Democrats in Ohio and labor leaders hailed the repeal of Senate Bill 5. In Ohio, SB 5's repeal buoys Dems

COLUMBUS - Republican Gov. John Kasich warned Democrats that they needed to support a hard-edged anti-union law or get run over by “the bus” — but on Tuesday Ohio voters left serious tread marks on Kasich and, quite possibly, the national GOP.

Unions hung a humbling defeat on Kasich, who has fast become his party’s poster boy for conservative overreach, by rolling back Senate Bill 5, a new collective bargaining law that bars public sector strikes, curtails bargaining rights for 360,000 public employees and scraps binding arbitration of management-labor disputes.


Democrats in Ohio and labor leaders hailed the victory - a rare win for progressives after a 2010 GOP sweep here that saw the turnover of five Democratic congressional seats - as a harbinger of national renewal and the first step in recapturing a state that has long been a national presidential bellwether.

Only time will tell if that’s fact or wishful thinking, but even Ohio Republicans conceded the fight over the legislation breathed new life into Democrats, who have borne the brunt of the state’s massive job losses and economic stagnation.

“Hey, I’m a Republican, but I’m telling you, Republican firefighters and police officers aren’t going to be voting Republican around here for a while,” said Doug Stern, a 15-year veteran of the Cincinnati fire department who joined the non-partisan “We are Ohio” coalition that helped repeal the bill.

“We’ll see what happens in 2012, but our guys have a long memory. We’re angry and disgusted.”

The contest over SB 5 - also called Issue 2 - was among the most expensive ever waged over a ballot initiative in the state with unions and conservative groups, including Citizens United, pouring in more than $50 million collectively.

The ballot measure galvanized local progressives like nothing else since the election of Barack Obama in 2008. They staged mass rallies past the state capitol, organized tens of thousands of volunteers and vowed to turn their makeshift coalition into a political force that will reshape the balance of power in Ohio.

Kasich, for his part, argued that he was simply trying to create a sustainable path for the state budget. His effort was backed by conservative funders, farmers, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business.

But one senior state Republican blamed the governor, whose approval rating languishes in the low 30s, for “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” by alienating labor-friendly independents in the state.

In a statement Tuesday night, Kasich conceded defeat but vowed to continue his effort to cut government spending.

“Though I would have preferred a different outcome tonight, the people of Ohio have spoken and I respect their decision,” he said in a statement. But he said the results “did not change the fact that Ohio’s ability to create a jobs-friendly climate is impacted by local governments’ ability to reduce their costs.”

Obama backed the unions and his campaign arm, Obama for America, mobilized about 2,400 volunteers for the push over the last month, a spokesman for his campaign told POLITICO. Union groups, led by the AFL-CIO, knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors and churned out millions of mailings.

“The president congratulates the people of Ohio for standing up for workers and defeating efforts to strip away collective bargaining rights, and commends the teachers, firefighters, nurses, police officers and other workers who took a stand to defend those rights,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

But the night was not a complete win for Democrats. Ohio voters approved another measure - Issue 3, supported by the tea party and GOP - that would prevent the state’s residents from being forced to participate in any health care system. The constitutional amendment, largely symbolic, was a response to the health care overhaul supported by Obama.

The Associated Press called the race over SB 5 about an hour after the polls closed, with 63 percent of voters opting to repeal the law with about a million votes counted, a very high turnout for an off-year election.

Ohio Democrats partied at a downtown Columbus Hyatt with uniformed cops and firemen, slurping Bud Lites and bear-hugging each other to the blare of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” a teen anthem re-purposed for a union crowd.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) stood in the back of the Hyatt ballroom, a rare suit-and-tie in a crowd of T-shirts and union sweatshirts, and talked up the possibility of Democratic comeback in the Midwest.

“I think it’s a complete realignment of the political landscape here,” added Ryan — who predicted that Mitt Romney’s visit at pro-SB 5 phone bank would be a liability if he emerges as the GOP presidential nominee. “The shine is off the apple for Republicans and the tea party.”

Added Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat, “This leaves Kasich very, very wounded.”

Kasich, a former congressman, didn’t shy away from his support of the law in the last week of campaigning, even as state Republicans braced for a double-digit loss.

“I’m not a guy who goes and hides,” Kasich told reporters last week as he barnstormed the state. “That’s not the way I was raised.”

Earlier this year, a more confident Kasich warned his opponents to “get on the bus or get run over by the bus,” a quote which Democrats recounted gleefully on Tuesday night.

The controversial law, which mirrored similar legislation in Wisconsin, hadn’t yet taken effect. It remains to be seen if the GOP-controlled state legislature will try to resurrect more popular elements of the sweeping measure, including steeper employee contributions to benefit funds.