Ohio Governor Jon Kasich's radical SB 5 to repeal public worker's collective bargaining rights has been voted on and soundly voted down by the people of Ohio. Gov. Kasich admits that it might have been "too much too soon" but warned that there will be no "bailout" for strapped local governments.
The governor should probably worry more about getting no bailout for himself in the future by the voters of Ohio. The 61-39 vote down of this anti union bill should put not only he, but similar Republican governors in other states-Scott Walker, Mitch Daniels, et. al, on notice that union bashing is not a successful 9reelection strategy. Same goes of course for any blue dog Democrats. The Wall Street Journal on pg. A5 of today's edition tried to frame it as voters shying away from dramatic overhauls of government.
That is probably true, yet this must not gloss over the fact that this is also a statement in solidarity with the rights of labor and their rights. Certainly those who are trying to erode their rights have become way too aggressive for their own good. The best way to cook a frog in a pot is to slowly raise the temperature but the full throttle of these abusive husband-Republican governors ignores this. Not that workers aren't becoming more aware of stealth attacks as well. But true enough that overreach is a bad strategy.
In using the "abusive husband' phrase above I am quite serious. There are a whole phenotype of such Republican governors who are like abusive husband-fathers relative to the people of their state. They arrogantly think there is no check on the petty meanness and cruelty they can inflict. Let this be their wake up call.
Overall there were many Republican setbacks on Tuesday, though the WSJ piece tries to suggest there was an equal amount of Democratic ones. There were a few it's true: in Ohio, 66 percent did vote for a ballot initiative that would restrict the state from enforcing the federal government mandate for carrying health care insurance. While this initiative is not binding as federal law supersedes state law it is a bellwether that many Americans still don''t like the Affordable Health Care Act I belieeve that this bill is still not fullly understood but will as more Americans being to benefit from it in their daily lives.
While I happen to think that those Ohio voters are wrong, of course this is an area the Republicans will try to exploit in the 2012 election. No one has to agree that the people are always right just that they people must always have their right to vote. This is something the Republicans don't respect as they have had a major offensive in restricting the rights of Americans to vote by many methods and different forms.
In my own Nassau County here on Long Island, New York we saw right here in liberal New York that racially based efforts to prevent the wrong people from voting is far from over. In the race for Nassau Legislature between John Ciotti, the deputy majority leader from North Valley Stream, and Carrie Solages, a son of Haitian immigrant, we saw such tactics employed. Mr. Ciotti's campaign workers-"campaign workers" in this case is a euphemism for "henchmen"-tried every dirty trick at voter intimidation, physically harassing people in front of Mr. Solages' campaign headquarters and using racist and sexist hate speech after their attempt to redistrict in time to reduce the voting rights of the wrong kinds of people failed.
In Maine, meanwhile, voters overwhelmingly voted down a GOP backed law against same-day registration. Overall I'd say Tuesday was a disappointing day for reactionaries. Their tricks are not working as well as they once did.
No comments:
Post a Comment