Right-wing groups are unleashing their traditional barrage of misleading crap in Ohio's Issue 2 fight, which comes to a vote tomorrow. A no vote on Issue 2 would prevent SB 5 from becoming law and taking collective bargaining rights from firefighters, nurses, janitors, secretaries and other public workers. Ohioans are clearly opposed to Issue 2, so anti-worker groups have to rely on big money—lots of it from anonymous sources—and trying to confuse people.
Greg Sargent reports on the latest attempt to mislead and confuse: The flyer above directs people to call a phone number for "real facts."
But it turns out the recorded call makes all kinds of lurid claims against a No vote in the referendum — and even advances the argument that a No vote would be bad for public workers and force layoffs of cops and firefighters.The flyer is not sourced to any group, aside from saying at the bottom: “Gocoast on Twitter.” That’s a reference to a group called “Coast,” which is short for the “Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes,” a group that has no listed phone number, but has surfaced on the conservative side of Ohio fights in the past.
Anyone seeing this flyer would have no immediate idea that this is a partisan message being paid for by a group trying to influence the outcome of this fight.
The flyer is right, in a meta sort of way. There has been a lot of misinformation spread about Issue 2—that's what the flyer and the phone number it directs people to exist to do.