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Columbus
Dispatch...
Multiple choice for
SB 5 vote?
GOP
considering ballot questions on
each provision of contentious law
By Joe Vardon
Thursday,
June 23, 2011
To
break what appears to be strong,
unified opposition to Senate Bill 5, Gov. John Kasich and his allies
might seek
to have the umbrella law that would weaken collective bargaining for
public
employees divided into multiple ballot questions.
Three
sources told The Dispatch
yesterday that Kasich administration officials and other Republicans
who support
Senate Bill 5 are talking to the Ohio Ballot Board about presenting the
issue
to voters so that they would cast votes on its many provisions, instead
of a
simple up or down vote on the law.
We
Are Ohio, the group of Democrats,
organized labor, and others opposed to tampering with Ohio’s
collective-bargaining laws that is leading the repeal effort, announced
last
week that it had already collected 714,137 signatures to place the law
on the
ballot.
With
only 231,000 valid signatures due
by June 30 for success, it is more than likely that the
Republican-backed
collective-bargaining law will face a referendum.
We
Are Ohio announced yesterday that
it will deliver the signatures to Secretary of State Jon Husted and
hold a
celebratory parade on Wednesday.
But
how the referendum is posed to
voters is up to the Ballot Board, a five-member board chaired by Husted
and
controlled by Republicans.
“I
think that’s an issue the ballot
board will look at,” said one source with knowledge of the discussions.
“(The)
ballot board has to figure (out) a lot of things - how many issues,
language,
and issue numbers. (Dividing the bill) is something being discussed.”
There
is precedent for the ballot
board to divide a ballot issue. In 2005, the board divided Reform Ohio
Now’s
three proposed constitutional amendments related to elections into four.
Although
risky, polling shows that
Kasich could hold on to at least a portion of the collective-bargaining
changes
he signed into law if the issue were divided on the ballot.
In
the latest Quinnipiac University
poll released May18, Ohioans favored the repeal of Senate Bill 5 by a
margin of
54 percent to 36percent. But when individual components of the bill
were posed
to poll respondents, the results were mixed.
For
example, 59 percent favored the
provision that would require public employees to pay at least 15percent
of
their health-insurance premiums. Fifty-eight percent favored those same
employees having to pay at least 10 percent of their wages toward their
pensions, and 57 percent favored replacing automatic pay increases with
a
merit-pay system.
Husted
and Republican state Sen. Keith
Faber of Celina, who is also on the board, did not return calls seeking
comment.
Also
on the board are William N.
Morgan, Rebecca Egelhoff and Fred Strahorn, a Democrat and former
legislator.
Another
issue that might come before
the ballot board - and sources say could affect how defenders of Senate
Bill 5
proceed - is the Ohio Liberty Group’s effort to put President Barack
Obama’s
health-care law on the ballot.
The
tea party-affiliated organization
yesterday said its volunteers have collected more than 389,000
signatures of
registered voters seeking to put the issue on the fall ballot. The
group, aided
by the Ohio GOP, needs 385,245 valid signatures to get on the ballot.
Sponsors
said they expect to turn in more than 500,000 before the July 6
deadline.
The
issue being circulated by tea
party groups is nearly identical to a resolution that failed in the
Ohio House
yesterday. Republicans fell one vote short in their effort to put the
law on
the statewide ballot. All 39 Democrats present voted against Senate
Joint
Resolution 1, denying Republicans the “supermajority” of 60 votes
needed for a
constitutional issue.
Dispatch
reporters Alan Johnson and
Catherine Candisky contributed to this story.
Read
it at the Columbus Dispatch
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