Waiting for new skirmishes

COLUMBUS

Voters sent lawmakers a loud though not wholly unexpected message on Election Day about governmental overreach.

Senate Bill 5, or Issue 2, was soundly trounced, as were federal health care mandates outlined in Issue 3.

But the results don’t mark the end of the debate or Statehouse action on such issues. Not by a long shot.

We’ve finished Round 1. There’s a lot more to come.

Granted, Gov. John Kasich and the Republican leaders of the Ohio House and Senate have taken a step back. They said they’re considering voters’ intent on Election Day and don’t intend to move on similar legislative provisions in the short term.

But they also point out that they’re not going to send more money to local governments. Something will have to be done to help school districts, cities, townships and counties better control their costs.

Looking forward

As Kasich said on election night, “For whatever reason here ... the voters thought these tools were too much. A lot of local governments didn’t want them. That’s OK ... that’s the way it goes. ... I don’t want to look back, I want to look forward as to what we can do to make sure these communities are going to be in a position of where they’re going to be business friendly.”

Remember, the same polls that were dead on about the ultimate outcome of Issue 2 also showed Ohioans favored parts of Senate Bill 5, including requiring employees to pay set portions of their health care and pension costs and basing raises on performance rather than solely on seniority.

Lawmakers included merit pay provisions for school teachers in the state budget, so that issue will move forward regardless of the election results.

And opponents have argued throughout the campaign that most public employees are already paying 10 percent toward their pensions or 15 percent toward their health care. So it seems a standalone bill on that issue would be a no-brainer.

Do expect Republicans to debate such issues when they return to Columbus after the Christmas break. Don’t expect them to publicly commit to any course of action before then.

Emotional vote?

And what of Issue 3? Opponents are already scrambling to claim voters didn’t understand the issue and voted more on emotion than fact. That’s a funny statement, given the pro-Senate Bill 5 side said similar things about Issue 2 before the election.

The Tea Party and like-minded groups behind Issue 3 say that was the first in a series of changes they would like to implement in Ohio. They unveiled their next ballot initiative two days after the election — a measure that would make Ohio a “right to work” state, where employees could not be forced to join a union or pay union dues as a term of employment.

They’ve titled it the Workplace Freedom Amendment, and they’re waiting for the appropriate state approvals to begin collecting the 380,000-plus signatures they’ll need to place the issue before voters in November 2012 or ’13. The latter seems more likely, given that it took more than a year for the group to gather enough signatures this time around for Issue 3.

Regardless, the new initiative has already drawn criticism from union groups and Democrats, who say they’ll fight it the same way they fought against Senate Bill 5.

In the meantime, the rest of us are sitting and waiting for the Round 2 bell to ring. I think this fight is going to go the distance.

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