Main Street

Corporate pro-SB 5 group stumbles out of the gate

A new inappropriately named organization called Building A Better Ohio has launched to defend Gov. Kasich’s Senate Bill 5, which strips collective bargaining rights from 350,000 Ohioans.

The group will be chaired by Vaughn Flasher, a Republican consultant and current lobbyist for tobacco, telecommunications, and the insurance industry. Aiding Flasher’s group in their anti-worker cause is the DC-based Americans for Prosperity, the group run by the infamous Koch Brothers, who are raising money for the upcoming referendum fight.

The roll out for Building A Better Ohio, however, was extremely unimpressive. The group is trying to pass themselves off as a “grassroots” operation, but they have already admitted that Governor John Kasich and other state Republicans will play a large role. Kasich’s poll numbers have taken a dive over his aggressive anti-worker agenda, and a recent poll found that he would lose in a rematch with former Gov. Ted Strickland by 25 points if the election were held today.

That’s even before we notice that the “grassroots” campaign is headed up by a corporate lobbyist, Mr. Flasher.

Building A Better Ohio’s website also contains a “fact-checking” section, which states numerous falsehoods about Senate Bill 5 without any citations to back them up. The same day the site was launched, the Ohio blog Plunderbund went down one by one and disproved them all.

The latest public opinion poll on Senate Bill 5 showed 54 percent opposing, and the haphazard launch of this anemically-supported group seems to reflect some panic on the part of Kasich and his corporate backers. While it’s not scientific evidence, Building A Better Ohio’s Facebook page has 294 Likes compared to over 126,000 for “Stand Up for Ohio,” and most of the existing activity seems to come from people leaving anti-SB 5 comments.