Voters are to decide next week on a referendum on Ohio’s Senate Bill 5, which could overturn the state’s collective-bargaining reform law, designed to curb public-employee unions. The referendum is being closely watched in the months before the 2012 presidential election.
“Senate Bill 5 is the No. 1 referendum we are following,” Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told the
Dayton Daily Times. “It has the most significant national implications because, well, this is Ohio, the super-duper swing state.”
Unions are pushing hard to get the bill overturned, while the state’s business leaders want to keep it. Both sides have raised millions. We are Ohio, is being primarily funded by labor, including $5 million from national organized labor groups. Meanwhile, Building a Better Ohio, which is for the bill, is raising money through the business community.
The bill seems to be heading toward repeal, with only donors and Republicans seemingly supporting the law. A Quinnipiac University poll last week said Republicans oppose repeal 59 percent to 32 percent, but just about every other demographic want the bill repealed, including both union and non-union households.
“Anything is possible in politics, but with such across-the-board support for repealing SB 5, the governor and his team can’t be optimistic about the fate of their law,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
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