Ohio union law ballot issue passes deadline

JULIE CARR SMYTH

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — The dead­line for remov­ing a repeal ques­tion on Ohio’s con­tentious col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law from the fall bal­lot passed Mon­day with­out fan­fare, posi­tion­ing vot­ers to decide the fate of the law in November.

Pass­ing the dead­line doesn’t pre­vent Repub­li­can lead­ers and oppo­nents of the law from reach­ing a deal later to change or toss out the leg­is­la­tion, though that’s seen as unlikely.

Signed by Gov. John Kasich in March, the law bans pub­lic employ­ees from strik­ing and restricts col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights for more than 350,000 teach­ers, police offi­cers, state employ­ees and other pub­lic workers.

The group We Are Ohio — which opposes the law — had until mid­night Mon­day to request the repeal issue be taken off the bal­lot. Spokes­woman Melissa Fazekas says the only way for its removal was for leg­is­la­tors to repeal the law themselves.

Kasich’s admin­is­tra­tion released a let­ter Aug. 17 ask­ing for a meet­ing to dis­cuss a com­pro­mise with 10 union lead­ers involved with We Are Ohio.

The group main­tained that the time for a com­pro­mise that would remove Issue 2 from the Nov. 8 bal­lot had passed. The coalition’s cam­paign man­ager had responded in a let­ter to Kasich, House Speaker William Batchelder and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tom Niehaus that the group wouldn’t con­sider talks unless the law was repealed.

Defend­ers of the law scored another endorse­ment Mon­day in what has already become a daily vol­ley, when the Ohio Soci­ety of Cer­ti­fied Pub­lic Accoun­tants threw its back­ing behind the measure.

But com­ments by the lib­eral pol­icy group Pro­gres­sO­hio were the day’s atten­tion grabber.

In a morn­ing news con­fer­ence, exec­u­tive direc­tor Brian Rothen­berg accused the Kasich admin­is­tra­tion of using $24 mil­lion in high-tech Third Fron­tier money to reward eco­nomic devel­op­ment groups whose mem­bers made polit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions to the gov­er­nor and leg­isla­tive Repub­li­cans who sup­ported the law. He said the orga­ni­za­tions serv­ing as Job­sO­hio regional con­tacts, all local eco­nomic devel­op­ment offices, could use the money for projects they would have done any­way and apply the sav­ings to the cam­paign sup­port­ing the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law.

“It’s a wash­ing sys­tem,” Rothen­berg said — prompt­ing a storm of angry responses.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols wrote in an email that the accu­sa­tions were so untrue they were “silly.”

“This type of base­less attack is the des­per­ate tac­tic of anti-reformers who are so afraid of the real facts that they won’t even put them on their web­site,” he said.

In a tele­phone inter­view with The Asso­ci­ated Press, Kasich jobs guru Mark Kvamme, pres­i­dent and interim chief invest­ment offi­cer of Job­sO­hio, said Rothenberg’s accu­sa­tions upset a lot of people.

Kvamme, who was moved out of his job as state devel­op­ment direc­tor after an ear­lier Pro­gres­sO­hio law­suit ques­tion­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of his appoint­ment, said the group should be more cau­tious before sug­gest­ing the admin­is­tra­tion would exploit its sig­na­ture eco­nomic pro­gram for polit­i­cal purposes.

“Some­times I think these guys, all they’re focused on is cre­at­ing innu­endo and law­suits,” Kvamme said. “A lot of peo­ple are eval­u­at­ing the whole sit­u­a­tion. If he’s not care­ful, he’s going to get into trouble.”

Kasich and other Repub­li­cans who back the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing bill argue the Ohio leg­is­la­tion will help city offi­cials, school super­in­ten­dents and oth­ers con­trol their costs at a time when they, too, are feel­ing bud­get woes.

Oppo­nents con­tend the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing restric­tions are an unfair attack on pub­lic employee unions that had worked coop­er­a­tively with their gov­ern­ment employ­ers for decades. They accuse law­mak­ers of exploit­ing a state bud­get cri­sis to pass a mea­sure unpop­u­lar with a major­ity of Ohioans.

A Quin­nip­iac Uni­ver­sity poll in July found that 56 per­cent of Ohio vot­ers say the new col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law should be repealed, com­pared with 32 per­cent who favor keep­ing it in place.

The mea­sure has been blocked from tak­ing effect until vot­ers have their say.

Posted by AP News on Aug 30 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.