In the 1990s, the Ohio House, run by Reynoldsburg Republican Jo Ann Davidson, included 14 Republican women; today, there are six.

The biggest reason for the drop-off? Legislative term limits, a 1992 GOP brainstorm that backfired badly on Republicans, plus stick-in-the-mud candidate recruitment by Republican operatives.

Result: Of 27 women in Ohio's legislature, just seven are Republicans. In 1922, the first six women whom voters chose for the General Assembly were all Republicans. If going from six Republican women in the General Assembly in 1923 to seven in 2009 is progress, the sun must set in the morning. Democrats, meanwhile, have steadily gained through shrewd recruitment: Five women are Democratic senators, including Minority Leader Capri S. Cafaro of Hubbard; in the House, 15 women are Democrats.

The current stats, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, mean Ohio ranks 34th among states in female legislators. Ranked 50th is South Carolina, which has the smallest percentage of women legislators; No. 1 is Colorado, where almost 40 percent of its lawmakers are women. In the 1990s, with as many as five Republican women in the Ohio Senate, and the state ranked 18th in the nation.

Academic literature roams all over the map as to whether term limits alone reduced the proportion of women in the 50 state legislatures. But as a practical matter, the General Assembly's term limits (basically, no re-election to the Senate or House after eight consecutive years without a four-year break) mean no one builds seniority. That limits policy knowledge and fundraising leverage. That deficit of data and dollars hands mentoring of future Statehouse colleagues to caucus leaders and lobbyists, and those people promote their own.

Given perceived Republican weakness among women voters in Ohio, the GOP not only needs to elect more women to the General Assembly, it has to.

Legislators have lots to say pro and con about Gov. Ted Strickland's proposed school-funding reforms, and many of the gripes seem to be coming from fellow Democrats in Ohio's House. That's richly ironic. But beyond the big-picture billions, the Strickland plan has its bipartisan quirks.

Is it really the state's job to teach children "not only . . . science, reading and math but also . . . how to live and make healthy life decisions?" Isn't it possible that "how to live" or "wellness" courses could undermine parents or a family's spiritual traditions?

Likewise, the governor's budget blue book calls for repealing the law that lets "designated school staff . . . administer medication to students." Strickland instead wants "only licensed and qualified health-care professionals to administer medications" to pupils. Is it a complete coincidence that the Service Employees International Union, a Strickland ally, can represent school nurses?

But all the jousting in the world about school funding is pointless if the governor's budget isn't balanced. Almost $1 of every $10 Strickland wants to spend from the General Revenue Fund is one-time money. Once it's gone, it stays gone. So the governor and his aides are struggling to hold his budget together with ropes of sand.

That just postpones a reckoning that either can come now, when Strickland can set the terms of the debate, or in 2010, when, his likely GOP challenger, John R. Kasich, just might.

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.

tsuddes@gmail.com