I checked out Grendell.
ReplyDeleteHe's from what my dad used to describe as "horsey country," a burg on the east/southeast exurban fringe, Chesterland, right on the edge of the line defining the Great Lakes Basin--a lot like Mary Lazich and Dan Warren.
He's a silk stocking lawyer from some upscale law firm like Jones Day Reavis and Pogue--people who go to work every day with this in mind: "I'm a lawyer whose job in life is to make sure that the rich and powerful remain the rich and powerful. And screw everybody else. We do a bit of Pro bono publico, but we make our money on pro malo".
Clevelanders--those who are part of the "everybody else"--referenced above, seem inclined to dismiss this weasely little G.W. Bush-ish character out of hand.
Give this enough time and Grendell will go down the tube with the rest of the "rich and powerful".