competitive market. It will not result in any consumers' paying more for electricity," he promised his colleagues in the General Assembly, worried about increasing their constituents' bills. Johnson called his plan "a reasonable and fair approach" and ultimately prevailing, Johnson successfully passing the legislation into law in 1999. Sealing Senate records Johnson was strongly criticized for his 2001 attempt to repeal the reach of Ohio's sunshine law that made state records available to the public, a proposal contained in the massive state budget bill. Darrell Rowland of The Columbus Dispatch described Johnson's idea: "The obscure proposal–two dozen lines in a 58,936-line bill–would prevent subpoenas of legislative staff members and their communications with legislators. The bill also would keep secret any legislative documents not deemed public records–a broad category because the General Assembly already concealed much of that material from public view two years ago." William L. Phillis, executive director of the Coalition for Equity and Adequacy, a group of public schools suing the State of Ohio for more funding, told the newspaper "This is not something you expect in a democracy. You might expect this kind of behavior from a third-world dictator, one that would want to hide wrongdoing by making a decree that makes it right." Johnson told The Dispatch "I need unlimited, unfettered discretion to seek every fact I can find in order to come to a decent conclusion. What we want to do is make sure the senators and representatives are competently representing the will of the people." The senator also claimed seventeenth-century English common law justified his plan. Thomas C. Drabick Jr. of Blacklick said in a letter to the editor published in The Dispatch "He has unlimited and unfettered arrogance. Who does he think he works for? Clearly, he does not believe that he is responsible to the people of Ohio; otherwise, he would not seek to keep secrets from us." The Dispatch agreed, editorializing that "Government decisions made in secret aren't necessarily better decisions, they're just secret decisions. Unfortunately, too many of Ohio's legislative leaders seem sold on the idea that keeping things hush-hush is good." Nevertheless, the Senate passed Johnson's proposal, part of the state budget, over attempts by the Democratic minority to remove the language from the bill. Other legislative work Johnson was a critic of the United States Congress's efforts to force states, under penalty of losing federal highway money, to