Keeping Watch

* Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) has been busy trying to promote drilling off our shores. Stivers and his anti-environment Republicans are trying to overturn the moratorium put in place by President Obama after the oil spill disaster in the gulf. Switchboard at the NRDC has details.

Stivers has not been doing that well in getting his sponsored bills into law. Of his sponsored bills, none have become law.
Opencongress:
5 Sponsored Bills (Ranks of 440) 0 Made Into Law (Ranks of 440)

That is pretty dismal.  Where are the jobs Stivers promised?

>>>>>  The Dispatch is reporting that today, Noon, free cake at the 150th celebration of the Statehouse in Columbus.  Be there.

*  Ohioans must realize that just as we might be happy about repealing SB 5/Issue 2, it is not over.  Even as I type this, there are people within the Kasich administration and the state legislature that are crafting legislation to push similar, smaller bills that would limit the rights of public employees.  The Republicans feel that SB 5 was too big, and so they will "take care" of one group of public employees at a time, or a certain benefit (pensions) or aspect of a public employee's job. More bills will emerge after the holidays.

 Just as the Ohio Republicans crafted their anti-collective bargaining bill in secret, they are doing the same regarding the sale/lease of the Ohio Turnpike.  Although citizens might not know it, there are meetings being held to set up a structure to sale/lease the state toll road.  Once again, we are seeing an example of the lack of transparency in the Kasich administration.

*****Time Magazine takes another look at SB 5/Issue 2:

...Kasich rankled voters by delivering strident denunciation of public workers that convinced many that the real purpose of the legislation was not economic reform but union busting...

...Democrats are also trying to hang SB5 around the necks of the Republican presidential candidates who supported it. There are signs the gambit could work: approximately half of voters surveyed in the AFL-CIO poll said they’d be less likely to vote for Mitt Romney because of his support for the bill. The legislation will be woven into one of the Democratic Party’s thematic arguments for 2012: that the GOP has collectively embraced extreme policy that protects the rich while punishing the middle class. The defeat of Issue 2, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee declared in the wake of the vote, “delivered a clear message to corporate-backed politicians across the country that we will no longer stay silent as Wall Street tries to steal the American Dream. This was a brazen attempt to silence the voice of the 99%.”

We Are Ohio awakened a strong, powerful voice--- the middle class.