“This was about right and wrong. This was about a governor who overreached, literally, weeks into his term,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern. “It’s the largest referendum win in the history of the state.”
Redfern said working people should not be made scapegoats for the economic downturn or the state’s budget problems. “And that is the lesson that John Kasich must remember after tonight and if he doesn’t, he’s going to be a one-term governor,” Redfern said.
Kasich conceded the loss at about 10 p.m.
“It’s clear the people have spoken,” Kasich said.
“My view is when people speak in a campaign like this, in a referendum, you have to listen,” said Kasich. “I’ve heard their voices, I understand their positions and frankly, I respect what people have to say in an effort like this.”
But Kasich said the fiscal challenges facing government remain. “Let me be clear,” he said, “there is no bailout coming.”
The defeat of Issue 2 means local officials will not have the power to impose contracts. Nor will they be able to establish merit-based pay or force workers to pay at least 15 percent of their health care costs without negotiation. These management tools were projected to save more than $1 billion a year and help cities, schools and other jurisdictions absorb steep cuts in state funding.
One part of Senate Bill 5 — merit pay and a new evaluation system for school teachers — will live on because lawmakers inserted them into the state budget bill that passed in June.
Politically, the defeat of Issue 2 leaves state lawmakers calculating whether to pass popular slices of Senate Bill 5 in a piecemeal fashion. It may also leave some Republican lawmakers gun shy about fully embracing other major changes that Kasich wants to pursue, such as reforming workers compensation, public pensions and school funding.
“The other side won out with emotion and hype. We’ll see what happens,” said state Sen. Keith Faber, R-Celina, the Senate president pro tempore. “My fear is that we will have more layoffs of police officers, firefighters and teachers and we’ll have ever increasing calls for tax levies that the taxpayers can’t sustain.”
Faber said he is willing to work with union leaders on reform. “If there is a lining in a dark cloud here for us it is that for the first time the unions acknowledged that some reforms are needed,” he said.
The issue brought in both national attention and money, as organized labor targeted Ohio as the place to stop attacks on collective bargaining before they spread to other states.
National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Kasich and the Republicans should have started the year talking with union leaders.
“This whole fight was unnecessary,” Trumka said. “He (Kasich) should have said, ‘Look, I have a problem, let’s jointly solve it.’ ” Nationally, union leaders and political observers say, the defeat of Issue 2 in Ohio will have a ripple effect in other states.
“Labor hasn’t had a lot of wins in the past few years, so the defeat of Issue 2 is significant,” said political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. “It will provide a boost to labor not just in Ohio but around the country, not least because Ohio is the ultimate, time-tested swing state,”
He said Ohio and Wisconsin provide “cautionary tales” to those wanting to limit collective bargaining rights.
“Some things can reasonably be done, such as pension give-backs where they are too generous and the economy no longer supports it. But the Buckeye and Badger sates went too far, judging by public reaction,” Sabato said.
Former Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, said the most egregious part of the fight was the disrespect shown to public employees. “This is an example of people standing up for themselves,” he said.
The Senate Bill 5 fight may well be an example of what not to do when deciding on a controversial piece of legislation. Shortly after his inauguration, Kasich called a Columbus traffic cop who ticketed him an ‘idiot’ — remarks that set a confrontational tone that only got worse from there.
Senate Bill 5, which started as one-sentence, grew to 302 pages of complex and far-reaching reforms: outlawing public employee strikes, eliminating binding arbitration for police and firefighters, instituting an undefined merit pay system, getting rid of fair share fees paid to unions, and banning contracts that call for staffing minimums and other items.
The GOP majority muscled it through the General Assembly with breathtaking speed: just two months from introduction to the governor’s desk.
In between, there were key miscalculations by Ohio Republican leaders, including allowing just 1,200 protesters inside the Ohio Statehouse on a snowy February day, leaving thousands out in the cold. That allowed the unions to claim they were literally locked out of the People’s House and shut out of the legislative process.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7455 or lhulsey@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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