With a vote in the Ohio Senate considered likely this week, opponents of Senate Bill 5 plan to resume protesting Tuesday against the restrictions on public employee collective bargaining, this time with a musical backdrop. ProgressOhio, a liberal advocacy group, announced that “The Street Dogs”, a Boston band fronted by the founding singer of the “Dropkick Murphys”, will perform outside the Statehouse at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The band has recently performed at protests outside the Wisconsin Statehouse, where a similar battle over public employee collective bargaining is raging. Also, ProgressOhio has launched a website, sb5ohio.com, to keep up with events surrounding the issue. Meanwhile, Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, used a news release to rip into Senate Democrats for declining to participate in negotiate possible changes in the bill.
“As I sat down today to review the amendments submitted by Friday’s deadline, I expected to see their constructive ideas on how to address the concerns they’ve expressed, but they refused to submit a single change,” Niehaus said. “Much like their counterparts in Wisconsin, they apparently would rather grandstand in defense of the status quo.” Source: daytondailynews.com