Ballot issue backers lose out

COLUMBUS

A question for all of you petition signers out there: How does it feel to be used by the political powers of the day, then thrown to the curb like yesterday’s trash?

To be courted for months, then left standing on your front porch in your pretty dancing dress with nowhere to go?

To be worked into a frenzy over such important pressing issues as gambling and animal cruelty, only to be told in the end that you shouldn’t be that worked up anymore?

It’s as if Cinderella’s glass slipper fit one of the ugly stepsisters instead. Or Sleeping Beauty was left in repose while the prince ran off with Maleficent. Or any of the other Disney movies (the classics and the modern day monstrosities) ended without anybody’s dreams coming true.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Politics.

Backers of two statewide issues have abandoned their months-long efforts, one after already securing a spot on the November ballot and one after collecting 500,000-some signatures.

Measure of victory?

If it makes any of you folks who signed their petitions feel any better, both claimed a measure of victory in their about face.

LetOhioVote.org fought to allow a vote of the people on Gov. Ted Strickland’s plans to allow lottery commission-run slots at horse racing tracks. Having won that fight through the courts, the group decided to call it a day.

In a released statement, committee member Tom Brinkman said, “We successfully defended Ohioans’ referendum rights with our victory in the Ohio Supreme Court last year, and then the voters approved a casino gambling amendment. With our primary goals accomplished, it seems imprudent to proceed with a campaign that can be easily rendered moot by a court decision or new legislation authorizing VLTs.”

The Humane Society of the United States, meanwhile, wanted to force the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board to adopt specific standards for animal care. And it had a video produced by another animal welfare group to back up its claims that the state needed tougher rules and penalties for those who abuse animals.

But a last-minute agreement hashed out with Strickland and the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation led the Humane Society to drop the issue.

“This agreement moves us forward on all of the components of the proposed ballot measure as well as other important advances for animals, too,” Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society president and chief executive officer, said in a released statement.

Reminds me of the whole Paid Sick Days campaign a couple of years ago.

Remember the one, where backers of a 2008 ballot initiative to require employers to provide paid sick time off to workers pulled their issue, with promises of federal action under soon-to-be-elected President Barack Obama.

And look how well that has worked out for proponents of the issue.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.