Democratic push to let Ohio Statehouse staff unionize is both more and less than it seems – cleveland.com

Two Ohio House Democrats, Reps. Allison Russo, of Upper Arlington, and Jeffrey Crossman, of Parma, want to let the General Assemblys staff bargain collectively.

In 1983, the General Assembly, along party lines all Democrats for, all Republicans against passed Ohios landmark collective bargaining law for public employees. That law excludes roughly 20 categories of public employees from collective bargaining. Some are supervisors. Others include the governors staff; court employees; and General Assembly employees. People in those jobs are employed at-will. They can be hired or fired pretty much whenever a boss wants.

Democrats ran Ohios House for 14 of the 37 years after they passed the 1983 law; Democrats ran the Ohio Senate for two years. Democrats and unions are allies. And unions protect their members. But if memory is any guide, Statehouse Democrats never lifted a finger to let the legislatures staff unionize when Democrats ran the joint.

Now, Republicans are the ringmasters of the Statehouse circus. And House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry Countys Glenford, has ticked off Democrats. Householder doesnt make many mistakes. But he made a big one in refusing to keep the House consistently locked down until the coronavirus attacks fewer Ohioans.

That decision was political, not medical. Some Republicans, ranging from grandstanders in Householders Republican caucus to giant, economy-size grandstanders in Washington, decided that lockdowns, isolation and face masks comfort President Donald Trumps political enemies. In Columbus even worse such anti-coronavirus moves could imply that the Houses GOP menfolk (staff included) are wussies. That fecklessness gave Democrats a justified opening to assail what they say (and events suggest) is House Republicans indifference to the health of House members and staff.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jessica Miranda, a suburban Cincinnati Democrat, has complained to Householder that mixed-up House Republican supervisors mistakenly believed a Miranda aide had had contact with a Republican employee whod tested positive for the coronavirus. The supervisors sent Mirandas aide home without her knowledge, adding to what she termed a picture of [House] chaos. (In 2018, by just 56 votes, Miranda captured what had been a Republican-held Ohio House seat in that years closest Ohio House race. Winning back Mirandas seat is likely a GOP priority this November.)

Still, its good to keep context in mind when House Democrats gripe about Householder. He won the speakership last year with the votes of 26 House Republicans and of 26 House Democrats, including the votes of Crossman and House Democratic Leader Emilia Sykes, of Akron. (Miranda and Russo were among the Ohio House Democrats who voted for 2018s speaker, Republican Ryan Smith, of Gallia Countys Bidwell.) As an American founder, John Adams, once said, Facts are stubborn things.

Lockdown Library: If youre locked down at home, and have the time, here are some new books worth a look-see:

* Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic, by Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Eric Eyre, on the horrific opioid plague that has destroyed communities in West Virginia and elsewhere in Appalachia, including swathes of Ohio.

Federal data pried loose by a lawsuit newspapers filed revealed drug companies saturated the [United States] with 76 billion not a typo oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills from 2006 through 2012, The Washington Post reported.

* The Room Where It Happened, by former White House national security adviser John Bolton. If you fear for our country, you may weep for it after reading this. In 2005, the late George Voinovich, then a GOP senator, fought Boltons appointment by President George W. Bush as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saying, The United States can do better than John Bolton. The book suggests that Bolton thinks the United States can do better than President Trump.

* Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, by Larry Tye. McCarthy, a Republican senator from Wisconsin, made his name a synonym for guilt by association in the 1950s. Looming large in McCarthys anti-communist crusade, hence in Tyes book, is the completely unscrupulous Roy M. Cohn (1927-1986), a lawyer who became a close friend of someone originally best-known as a New York real estate developer someone named Donald Trump.

Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens.

To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-408-9474

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Democratic push to let Ohio Statehouse staff unionize is both more and less than it seems - cleveland.com