State Legislatures Magazine: May 1999

Editor's Note: These articles appeared in the May 1999 issue of NCSL's magazine, State Legislatures. To order copies or to subscribe, contact the marketing department at (303) 364-7700.

As Tough as They Come

First Female Speaker
Ruining Predictions
Making It Happen
School Funding Tightrope
Competitive Spirit
Secrets of Survival
Mastering Information
Honoring the Institution
Tough Times Ahead?

Leadership- Jo Ann Davidson Style

As Tough as They Come

Speaker Jo Ann Davidson leads the Ohio House with patience, modesty and strength.

By Lee Leonard

Had you been driving north on I-71 from Columbus toward Cleveland last Feb. 18, you would have been passed by a sleek green Chrysler Sebring convertible piloted by a grandmotherly figure alternately talking on a cell phone and reading (yes, reading) as she drove.

This was Ohio House Speaker Jo Ann Davidson, who can do three or four things at once when not behind the wheel. Seventy-one and single, she is wedded to her job, not for the glory but for the satisfaction of doing it right.

Riding with Bob Foster, her trusty sergeant-at-arms, Davidson maneuvers two cell phones and her ever-present stack of reading material. "We don’t talk much," said Foster.

But on this day, Davidson was driving herself to a meeting with the board of trustees of Cleveland State University, and she needed to bone up on the university’s personnel and current issues. So she read.

"It was just bullet points," she told someone who questioned the safety of such a practice.

Davidson, who had started her day with a 7 a.m. dentist appointment, returned to Columbus and plunged into a round of late afternoon meetings. In the evening, she took a sheaf of papers to her home in suburban Reynoldsburg for a nightcap. Away from dawn until after dark, she’s been known to water her lawn at midnight of a summer evening.

FIRST FEMALE SPEAKER
It all goes with the territory of being speaker in a large state, and Davidson is keenly aware of her heritage and her burden. She’s the first female speaker in Ohio, which will observe its bicentennial in four years.

Speaker is not a position that was handed to Davidson. "She didn’t just happen to be the flavor of the month and somebody said, ‘Let’s make her speaker,’" said Terry Casey, a political consultant who works closely with Davidson on Republican campaigns.

She was a councilwoman for 10 years and a township clerk whose day job was with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. She did some lobbying in the legislature and was active in county Republican politics, working her way up to chairwoman of the central committee. She ran presidential campaigns in Ohio for Gerald Ford and her favorite, Bob Dole. Elected to the Ohio House in 1980, she was appointed to the Finance Committee her freshman year, a rarity. She served eight years in lower leadership positions of the Republican caucus before becoming minority leader in 1993.

In the early 1990s, when veteran House Speaker Vern Riffe was struggling to hold his Democratic majority in the face of a Republican-drawn reapportionment, the cagey Riffe told lobbyists to bet their money against Davidson, who was orchestrating campaigns for the GOP candidates.

"That caucus will never elect a woman as its leader," Riffe predicted. He had logic and the odds on his side. Ohio has never been on the cutting edge of the women’s movement. And Davidson’s Republican caucus was full of good ol’ boys and conservatives.

When Riffe’s buddy, veteran Republican leader Corwin Nixon, decided to hang it up at the end of 1992, Davidson had to hop over David Johnson, the glib assistant leader, and William G. Batchelder, a constitutional scholar and darling of the conservatives.

RUINING PREDICTIONS
Davidson won. And when she led Republicans into the majority in 1994, she ruined the legendary Riffe’s second prediction: "I’ll never hand that gavel over to a Republican."

Through his peerless fund raising and political power plays, Riffe had kept the Republicans in the minority for 22 years. He was speaker for 20, an Ohio record. Surely, amateur hour was about to begin. This nice suburban lady who worked for the chamber of commerce would be outflanked by the foxy Democrats if indeed she wasn’t devoured by her own caucus first. The 56-member Republican caucus was populated with veterans who had chafed under Riffe since the mid-’70s and noisy conservatives who believed they had a "Contract With Ohio."

Now, four years later, Davidson is still very much on her feet. In her own way, she leads the House to accomplishments similar to what Riffe did. In fact, Riffe gave her a grade of "A" before he died in 1997. Along with Republican Senate President Richard H. Finan of Cincinnati and Republican Governor Bob Taft, Davidson sets the agenda for Ohio. The only rub: She’ll have to leave at the end of 2000, along with about 50 other Ohio lawmakers who have served the maximum eight years since term limits were imposed by voters in 1992.

"Some people thought I wasn’t tough enough to do the job," Davidson said at the end of her first year as speaker.

"There’s firmness there," attests her former colleague Ben Rose. "She would have been ripped to shreds by the caucus if she hadn’t been firm. On a scale of 1 to 10, the difficulty of leading that caucus is 75. It’s off the scale."

Davidson quickly let it be known she’d be no patsy in early "Big Three" meetings with the governor and Senate president, then George V. Voinovich and Stanley J. Aronoff, another Republican. "She indicated she was going to be a team player as long as she got her fair share," recalls Aronoff. "She came into every meeting with a detailed agenda. There had been a working relationship between Voinovich and me. It would have been very easy for people to think she had to go along. Not only did she hold her own, but her [share] was at least one third. Many times, it was more than a third."

MAKING IT HAPPEN
Davidson’s ceaseless consensus-building has resulted in:

Bipartisan approval of two major welfare reform proposals that at first drew sparks from conservatives and liberals.
A 12-month tightrope walk over the shark infested waters of court-ordered school funding reform. A Republican crafted legislative plan was passed, but is awaiting final disposition by the Ohio Supreme Court.
Top heavy approval of two state budgets, the last one in 1997 with such bipartisan acclaim that Davidson’s finance chairman received an unprecedented standing ovation from even hardened adversaries when he presented the bill on the floor.

Perhaps more important was what Davidson avoided: all-out warfare within her own caucus where card-carrying conservatives have threatened for 28 years to splinter the caucus to preserve their own ideals rather than cooperate with Democrats for the sake of governing.

Davidson’s first test came midway through her first year when the conservative wing tried to force a bill tightening the noose on abortions. Tactical warfare was waged. Davidson, who favors abortion rights, carefully orchestrated the debate, which spilled across party lines. After several weeks, a bill emerged that had elements that both sides could live with. Nobody got hurt, including her committee chairman, who was a lightning rod in the fight. That’s the way Davidson likes it: everybody a winner.

"Jo Ann was reluctant to impose her personal views on her caucus," recalls former Representative Jane Campbell, a Democrat who was involved in the battle. "She has so much faith in the legislative process. She wouldn’t take a position either for the choice people or the anti-choice people. She got the reasonable ones on each side to talk to each other. The way she led was by requiring everybody else to do their work."

SCHOOL FUNDING TIGHTROPE
Davidson’s next major challenge came in late March of 1997 when the Ohio Supreme Court ratified a lower court decision holding the state’s school funding system unconstitutional. It ordered a "complete and systematic overhaul" in one year.

Conservatives in the Republican caucus blocked Governor Voinovich’s bid for a penny increase in the state sales tax to fund schools. After a series of grueling post-midnight and weekend sessions in midsummer, Davidson got all House Republicans to rally around the conservatives’ no-tax solution, but the Finan-led Senate would have none of it. Davidson went back to the drawing board and, after six more months of painstaking negotiations, got the votes for a bipartisan school funding plan, including the penny on the sales tax.

Because Republicans, including Davidson, insisted that Ohio voters would have to ratify any tax increase, the lawmakers were confronted with ballot deadlines. At one point in February 1998, some members reneged on their pledged votes, and Davidson was described as despondent about her inability to deliver. But she came back with a never-before-tried, 128-year-old provision of the Ohio Constitution and got the issue to the ballot.

"Because she was able to come back with this other method when she was at her lowest point shows her competitiveness," said Curt Steiner, Davidson’s chief of staff at the time. "She is the John Elway of politics. She will come back late in the fourth quarter with time running out."

The story did not end happily. The voters said no, although the rest of the school funding upgrade stood, pending a final court ruling.

COMPETITIVE SPIRIT
Jo Ann Davidson grew up in Findlay, Ohio, a child of the Depression, raised by her mother and three older brothers. One of them coached basketball at Michigan State University, so there was a competitive spirit within the family, a spirit that carries Davidson through legislative and political battles.

Davidson’s upbringing also instilled in her a sense of responsibility, duty and honor, says her close friend Betty Montgomery, the Ohio attorney general.

"The word ‘duty’ is absolutely etched on her psyche and personality," said Montgomery. "She’s as tough as they come. She’s self-reliant. She would have been on the Oregon Trail. When the mules died, she’d have been pulling the wagon."

SECRETS OF SURVIVAL
What are Davidson’s secrets for survival? A survey of legislators, staffers and lobbyists who work most closely with her say it boils down to: A dawn-to-midnight work schedule that would fell most others half her age; a steel-trap mind that, despite the lack of formal education beyond high school, allows her to match wits with the best lawyers and business tycoons bringing their agendas to the Statehouse; and a patience that could inspire stone.

Davidson is a stickler for detail, yet she sees the big picture and understands the politics of each decision she has to make. She is a student of human nature and, rather than bulldozing a solution, she prefers to let the legislative process work. Her ego would fit on the head of a pin. No matter who gets the credit, she wants the job done, whether it’s passing a budget or electing a Republican president.

"She’s good at policy, she’s good at politics and she’s good at people," said R. Gregory Browning, a former state budget director who cut his teeth in the legislature as a Republican staffer alongside Davidson when she first arrived. "That’s a rare combination. You throw in her hard work, patience and a sense of modesty, and you’ve got one of a kind."

Her patience is practically legendary. "Time and again, I’ve seen her give somebody a second, a fifth, a ninth chance," marvels Representative E. J. Thomas. "She’s not afraid to take a risk, but she’s cautious before she takes a leap. We take comfort that we can count on her to be deliberate and not go off half-cocked."

Moderates in Davidson’s caucus say she coddles the conservatives too much "Sometimes you oughtta quit turning the other cheek," said Representative Robert L. Corbin. "I’ve admired the way she’s done it. I couldn’t do it. I’d have kicked their butts a long time ago."

"She spends ungodly amounts of time listening, trying to understand their point of view, trying to accommodate them," said House Majority Leader Patrick J. Tiberi. "People have criticized her style, but it’s worked for her. It takes the edge off people who aren’t with her [on an issue]. They can’t criticize her for not listening, for not paying any attention to them."

In the same way, Davidson has reached across the aisle, at the risk of alienating her own conservatives, to build up a reservoir of good will among Democrats. "I think what they [Republicans in Washington] found in Speaker Denny Hastert they found in Jo Ann Davidson," said Representative Ronald V. Gerberry. "She’s well thought of, she’s fair, she’s a hard worker and she gets along with both sides of the aisle."

But some of the conservatives in the caucus say fresh ideas are not encouraged in the Davidson-run caucus; that only the self-starters among the new members will succeed in the brave new world of the term-limited Ohio House that will start in 2000.

"The new people are divided into two groups," said one GOP representative. "Those who are satisfied to be sheep and find the right lobbyists to suck up to and those who want to do something." This legislator conceded that "the people who are nonconformists could develop initiative on their own."

MASTERING INFORMATION
Davidson has taught herself how to absorb and retain amazing amounts of information. In the legislature, information is power. Tiberi says Davidson’s mastery of tort reform, electric deregulation and school funding makes her an equal when discussing it with experts in each field. "We were talking about something to do with liability," he said. "She said, ‘I’m pretty sure it’s ‘X’.’ Someone went to check the revised code and, by God, she was right. That doesn’t happen just once in a while. A lawyer in our caucus said he would put Jo Ann Davidson up against any attorney in our caucus on the law and what was in it."

The speaker needs little sleep, and her energy seems boundless, despite hasty pickup meals and snacking on Twizzlers and other candy. All day long, Davidson is piling up the phone slips and returning the calls.

"I do most of my real work at home at night," said Davidson. She reviews House administrative matters; reads her mail, staff reports and background on bills; writes memos to the caucus and until recently, answered letters in longhand. She now uses a computer. Davidson sends voice mail to her staffers from home at night. Then she’s likely to climb into bed and sign letters.

HONORING THE INSTITUTION
"She’s concerned about the House as an institution," said former House Democratic Leader Ross Boggs Jr. "We disagreed, but we never, never let it interfere with the Ohio House of Representatives."

Davidson personifies respect for the institution. She has "a very quiet and eloquent way of talking about the legislature, not only to outsiders, but to legislators," says her former colleague Ben Rose. "She protects and builds up the institution, making it clear that this is an honorable process. One you could be proud to have your children participate in."

TOUGH TIMES AHEAD?
Notwithstanding her past successes, Davidson faces her toughest challenge this session. Term-limited veterans may have only one eye on the ball. The other may be focused on where to land next. Younger members may want to make their mark, and quickly. Conservatives held at bay for four years are starting to exert pressure for their own agenda.

Representative Dale Van Vyven predicts that after the budget passes in June, there’ll be nothing to hold members in line. "They’ll say, ‘Why do I have to obey anybody?’" he said. "If too many people take that attitude, we may have problems."

Some folks think Davidson is being worn down; that she’ll get "senioritis" with the end in sight. Don’t believe it. She’s even busier than ever, and thriving on it. Like reading while driving, she can do everything that goes with leading the House into the 21st century, passing bills and electing Republicans.

Lee Leonard covers the Ohio Statehouse for the Columbus Dispatch.

Preparing for Term Limits

Ohio Speaker Jo Ann Davidson, like so many of her colleagues, will have to leave the legislature at the end of 2000. "She is a poster child for the down side of term limits," said Curt Steiner, her former chief of staff and now a political consultant. "A lot of us wonder what’s going to happen. There’ll be a massive vacuum when she departs."

Davidson claims to have been grooming some newer Republican members for leadership, and there are two on the six-member GOP leadership team. But veteran committee chairmen have been reluctant to yield their positions to newcomers and Davidson has humored them. After all, they helped get her where she is.

The speaker is conscious of the upcoming transition, and said she is preparing in two general ways to hand the chamber over to the next generation in 2001.

First, she is trying to put the physical operation of the House into shape so the next speaker will not have to worry about it. She has upgraded the computer network and other technological infrastructure. She has put new personnel policies in place, and she has established in-house printing to cut expenses.

"The less amount of time a new speaker has to spend on these things, the better," she said.

Davidson has allowed some younger members to get their feet wet as subcommittee chairmen before they normally would under the seniority system. "Before, you could sit on the back bench and learn by osmosis," she said. "You can’t do that any more."

Davidson has added short courses for the new members who are rotating into the House as the veterans snap up outside jobs and leave before the clock strikes 12. She’s also asked the Legislative Service Commission to develop a longer, in-depth orientation starting in 2000. NCSL tapes and videos are used to help acquaint the new members with the legislative process.

Young caucus leaders hold weekly orientation updates to help the freshmen develop initiatives and learn how to be productive legislators. Some are sent to annual leadership training programs.

Davidson also is trying to build a depth of understanding within the professional staff that will transcend the 2000 witching hour.

Leadership—Jo Ann Davidson Style

Colleagues say there are many things that make Speaker Jo Ann Davidson a leader worth following. Here’s some of them:

Lead by example. Davidson is not afraid to type or to do other menial tasks, as long as the job gets done. She once twisted her ankle while walking door to door for a fellow Republican and appeared at the election night victory party on crutches.
Lead by listening. "She believes that you win with the power of ideas, not the sledgehammer," says Senator Bruce Johnson.

"She is a superb listener who will unite seemingly un-uniteable factions," adds Curt Steiner, her former chief of staff. "She’s learned you shouldn’t write anyone off."

Delegate your work. Use the strengths of those on your team. It takes pressure off of you and inspires their loyalty. They will later put themselves in harm’s way for you.
Keep your cool under all circumstances. "You lose your cool and you’re done," says Representative E. J. Thomas. "You’re not going to get her to react on the basis of anger. She realizes how valuable a skill that is."
Take the long-term view. Davidson does not live for the moment. "She thinks in terms of 20 years, not two years," says political strategist Sam Van Voorhis. "She forces those of us who think about nothing but politics to think about policy, and she forces those who think about nothing but policy to think about politics."

In Davidson’s own prescription for leaders, hard work is at the top of the list. "Always look for different ways to approach a problem, not just one way," she says. "Work with people, bring them together. It takes tremendous ‘people’ skills."

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