Big labor is using new freedoms granted by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision to reach out to a million new voters in Ohio.
The ruling, best known for freeing up corporate cash, also allowed labor unions to target all voters not just union members.
In the crucial swing state of Ohio the AFL-CIO will contact about 2 million voters in the last month of the election, nearly double the number they reached in 2008,
The Washington Post reported.
The union is fresh off its victory in decisively turning back a law supported by the GOP that would have limited collective bargaining rights for public employees such as police, firefighters, and teachers.
“We had nine months last year to educate,” Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga told the Post. “It really opened some eyes in the state of Ohio — not just inside of labor but with the general public — about what’s happened to the Republican Party, that it’s been taken over by extremists.”
While President Barack Obama continues to hold a lead in Ohio while his polling has slipped in other areas as a result of his poor debate performance, experts are not so sure anything has fundamentally changed in the state.
“I think they’re trying to catch lightning in a bottle again,” the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions’ Greg Lawson told the Post in reference union activities. “They’ll have an influence; they always do. But they want to make it out like there’s this huge revolution that’s occurred, and I don’t get a sense that’s happened. ”
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