When Ohio Governor John Kasich signed SB 5 into law, cries of outrage rang out all across the country.

Senate Bill 5 is the notorious piece of union-busting legislation that will, for example, 

• Abolish collective bargaining rights of employees of the state, of any agency, authority, commission, or board of the state, and of any state institution of higher education.
• Remove a provision granting specific authority to public school employees to collectively bargainfor health care benefits. 
• Prohibit a public employer that is a school district, educational service center, or community school from entering into a collective bargaining agreement that does specified things, such as establishing a maximum number of students who may be assigned to a classroom or teacher.
• Abolish statutorily provided leave with pay for school employees.
• Ban strikes.

This bill is even more draconian than the anti-worker bill that Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP snuck through their state legislature.

And like their colleagues in Wisconsin and Indiana, Ohio Democratic legislators were not content to simply vote “nay.” They vocalizedtheir outrage, but they also took action and fought back.

Before the committee vote, Ohio House Democrats delivered petitions from 65,414 Ohio residents who opposed the GOP’s union-busting power grab. House Republicans refused to even share the same space with those petitions and ordered that they be removed from the room:

GOP majorities in the state legislature virtually assured the passage of this heinous assault on working families, so the Democrats began gearing up for a recall campaign.

Unlike Wisconsin, Ohio Democrats aren’t gathering signatures to recall members of the legislature. Rather, Ohio law provides for the “recall” of legislation.

Ohio voters may petition for the effective repeal of legislation before it goes into effect. If about 231,000 signatures are collected by July, SB 5 will not take effect and will instead be placed on the November ballot. The process is under way.

Democratic House Leader Armond Budish discussed the implications of the legislation, as well as the developing campaign to recall it, on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Gov. Kasich and his Republican accomplices in the legislature must be concerned about the potential success of the SB 5 recall, since they may include some of the draconian union-busting provisions in separate legislation: the state’s budget bill.

A movement might be brewing among top Republicans that could thwart a referendum on Senate Bill 5 well before Ohioans have a chance to vote on the controversial issue. 

Gov. John Kasich and House Speaker William G. Batchelder are exploring a plan to include at least some of the just-passed law's provisions in the state budget, which probably won't be passed until late June. 

Doing so would force opponents to pursue a second referendum to overturn part of the budget, Batchelder said.

Meanwhile, two Democrats in the state House have introduced legislation to allow for the recall of state officials (current law only allows for recall of local officials), including state legislators and the governor.

The specifics:

This bill will require a recall petition to be signed by a number of registered voters equal to 15% of the total vote for governor in the state or in a particular legislative district during the last general election. If the recall petition is turned in 150 days or less prior to a regularly scheduled election, the recall question will appear on the next regularly scheduled special or general election day. If it is filed more than 150 days prior to the next regularly scheduled election, then a special recall election date must be set by the Secretary of State. The special recall election would then occur within 30-40 days after the recall petition is certified.

If the recall petition goes to the ballot, voters will be asked two questions on the ballot: Shall John Doe be recalled and if so which candidate listed below should replace John Doe.  The candidate list will consist of those candidates who filed to be on the recall ballot. There will not be a primary election.  If the current elected official is recalled, then the winner of the recall election will serve the remainder of the recalled official's term.

The success of this legislation remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: Democratic state legislators in Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and across the country are fighting back against the GOP assault with every weapon at their disposal—and even working to find new ones.