(The following appeared on the Columbus Dispatch website on February 23, 2011.)
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A key Senate Republican said at least one public union has shown a willingness to go beyond the “kill the bill” chants heard repeatedly from the estimated 5,200 protesters who swarmed the Statehouse yesterday to fight an overhaul of Ohio’s collective-bargaining law.
“They are remaining pragmatic and so are we,” Sen. Kevin Bacon, R-Minerva Park, said yesterday after a meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio. “We have some things that maybe we can come together on.”
Jay McDonald, president of the union, said his organization can agree with parts of the bill, such as more transparency in the bargaining process. But he said eliminating binding arbitration – a provision Bacon says is key to the bill – goes way too far, giving police and firefighters no power to negotiate.
The State Highway Patrol limited access to the Statehouse yesterday as thousands of protesters stood outside in the cold and snow, many angry they could not get inside to register their opposition.
Saying it was concerned for the safety of the hundreds already gathered in the Statehouse, the patrol locked outside doors, leaving throngs of protesters on the east side along 3rd Street chanting and cheering so loudly that they could be heard across Downtown as newscasters from across Ohio and CNN captured the scene.
As a Democratic lawsuit was threatened to open the doors, the party’s lawmakers finally were successful in getting about 500 more protesters to join the roughly 700 in the atrium. About 900 others were allowed to sit in the Capitol Theatre in the Riffe Center, across High Street from the Statehouse. Audio from the hearing was piped in both locales.
The Ohio bill, and the protests it has drawn, mirrors the scenario in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker and his GOP-legislative majorities are stymied because Democratic lawmakers are away from the Statehouse in hiding.
The full story is on the Columbus Dispatch website.
Photos from the rally are also available.