COLUMBUS, Ohio—Some Republican state legislators want to use the Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision to revive bills to ban the union shop, but the party’s leaders are reluctant to push for them.
“There’s quite a few of us that believe that this has been the right policy for Ohio, but up to date, we’ve been unsuccessful in passing that,” Rep. Kristina Roegner, from the Akron suburbs, told WDTN-TV in Dayton. “But I think now the legislators can take a step back and say, ‘Hey the United State Supreme Court believes that this is an issue of First Amendment rights,’ and I’m hopeful that that will embolden the legislature here in Ohio to do the right thing.” But state Senate President Larry Obhof said “there really isn’t a need for legislation,” as the Court had ended the union shop for public employees.” Ohio has about 635,000 union members, one-eighth of the state’s workforce, and another 53,000 nonmembers represented by unions. In 2011, more than 60% of the state’s voters rejected a measure that, along with prohibiting public workers from striking or bargaining over anything but wages, would have allowed them to refuse to pay anything for union representation.
