Ted Strickland - Post-Gubernatorial Career

Post-Gubernatorial Career

In 2011, after Strickland's immediate successor to office and former opponent, John Kasich, signed into law Senate Bill 5, Former Governor Strickland took a leading role in gathering the signatures necessary under Ohio law to repeal Senate Bill 5 via public referendum. The signatures, amounting to 2,298,301 names, was delivered to the Kasich Administration on June 29, 2011, far exceeding the required amount of signatures to put the law on the ballot. The signatures were also turned in one day before the ninety day deadline (According to Ohio law, the citizens of Ohio have ninety days after a bill becomes law to gather enough signatures to put the law on a ballot for a public vote). Senate Bill 5 became Issue 2 in the November elections and was repealed in rather decisive fashion.

Strickland became a resident fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics in Spring 2012, where he stayed until May. Strickland spoke on the first night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention attacking and mocking Republican nominee Mitt Romney for outsourcing American jobs and for his foreign bankaccounts.