Senate Bill 5 repeal effort sets record

S.B.-5 opponents need 231,000 signatures to put the issue to voters.

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By Laura A. Bischoff, Staff Writer Updated 8:01 AM Friday, July 1, 2011

COLUMBUS — For just the 13th time in 100 years, Ohio voters will be asked whether they want to undo or keep a law passed by the Legislature from taking effect.

We Are Ohio, the campaign against Senate Bill 5 — the public employee collective bargaining reform package — delivered a truckload of petitions on Wednesday that were signed by a reported 1.3 million Ohioans. Only 231,147 valid signatures are needed to qualify for the Nov. 8 ballot.

“I think the campaign is going to be great, just like the petition drive. There will be a record turn out at the polls,” said AFSCME Ohio Council 8 official Tom Ritchie Sr., of Dayton. “The working families and retirees of this state are not going to be hoodwinked. I think our (campaign) is going to be more people power than cash.”

Neither side wants to talk about how much money the campaigns will spend but political observers predict it’ll be more than $20 million and may rival the cost of a race for governor.

“We will raise and spend the necessary money to communicate our message to the eight million Ohio voters,” said Jason Mauk, spokesman for Building A Better Ohio, the campaign to enact Senate Bill 5. Mauk said once voters learn of the reasonable reforms in the bill, they will support it.

“This is about the choice that Ohioans will have to make in whether to keep the failed policies that have taken us in the wrong direction or embrace some reasonable reforms to help drive our economic recovery,” Mauk said.

Senate Bill 5 outlaws strikes by Ohio’s 360,000 public employees, eliminates binding arbitration used by police and firefighters, wipes out automatic pay increases and requires workers to pay at least 15 percent of their health care costs and all of their pension contributions. Workers may still bargain for wages and some terms and working conditions, but management has the right to impose its offer if the two sides reach an impasse.

When asked about the opponents of Senate Bill 5 on Wednesday, Gov. John Kasich said: “So, God, bless ’em. Many of them have been misled. Some are frustrated. Many of them are angry...You know, I understand that, I live out there among all the folks but we’re going to be together on this. It’ll all work out.”

Since 1912, Ohio voters have turned down 10 statewide referenda and said yes just twice. In 1920, voters said yes to a state prohibition law and in 2008, they endorsed a law placing restrictions on pay day lenders.

Typically, when statewide issues are confusing or there are a lot of them on the ballot, voters tend to say No. For that reason supporters and opponents of Senate Bill 5 may argue that they should get the “No” side, said University of Akron political scientist John Green.

“All else being equal, the “no” position has an advantage because it is the safe choice for voters who know little about the issues or who are undecided,” Green said.

Many of the same teachers, firefighters, police officers and prison guards who rallied against the reforms earlier this year returned to Columbus to deliver 1,500 boxes of petitions to Secretary of State Jon Husted.

Husted’s staff will catalog the petitions and ship them to the 88 counties’ boards of election to verify the signatures by July 26.

It is unclear whether the 1,298,301 signatures turned in Wednesday sets an Ohio record. Confirming that would require researching historical records but electronic records kept since 1998 show that the largest number of signatures — 902,450 — came in June 2009 for the constitutional amendment to put casinos in four cities, according to Secretary of State spokesman Matt McClellan.

William Hershey of the Columbus bureau contributed to this report.

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