It turns out they were all full of shit.

Setting aside for a second the debate over job-killing SB5 and the fact that supporters seem to conveniently forget the Great State of Ohio itself is our largest employer with over 60,000 employees (I’ll come back to this in a later post) – the number of highly-partisan and very non-job-related bills flooding Ohio’s House and Senate seems pretty unprecedented.

Quick question: name the top 3 issues over which you think Democrats and Republicans might “bicker”.

I’m willing to bet nearly every person reading this post included Abortion in that list.

No real surprise there. It is a contentious issue. But also completely unrelated to job creation in our state.

And yet, after promising to focus like lasers on job creation, members of the majority controlling Ohio’s legislature have introduced at least 7 bills in the past 60 days focused elusively on abortion:

And it isn’t just that they are introducing highly controversial bills. Just like JobsOhio and SB5, debate over the abortion bills has been restricted and important amendments have been rejected outright.

The most egregious example came during discussion over HB 79 that would “prohibit qualified health plans from providing coverage for certain abortions”.

Representatives Antonia and Hagan introduced very reasonable amendments to this bill. One would have required health insurance coverage of maternity services and the other would have prohibited health insurers from excluding coverage for contraceptives. Both were shot down immediately and never received a vote.

Regardless of your stance on the abortion issue you absolutely have to agree that preventing unwanted pregnancies is the best method of reducing abortions. And if you ARE going to prevent woman from having access to abortion services, the very least you can do it help them pay for the medical costs associated with their pregnancy.

This isn’t about jobs. This isn’t even about abortion. It’s about taking advantage of their control of the state in order to ram their highly-partisan agenda down the throats of Ohioans.

They promised us jobs and an improved economy but all we’ve seen is union busting, misogyny, a war on middle class ohioans and the promise to sell off all state assets to their lucky business pals.

It’s a horrible approach to governing that will have disastrous effects on the state. The only silver lining here is that they’ve pissed off so many people in the process that there is no way in hell many of these guys and gals are remaining in office after the next election.

Bottom line is that our government is taking away collective barganing rights from the unions, this does not allow public safety the ability to negotiate terms on things such as safety items, minimum man power, lay offs, it will eliminate seniority, it will allows our governing bodies the right to do just about anything they want. The governer says that this bill will start the ball rolling in ecinomic reform for ohio, What?  By cutting the throats of the people who take care of your problems, teach your kids, keep the criminals securley behind bars, I think not. this comes on the back of the governor giveing his staff a 20% pay increase after he took office this year!

 Our IAFF unions along with teachers, Nurses, corrections officers, police, and city public workers have all stood strong against the bill, we know we will not stop it in the Senate (already passed), and the House, we hope to get it on the ballot and let the people decide. The tea party is backing this strongly, so there is a lot of money on there side. The way that the Senate railroaded this into law is appauling, dismissing chairs because they did not agree on the bill, they did this at will. There is a lot more to this, but for now there is a little of the basics. If you are a Ohio Public employee and do not understand what this bill is about to do to your lively hood you should take note. I know this does not effect most of you on this site but just get ready it has made it through WI., now Ohio, it's headed your way. 1st the unions then what?