Issue 2 to shape 2012 election

Stakes are high for both sides in contentious Senate Bill 5 battle.

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By William Hershey, Columbus Bureau Updated 7:57 AM Monday, November 7, 2011

COLUMBUS — The outcome of Issue 2 will have an impact well beyond Tuesday, most likely carrying into next year’s presidential election, according to political experts and people on both sides of the controversial collective bargaining law.

Democrats are hoping the formidable coalition of teachers, nurses, police, firefighters and private sector union members who banded together against Issue 2 — and raised a lot of money — will stay together and deliver big victories for the party in 2012.

Republicans acknowledge that they trail in polls on the controversial issue, but say an upset victory Tuesday would knock Democrats and unions on their heels and demoralize them going into 2012. “I think it would be devastating to unions in the state,” said Jim Nathanson, a Dayton-based Republican consultant with decades of experience in national, state and local politics. “It would mean they dropped the ball in what everybody thought was a no-brainer.”

A “yes” vote Tuesday would mean the reforms Republicans initiated as part of Senate Bill 5 would become law, including the elimination of binding arbitration and a prohibition against public employee strikes. A “no” vote would repeal the law and maintain the current collective bargaining law.

But Democrats think it would do much more than maintain the status quo. “If we’re successful, it would be a clear repudiation of the signature piece of legislation in (Gov.) John Kasich’s first year,” said Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern.

“That would take us like a slingshot into next year with a great deal of momentum and enthusiasm.”

Kasich doesn’t face voters again until 2014 and would have time to recover from an Issue 2 defeat. But the presidential election is just around the corner, and Redfern said a repeal of SB 5 would provide a boost to President Barack Obama’s re-election, as well as Democratic efforts to put two referendums on the November 2012 ballot in Ohio.

One is on Republican-backed changes in election law that Democrats say limit voter access. The second is a GOP-endorsed map of 16 new U.S. House districts, which Democrats say gives Republicans an unfair advantage.

Nathanson said Democrats shouldn’t get ahead of themselves. Expectations are so high for a big “no” vote, he said, that a win for Democrats and the unions would surprise no one. The impact would be muted, he suggested, simply because it is what most people expect.

A big “no” vote Tuesday would mark a huge turnaround for Democrats after being wiped out on Election Day 2010.

“The effort has revived the enthusiasm and activity of key constituencies, such as organized labor,” John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, said in an email. “These things could be transferred to the presidential campaign.”

Conservative Democrats, independents and even some Republicans have come out against Issue 2. Many police and firefighters who oppose SB 5 say they supported Republican John Kasich in the 2010 governor’s race.

Jay McDonald, Ohio Fraternal Order of Police president, said his group’s 25,000 members won’t be guided by party labels in 2012.

But, he said, “I think they will make darned sure that whoever gets our endorsement will be supportive of our issues, including collective bargaining.”

Issue 2 has already become a factor in the presidential race.

While campaigning in Cincinnati on Oct. 25 at a Republican call center, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney declined to take a position on Issue 2. The next day, while in Fairfax, Va., he said he was “110 percent” behind the proposal. “I’m sorry if I created any confusion in that regard,” Romney said, according to The Associated Press. “I fully support Gov. (John) Kasich’s — I think it’s called Question 2 in Ohio.”

Mark Caleb Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University, said Republicans were smart to pass SB 5 in time to make sure a referendum would come this year, not in 2012 with the presidency, a U.S. Senate seat, U.S. House races and state legislative contests on the line.

The alliance forged by agreement on collective bargaining could become frayed, he said. “We have an eternity between now and November 2012,” Smith said in an email. “I think there will be lots of tension within the unions because many of the police and firefighters would be opposed to the teachers’ unions on almost every other issue.”

In any case, if the economy continues to stall, the collective bargaining controversy won’t matter and the news will be bad for Obama, Smith said.

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