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[b]SB 5 could be the death certificate of the “Reagan Democrats” in Ohio[/b]
By ModernEsquire On February 21, 2011 · View Comments

There’s been a ton of discussion here about why SB 5 is bad policy and bad economics for Ohio. But nobody seems to have considered how SB 5 is bad politics (especially for the GOP heading into 2012.)

Before there was a Tea Party, or soccer moms, there were the Reagan Democrats, blue-collar working stiffs who ordinarily sided with Democrats on economic issues but came out in force for Reagan. Miami University alum/nationally renown Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found that in a Michigan community that went nearly 2/3rds for Kennedy, went the other direction for Reagan… twice. The socioeconomic demographic of the region had not changed. Blue collar union voters just stopped being the solid, uniform pro-Democratic vote it had been.

As this post on Balloon Juice noted, the idea of labor being a solid Democratic constituency is not exactly true. According to surveys, on average 57% of union households typically vote Democratic, that’s only 11-points higher than non-union households. That means that up to 43% vote Republican… consistently.

Republicans have made inroads into the labor vote by appeals to the white working and middle class on social issues like guns. Although the idea of a pro-union Republican now seems difficult to conceptualize with SB 5 being introduced, you have to realize that not all Republicans have been hostile to unions, especially in ways that we’re seeing now. That’s how Republicans like Tom Patton in Cleveland and Jimmy Stewart in Athens stay elected. They appeal to the Reagan Democrats without appearing to pose as any threat to the Reagan Democrat’s unions.

How pervasive has pro-union Republicans become in our political culture? Well, according to CNN’s 2010 exit poll in the Ohio’s Governor’s race, John Kasich took 37% of the union vote while Portman got 43%! Nearly two out of every five union members voted for John Kasich. (Of course, I dare say there’s some buyer’s remorse there.) But why? Because while the labor leadership understood that the Democratic Party was friendly to labor interest, the rank-and-file became convinced over time that there was no real danger in voting Republican.

After all, it’s not like these guys took away our unions when they controlled State government in the 1990s, right? Right?

As a result of SB 5, the rank and file of Ohio’s unions suddenly realize that this is a different breed of Republicanism than they’ve seen before. Despite the fact that Kasich said during the campaign that he wants to “break the back of teachers’ unions,” his rhetoric was either dismissed or ignored. Not anymore. If SB 5 passes, it may cause most rank and file union members to distrust every voting Republican again for a generation. What had been a sub-60% performance constituency could approach the kind of performance the party only sees in the African-American community. That, in and of itself, could be a major factor in future elections, and not one that benefits the Republicans. Thanks to John Kasich, the Republicans may have woken up a sleeping giant for which they lack any real political counterweight.

Again, let’s look at the partisan breakdown of the Quinnipiac Poll when it asked Ohioans if they supported what is essentially SB 5:

image

So if Quinnipiac is an accurate reflection of public opinion in Ohio, here’s what the Republicans get with SB 5:

* An energized labor base that will be mobilized more than ever behind the Democratic Party at levels they’ve never seen in their lifetime;
* The rest of the Democratic base which gets energized in opposition levels that equal or slightly exceed the labor base.
* A mostly split, ambivalent Republican base.

And it’s all going to be pushed by a new Governor who won with only a plurality of the vote, has the second lowest favorability rating of any Governor in the nation, and has a 30% approval rating during his “honeymoon” period. Seriously, who saw this and thought “political winner?” (The reality is the GOP didn’t look at it because they simply miscalculated public opinion on the issue.) To top it off, not even Rasmussen can generate a poll that shows the American public is solidly behind Walker.

And why is the support for this so weak with Republicans? Again, because of the existence of Reagan Democrats. These are the same union folks you can see on the Columbus Tea Party website opposing getting involved in favor of SB 5.

Take the issue out of the equation and just look at the above. This is absolutely suicidal politics. And how does this help the GOP next year. If Mitt Romney continues to be the front runner, how can he win in this environment. He’s going to have to write off Michigan given Obama saving the auto industry and Romney’s opposition to that. Where do you go to make inroads in States Obama carried in 2008? Well, you probably can’t go to Wisconsin and Ohio.

Yeah, if you’re a Republican looking to run for President next year, you can’t be thrilled with seeing this kind of labor mobilization in Wisconsin and Ohio. Seriously, where’s Mitt Romney on Wisconsin? AWOL. After campaigning to get Walker elected as Governor there, Mitt Romney is nowhere to be seen on this issue.

(Huckabee has sided with Walker, but he’s a Governor of a Right-to-Work State and has nothing to lose by siding with Walker as Huckabee is generally positioning himself to be general election poison anyways.)
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these problems are teh same ones more than half the country is facing, its only a seperate issue because it involves gov't money..etc..

thousands and thousands of companies have to cut back, if people are losing jobs, taxes arent being collected income or sales tax when they shop, cause they arent, cause they are broke...

it sucks if you have family involved in it... but to pretend its somehow different or worse than many other peoples career situations is unrealistic.... IMO
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[quote name='GoBengals' timestamp='1302829300' post='983756']
these problems are teh same ones more than half the country is facing, its only a seperate issue because it involves gov't money..etc..

thousands and thousands of companies have to cut back, if people are losing jobs, taxes arent being collected income or sales tax when they shop, cause they arent, cause they are broke...

it sucks if you have family involved in it... but to pretend its somehow different or worse than many other peoples career situations is unrealistic.... IMO
[/quote]

Then you do not understand the bill....

...for Police and Fire it is not even close to the same.

There are flat out lies in the bill.... if you really want to get educated on this then listen to what Bill Seitz(a pro-empolyer attorney) says in his testimony about it.

Pick this video up from minute 85 and it last about 15 mins from that point.

http://www.ohiochannel.org/MediaLibrary/Media.aspx?fileId=129320&returnTo=Collection
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[quote name='GoBengals' timestamp='1302829300' post='983756']
these problems are teh same ones more than half the country is facing, its only a seperate issue because it involves gov't money..etc..

thousands and thousands of companies have to cut back, if people are losing jobs, taxes arent being collected income or sales tax when they shop, cause they arent, cause they are broke...

it sucks if you have family involved in it... but to pretend its somehow different or worse than many other peoples career situations is unrealistic.... IMO
[/quote]

Not true.

Cutting the ability to collectively bargain and outlawing striking is in no way the same as the public sector.
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And a judge [url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110526/pl_nm/us_unions_wisconsin;_ylt=AgR.cYYeJKaHOzdbvwrEdKSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNuNDhsNnY2BGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwNTI2L3VzX3VuaW9uc193aXNjb25zaW4EY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM0BHBvcwMxBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDanVkZ2V2b2lkc2Nv"]voids the Wisconsin law.[/url]
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[quote name='Elflocko' timestamp='1306425264' post='994868']
And a judge [url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110526/pl_nm/us_unions_wisconsin;_ylt=AgR.cYYeJKaHOzdbvwrEdKSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNuNDhsNnY2BGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwNTI2L3VzX3VuaW9uc193aXNjb25zaW4EY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM0BHBvcwMxBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDanVkZ2V2b2lkc2Nv"]voids the Wisconsin law.[/url]
[/quote]


:)

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[b]SB5 repeal effort exceeds 700,000 signatures
November referendum on new collective-bargaining law seems almost certain[/b]

Updated: Friday, June 17, 2011 12:48 PM
By Jim Siegel
The Columbus Dispatch

.

We Are Ohio, the coalition of union supporters that wants to overturn Ohio's new collective-bargaining law, has collected 714,137 signatures, more than triple the number needed to get a referendum on the November ballot.

Spokeswoman Melissa Fazekas said the group's internal sampling shows the validation rate on those signatures is above 60 percent, and they have met the criteria for collecting names in 44 of Ohio's 88 counties. Signature collecting will continue for the next two weeks, leading up to the June 30 deadline to turn in petitions.

The petition effort greatly exceeds the group's goal of collecting 450,000 to 500,000 signatures, Fazekas said. She compared it to the scenes at the Statehouse this spring, when thousands of workers protested against Senate Bill 5 and occasionally were not let into the building.

"Unfortunately, those workers were shut out and their voices were drowned out by the extreme politicians who decided to pass SB 5 against the will of the people," Fazekas said. "But today on a warm day in June, we stand here to tell all those hard-working Ohioans their voices will be heard."


The group needs about 231,000 signatures from registered Ohio voters to qualify for the November ballot.

The group wants to overturn Senate Bill 5, a new, GOP-crafted law that would significantly weaken collective-bargaining power for about 360,000 public workers in Ohio. Critics call the law, which would prevent strikes and limit what can be bargained, an attack on middle-class workers.

The bill would require that workers pay at least 15 percent for health insurance, would no longer allow for bargaining on staffing levels and some other working conditions, and would allow the governing body to approve its own last offer to settle a contract dispute.

Republicans have formed a new nonprofit organization, Building a Better Ohio, to defend the law in November. Vaughn Flasher, a veteran lobbyist and Republican consultant who since 2006 has led the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, is heading the group.

Gov. John Kasich, Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, and House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, also will be involved with the effort to spare the law, which they say is necessary to help local governments bring costs under control and bring wages and benefits for public workers more in line with the private sector.

"These are tools that local governments need to help them manage in a very difficult financial crisis, and (it's) asking state and local employees to pay more of their health-care costs, just like the average person does now," Niehaus said earlier this month.

Despite the "staggering" number of signatures already collected, Fazekas said the group is calling for its roughly 10,000 volunteers to continue to turn in petitions. She said the group will still host signing events this weekend for those who still want to be involved.

She said We Are Ohio hired about 300 paid circulators to help with the effort, but said about 75 percent of signatures were gathered by volunteers.

"We are truly humbled by their support and are committed to repealing this bill on their behalf," Fazekas said.

Erin Doran Salzer, a high school special-education teacher in Pickerington, said she became a teacher to inspire students to show they can succeed despite their difficulties.

"Now, because of Senate Bill 5, people are telling me I'm the enemy and it's my turn to help balance the budget," she said. "They claim that this economic situation is my fault. They say I'm greedy for fighting for my students."
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[quote name='Tigers Johnson' timestamp='1302632218' post='983200']
[b]SB 5 could be the death certificate of the “Reagan Democrats” in Ohio[/b]
By ModernEsquire On February 21, 2011 · View Comments

There’s been a ton of discussion here about why SB 5 is bad policy and bad economics for Ohio. But nobody seems to have considered how SB 5 is bad politics (especially for the GOP heading into 2012.)

Before there was a Tea Party, or soccer moms, there were the Reagan Democrats, blue-collar working stiffs who ordinarily sided with Democrats on economic issues but came out in force for Reagan. Miami University alum/nationally renown Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found that in a Michigan community that went nearly 2/3rds for Kennedy, went the other direction for Reagan… twice. The socioeconomic demographic of the region had not changed. Blue collar union voters just stopped being the solid, uniform pro-Democratic vote it had been.

As this post on Balloon Juice noted, the idea of labor being a solid Democratic constituency is not exactly true. According to surveys, on average 57% of union households typically vote Democratic, that’s only 11-points higher than non-union households. That means that up to 43% vote Republican… consistently.

Republicans have made inroads into the labor vote by appeals to the white working and middle class on social issues like guns. Although the idea of a pro-union Republican now seems difficult to conceptualize with SB 5 being introduced, you have to realize that not all Republicans have been hostile to unions, especially in ways that we’re seeing now. That’s how Republicans like Tom Patton in Cleveland and Jimmy Stewart in Athens stay elected. They appeal to the Reagan Democrats without appearing to pose as any threat to the Reagan Democrat’s unions.

How pervasive has pro-union Republicans become in our political culture? Well, according to CNN’s 2010 exit poll in the Ohio’s Governor’s race, John Kasich took 37% of the union vote while Portman got 43%! Nearly two out of every five union members voted for John Kasich. (Of course, I dare say there’s some buyer’s remorse there.) But why? Because while the labor leadership understood that the Democratic Party was friendly to labor interest, the rank-and-file became convinced over time that there was no real danger in voting Republican.

After all, it’s not like these guys took away our unions when they controlled State government in the 1990s, right? Right?

As a result of SB 5, the rank and file of Ohio’s unions suddenly realize that this is a different breed of Republicanism than they’ve seen before. Despite the fact that Kasich said during the campaign that he wants to “break the back of teachers’ unions,” his rhetoric was either dismissed or ignored. Not anymore. If SB 5 passes, it may cause most rank and file union members to distrust every voting Republican again for a generation. What had been a sub-60% performance constituency could approach the kind of performance the party only sees in the African-American community. That, in and of itself, could be a major factor in future elections, and not one that benefits the Republicans. Thanks to John Kasich, the Republicans may have woken up a sleeping giant for which they lack any real political counterweight.

Again, let’s look at the partisan breakdown of the Quinnipiac Poll when it asked Ohioans if they supported what is essentially SB 5:

image

So if Quinnipiac is an accurate reflection of public opinion in Ohio, here’s what the Republicans get with SB 5:

* An energized labor base that will be mobilized more than ever behind the Democratic Party at levels they’ve never seen in their lifetime;
* The rest of the Democratic base which gets energized in opposition levels that equal or slightly exceed the labor base.
* A mostly split, ambivalent Republican base.

And it’s all going to be pushed by a new Governor who won with only a plurality of the vote, has the second lowest favorability rating of any Governor in the nation, and has a 30% approval rating during his “honeymoon” period. Seriously, who saw this and thought “political winner?” (The reality is the GOP didn’t look at it because they simply miscalculated public opinion on the issue.) To top it off, not even Rasmussen can generate a poll that shows the American public is solidly behind Walker.

And why is the support for this so weak with Republicans? Again, because of the existence of Reagan Democrats. These are the same union folks you can see on the Columbus Tea Party website opposing getting involved in favor of SB 5.

Take the issue out of the equation and just look at the above. This is absolutely suicidal politics. And how does this help the GOP next year. If Mitt Romney continues to be the front runner, how can he win in this environment. He’s going to have to write off Michigan given Obama saving the auto industry and Romney’s opposition to that. Where do you go to make inroads in States Obama carried in 2008? Well, you probably can’t go to Wisconsin and Ohio.

Yeah, if you’re a Republican looking to run for President next year, you can’t be thrilled with seeing this kind of labor mobilization in Wisconsin and Ohio. Seriously, where’s Mitt Romney on Wisconsin? AWOL. After campaigning to get Walker elected as Governor there, Mitt Romney is nowhere to be seen on this issue.

(Huckabee has sided with Walker, but he’s a Governor of a Right-to-Work State and has nothing to lose by siding with Walker as Huckabee is generally positioning himself to be general election poison anyways.)
[/quote]

1.3 million signatures.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43581681
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  • 3 weeks later...
[b]SB 5 repeal makes it to November ballot[/b]
12:57 pm, Jul 21, 2011 | Written by hwilkinson | Comments |



With 1.3 million signatures turned in last month, it was a virtual certainty that a referendum to repeal Senate Bill 5 would qualify for the Nov. 8 ballot; and Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted confirmed it Thursday.

If it passes in November, it will repeal Senate Bill 5, the bill backed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich and passed by Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly earlier this year that would limit the ability of public employees unions to bargain with government bodies.

We Are Ohio, a labor-backed coalition that mounted the petition initiative, delivered about 1.3 million signatures to Husted’s office June 28.

The petitions were checked by county boards of elections and 915,456 were found to be valid – nearly four times the 231,147 valid signatures needed to place the issue on the ballot.

A five-member Ohio Ballot Board, chaired by Husted, will now approve ballot language for the issue.

We Are Ohio, the coalition that put together the petition initiative drive
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[quote name='Tigers Johnson' timestamp='1311270790' post='1002227']
[b]SB 5 repeal makes it to November ballot[/b]
12:57 pm, Jul 21, 2011 | Written by hwilkinson | Comments |



With 1.3 million signatures turned in last month, it was a virtual certainty that a referendum to repeal Senate Bill 5 would qualify for the Nov. 8 ballot; and Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted confirmed it Thursday.

If it passes in November, it will repeal Senate Bill 5, the bill backed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich and passed by Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly earlier this year that would limit the ability of public employees unions to bargain with government bodies.

We Are Ohio, a labor-backed coalition that mounted the petition initiative, delivered about 1.3 million signatures to Husted’s office June 28.

The petitions were checked by county boards of elections and 915,456 were found to be valid – nearly four times the 231,147 valid signatures needed to place the issue on the ballot.

A five-member Ohio Ballot Board, chaired by Husted, will now approve ballot language for the issue.

We Are Ohio, the coalition that put together the petition initiative drive
[/quote]


:headbang:

Suck it Kasich!!

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[b] Ron Lora: Nation watches as Ohio decides Issue 2[/b]


October 30, 2011 11:30 PM


Ron Lora, guest columnist


When Ohioans go to the polls, the nation will be watching. On the ballot is Issue 2, a referendum that targets Senate Bill 5, which Ohio lawmakers enacted last spring. Passed in the Senate by a single vote, it represented a focal point of anti-union sentiment that has spread through several state legislatures.

Supporters argue the bill is about a few reasonable reforms. Critics understand it as a politically motivated attempt to destroy public unions.

Among its key provisions, SB 5 prohibits public employee strikes, eliminates collective bargaining in several areas and limits negotiation to wages, hours and conditions of employment. The bill also eliminates binding arbitration for police and firefighters in public safety contract disputes, prohibits local governments from picking up any portion of an employee's share of pension contributions and requires public employees to pay at least 15 percent of health insurance premiums.

At every opportunity, defenders of Issue 2 stress problems with pensions and health insurance. Yet these issues are hardly as significant as they allege.

At least 90 percent of public employees in Ohio already pay the full 10 percent of their salaries toward their own pensions, much as private-sector employees do. Data from the State Teachers Retirement System reveals only 8 percent of its members have part of their share picked up by employers.

It's reasonable to require that employees pay at least 15 percent of their health insurance premiums. But, again, most school teachers already exceed that minimum percentage. In addition, all 55,650 state-government employees do so; none receive pension pickups.

Rarely have distortions been so blatant. Continual harping on pensions and health care is designed to disguise the real target of SB 5, namely, workers' rights to bargain collectively.

Where costly government practices in Ohio exist, as in Columbus and Zanesville, and as is said to have been the case in Cincinnati, with policemen paid two and a half times pay for working holidays, their voters should remove representatives who bargain poorly.

But we should be clear: Policemen, firemen and teachers are not our enemies. They didn't cause our fundamental difficulties and ought not to be understood as mere cogs in someone else's machine. Do not single them out as scapegoats for the nation's economic recession and job crisis.

Responsibility for that lies with the large corporations and insufficiently regulated banking institutions that hire highly paid lobbyists and fund politicians in Washington who help them rig the financial system and the tax code to their benefit. Then, instead of paying a price for failure, they receive bonuses.

Would SB 5 save the average Ohio taxpayer money? It's difficult to say. So much of the bill is impossible to score. Many school boards, university trustees and municipal councils did in fact agree to health-care packages and pension pickups in lieu of wage increases. As contracts expire and benefits end or decrease, will employees regain wages they traded away?

When contracts are discussed, local governments under SB 5 can unilaterally define their final offers. If SB 5 is repealed, will over-stretched governments lay off or fire workers? Will some potentially good teachers decide not to enter a profession that is unappealing?

There is another factor to consider. Ohio's two-year budget cuts $1.4 billion in aid to schools and local governments. Although the state may temporarily solve its budgetary problems, local governments and school districts will be forced into greater reliance on local revenue.

Such entities will have to respond by cutting labor costs or raising taxes, or some combination of both. Over time, it's difficult to determine just how an actual taxpayer comes out ahead.

Even if it were possible to calculate actual numbers, SB 5 raises important questions of equity, fairness and, in the case of policemen and firefighters, safety. How does one adequately measure these matters in terms of costs and savings?

If SB 5 is overturned, the governor and lawmakers can begin to break it into multiple issues and negotiate them – as they should have done months ago — some of which would likely receive public support.

Party politicians tend to forget what makes democracies work, that meeting in the middle is often the better way and that common ground is superior to battle ground.

With Issue 2, Ohio voters are presented with a take-it-or-leave-it choice, without a nuanced option. In such circumstances, voting no is the wisest choice.

[i][b]Ron Lora, a native of Bluffton, is retired from the history department of the University of Toledo, where he continues to teach part time[/b][/i].
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