Ouch

Just noticed this.

Issue 2 failed in the counties of the Speaker of the House and the President of the State Senate.  They couldn’t carry their own districts on Issue 2.  Niehaus is a lame duck in the Senate anyways.  President Pro Tempore Keith Faber has campaigned across the State for Issue 2, representing Building a Better Ohio in the Statewide debate on the issue.  Issue 2 only carried in two of the seven counties that compromise his district.  (Although that is 1/3 of the counties Issue 2 actually carried… Shelby and Mercer.)

If the Senate GOP were smart, they’d realize that Bill Seitz was right and publicly acknowledge that and restore his chairmanship and committee assignments, or even more brilliantly, elect him into some position into the leadership to show they’re turning a new leaf.  I mean, they gave Jimmy Stewart a leadership position back when he actually voted with labor.

But think about this for 2012, if Speaker Batchelder and Niehaus couldn’t sell this vote back in their own home counties, how can they help vulnerable Republicans sell it back home in those counties any better?  And keep in mind that these are the gerrymandered, deep red districts these guys come from.  In 2010, Batchelder got 70% of the vote.  Niehaus got 62% in 2008, the last year he was on the ballot and easily carried every county (with the sole exception of a squeeker in Scioto) in his district.  Last night, each one of those counties rejected SB 5.  With the sole exception of his home county of Clermont, No on Issue 2 got anywhere between > 60% to <76% of the vote in his district’s counties.

The GOP legislature’s only hope is that voters have short memories, but that would require them to have some other legislative achievement that is more popular than Issue 2.  And the only available polling shows that the Kasich budget, isn’t any more popular than Issue 2.