Republican legislators backed off their attempt to all but dismantle an independent prison watchdog panel Wednesday, but only after the agency's controversial director agreed to quit. The resignation of Joanna Saul as head of the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee ended a turbulent 24 hours in which GOP leaders in the Ohio House and Senate worked behind closed doors to find a way to silence the agency that has been an independent, bipartisan watchdog over state adult prisons for nearly 40 years.

Republican legislators backed off their attempt to all but dismantle an independent prison watchdog panel Wednesday, but only after the agency�s controversial director agreed to quit.

The resignation of Joanna Saul as head of the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee ended a turbulent 24 hours in which GOP leaders in the Ohio House and Senate worked behind closed doors to find a way to silence the agency that has been an independent, bipartisan watchdog over state adult prisons for nearly 40 years.

Saul lit a fire overnight Tuesday with a sharply worded letter to the Senate complaining about � the lack of transparency and silencing of critics by this administration. The administration went hard after the main legislator who was helping me, effectively silencing her, and now the entire committee is being wiped. Is that what Ohio government stands for?�

But it came down to a take-it-or-leave-it offer from the Senate: Saul, a lawyer paid $65,833 annually, could stay and fight, or resign and the agency created in 1977 would survive, more or less intact.

�She has a history of being grossly insubordinate,� said Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina.

Lawmakers, not staff, drive the organization, he said, and on two occasions �she has refused to follow instructions and operated under her own plan.�

Senate Democrats had their suspicions.

�My understanding is there are people who have concerns with the director and the only way to get rid of the director is to get rid of CIIC and reconstitute it,� Sen. Charleta B. Tavares of Columbus said before word of the deal became public.

Saul�s committee, with a staff of five, inspects and develops hard-hitting reports on adult and juvenile prisons, covering staffing, medical care, prison violence and inmate gangs. The agency�s findings often expose flaws in the state prison systems.

In an amendment quietly jammed into unrelated legislation, the Ohio House proposed replacing the CIIC with a new committee that could perform prison inspections only with specific approval from the speaker of the House and president of the Senate. That would have been a dramatic departure from the investigative autonomy the committee now enjoys.

Faber was not happy about Saul�s letter, but it was only his latest issue.

�We�ve had problems with CIIC for years,� he said. �The structure doesn�t seem to work very well.�

The reaction to the news was swift from a number of people and agencies, including state Rep. Mike Curtin, D-Marble Cliff, who called it �unnecessary, a raw power play.�

Ohio Public Defender Tim Young said the agency is �Ohio�s best protection against a federal lawsuit regarding prison conditions.�

Michele Deitch, a lecturer at the University of Texas Law School at Austin and co-chairwoman of the American Bar Association�s Subcommittee on Correctional Oversight, said in an email that she was �dismayed� by the proposal to eliminate CIIC. She said the bar association �has long held the Ohio CIIC up as a national model of prison oversight.�

JoEllen Smith, spokeswoman for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said in a statement, �We have always and will always comply with regulatory oversight panels in a transparent manner consistent with state and federal privacy laws. How the legislature wishes to structure that oversight is their purview.�

Dispatch Reporter Catherine Candisky contributed to this story.

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