The Columbus Dispatch editorial board is well know for it’s anti-union positions, so when I saw a recent editorial headline calling proposed ‘right-to-work’ legislation a “solution to a non-problem” I have to admit I was intrigued.

Sadly, the editors failed to provide any commentary on the legislation and instead focused on what they view as the potential negative fallout from a fight over right-to-work:  that it might reflect poorly on their BFF John Kasich.

In short, the editorial goes something like this:  Kasich is super awesome and if the GOP doesn’t ditch right-to-work it might help those pesky Democrats [...]

Two weeks ago we broke the story of Republican lawmakers trying to disenfranchise Ohio’s college students.  This week we got some rare honesty from House Speaker Batchelder when he admitted that he was, in fact, trying to keep college kids paying out-of-state tuition from voting in Ohio and he was doing it because he didn’t think they should be allowed to vote on tax levies that they might not be responsible for paying.

David Pepper, candidate for Ohio Attorney General, called Batchelder’s justification “blatantly unconstitutional” and warned that his “comments would quickly become Exhibit A in a successful Constitutional challenge of this [...]

Two weeks ago we broke the story of Republican lawmakers trying to disenfranchise Ohio’s college students.

The language, included in the GOP budget bill, would require universities in Ohio to lower tuition rates for any student who lives on campus if that student received a proof-of-residency letter from the school.

These letters, routinely sent out by Ohio’s colleges and universities, are used by students around the state for voting purposes;  without the letters the students may not be able to vote.

If the bill passes with the existing language, universities estimate they could lose hundreds of million of dollars each [...]

This morning we reported that State Rep Ron Maag was looking for cosponsors for his public sector right to work bill.

It now looks like State Rep Kristina Roegner is going to introduce a private sector version of the bill.

According to a letter seeking cosponsors, Roegner claims the bill will “prohibit any requirements that employees of private employers join or pay dues to any employee organization.”

The bill will also seem to establish that the policy of “this state is that each employee must be fully free to decide whether to associate, organize, designate a representative, or [...]

Acording to State Rep Kathleen Clyde, John Husted has again failed follow state and federal laws regarding voter registration updates, causing extra costs, confusion and possible lost votes for next week’s primary election.

State law requires the Secretary of State to send voter registration data to local election officials within five days of acceptance.   But Husted had been sitting on months of data without transferring it to the local BOEs.

SOS Husted make the same mistake during last year’s Presidential election.

“How could the Secretary of State make this colossal mistake twice?” asked Rep. Clyde.  “Absentee ballots will be rejected because [...]

There’s been a lot of discussion about what Ohio’s House Republicans changed in John Kasich’s budget: removing Medicaid expansion, dumping the sales tax proposal and lowering the income tax cut, while inserting a bunch of right-wing, anti-woman provisions like defunding Planned Parenthood.

But it’s worth pointing out that our self-proclaimed fiscal conservative Governor and GOP legislators both produced versions of a budget that increases state spending by billions over previous budgets.

While the new GOP version of the budget is somewhat smaller than the budget Kasich originally proposed, it still increases General Revenue Fund (GRF) spending by $7.5 Billion over Kasich’s [...]