Columbus Dispatch...
Pro-SB 5 campaign has work cut out
By Jim Siegel  and  Joe Vardon 
August 30, 2011 

When a record number of Ohioans signed the petition to place a repeal of Ohio’s new collective-bargaining law on the ballot, it not only gave opponents of Senate Bill 5 plenty of signatures to qualify for a statewide vote, it gave them a significant head start in the campaign. 

We Are Ohio collected about 915,000 valid signatures, nearly four times the number needed to qualify for the ballot. The key question now is whether the coalition of Democrats and union supporters pushing for a repeal can keep those signees in their camp and get them to show up to vote in November. 

“It was a really strong statement that we had 1.3 million sign the petitions and more than 915,000 signatures that were validated,” said Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio. “It’s really important that we keep talking with them and make sure they come out in November.” 

If that happens, the math adds up to a daunting challenge for Republican leaders and others pushing to save the law by urging a “yes” vote on Issue 2. 

If 4 million people show up to the polls — and 900,000 of them already are assumed to stay consistent with their petition signatures and cast a “no” vote — the GOP-backed Building a Better Ohio coalition would have to win 64.5 percent of the remaining voters to uphold the law. 

The threshold jumps to 71 percent if only 3 million people turn out. Secretary of State Jon Husted told The Dispatch that his preliminary estimate, more than two months before the Nov. 8 vote, is between 3 million and 3.5 million. 

“The figure of two-thirds is very plausible,” said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. “It doesn’t mean the pro-SB 5 side is going to lose, but it does mean they’ll have to do very, very well with independent voters.” 

Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, whose poll in July showed Ohio voters favoring repeal by a 24-point margin, said most people who signed We Are Ohio’s petitions tend to lean Democratic. 

“Obviously, Gov. (John) Kasich and his colleagues have their work cut out for them,” Brown said. “Getting 60 percent or even two-thirds of the remaining voting pool is obviously a tall task ... But at the same time, it’s an easier pool for Kasich to mine than a pool of overall voters.” 

Jason Mauk, spokesman for Building a Better Ohio, said the opposition’s signature total is not a true indicator of support for the repeal campaign or how many votes it’s already locked up for November. 

“It assumes everyone who signed the petition understands the issue when we know that’s not true,” he said. 

“From our standpoint, you’ll see an education campaign over a span of about 60 days that’s going to decide the election. I think you’ll see a disconnect between people who signed their petitions and those who will cast a ballot.” 

Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, said he feels good about the chances of Issue 2, arguing that the more people understand the new law, which significantly weakens collective-bargaining power for public workers, the more they support it. 

“The anti-Senate Bill 5 forces have done a masterful job of misleading people and mischaracterizing what this bill does,” he said. “They’ve had the field pretty much to themselves since Day One. That’s going to change.” 

Green said an ideal campaign for Republican supporters of Senate Bill 5 would drive up voter turnout, change some minds of those who lean toward repeal, and win the independent vote. 

But Green said boosting the number of voters who go to the polls can be difficult in off-year elections — no matter what is on the ballot — and it’s “much harder to change minds than it is to help people make up their minds.” 

Fazekas said she is confident that those who signed the petitions will stay strongly on her coalition’s side, noting that the majority of signatures were collected by thousands of volunteers “through talking to their friends, family and neighbors.” 

She said We Are Ohio already has thousands of volunteers knocking on doors and working the phones to keep people engaged. 

“The more people that find out about Senate Bill 5 and how unfair and unsafe it is for our communities, the more likely they are to vote no on Issue 2,” she said. “It’s very hard to be an Ohioan to not know a firefighter, nurse, teacher or police officer who’s going to be negatively impacted by this.” 

Read it at the Columbus Dispatch