ProgressOhio

The Dispatch this morning said their may be a silver lining to the Ohio Supreme Court's weird legislating from the bench in throwing out the Strickland veto.

Last winter, as I recall ProgressOhio discovered former Governor Taft signed the wrong Campaign Finance Bill that lame-duck legislators passed to try to prevent labor from being able to contribute to progressive candidates.

Well the Dispatch says, the fact that the House Speaker had to ask for the Bill back to insert the right pages -- will likely lead to that anti-labor bill being thrown out in Court.

"Brunner said the high court's decision could give Franklin County Judge John F. Bender a reason to invalidate House Bill 694. Labor unions have challenged it as unconstitutional.

Among other things, the bill bans unions from contributing more than $2,000 to a public official responsible for approving labor contracts. The three unions suing in Bender's court to block the measure say Taft was not allowed to sign into law an incomplete version of the bill.

In early January, the House clerk realized that last-minute additions to the legislation -- pages dealing with union contributions -- were left out of the final bill. Brunner's office granted permission to replace 33 pages of the bill.

But those days are over, Brunner said, pointing to two concurring opinions in Wednesday's Supreme Court decision written by Justices Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Terrence O'Donnell."

Kudo's to ProgressOhio. This is just another reason we're glad this site and their researchers are around.