AFL-CIO focuses on equity

BY NATHAN CRABBE
Special to the Beacon Journal

COLUMBUS: It's one petition but three dramatically different issues.

Should patients have the right to sue their HMOs?

Should the state ensure employers aren't paying women and minorities lower wages?

Should partisan politics be taken out of the process in which legislative districts are drawn?

The Ohio AFL-CIO in the coming weeks will begin a petition drive aimed at bringing these issues before voters this fall. Signing the petition means supporting putting all three issues on the ballot.

But if legal precedent holds, voters in November will be able to separately consider the merits of adding the amendments to the Ohio Constitution.

It will take 335,422 signatures -- 10 percent of the vote in the 1998 gubernatorial elections -- before Aug. 9 to get the issues on the November ballot. The language of the initiatives is still being tweaked and must be approved by the attorney general, but speculation is already swirling as to how voters will react to the full plate of proposals.

``At first glance, they are a wide variety of issues but they have a common theme of equity,'' said Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Barberton.

Sutton has worked on at least two of the issues in the legislature. She has supported legal protections for patients in their dealing with HMOs over the past several years and last year introduced a wage equity bill in the House that has gone nowhere.

``Without a doubt, the job is clearly not going to be done by the legislature,'' Sutton said.

Therein lies a second common thread between the initiatives: They've either died or are currently fading fast in this session of the General Assembly.

Gov. Bob Taft during the 1998 campaign promised voters the right to sue HMOs in his Patient Protection Plan, but last year the measure was removed before the legislation reached the House floor.

Sutton's wage equity bill has been languishing in committee for almost a year.

Differences among supporters of a redistricting initiative introduced in January by Rep. Ron Amstutz, R-Wooster, could spell the end of that proposal.

AFL-CIO President Bill Burga said the union expects it to be just as rough a fight outside the legislature. Criticism of the wage-equity proposal before its language is even complete ``smacks of sexism,'' Burga said.

Sutton said if the initiative resembles her bill, it would require employers to pay equal wages to people of different sex, race or national origin but allow for differences in pay according to seniority and the merit system.

The HMO tort proposal would need the renewed support of the governor to help fend off what are sure to be aggressive insurance company lobbying efforts, she said.

Taft spokesman Scott Milburn said the governor supported the measure as it was worded in the original version of his Patient Protection Plan, but is waiting until ballot language is complete before weighing in on this proposal.

Burga said there will be three separate campaigns for the initiatives. The union will run campaigns for the right to sue HMOs and pay equity issues, he said, while the Ohio League of Women Voters will continue leading the push for reforms in the redistricting process.

A 1931 state Supreme Court case likely will mean the issues appear separately on the November ballot. That case, State vs. Bettman, is also part of the precedent that allows all three issues to go on the ballot with a single petition signature.

The League of Women Voters has been working on the redistricting issue for 30 years and has been collecting signatures since 1998 for a ballot initiative, said Executive Director Kelly McFarland. The league's proposal would make changes to the redistricting process next year, while Amstutz's bill put off the changes until 2011.

The league expects its work to began anew with the AFL-CIO campaign. Just ``one word difference'' between the league petitions already collected and the new initiative would mean the old signatures couldn't carry over to getting the issue on the ballot, said league election-law specialist Peg Rosenfield.

Amstutz said another difference between his bill and the league's proposal might be on the issue of minority districts. Legislative districts have traditionally been redrawn by members of the political party in power after each census. This sometimes leads to ``gerrymandering,'' or drawing districts in an unusual way to ensure that a member of a particular political party is elected.

Both proposals seek to end this practice by creating a formula based on population and other factors to draw districts. The league's proposal includes a provision to ensure minority representation; Amstutz said that measure is ``clearly unconstitutional'' and is part of the reason redistricting reform is stuck in committee.

The AFL-CIO is deciding whether the provision should be included on its initiative. AFL-CIO President Burga said the final draft of all the issues will be sent to the attorney general in the next week or so.

The petitions will be printed after the language is approved, he said, with the campaign set to begin in early May.

Nathan Crabbe can be reached at 614-224-1613 or wylie@qn.net