Ohio GOP Replaces Another Committee Member To Game Vote On Anti-Union Bill

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Mar 8th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Ohio GOP Replaces Another Committee Member To Game Vote On Anti-Union Bill

Last week, ThinkProgress reported on a highly unusual move in the Ohio state Senate in which the GOP leadership yanked Republican Sen. Bill Seitz off the Labor Committee just a half hour before a key vote on a GOP anti-union bill there. Seitz didn’t support the bill, so he was replaced with another Republican who did in order to ensure the measure passed. Today, Ohio progressive blog Plunderbund reports that Republicans in the state House have now taken a page from their Senate colleagues and are abruptly replacing a Republican on the House Labor Committee in order to game the outcome of a vote on the same anti-union bill:



Indeed, the committee’s website has already been updated to show the change. “This is now the third committee that the GOP has had to rig in order to get SB5 to pass,” Plunderbund notes. “If that’s what can happen to a sitting state senator,” Seitz told ThinkProgress of his abrupt dismissal, “what’s going to happen to you if you’re a nervous firefighter, teacher, or policeman…if this bill passes?”