Ohio voters deserve the facts on Issue 2, not the noise.  The Ohio Republican Party’s new web ad “Beyond the Noise” provides a strong dose of truth about what a YES VOTE on Issue 2 really means for Ohio.

We Are Ohio Lies Debunked

Two analyses by PolitifactOhio found We Are Ohio’s ads regarding staffing levels for nurses

and politician loophole exemptions to be “mostly false.” According to Politifact: Issue 2 affects “only a tiny fraction of Ohio nurses are public employees” and “a listener knowing those critical facts would have a different impression of the claim.” The Columbus Dispatch notes that the nurse featured in the ad already works for a hospital facility that uses the staffing reforms in Issue 2, and “the group runs into a problem in that there’s nothing in Senate Bill 5 that mandates a reduction in staffing levels.”

A second analysis by Politifact.com finds that We Are Ohio blatantly lied about its claim that politicians “exploited a loophole exempting themselves” from the reforms of Issue 2. The ad “leaves out important details that would give a different impression. Those details include that lawmakers have long been exempt from Ohio’s collective bargaining law, that they already pay the same percentages for medical and pension benefits as SB 5 would require and that their wage is set by statute.”

Bus Tour to Hypocrisy

Issue 2 fairly calls upon government employees to pay at least 15 percent of the cost of their

health insurance premium and ends a union demand that forces Ohio taxpayers to pay a public employee’s 10 percent pension contribution – on top of the 14 percent employer share. Every community visited by the Issue 2 Bus Tour has the potential to save significant taxpayer dollars through these reforms.

Take for example Cincinnati, where all city employees, along with police and fire, pay just 5% of their health insurance premium. Or Dayton, where many city employees, along with police and fire, pay only 11% toward their health care. In Cleveland, some city employees pay nothing for health care. Most city workers pay just $1,250 a year on average for a family health care plan, while Ohio families pay an average of more than $4,100 annually. The status quo isn’t fair to Ohio taxpayers, especially when so many of our families are being forced to do more with less during the Great Obama Recession.

Identifying Misleading Assertions by Opponents of Issue 2

Ohioans deserve the truth when it comes to the reasonable reforms associated with Issue

2. Building a Better Ohio is fighting to set the record straight on the outright falsehoods and misleading assertions being perpetuated by opponents of Senate Bill 5.  Recently, the Columbus Dispatch ran acorrection due to misleading information provided by a person featured in We Are Ohio’s first television ad.   Doug Stern falsely informed the paper that as a Cincinnati employee he pays 20 percent toward his health-care premiums.  The Dispatch took the liberty of correcting the record to reflect that Stern and other employees in his department actually “pay 5 percent of their health-insurance premiums.”

All Ohioans are asking for with respect to Issue 2 is the facts.  Voting YES on Issue 2 will not only provide our local governments with the necessary tools and resources they need to improve education and quality of life, but it will also send a message that the deceptive practices of We Are Ohio will not be tolerated. Vote YES on Issue 2.