Ohio Senate Bill 5 Stories

First of all, the unions knew about Senate Bill 5 before any of us had even heard of it. The result was that they had 800 members in the Senate gallery during the first day of hearings, literally booing at the testimony and trying to intimidate senators, while we had no representation. This was a tactical error by our representatives which caused them to lose the moral high ground in the first two hours of the fight. The union message dominated the local news, and pictures of hundreds of union members in yellow shirts were on the front page of every newspaper and on every TV. Immediately, the senators and the governor were on the defensive and their logical message of fiscal responsibility was being drowned out by emotional messages of citizens turning their backs on “police and firefighters who face gunfire and run into burning buildings” and “going to war against ‘middle class workers’.” These are examples of standard Akinsky tactics. First create a powerful image by having them all wear the same colored shirts, use force to interrupt the hearings by booing the presenters, go door-to-door in the Senate to remind Senators that you have the resources to help or hurt them in the future, then come out with an emotional message that divides your opponents by class or other categories. The message to our Republican leaders: the left destroyed you on day one.

Now the conservatives were on the defensive, thanks to the ineptness of our elected leaders. Patriot groups put together a response, which was to get to Columbus as soon as we could to show that we supported the elimination of collective bargaining and binding arbitration for government employees. Across the state, Patriot group leaders began to organize a trip to Columbus on Thursday, February 17th. The Portage County TEA Party took two buses to Columbus that day; and we knew that we would most likely be outnumbered, and that we would come in direct contact for the first time with the SEIU and the government employee unions. In an effort to make sure that we could identify ourselves, all the groups in Ohio had decided in advance that we would wear red shirts or jackets. During the previous hearings, the SEIU members had worn purple and the other unions had worn yellow. We had also decided to get to Columbus early, because at the Tuesday hearings, the unions had gotten there two hours ahead of time and taken all the seats.

When we got to the State House at around 8:00 AM for the hearings that were scheduled to start at 10:00 AM, there were only a handful of Patriots on the steps outside the building. There were no union people to be seen. There was a PA system setup playing music, which at first we thought were to be used for our planned rally. Several Ohio Liberty Council (OLC) leaders were on the steps, and Americans for Prosperity members were handing out red “Ohio 180” shirts to anyone who wasn’t wearing red and wanted one. Our members went to the door to see if they could go into the State House, but were told by security that they were not allowed in because there was no room. We were confused, because we had been told several days before that they were moving the hearings to a bigger room because they were expecting a big crowd. Then we were told that they did move the hearings to a new room, but that was because they had 50 people testifying and needed the bigger room to hold them. We stayed outside.

At about 9:00 AM, there was still no sign of any union members. The number of Patriots had grown to about 700 outside on the State House steps and we were kind of waiting to hold a brief rally before trying to get inside to hear the hearings.Then, right on cue, we saw a line of at least several hundred union members, mostly police and fire, walking in line, four across like an army, approaching from the northwest corner of the grounds right towards us and the steps of the State House. You could clearly tell that this was staged to try and intimidate us. We stood there watching as they drew closer, wondering what would happen when they reached the steps. None of them were wearing colored shirts, they were wearing what looked like uniforms.

To our amazement, when they got to the steps, the doors to the State House opened up and they walked right between us, in formation, and walked right inside – after we had been standing outside for at least an hour waiting to get inside. After we had been told we could not go inside. Remember a year ago when Nancy Pelosi, flanked by every black democrat they could muster, walked through the TEA Party protestors defiantly with her gavel trying to provoke an incident on their way to sign the health care bill? This was an instant replay.

What was going on here? Well this is when we were personally introduced to the first two Saul Alinsky tactics. You see, since the police and firefighter unions were protesting Senate Bill 5, there were lots of official-looking people walking around who were not officials. The people who had told our members that we could not go into the State House because there was no room were not officials at the State House at all. They we union members taking advantage of our lack of experience with their tactics. This was pure theater. The planted people at the door to make us think we could not go in, for the express purpose of exposing us to what they hoped would be an intimidating show of force when they used their little parade to March right through us. It was actually funny to watch it unfold because it was all so phony.

So, after they went inside, our people decided that we would have our rally. However, we were told that since we did not have a permit, we could not use the steps for our rally. That is when we found out that the PA system on the steps was not for us. Those speakers were so we could listen to the hearings outside. We were told that if we wanted to have a rally we could not be on the State House property, we had to go out on the sidewalk. So, 700 of us walked out to the street and used a small portable PA system to hear several speakers for about 15 minutes. When that was done, we didn’t really know what to do, so we decided that we would just march up the stairs and see what was inside.

When we got to the door, there was no one to stop us from coming in, so we walked into the Rotunda, which by definition is a big round room. As we walked across the room and came out the other side, there was a set of stairs that led down to a room where chairs had been set up for people to listen to the hearings. Those chairs were already filled with about 2,000 union members. Union members wearing red shirts. That was Alinsky tactic number 3. By them wearing red shirts, while we were wearing red shirts, you could not tell how many of us there were because they were in the majority. It minimized us. It also caused media confusion as I later saw video footage on Fox showing “union members protesting Senate Bill 5” when there were pictures of our members yelling in support of Senate Bill 5. That was no accident.

Then the fun began. We were stopped a by the police at the top of the stairs and told we could not go further because the room was full. When I looked behind us, I could see union members coming up from the sides of the rotunda and circling in behind our group. In a minute, we were surrounded. They had cut off the way back while the way forward was blocked. This is when the intimidation began. Very large men started to “accidentally” bump into our members, including women. Trying to provoke an incident. When that did not work, they started cursing at us and putting signs about an inch from our faces, again trying to provoke an incident. To our credit, our Patriots did not take the bait. Our people were not intimidated and we stood our ground.

So then they started to push in tighter and started to chant, “Kill the bill!” in an effort to confine our space and movement. This makes people nervous. More Alinsky tactics. At first we just listened to the chants. Then we started to chant, “Keep 5 alive!” and went toe-to-toe with them for about an hour. The sound echoed off the Rotunda ceiling and walls. There were some heated moments, all instigated by the union members, but everyone managed to keep in control. It was a thing of beauty watching one of our 65-year-old, 5’1” ladies, being confronted by three 6’4”, 30-year-old firemen, who looked like all they did was lift weights, and she was giving them what for!

Every union member appeared to be quoting from a script someone had written for them to memorize. Another Alinsky tactic, stay on message. As our free-thinking American members started to ask them questions and ask them to explain their positions, we quickly found that they had no idea what Senate Bill 5 was about or what they were talking about. They had no logic, just anger, and wrongful, ill-informed anger at that. Our group spent the next four hours talking to these union members and trying to get them to understand that we are out of money and if they don’t support some kind of change, many more of them are going to lose their jobs. The best part was when we talked to teachers and asked them what they were doing here during a school day, and they told us that the “Democratic Party” had paid their way. They were not kidding. Every union was being paid to be there.

Things really got pathetic in the big Atrium where all the union members were sitting. Believe it or not, they actually had grown men and women in the big room acting as “cheerleaders” for the union members. As the audio from the hearing rooms played in the room, they would actually have to tell the union members when to cheer and when to boo! It was really depressing to regular citizens to watch people we are told are professionals, like teachers and police and firemen, being led around the State House like a bunch of 5-year-olds on a field trip to the zoo. Very demeaning for them. We all left that day just sick of all the union tactics and disturbed by what we had seen.

However, despite all the Alinsky tactics, we felt that our band of 700 had won the day. First of all, their members were intimidated by our presence. Rarely have they ever faced any opposition when they were on strike or holding some sort of protest. You could see it in their eyes when they looked at us and saw calm, reasonable people who looked like their parents or grandparents, who were standing against them. It raised doubt in their minds. They witnessed the abusive behavior by some of their members and knew that our Patriots held the moral high ground. On a personal level, many of them were questioning what they were doing there that day and some expressed that to our members on a personal level.

We certainly won the day in the media, because we were the story, not the unions. The fact that regular citizens would take a day off from work and pay their own way to come to Columbus to show both the unions and our government officials that it’s our money and we were determined to have a say in how it was spent, was news. The media also reacted to the contrast between our calm positive message of trying to find a solution to our financial problems, and the union intimidation tactics and hate speech. Patriot leaders and our group members were on every media outlet in the state with with a consistent message.

Finally, we did win the day in the minds of some Senators who needed to see with their own eyes that the Patriot movement was not all talk and no action. Two Senators committed to support the bill after our visit.