Late this afternoon the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 (the Senate is 23 R-10 D) to pass Senate Bill 5 and strip public employee unions of bargaining rights. 10's of thousands of demonstrators over the last two weeks made an impression, but not enough. The bill now moves on to the Ohio House. The Ohio Bill is in some ways worse than the Wisconsin bill at least when it comes to bargaining rights.
The fact this bill passed by only one vote says something important. It says the Republicans know they have a loser on their hands and they will pay a price for every yes vote. One reason why is this bill strips police and fire unions of bargaining rights unlike Wisconsin and in spite of the GOP endorsements by police and fire unions across the state. There is going to be political hell to pay further down the road.
The GOP just hopes that people will forget but I guarantee you, there are a lot of union folk and their families out there tonight that are not going to forget.
They also now have to live with the legacy of locking the people of Ohio out of the Capitol Building. That will not be forgotten.
And, they still have to get it through the House. (59 R- 40 D). Just one year ago Dems had the majority by 4 seats. We are now paying the price of last November but the GOP may be creating the price of November 2010.