Over the last 20 months, Republican majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate have subordinated themselves to the president of the United States. They abrogated their Article 1 responsibilities as a co-equal branch of the federal government to carry water for the convicted felon in the White House.
History will note their slavish obedience to Donald Trump, their willingness to cede core constitutional powers to the dear leader — power to declare war, power of the purse, power to levy tariffs, power to conduct government oversight as a critical check on abuses of power.
Trump is lawlessly usurping Congress’s power now by cutting nearly $1 billion in funding it approved for programs the White House unilaterally decided were not worth “wasteful and harmful government spending.”
But under GOP leadership, the 119th Congress allowed itself to be diminished and bypassed by a megalomaniac chasing unlimited power.
From the beginning, Trump set the agenda on Capitol Hill and Republican lawmakers fell in line.
The partisan rubber-stamps enacted the largest-ever cuts to basic needs programs in the U.S. to fund Trump’s $1 trillion in tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, declined to oversee the illegal war Trump began without congressional authorization or public debate, ignored the brazen defiance of congressional statutes by the Trump regime, (from gutting federal agencies to renaming institutions) and refused to even superficially check the most corrupt president in American history.
Party loyalty and protecting the party boss was/is the preferred default move among team players in the House and Senate. Principle and prudence in federal legislating and constitutional duties take a back seat to political allegiance.
The same rule of thumb applies to the Republican supermajorities in the Ohio House and Ohio Senate. Party trumps all.
But under one party rule, power has always been zealously guarded and wielded in the legislature. Which makes it all the more astonishing that GOP leadership in the Statehouse jumped to give so much power to an unelected Republican candidate running for governor.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a venture capitalist who made a fortune in biotech and notably moved a company he co-founded from Columbus to Dallas two years ago.
The 41-year-old billionaire, who has never served in any public office, spent tens of millions of his own money on a brief presidential campaign before jumping on the Trump train in 2024.
His reward was a five-minute stint as co-leader of an advisory cost-cutting initiative (the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE) that ended up costing the federal government billions of dollars in paid leave and related expenses to haphazardly shrink the workforce).
When Republican Gov. Mike DeWine passed Ramaswamy over for a U.S. Senate appointment, the Ohioan settled for DeWine’s job in 2026 while he waits for another shot at the presidency.
The Republican nominee eying the governor’s mansion has struggled to gain traction against Dr. Amy Acton, former head of the Ohio Department of Health under DeWine and the Democratic candidate campaigning for the same office.
The latest polls show Acton with a slight edge over Ramaswamy.
Twice the GOP-run General Assembly has rallied to kick-start his flagging momentum with hurried legislation the candidate pitched as a winning gambit with voters — directing policymaking as though he were governor already.
Ramaswamy called on the legislature to make Ohio’s voter ID law, that polls favorably, a constitutional requirement to juice turnout and Republicans jammed through a resolution in three weeks that put a needless voter ID amendment on the November ballot.
Last week, Acton called for an emergency state gas tax holiday to lessen the sticker shock at the pumps from Trump’s war of choice with Iran.
In response to her proposal to temporarily suspend Ohio’s state motor fuel tax (38.5 cents per gallon of gasoline and 47 cents per gallon for diesel), Ramaswamy announced a similar 90-day gas tax suspension proposal about six hours later.
Ohio Republicans spun into action at the behest of their boss (?) and scheduled an unprecedented special legislative session today (Wednesday) to vote on his plan — a week before early, in-person voting begins in Ohio.
What extraordinary power state legislative leaders, like their federal counterparts in Washington, have ceded to one man who, unlike Trump, has not been elected to anything.
Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, Ramaswamy’s running mate, and Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman have stooped to carrying water for the former hedge fund manager/biotech baron in their respective chambers.
It’s wild. A Republican candidate, in a toss-up race for governor, is calling the shots in the legislature on what extra amendment should go into the Ohio Constitution and what should be suspended in gas taxes that fund road and bridge work and will cost the state around $700 million in lost revenue.
It’s unclear how that significant shortfall in road funding will be replaced and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is adamant that using money from the Ohio Department of Transportation to make up for a gas tax is a “very, very bad idea.”
But it’s easy politics, right? Who doesn’t like discounted gas prices?
This is a last-ditch effort by Ramaswamy — in league with compliant team players in the legislature — to change the trajectory of a political campaign many assumed would be a slam dunk. Trump pulled a similar maneuver to change midterm trends when he dangled a $5k giveaway to every citizen if voters returned Republican majorities to Congress.
Whether either stunt works to sway the electorate as voting starts is anyone’s guess. But voters are smart. In 2026, they are razor focused. On course correction. Will gimmicks work?
This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.
