Tea Party guide to legislative supporters

The Dispatch ran an article titled "Tea party has had it with GOP"

Feeling betrayed by the Republican Party and its leaders, tea party groups in Ohio appear to be uniting and moving toward either a split from the GOP or action to punish Republican candidates who fail ideological purity tests.
[...]
It remains uncertain, however, just how much the Ohio GOP and its candidates could be hurt by an insurrection because it is difficult to assess the true strength of tea party groups. A 2012 poll by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that about 28 percent of Republicans identified themselves as tea party supporters.

To gage how much support the Tea Party has within the Ohio GOP legislative House caucus, we took a look at who had signed on to the Tea Party's pet union busting "right to work" cause. Spread across HB 151 (Private Employees "Right to work" bill) and HB 152 (Public Employees "Right to work" bill), the following Republican state Representatives sponsored or cosponsored one or both of these Tea Party bills

Adams
Beck
Becker
Blair
Boose
Brenner
Buchy
Hood
Lynch
Maag (sponsor)
Roegner (sponsor)
Rosenberger
Stautberg
Terhar
Thompson
Wachtmann
Young

This represents 28% of the GOP house caucus, identical to the number of Republicans the Kaiser Family Foundation found identified as Tea Partiers. You will also note Rep Terhar on the list, he is the spouse of the Hitler referencing Debe Terhar, the President of the State Board of Education - quite the family of anti-working people policy advocates.

28% is quite a sizable rump for the more moderate Republicans to have to deal with, and it might be growing

But tea party leaders say their ranks are being swelled by social conservatives who oppose abortion and gay marriage and who are angry with the Republican Party.

This also corresponds with the information we published as to why some on the Ohio GOP were wanting to push "right to work" - it's all about bigotry

Harvey said the NEA has supported an “immoral, deviant and destructive” gay agenda for at least 25 years, citing its gay and lesbian caucus started in 1987. Harvey criticized the union for supporting a gay and lesbian history month, diversity training that included homosexuality, and pro-homosexual school counseling. She said the NEA has asked schools to protect students and staff from sexual orientation harassment and discrimination and has replaced the word “tolerance” with acceptance and respect.

“Kids are being trained as activists now,” she said.

Harvey said the NEA has voted to lobby for same-sex unions and said petitions are currently circulating to overturn the 2004 Ohio marriage amendment, which stated that that only a union between a man and woman would be recognized as a valid marriage. The OEA opposed the amendment.

It's hard believe that the "Tea party has had it with GOP" when at least 28% of the Ohio GOP's elected Representatives is made up of tea partiers.

Exposing the real "Right to Work" supporters agenda

Efforts to pass "Right to Work" laws go back decades (a measure was defeated in Ohio in 1958, by the massive margin of 63.3% No to 36.7% yes), and have always been pursued by monied interests looking to put a dent in the power of workers ability to stand up for themselves and each other through collective action.

It should not be lost on anyone that the major backers of this latest anti-union push are billionaires and big business, none of whom actually belong to a union. Having seen previous "right to work" efforts defeated, the extreme right, and their big business backers have had to send their latest effort through a rebranding exercise and they have come up with a new catchy title "work place freedom".

Who doesn't love freedom? Well apparently the very people promoting the effort. LimaOhio.com reported on a meeting of Tea Party members discussing "work place freedom" and why they were pursuing it

Speakers at an Allen County Patriots meeting Thursday made the case that the National Education Association abuses teacher dues to support a liberal agenda that disrespects Christian values.
[...]
According to Boyatt, NEA gave close to $15 million to advocacy groups in the 2011-12 school year and $18 million in 2010-11. The advocacy groups, she said, included the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Human Rights Campaign, Women’s Campaign Forum and Rainbow Push Coalition.

From there, it got uglier, much uglier

Harvey said the NEA has supported an “immoral, deviant and destructive” gay agenda for at least 25 years, citing its gay and lesbian caucus started in 1987. Harvey criticized the union for supporting a gay and lesbian history month, diversity training that included homosexuality, and pro-homosexual school counseling. She said the NEA has asked schools to protect students and staff from sexual orientation harassment and discrimination and has replaced the word “tolerance” with acceptance and respect.

“Kids are being trained as activists now,” she said.

Harvey said the NEA has voted to lobby for same-sex unions and said petitions are currently circulating to overturn the 2004 Ohio marriage amendment, which stated that that only a union between a man and woman would be recognized as a valid marriage. The OEA opposed the amendment.

This is why the Tea Party in Ohio wants to pursue "right to work" legislation, not to create any kid of "freedom", but to enable their ongoing bigotry by attacking organizations that have a long history of standing up for equality and fairness. Public opinion polls show strong majorities now supporting marriage equalityand how out of the mainstream these Tea Party "Patriots" truly are.

The NEA and its members should be rightly proud of their support for equality, even when it was unpopular to do so.

Big business backers of this effort ought to take a closer look at who some of their allies are. The world has moved on from 1958, but voters are likely to deliver an equally stinging defeat to the purveyors of this ugly bigoted agenda.