Democracy in Session: A History of the Ohio General Assembly (review)

In 2006, Robert Remini published The House, a one-volume history of the United States House of Representatives. David M. Gold’s more recent work is a continuation of this emerging interest in American political institutions. Both are institutional histories of legislative bodies: Remini looks at the U.S. House, while Gold’s work is a study of the Ohio legislature. But the two works, although similar in purpose, have very few other similarities.

David Gold is a lawyer-historian who worked in the Ohio Legislative Services Commission and has an intimate knowledge of the Ohio legislature. He has taken this insider’s view and his training as a professional historian and crafted the first accessible history of the Ohio experience. In this institutional history, the author deals with the myriad issues that have been and continue to be connected with the legislature. At first glance, the work appears to be a chronological study, as Part One deals with pre-statehood, Part Two with the nineteenth century, Part Three with the twentieth century, and Part Four (the shortest part) with the twenty-first century. The actual text of the chapters, however, is thematically organized. The several chapters deal with qualifications and expulsion of members, legislative process, establishment and functioning of committees, compensation, and some of the colorful members of the legislature.

Each chapter is dedicated to one theme, and that theme is studied over the breadth of the time period of that part of the book. For example, in chapter 4, “Delegates Fresh from the People,” Gold looks at the character of the Ohio legislators in general and a few specific characters during the nineteenth century. In this chapter, Gold touches on the challenges that an Ohio legislative history faces: first and foremost, the lack of a complete list of those who served during the early years of statehood. This lack of information limits the author’s ability to craft a precise image of the early Ohio legislator. For this reason, he does not touch much on the early period; instead, the discussion seems to focus on the post-1840 figures.

The strong institutional bent of the work is very clear in the third part of the book. In several chapters, Gold engages in a continuation of a discussion that he began in the second part of the book, as he dedicates considerable attention to the changing rules of the legislature, the requirements for readings of bills, and the work of committees. The focus is clearly not on people or events; rather, it is on process. Unfortunately, it is this focus on process that weakens the work. Without any meaningful discussion of events and people, there is no context against which to view the developments in process and to understand why things occur as they do.

In defense of the author, he does not claim that the work centers on events and people. In the preface, he states, “The book examines the constitutional parameters within which the General Assembly functioned, the development of legislatives rules and procedures, and the physical setting in which the legislature operated.” He fulfills this goal; however, he also claims he “looks at the legislators: who they were, how they got elected, how they interacted with other members and with interested nonmembers both inside and outside the statehouse, and what standards of conduct they maintained” (xvi). This is the part of the book that would have put meat on the skeleton of the story, but Gold’s treatment of the legislators is perfunctory and abstract, and they often appear only to indicate who was responsible for a development or change. Despite this weakness, the work is an admirable foundation for the beginning of this historiography. It will surely be cited as this field develops.