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Columbus
Dispatch...
SB5
vote could hurt GOP, or not
Sunday August 14, 2011
Imagine
a ship in a bottle, crafted,
surgeon-like, by steady-handed Republicans with lots of patience: Think
Ohio
House Speaker William G. Batchelder, a Medina Republican, the rest of
the
conservative circle around Republican Gov. John Kasich, and the Ohio
Senate’s
Republicans.
Then
imagine a baseball bat, held by
Democrats and many independents, poised to smash the Republicans’
handiwork
into smithereens.
That’s
the peril Republicans face
going into a statewide November referendum on their
anti-public-employee-union
Senate Bill 5. At the moment, SB 5 is a loser.
Maybe
Republicans are in danger; maybe
not. For one thing, for Democrats to do maximum damage, they’d have to
swing
their bat in November 2012 — when the presidency and the General
Assembly are
on Ohio’s ballot — not this November. (Legally, Democrats had no choice
on the
timing.)
For
another, come what may,
Republicans can write their own 2012 insurance policies — then,
conveniently,
approve their own claims. Republicans rule the board that’ll redraw
state
Senate and Ohio House districts for the November 2012 election. That
“process”
— to give it undeserved dignity — was designed in the mid-1960s.
In
the 23 Ohio House elections since,
the party that drew the legislative map has captured or kept a House
majority
21 times. That’s a 91 percent success rate. The only exceptions: In
1992, House
Speaker Vernal G. Riffe, an Appalachian Democrat, spent a fortune (and,
arguably, exhausted himself into illness) to keep a 1993 and 1994
majority.
And
in 2008, future Speaker Armond
Budish, a Beachwood Democrat, captured the House from Republicans (for
2009 and
2010). Be it remembered, though, part of the reason was Barack Obama’s
strong
Ohio showing. Good luck with that in 2012. That’s not to say the
president
can’t carry Ohio again. But given public frustration over unemployment
and
evaporating 401(k) retirement accounts, Obama’s unlikely to have 2008’s
coat-tails.
(Fearless prediction: The Republican presidential candidate will be
Texas Gov.
Rick Perry.)
Besides
redrawing General Assembly
districts, Republicans (Kasich and the Republican-led state Senate and
Ohio
House) get to redraw Ohio congressional districts for 2012. Ohio has 18
U.S.
House members, but is losing two. Of today’s 18 seats, Republicans hold
13,
Democrats five. That means Democrats hold 28 percent of Ohio’s
congressional
seats in what is supposed to be — and is — a state that is closely
divided
politically.
Of
speculation, there’s plenty: In
greater Cleveland, will Republicans induce Democratic U.S. Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
to try his luck in Washington state? In the Miami Valley, will the GOP
try
punishing Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, of Urbana, for bucking U.S.
House
Speaker John Boehner, of Butler County’s West Chester Township?
Who
knows? Just one thing is for sure:
Entirely separate from the Jordan question — after all, the party of
Lincoln,
like the kingdom of Heaven, welcomes back prodigals — there’s no way a
Republican-run General Assembly is going to seriously weaken Boehner’s
Washington seat-count. Boehner is an Ohio House alumnus who served
alongside
Batchelder. Boehner arguably is also the most powerful Ohioan in
Washington since
the first Bob Taft (a U.S. senator from 1939 to 1953).
An
extremely shrewd Democrat recently
said that everything Kasich and his legislative allies do seems to
mobilize —
“energize the base” — of Ohio Democrats: Unionized Ohioans, black
Ohioans,
Northeast Ohioans. Possibly so. But, for Republican purposes, better
that
should happen this November than in November 2012.
As
for Senate Bill 5 specifically, if
voters kill it, Kasich et al. can tell their fellow Republicans — when
they
take a break, say, during polo matches — that, hey, at least we tried.
Read
it at the Columbus Dispatch
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