Anyone attempting to prognosticate about the 2012 elections should be watching a vote that combines the pre-election season’s holy trinity: Ohio, Occupy Wall Street and big corporate money. On Tuesday, the voters of our most heart-stopping heart-shaped state will vote on repealing Ohio’s Senate Bill 5, a signature piece of Koch-funded public-union-busting legislation. One standout item of the bill is removing minimum staffing requirements for fire departments, exactly the kind of institution you want to find itself suddenly shorthanded.
A landslide defeat will surely help the morale for Ohio’s electoral prospects in 2012; more importantly, the timing of this bill provides a laboratory for the emerging fusion of labor movements and Occupy Wall Street. As OWS protesters navigate the degree of legislative pragmatism they want to incorporate into the movement, it’s worth noting that traditional election tactics of raising money, to pay for staff and media that take the message directly to voters, are actually working in ways that advance a lot of the same goals that Occupiers would support: boosting pay and rights for working people, and refuting the influence of massive corporate money in politics.
Starting back in March (well before the September launch of Occupy), labor groups raised more than $30 million, amassed a wide network of volunteers, and formed a network of field offices and operations to conduct huge amounts of direct voter contact. The traditional ground game is paying off: Quinnipiac’s latest poll has Issue 2 down by 25 points. The same poll the previous month had Issue 2 down by just 13 points.
I’m reminded of Goldilocks: the heated milieu of protest movements may be too unfocused, while a sterile, technical focus on incremental reforms is too cold to inspire anyone. But a landslide, grass-roots-fueled vote to defeat a bill like SB5 may be just right: a cathartic rush that retains activists throughout every cycle and milestone of a decades-long movement.
What will prove most illuminating about ab SB 5 repeal is a precedent for electoral dividends that we can expect from Occupy Wall Street, which has heretofore been a rhetorical movement. Bonus points for this taking place in the most hotly contested swing state on the map! Those of us playing Theories of Social Change Bingo at home are having a grand time.
