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Wednesday, March 23, 2011
UPDATED -House passes voter photo ID bill - Speaker Batchelder calls press conference on “misrepresentations” - Dems blast voter photo ID bill as “poll tax”
The House passed legislation requiring voters to show a photo ID when casting ballots in person, 57-38, on Wednesday after more than two hours of heated debate.
One Republican, Rep. Kirk Schuring of Canton, joined Democrats in opposing the bill. All the “yes” votes came from Republicans.
With the Republican-controlled Ohio House on Wednesday set to vote - and probably pass - legislation requiring voters to show a photo ID when casting ballots in person, Democrats blasted the proposal as a “poll tax.”
House Bill 159 would discriminate against college students, the poor, minorities, the elderly and others less likely to have photo IDs, House Minority Leader Armond Budish, D-Beachwood, said at a press conference just hours before the scheduled 1:30 p.m. House session.
After the House session started at 1:30 p.m., House Speaker William Batchelder, R-Medina, announced that he would hold a press conference after the session to “resolve misrepresentations of the bill.” The bill still was on the agenda.
The bill’s joint sponsors, Reps. Louis Blessing, R-Cincinnati, and Rep. Bob Mecklenborg, R-Green Twp., also were to be at the press conference, a press advisory said.
Reps. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton, and Roland Winburn, D-Harrison Twp., the only two Dayton-area Democratic house members, joined Budish at the Democrats’ press conference.
Luckie, who is black, said it brought up memories of his grandparents’ days when blacks who wanted to vote were thwarted by complicated poll tests.
The bill “solves a problem that does not exist,” said Budish.
Supporters have said it would prevent Ohioans from trying to vote more than once. Representatives from Indiana and Georgia, which already have similar requirements, testified Tuesday at a committee hearing that there had been few problems with voters being disenfranchised.
The bill would require voters to use photo IDs to cast ballots in person on Election Day or when voting absentee in-person during early voting.
Now, Ohioans must show a photo ID or a document such as a current utility bill, paycheck of government document with their names and addresses.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, the state’s chief elections officer, has not taken a position on the bill.
Under the bill, the registrar of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles would be required to set up a system to provide free photo IDs to those who could document that they couldn’t afford to pay for them.
Also, under the bill, acceptable photo IDs would include: Ohio driver’s license; Ohio identification card; U.S. military identification card and U.S. passport.
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TweetUPDATED with Gov. Kasich spokesman - Poll: Voters frown on Kasich, his budget plan and collective bargaining curbs
Republican Gov. John Kasich is getting off to a rocky start with Ohio voters who don’t think much of the governor’s budget proposal and also frown on the curbs to public employee collective bargaining that Kasich supports.
These are key findings in a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
Here are snapshots of the results:
*Forty six percent disapproved Kasich’s handling of the job, while 30 percent approved.
*Fifty three percent said Kasich’s proposed budget is unfair to them; 36 percent said it’s fair.
*Half those surveyed were asked about legislation that limited “collective bargaining” and 48 percent were opposed, compared to 41 percent in support.
*The other half were asked about a bill to limit “collective bargaining rights” and 54 percent were opposed, while 35 percent were in support.
Rob Nichols, Kasich’s spokesman, had this reaction to the poll:
“We’ve never commented on public polls. The governor’s drive to restore Ohio has never been about politics but about helping to create jobs and restore our state.”
Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a press release:
“Although there is almost nothing in these numbers that Kasich can point to as evidence of his popularity or that of his proposals, he can take solace from the fact that he has almost four years to turn around public opinion.”
In the poll, women were harder on Kasich, who took office in January, than men. Women disapproved his performance, 48-25 percent, while men disapproved his performance, 44-37 percent.
By a 55-37 percent spread, they said Kasich should not have promised to fill a projected $8 billion budget deficit by only cutting spending and not raising taxes. By a 64-2e percent spread, they said he wouldn’t keep his no-tax pledge, even though his budget plan has no tax hikes.
Still, when asked whether to balance the budget with cuts alone or by coupling them with tax hikes, voters by a 65-27 percent spread backed not raising taxes at all.
Voters also disapproved, 46-39 percent, Kasich’s plan to sell five state prisons to private firms to save money. The poll was taken March 15 to Monday, March 21, with 1,384 registered voters by live interviewers over land lines and cell phones and had a margin of error of plus of minus 2.6 percentage points.
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