(Video clip is remarks; podcast is remarks and reporter questions.)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WTVN) -- The feds can dictate what kind of trees are planted at interchanges, how many trees, and how far apart they are. The feds can also dictate how many cows a farmer has by how much pond space he or she has to provide drinking water for livestock. Those are two of the claims made by former Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican, as he visited the Ohio Statehouse to get support for a Convention of States.
"A recent report came out that [indicated] federal regulation cost Americans $2-trillion a year," Coburn said. "The United States, for the first time in 200 years, we're no longer first in economic freedom. We're 16th in the world."
Coburn was joined at the Statehouse by State Senator Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican; and State Representative Bill Patmon, a Cleveland area Democrat who describes himself as conservative.
"We all remember having to drive 55 miles per hour, because under a Republican administration, somebody decided that was a better idea because if we don't, we lose our highway money," Huffman said.
The Convention of States idea is controversial.
According to the Austin American-Statesman, the Texas Senate has given an initial OK to the idea.
According to the Tennessean, lawmakers in Nashville are not quite as supportive of such a measure.