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Toledo
Blade...
Arguments
filed on Ohio ballot issues
Language for, against Senate Bill 5,
health-care law rich in buzz words
By Jim Provance
COLUMBUS
-- Both sides of the battle
over Ohio’s new law limiting public employee collective bargaining used
plenty
of buzz words in language submitted Wednesday to the Ohio Ballot Board
that
they hope will elicit the response they want on Election Day.
Those
seeking a “no” vote on Senate
Bill 5 play up the law’s impact on police, firefighters, and nurses and
point
at the “Columbus politicians” who, they said, have given away “hundreds
of
millions in corporate tax breaks” while blaming middle-class Ohioans
for the
state’s problems. They also make a point of specifically mentioning
“Governor
Kasich,” who has registered with low approval numbers in recent polls.
Advocates
for a “yes” vote to save the
law praise the “long overdue reforms” that would get “government
spending under
control,” make government more “accountable,” and “protect taxpayers.”
The
arguments provide a glimpse of the
media campaigns ahead for the hearts and minds of Ohio voters before
Nov. 8.
The
arguments were filed with the
five-member ballot board, which has no authority to change the wording
of
either side’s case. The board agreed to include a disclaimer saying so
when the
information is published in newspapers, posted on the Internet, and
distributed
to boards of elections.
“Even
if something in the arguments is
completely misleading and/or inaccurate, we would have to publish that
information merely as a ministerial function,” said Sen. Keith Faber
(R.,
Celina), a board member and Senate Bill 5 supporter. “We would have no
ability
to correct anything that would be a materially false statement.”
Issue
2 will ask voters whether they
support the law passed by Republicans and signed by Gov. John Kasich
last
spring that, among numerous other things, prohibits all public employee
strikes, limits matters of discussion at the bargaining table, requires
workers
to pay at least 15 percent of their health-care premiums, and prohibits
local
governments from paying any portion of an employee’s share of his
pension
contributions.
The
language pushing for a “yes” vote
was submitted by state legislators who played crucial roles in the
law’s
drafting and passage.
“Issue
2 will save our communities
millions of dollars annually, helping them balance their budgets and
retain
jobs,” their argument reads. “Issue 2 will protect taxpayers by giving
them the
right to reject unaffordable government employment contracts.”
The
argument for a “no” vote was
submitted by We Are Ohio, the coalition of mostly labor and Democratic
organizations that led the petition effort to put the referendum on the
ballot.
“Teachers,
nurses, firefighters are
not the reason Ohio’s budget is in trouble,” they argue. “Big
corporations,
their high-paid lobbyists, and the politicians they fund are blaming
middle-class Ohioans for a problem they caused.”
Similar
jockeying takes place in the
arguments submitted on Issue 3, the proposed constitutional amendment
that
would allow Ohioans to reject individual and business insurance
coverage
mandates under President Obama’s health-care law.
“The
freedom to not be forced to
purchase government-defined private health insurance is a fundamental
right,
implicit in the concept of ordered liberty and deeply rooted in our
history and
tradition,” the proposed amendment’s supporters argue.
The
opposition, however, makes it
appear that the question attacks the entire health-care reform law,
including
provisions that have proven popular.
“Voting
‘no’ will continue to make
health care more affordable and it will ensure opportunities for the
1.4
million Ohioans who have been shut out of the insurance market because
of pre-existing
conditions and high insurance costs,” the opposition argues.
Read
it at the Toledo Blade
Issue
1 Arguments Against… Click here
Issue 1 Arguments For… Click here
Issue 2 Arguments Against… Click here
Issue 2 Arguments For… Click here
Issue 3 Arguments
Against… Click here
Issue 3 Arguments For… Click here
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