Like any large group, the Ohio General Assembly is a decidedly mixed bag.

A disturbingly large number aren't very smart, but a good many are. A dozen or so qualify as truly outstanding, a credit to their profession, people who not only care about Ohio's future, but act like it.

But there can be only one who qualifies as the Worst Person in the General Assembly.

Selecting the recipient of that title is obviously a subjective thing — just one person's opinion. It's also a spinoff of a technique used on television by Keith Olbermann.

Here's my version:

The hands-down winner of my Worst Person in the General Assembly award is State Sen. Chris Widener.

A Republican from the Springfield area, Widener is the senate's president pro tem, the body's second-most-powerful position. That speaks volumes about the judgment of Republicans who run the Senate, most notably Senate President Keith Faber.

Widener is 51. He's an architect, a former three-term member of the Ohio House and now in his second and final term as senator. And he's bad news.

For more than six years, the Dayton Daily News has reported on repeated instances of Widener walking an ethical tightrope. And two years ago, The Plain Dealer reported how Widener used his power to sponsor legislation that allowed a tourism agency to give more than $400,000 to a Clark County nonprofit he helped found. That story piqued the interest of law enforcement.

There are few Republicans the editorial page of The Columbus Dispatch dislikes. Widener seems to be one of them.

Following that Plain Dealer report, the Dispatch wrote, "In a year when two General Assembly members have been charged with graft and corruption, Widener's conduct tells a weary public that bad judgment might be one of the few bipartisan endeavors at the Statehouse."

Earlier this month, Dayton Daily News reporter Laura Bischoff found Widener's fingerprints on a deed so dirty that it probably renders him unfit to hold any elected office, let alone one of the most powerful positions in the state of Ohio.

Last September, a Bischoff story found that two top Senate staffers did work for their political consulting firm while on state time, then altered their work records after Bischoff requested them. The newspaper used Statehouse parking records to track the time Senate Chief of Staff Jason Mauk and Communications Director John McClelland spent away from their Statehouse jobs.

Widener moved decisively to mete out punishment. To the public.

Two months after the story ran, this petty man had the audacity to order new parking passes — passes that would prevent the public from knowing who was entering or leaving the garage.

Widener ordered $7,125 spent for the new passes through his role as chairman of the Capitol Square Review & Advisory Board. The board is a bipartisan group charged with "maintaining the historic character of the Statehouse" and, if Widener had his way, doing whatever possible to violate the public trust and eliminate transparency.

But the attempt to effectively eliminate a public record imploded when appalled House Republican leaders balked at the scheme. A top House administrator said Widener was the only person advocating for the idea.

Last year, the Ohio Republican Party filed a lawsuit seeking to compel records tracking then-Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald's comings and goings from the county parking garage, repeatedly referring to them as "the people's records."

But GOP leaders have been strangely silent about Widener's crude attempt to permanently destroy "the people's records" at the Statehouse garage — which tends to prove they never gave a damn about "the people's records." They just wanted to embarrass the Democratic nominee for governor.

Widener stopped talking with the news media more than a year ago. When I called his office, a worker there politely asked that I submit any questions to the senator in writing.

So, in compliance with Widener's childish policy, here they are:

Why would you seek to deny the public access to records that tend to document the work habits of government employees?

What is your reaction to winning my Worst Person in the General Assembly award?

Your term expires at the end of 2016, but have you ever thought about leaving early?

Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer's editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

To reach Brent Larkin: (216) 999-4252