Yesterday, over 10,000 people rallied on the lawn outside the Ohio Capitol in Columbus. The gathering was a kick-off event for efforts to repeal Senate Bill 5. If SB 5 is allowed to stand, it would strip collective bargaining rights for state employees (among other heinous provisions).
One photo of the rally can be seen on the right. More can be viewed on the Facebook page for Stand Up For Ohio.
Earlier in the week, a labor source in Ohio closely involved in the campaign for repeal sent me an update on where the process stands:
SB 5 was enrolled with the Ohio Secretary of State on March 31st, giving us 90 days from that day to file 231,149 valid signatures with the Ohio Secretary of State's office to trigger a referendum to appear on the Nov. Ohio ballot.
The deadline for submitting the required signatures to force a November referendum is June 29. I had previously written that it will not be difficult to gather and submit the required signatures by that date. However, it turns out Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine (the former US Senator) is a major impediment that could prove that declaration to be hasty. More from the source:
The process for instituting an Ohio Referendum has a board game rules feel to it (explained here: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/...). Per requirements, on Monday [April 4th] we submitted the 1000 required petition signatures (we submitted 3000) to the Ohio SoS and AG to initiate the process to get our language approved to start circulating a general petition.According to Ohio law, AG DeWine and the Ohio Ballot Board have 10 days from the day of our submission to review our language and decide if it's an accurate representation of our referendum. Depending on how political he wants to be, he could choose to create controversy here. The incentive is that we're unable to collect signatures during this period but our 90 day clock continues to tick away.
The clock is already ticking, and the signature-gathering effort requires sign-off from DeWine before it can begin. How long can he delay the process?
The 10 day deadline to hear back from DeWine is on wed [April 13]. We submitted two versions of our petition last Monday - a long version and a short version. We'd like to get the short version approved because it'll be easier to circulate. Were expecting him to deny both, at which point he'll tell us what specific items he disapproves of. Well then have to tweak the language, get another 1000 signatures and resubmit, then wait another 10 days. While he's not limited in how many times he can deny our petition, in the entire history of the Ohio referendum process a petition has never been denied by the AG more than once. Our 90 day clock continues to tick during all of this.
In theory, it appears DeWine can delay the process as long as he wants. In practice, he will likely only be able to delay it about another 20 days, because denying a petition requires an explanation that can be incorporated into the next petition. As such, the campaign to repeal SB 5 should still have two months to collect the 231,149 signatures. That should still be plenty of time.
Make no mistake—as disappointing as the apparent outcome in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election may feel, it was always an ancillary, benchmark event in the overall campaign. The overall goal is to protect collective bargaining rights for public workers. Accomplishing that goal in Ohio requires overturning SB 5 via a statewide referendum this November (and, possibly, a second referendum in November of 2012). In Wisconsin, it requires retaking both the legislative and executive branches of state government over the next two years.
Given that the legal challenges to the Wisconsin bill stripping collective bargaining rights were made on procedural grounds, the ideological tilt of the Wisconsin Supreme Court was never going to impact the outcome of this campaign one way or the other. Further, unlike the Wisconsin Supreme Court campaign, where polling never showed us to be in a strong position, polls in main events for both Ohio and Wisconsin show our side doing quite well.
We can do this. Let's keep our eyes on the prize.