Soon — after their drive to recall state senator — Wisconsin will get busy will its effort to recall its governor Scott Walker, something Wisconsin's constitution allows them to do a year after election.
Alas, Ohio has no recall provision for its equally deaf-to-peoples'-real-needs governor, John Kasich. Unless he steps over the line and gets indicted, we're stuck for almost four more looooooong years.
Two state representatives, Mike Foley of Cleveland and Bob Hagan of Youngstown, have stepped up to the plate and introduced legislation to change our constitution to allow recalling state officials. Since they are in the minority and apparently the most important job-creating measures Ohio Republicans can think of right now are banning abortion and allowing guns in bars, it's going to go nowhere.
So what? We're making a statement here, which is "Mr. Kasich, you said you would focus like a laser beam on job creation, and you have done everything else but. Most of the things you have proposed will destroy jobs and wages and enrich your wealthy cronies. We do not approve."
Today Mike (who is a former community organizer) sent out an email via MoveOn.org, asking people to sign a petition amplifying that statement.
He said,
"In November 2010, John Kasich was elected governor with less than 50% of the vote. In December, he told Ohioans they could either "get on the bus or get run over." Turns out he wasn't kidding. Today, hundreds of thousands of dedicated public employees, including first responders and teachers, have been run over by Kasich's bus. Hard-working, middle class Ohioans have been stripped of their collective bargaining rights thanks to the passage of Senate Bill 5, just so Kasich can preserve tax cuts for the richest Ohioans.
Public employees aren't the only people Kasich has run over. He and the Republican legislature are trying to make it harder for the poor, minorities, students, and the elderly to vote. His budget undermines public education, makes college more expensive for working and middle class families, and picks the pockets of libraries and local communities.
In Wisconsin, where a radical, anti-union, anti-middle class governor is following Kasich's lead, people have the right to recall dangerous state officials. Unfortunately, Ohioans don't have the right to run Kasich out of office because state law does not permit recall of the governor and other state officials.
The time has come to change the law! That's why Representative Bob Hagan and I introduced legislation to give Ohio the right to recall radical extremists like John Kasich. And to show the widespread support our bill has, I created this petition to be delivered to the Ohio State House, the Ohio State Senate, and Governor John Kasich himself. The petition simply says:
"I support legislation to allow for the recall of state elected officials in the state of Ohio."
You can sign the petition here:
http://www.moveon.org/...
I don't know if they are just soliciting Ohioans to sign it, but I urge anyone who has a connection to the state to do so.
Mike told me last week that he hatched this idea because people kept coming up to him at meetings demanding to know why we can't recall Kasich.
“Obviously, this won’t get out of the House," he says. "But Ohio likes the idea. I want to play up the fact that Kasich has miserable approval ratings. He’s an unpopular governor pushing down our throats far-right-wing ideas that are really controversial. It’s backfiring on him. Since he’s doing that, I’m going to push this. It’s my duty as a legislator to offer a means within confines of state law to deal with that problem.”
And once it inevitably fails, bottled up by Republicans in the legislature petrified that Kasich is ruining THEIR re-election chances next year?
“We’ll look for other remedies that I’m not sure what they are right now,” says Foley.