State lawmakers are responsible for your tax rates, your tax dollars and whether you have to wear your seat belt.

In Ohio, they could soon marry you as well.

A proposal in the Ohio legislature would give all 99 members of the House and 33 members of the Senate the power to oversee "I do."

If Rep. Tom Letson's bill becomes law, Ohio would join only California and Rhode Island in giving all state lawmakers the power to perform civil-marriage ceremonies, according to research by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

States have an eclectic mix of nonreligious officials empowered to perform marriages, including governors, former governors, speakers of the House, lawyers admitted to the bar, justices of the peace and judges.

Ohio allows probate, county and municipal judges and the superintendent for the state school for the deaf to perform civil marriages.

Letson, a Democrat from Warren, doesn't foresee any significant opposition to his effort. He is selling his bill as "pro-marriage" for the benefit of Republicans, who control the Senate, and requiring that any money the couple may offer for the service be donated to a charity of the lawmaker's choice.

But not all of Letson's colleagues share his enthusiasm. One lawmaker said he's handled too many divorce proceedings in a nearly 40-year career as a lawyer and will vote against the bill.

Rep. Gerald Stebelton, a Lancaster Republican, said he'd feel a duty to counsel the couple and doesn't want the added responsibility.

"I think a lot of the time people go into marriages without realizing who they are marrying or coming to grips with why they are marrying," Stebelton said. "Sometimes we make things so easy for people that they really don't think it through before they go through with it, and marriage is one of those things."

A bill in the Ohio legislature would allow state lawmakers to perform civil-marriage ceremonies.