COLUMBUS — The Ohio General Assembly is about to be shy one Caveman.
State Rep. Lynn Wachtmann has defied term limits to rack up 30 years in the legislature by going from the House to the Senate and back again. But term limits finally have caught up with the conservative Republican from Napoleon.
He said he has always worn the title “Caveman” as a “badge of honor.”
The term “Caveman Caucus” was coined decades ago to describe what was then a strongly conservative minority within a minority. It was not meant to be a compliment.
Today, Mr. Wachtmann, 60, believes the Cavemen — and women — represent a majority within a majority.
“I got to grow up under the tutelage legislatively of Bill Batchelder, Jim Buchy, and Bob Netzley,” he said. “Some might call them the great leaders of the Caveman Caucus. I’m absolutely very proud of that title.”
Gov. John Kasich, a fellow Republican, said people shouldn’t be deceived by the veteran lawmaker’s sometimes gruff exterior.
“Tough old Lynn, most conservative man known to man. That’s a bunch of baloney,” said the governor, who has at least once found himself on the receiving end of Mr. Wachtmann’s anger.
“Wachtmann’s got a really good heart,” Mr. Kasich said. “That’s what we look for in people: a good brain, a good heart. He wants to help people.”
This week Robert McColley, former executive director of the Community Improvement Corporation of Henry County, takes the seat on the Ohio House of Representatives floor for the 81st District, representing southeastern Fulton County and all of Henry, Williams, and Putnam counties.
He first became involved in a political campaign for a candidate while he was in high school and was too young to vote. After a year on Napoleon City Council, he was elected to his first term in the Ohio House in 1984. He moved to the Senate in 1999 and was again elected to the House in 2007, restarting the term-limits clock each time.
State Rep. Bob Hagan (D., Youngstown) joined the House a few years after Mr. Wachtmann and has followed him to the Senate and back again. The term-limit clock ran out for both of them at the same time.
A liberal who advocates for such things as legalized marijuana, he and Mr. Wachtmann often butted heads on the House floor and in committee.
“We are two different, not fully educated legislators who didn’t spend time in college, but feel we represent the heart and soul of our districts,” Mr. Hagan said. “I disagree with him. He disagrees with me. Was there theater and hyperbole in my speeches? Yes. They were there to make sure people saw the differences between the two of us.”
He too used the term “Caveman Caucus” to refer to House Republicans’ most conservative wing.
“We called them that, sometimes to their faces,” Mr. Hagan said. “We believed they were knuckle-dragging [legislators] with a behind-the-decades type of beliefs that were not up to snuff on developments of the present century. I never thought it was compliment. Lynn believes in these things, and I’ve never taken issue with the fact that he believes in these things.”
Over the years, Mr. Wachtmann, as House health committee chairman, has pushed the legal envelope on the agenda opposing abortion rights. He has championed several strong abortion restrictions that became law, and some that did not.
He was stripped of a Senate committee chairmanship in 2005 because he refused to support a Republican-backed budget that included a new tax on business.
He’s fought Mr. Kasich’s attempts to raise taxes on oil and natural-gas drillers. He took a hard line as chairman of the Ohio Retirement Study Council with the state’s public pension funds to improve their long-term solvency.
He angrily derided Mr. Kasich in 2011 when the governor vetoed his proposed legislation setting rules for the withdrawal of water from Lake Erie by heavy industry that the governor said were too lax. His role as president of Maumee Valley Bottling, Inc. raised eyebrows when he sponsored that bill and the law that succeeded it.
“I was absolutely furious,” Mr. Wachtmann said. “But after we all took a few deep breaths, I was one who suggested to the governor’s office for quite a few months that he start meeting with House Republicans in small groups and get to know us better. … There were a lot of other issues at the time that I think that us Republicans didn’t think the governor was a very good listener to.”
He’s now a Kasich fan.
Recently he surprised many by voting for an unsuccessful bill authorizing counties to set up needle-exchange programs as part of an effort to fight Ohio’s growing heroin epidemic. Mr. Wachtmann said he couldn’t see himself voting for such a bill as recently as three years ago.
Pain from two back surgeries — the second didn’t work — and testimony heard by a special legislative committee on painkiller addiction caused him to think again.
“I think for each surgery I took a two to three-day dose [of prescription painkillers] and then went on to Advil or whatever. …,” he said. “I knew of its addictive qualities, yes. That’s why I didn’t use them. I didn’t realize how horrible [the addiction problem] was, though. ...
“That left a lasting impression,” he said. “I did what a lot of people did. I left those two bottles of pills laying in my dresser drawer before I threw them away or found a way to dispose of them. I have a granddaughter, and she’s 14.”
Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.
First Published January 5, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
