The Columbus Dispatch...
Deal on SB 5 sought in secret meetings
By  Joe Vardon
Saturday August 13, 2011 4:15 PM 

Melissa Fazekas of the anti-Senate Bill 5 coalition We Are Ohio reiterates at a news conference at Columbus Fire Station No. 1 that the group would reject any deal on SB 5. 

While We Are Ohio was smashing signature records and raising millions in cash to defeat Senate Bill 5, officials from two of its largest support organizations were secretly meeting with the opposition about a possible deal to water down the collective-bargaining law and cancel the fall referendum. 

Sources said that in June, Ohio Education Association vice president William Leibensperger and AFL-CIO president Tim Burga met at least twice with former Republican Ohio House Speaker Jo Ann Davidson and Chan Cochran, a confidant of Gov. John Kasich’s. 

Davidson was appointed by Kasich to the Ohio Casino Control Commission and is among the decision-makers affiliated with Building a Better Ohio, the group formed to defend Senate Bill 5 . 

The OEA has raised more than $5 million to repeal the bill, and its members inundated Kasich’s office with emails earlier this year urging him not to sign the legislation that weakened collective bargaining for public employees. 

The AFL-CIO gave $1.5 million to We Are Ohio, and affiliates — the Communications Workers of America and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — gave $2 million. 

The meetings were facilitated by Curt Steiner, a political consultant and former chief of staff for both Gov. George V. Voinovich and Davidson, and Michael Billirakis, a former president of the statewide teachers union. 

Steiner and Billirakis both forecast a bruising fall campaign that might not end after the referendum, predicting a Republican attempt to re-institute Senate Bill 5’s provisions piecemeal in future legislation even if Ohio voters defeat it in November. 

“I just saw an opportunity to hit the reset button,” Steiner said, declining to confirm the meeting’s participants. 

“When you have people throwing spears in the public realm, it’s helpful to have private dialogue in which you wouldn’t say all the nasty things being said in public,” Billirakis added, noting that the meetings sprouted from a discussion he had with Steiner over lunch in late May. 

“It started out as two people talking, and all of a sudden it was more than that,” Billirakis said. 

Yesterday, Melissa Fazekas, spokesperson for We Are Ohio, the campaign formed to overturn Senate Bill 5, said during a news conference that no deal was ever offered or discussed with campaign officials. 

And, reiterating a point she made in a news release on Monday, she said We Are Ohio would reject any deal that involved canceling the referendum. 

“We had 1.3 million people sign petitions to overturn the bill,” Fazekas said. “We don’t want to thwart the will of the people.” 

Davidson, Leibensperger, and Burga did not return phone messages seeking comment. Cochran could not be reached for comment. 

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said Kasich would be interested in seeking a deal and that “the people at the table had the confidence of the administration.” 

But Nichols also said Kasich did not initiate the June discussions. 

Though no deal was ever officially offered or agreed upon, a framework had emerged to repeal Senate Bill 5 in exchange for union concessions. 

Several sources said a deal would have included some agreement that all public employees would contribute a certain percentage toward their health-care and pension costs. The bill now requires at least 15 percent payment toward health insurance and 10 percent toward pensions by all public employees. 

As part of the proposed compromise, a modified binding arbitration system, the right for all nonsafety forces to strike, and “fair share” payments to unions by nonunion employees would likely have been reinstituted. 

Republicans also might have been willing to hedge on a provision of Senate Bill 5 that outlaws seniority as a determining factor for layoffs. Other economic issues such as merit pay and non-economic factors such as the education reforms included in the bill were on the table as well. 

Steiner and Billirakis both said that Leibensperger and Burga backed away from the discussions. 

The same Quinnipiac University poll from July that showed voters favoring repeal of Senate Bill 5 by 24 points also showed they support requiring public employees to contribute more toward their health-care and pension costs 

Any deal would have to be reached by Aug. 30, the deadline for We Are Ohio to remove its referendum from the Nov. 8 ballot. With neither the House nor the Senate in session, repealing and replacing Senate Bill 5 could prove difficult. 

“It makes sense that we try to negotiate and put something in place now because, if the referendum is successful, I assume there are going to be attempts to start passing parts of it piecemeal, and this could go on forever,” said Sen. Kevin Bacon, R-Minerva Park, who was closely involved in the passage of Senate Bill 5. 

Read it at the Columbus Dispatch