By Jerry Lyon

   COLUMBUS-Senate Bill 16 – the Community Defense Act (CDA) – the bill that became law in Ohio on June 4 after being passed by a 75 percent majority in both chambers of the Ohio General Assembly, will not become effective on September 4th as scheduled.

   Instead, the popular, protective law probably will appear on the November General Election ballot as State Issue 1.

   Immediately after Gov. Ted Strickland allowed the bill to become law, the trade association of Ohio sex business owners – the Buckeye Association of Club Executives (BACE) – initiated a referendum petition campaign.

   To prevent the law from becoming effective and force it onto the ballot, Ohio’s constitution requires that opponents collect signatures of registered voters in a quantity equal to six percent of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election, in this case, 241,366. In addition, the signatures must represent at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties.

   In a signature gathering drive marked by intentionally fraudulent messages, BACE’s paid circulators were able to gather signatures in excess of the required minimum prior to the September 3 deadline.

   Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Bruner will send those petitions to the respective county boards of election to validate that the signatures match voter registration records. If the removal of invalid signatures takes the quantity below the required minimum, the constitution provides an additional ten days for BACE to collect signatures and make up the deficit.

   If the final count is sufficient, the law would appear on the next general election ballot. In all probability, that will be November 6, 2007.

   CDA gives townships and municipalities unprecedented and important assistance and protection in establishing regulations on sexually oriented businesses (adult book and video stores, massage parlors, peep booths, strip bars, etc.) in accordance with their particular local needs and concerns. It also imposes two statewide regulations on all such businesses in Ohio. One limits hours of operation to 18 hours – 6:00am to Midnight. The other prohibits physical contact between nude employees and patrons.

   “I’m convinced that without their fraudulent methods, this signature collection effort would have failed,” said CCV’s president, Phil Burress.

   His conviction is well grounded.

   In July, The Statehouse News Bureau ran a sequence of reports on the petition drive. Reporter Bill Cohen recorded BACE’s paid circulators as they approached unsuspecting citizens in downtown Columbus. The clear message delivered by those circulators was that by signing their petition, citizens would be helping to regulate strip bars and other sex businesses.

   He also recorded interviews with persons who had signed the petition in response to the deceptive pitch. When the real purpose of the petition was explained to them, they were indignant that they had been misled. They would not have signed if they had known that the petition’s intent was to keep CDA from becoming effective.

   During the week of August 6, former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell delivered a recorded phone message to explain CDA and the referendum effort to his friends.

   In response to Blackwell’s call, hundreds of Ohioans contacted CCV’s office to advise that they had signed the petition in error, having been misled as to the petition’s purpose. CCV advised misled signers to e-mail a request to have their names removed from the petition to the office of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and to the Craig Group, a Columbus-based firm that managed the paid petition circulation project for BACE.

   CCV’s office manager, Robin Burress, reported that of the hundreds who sent those e-mail requests, not one reported a response from the Secretary of State or the Craig Group.

   “Deception has been the key to their petition campaign,” said Phil Burress, “and deception will be the key to their ballot campaign.”

   “A poll conducted in May by a nationally recognized, independent firm demonstrated again that a majority of Ohioans want CDA on the books,” CCV’s vice president of public policy, David Miller, reported.

   “If voters understood the issue,” said Miller, “an overwhelming majority undoubtedly would vote “yes” to keep CDA on the books.”

   But he added, “There’s the rub! With virtually unlimited funds pouring in from sex business owners, they’ll run a multi-million-dollar, multi-media campaign that will leave many voters confused both as to the nature and need for CDA, as well as to how to vote to keep CDA’s protective provision on the books.”

   Miller noted that the sex business owners already have begun to build up their campaign “war chest.” In a financial report required and made public by the IRS, the political action committee formed by BACE to manage the referendum campaign showed numerous gifts in the tens of thousands of dollars – most of which came from corporations not in Ohio, but in California, the nation’s pornography and sex business capitol.

   “Skintight Pictures, Inc.” and “Wicked Pictures” are examples of the company names that fill the report. The pornography and sex business industry nationwide sees CDA as a threat to the unregulated, criminal manner in which they have operated for years, and they’ll spare no expense in their effort to keep CDA off the books in Ohio.

   “The sex business owners will reach millions across the state through radio, TV and print media,” said CCV’s Burress. “We cannot match their funding and will not be able to counter their deceptive messages through electronic or print media.”

   He continued, “Ours will be a grassroots campaign. Working together with state and national pro-family groups, we’ll depend on our network of families and churches to educate the public and to get the vote out.”

   Information on the CCV’s grassroots ballot campaign to the Community Defense Act on the books can be obtained through CCV’s Web site, CCV.org, or by calling (513) 733-5775.