Today is the first official day we can wage the first part of our statewide countermeasure to the anti-union bill that is Senate Bill 5, which significantly limits the collective bargaining rights of public employees. We have until June 30th to collect 231,147 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters.
Attorney General Mike DeWine has signed off on the petition language and Secretary of State Jon Husted has certified the referendum petition signatures. With the approval from the attorney general and the secretary of state, groups hoping to repeal Senate Bill 5 are now able to start circulating petitions to place a referendum on the November ballot to repeal the law.S.B. 5 opponents will have until June 30 to collect the 231,147 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters – or six percent of the voters that cast ballots cast in the last gubernatorial election. Signatures must come from 44 of 88 Ohio counties and the total from each of those 44 counties must represent at least three percent of the vote cast in that county in the last gubernatorial election.
If the opponents of S.B. 5 are successful in collecting the required signatures, the law will not go into effect and the referendum will appear on the November ballot, asking voters to nullify the law as it was passed by the Ohio General Assembly and Governor John Kasich.