Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announced that the Ohio Healthy Families Act (see previous post), which mandates seven paid sick days for employees at Ohio companies with 25 or more workers, easily had enough signatures to pass petition requirements. The petition had 154,693 valid signatures of Ohio registered voters and only 120,683 were required. The Act will now be passed on to the General Assembly for action.

Secretary Brunner’s office also said the petition contains signatures equaling 1.5 percent of the ballots cast in the last gubernatorial election from 65 counties, exceeding the necessary 44 county threshold.

The General Assembly has 120 days to enact the requested legislation. If they don’t, the coalition can gather another 120,683 valid signatures to put the measure on the November 2008 ballot in the general election.