A bill sitting quietly in the Ohio House could strip the governor's office of control over the agency that reviews thousands of state regulations every year, handing that power instead to legislative leaders. House Bill 1024 would move the Common Sense Initiative, which reported reviewing 2,447 state administrative rules in 2025, from the governor's office to the legislative branch.
The bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Jamie Callender, would have the House speaker and Senate president jointly appoint the Common Sense Initiative's director and control the office's staffing, according to cleveland.com. The director and employees of the office would serve at the pleasure of those legislative leaders rather than the governor. Importantly, the bill would not require lawmakers to approve every rule the office reviews, nor would it automatically delay all regulations.
Callender filed the bill on Oct. 13, weeks before Democrat Amy Acton won Ohio's Nov. 3 governor's race. The timing matters: if HB 1024 becomes law, the legislative-branch arrangement would continue beyond Acton's administration unless lawmakers later changed it themselves. As of the bill's introduction, the Ohio House had recorded no committee referral, hearing or vote on the measure, and the same remained true after that date, per the same report.
What Would Actually Change Under the Bill
If enacted, the shift wouldn't happen overnight. The existing executive-branch office would be abolished six months after the law takes effect, with its records, assets, liabilities and unfinished work transferring to the new legislative-branch office at that point. The Small Business Advisory Council, however, would remain tied to the governor's office rather than moving with the rest of the operation.
The Common Sense Initiative itself dates back to 2011, when it was created under then-Gov. John Kasich. Its core job is reviewing regulations affecting businesses and examining whether state agencies can meet their objectives with fewer burdens — covering rules that require permits, impose penalties, create reporting obligations or increase business expenses. Agencies proposing rules with adverse business impacts generally must prepare business impact analyses explaining the requirements and potential costs, which the office then reviews alongside public comments.
The office can recommend changes to proposed regulations, and agencies must consider those recommendations — and explain themselves when they decline to adopt them. In certain cases involving medical, nursing and pharmacy boards, the office can direct agencies to eliminate regulatory restrictions under statutory review criteria, and agencies that object can appeal to the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, which separately reviews agency rules for statutory authority and legislative intent and can recommend that lawmakers invalidate them.
Real-World Cases From the 2025 Review Cycle
The office's own accounting offers a window into how that review process plays out. When the Ohio Department of Health proposed requirements for hospitals providing higher-level maternity and newborn care in 2025 — including an on-site graduate medical education requirement — hospitals raised concerns about residency programs operated through other institutions. The department ultimately allowed hospitals to meet the requirement through agreements with other hospitals instead.
Pharmacy regulation saw similar back-and-forth. The Ohio Board of Pharmacy proposed additional requirements for the state's prescription-monitoring system, and one interested party estimated compliance would cost at least $1 million — though that figure reflects an anticipated cost estimate rather than any verified statewide savings. The board later removed some of those requirements and extended implementation by six months. In a separate case, after concerns about alternative technologies, the board allowed waivers or modifications to a proposed rule requiring telepharmacy systems to capture actual images of medication bottles during dispensing.
Taken together, the office says 56% of the rules it reviewed in 2025 were improved through its process. That figure comes from the Common Sense Initiative's own annual report, and it does not establish that the office alone was responsible for every change — agencies, stakeholders and other pressures could have played a role too.
Political Backdrop as Power Shifts in Columbus
HB 1024 is one of several proposals the conservative Buckeye Institute has pushed as lawmakers look to curb executive authority following Acton's win. The group has framed such measures as efforts to ensure elected officials are responsible for costly government regulations imposed on Ohioans, as reported by The Statehouse News Bureau.
Not everyone in Columbus is on board, though. Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters he didn't think any governor, regardless of party, would sign off on something that dramatically changed the powers of the office. “I don't think any governor is going to approve anything, whether Democrat or Republican, that would dramatically change the powers of the governor,” DeWine said, according to the Ohio Capital Journal. “I just don't think that's appropriate.”
For now, HB 1024's fate remains unclear. State law requires the Common Sense Initiative to prepare an annual report of its activities no later than Feb. 1 each year, per Ohio Revised Code Section 107.55 — a deadline that will arrive regardless of which branch of government ends up overseeing the office by then.
