Following up on the last installment of SB5 here on the Daily Kos we have news in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this morning of Governor John Kasich press conference asking for negotiations from his opponents to SB5 - the anti-public unions bill signed into law last March.
The hard-charging Kasich, who prides himself on never wilting to outside pressures, especially from media, said he yielded this time to editorials in The Columbus Dispatch and The Plain Dealer that called for the two sides to sit down and talk.
But many have wondered why the governor, who signed SB5 on March 31, took so long to publicly call for a compromise. - Cleveland Plain Dealer 8/18/11
It should be noted that the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Columbus Dispatch are both right wing appliances that endorsed and fomented much of the Kasich program for "reforming" Ohio after a brief interlude of four years of democrats attempting to right the state after 16 long years of Republican Bush-like malfeasance of the budget.
But now:
The Quinnipiac poll, released in late July, showed voters favoring a repeal of SB5, 56-to-32-percent -- a 24 point margin."He must've gotten the latest poll results," said Ohio Democratic Party chairman Chris Redfern. "It's always good to have converts to the movement."
- Chuck Crow, Cleveland Plain Dealer
As Reginald Fields reports from the same paper:
Kasich held a news conference to publicly ask union leaders opposed to SB5 to meet with him and other Republican leaders at 10 a.m. Friday at his office building. He also put his request in writing, sending a letter to We Are Ohio, the anti-SB5 group.
"We are now standing here saying to people, 'bring your grievances to us. We will look at them,'" said Kasich, who was joined at the news conference by fellow Republicans, House Speaker William G. Batchelder and Senate President Tom Niehaus. "Why would people say 'I'm not going to talk?'
"It doesn't mean that because you talk you reach agreement," he said. "Just because you talk doesn't mean you work it all out. But I think the public would like us to talk. So we'll see where this all goes."
The governor didn't have to wait long to get his answer. We Are Ohio spokeswoman Melissa Fazekas was waiting outside Kasich's Statehouse office for the news conference to end. Her message to reporters was simple: It's too late for talking.
She noted that a record 1.3 million signatures were collected to get the repeal effort on the Nov. 8 ballot, and she questioned Kasich's claim that voters are clamoring for a compromise. She called Kasich's invitation to meet a publicity stunt to save political face over a law that polling suggests will be overturned by a wide margin.
"These politicians who passed Senate Bill 5 have the ability to come back and repeal the law," she said. "And that is what they should do, repeal the entire law. Or they can join us and vote no in November on Issue 2."
"Bring your grievances to us"? I don't know what he thought all that racket down in the State Rotunda was last February - March and the rallies to kick off the Referendum were but they weren't hoedowns. (I'm from Ohio so I can say that).
More lies about "discussions" from the Republican Hobbits in Columbus:
Kasich says that his staff and other Republican leaders had discussions earlier this summer with union leaders -- though he would not say who -- and says there was progress being made, and "then all of a sudden those people were yanked away."
Other media reports have made similar claims with anonymous sourcing. But Fazekas said no such discussions ever occurred between the two sides in any official capacity. And no union leader has come forward to admit participating in any such meetings.
"We have a leadership structure in place with We Are Ohio," she said. "Our campaign manager was never contacted by anyone from the governor's office about a negotiation or a compromise."Batchelder, the GOP House speaker, is concerned that a volatile campaign this fall may be a setback for Ohio, which he said is showing signs of making economic improvements.
"I'm very concerned about the potential possibilities of an issue like this that's on the ballot when people are very, very angry on each side," he said. "I think it is very important because of what we have to do here in the state of Ohio to continue the forward motion that we have had."Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine issued a statement late Wednesday urging labor leaders to put aside "political differences" and heed Kasich's call to compromise.
Yes, by all means can't we all just get along? Put our "political differences" aside and abort the brinkmanship of a state wide vote and let the back room deals between the Republican party and their teabaggers work it out the way they did when they introduced SB5 in the first place? I'm confident they've learned their lesson and will include at least the editorial boards of the two newspapers to a compromise.
DeWine is "very very concerned" about the angry on both sides and what it will unleash upon the state if we don't now just admit we were just kidding last winter. Well it's all fun and games till someone gets hurt, isn't it DeWine?