SB 5 Update: Over 700,000 Signatures Gathered For Repeal Effort!

[irishbobcat]

Sorry Dan........SB 5 will be defeated........attack on unions will not be tolerated by the people in Ohio.....

only narrow-minded neo-cons like you will support it.....and your side will lose big-time!  count on it.......

now, craw back under your rock until next month.......you have uttered enough garbage for this month.....

[Dan Moadus]

It really is comical, all those people scampering about gathering signatures, thinking that the repeal is in the bag, when the effort to repeal SB5 hinges solely on whether or not the voting public learns the truth about it. If an effort is made to explain to them just how little SB5 will actually effect public employees, the repeal effort will be doomed.

[irishbobcat]

Ohio's citizens will repeal SB 5 in November......we got the steam, we got the team......


We Are Ohio, the coalition of union supporters that wants to overturn Ohio's new collective-bargaining law, has collected 714,137 signatures, more than triple the number needed to get a referendum on the November ballot.

Spokeswoman Melissa Fazekas said the group's internal sampling shows that the validation rate on those signatures is above 60 percent and they have met the criteria for collecting names in 44 of Ohio's 88 counties. The petition must be turned in by June 30.

The effort greatly exceeds the group's goal of 450,000 to 500,000 signatures, Fazekas said. She compared it to the scenes at the Statehouse this spring, when thousands of workers protested against Senate Bill 5 and, at times, were not let into the building.

"Unfortunately, those workers were shut out and their voices were drowned out by the extreme politicians who decided to pass SB 5 against the will of the people," Fazekas said yesterday during a news conference on the north Statehouse steps. "But today on a warm day in June, we stand here to tell all those hard-working Ohioans their voices will be heard."

Story continues belowAdvertisement  The group needs about 231,000 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters to qualify for the November ballot.

The signature collection effort is a record for a referendum but not yet for a ballot issue. My Ohio Now collected 812,978 signatures in 2008 to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to build a casino in Clinton County. Voters defeated the issue.

We Are Ohio wants to overturn Senate Bill 5, a new GOP-crafted law that would significantly weaken collective-bargaining power for about 360,000 public workers in Ohio. Critics call the law, which would prevent strikes and limit what can be bargained, an attack on middle-class workers.

The bill would require that workers pay at least 15 percent of their health-insurance costs, would no longer allow for bargaining on staffing levels and most other working conditions, and would allow the governing body to approve its own last offer to settle a contract dispute.

Republicans formed Building a Better Ohio, led by veteran lobbyist and GOP campaign director Vaughn Flasher, to defend the law in November.

"I'm confident there will be a broad, grass-roots campaign in support of the reasonable reforms we're asking of our public employees," said Sen. Shannon Jones, a Springboro Republican and Senate Bill 5 sponsor.

"We can get the cost of government under control and return fairness and flexibility to middle-class taxpayers, or we can continue the same failed policies that have taken Ohio in the wrong direction for far too long."

Erin Doran Salzer, a high-school special-education teacher in Pickerington who was at yesterday's event, said she became a teacher to inspire students. "Now, because of Senate Bill 5, people are telling me I'm the enemy and it's my turn to help balance the budget," she said. "They claim that this economic situation is my fault."

Fazekas said 300 paid circulators helped with the effort, but about 75percent of the signatures were gathered by 10,000 volunteers.