Ohio Issue 1 re Threshold to bring a Constitutional amendment to vote(election on Aug 8) {2023 It was voted down)

Politics & Elections
1

Starting a spin-off from the “Ohio Republicans in your Bedroom” thread, since I think it deserves it’s own attention separate from the ad.

Here’s the text of the issue as it will appear on the ballot:

The proposed amendment would:
• Require that any proposed amendment to the
Constitution of the State of Ohio receive the
approval of at least 60 percent of eligible voters
voting on the proposed amendment.
• Require that any initiative petition filed on or
after January 1, 2024 with the Secretary of State
proposing to amend the Constitution of the
State of Ohio be signed by at least five percent
of the electors of each county based on the
total vote in the county for governor in the last
preceding election.
• Specify that additional signatures may not be
added to an initiative petition proposing to
amend the Constitution of the State of Ohio
that is filed with the Secretary of State on or
after January 1, 2024 proposing to amend the
Constitution of the State of Ohio.

In that thread, Roderick_Femm expresses understandable confusion about what this has to do with condoms. It’s been answered there, but I’ll try to summarize.

One of the quirks of the Ohio constitution is that it’s fairly easy to get constitutional amendments on the ballot, where they only require a majority vote to pass. Proposed amendments can be initiated by the general assembly, or by citizens. Maybe the 3 most newsworthy amendments in my time living here as a politically aware voter were:

  • Legalized gambling at a limited number of casinos who would have an exclusive monopoly, 1 in each major city (2009)
  • Legalized marijuana, but granted only to a named list of companies who would have an exclusive monopoly; ironically, this issue went up against a proposed amendment that shut down monopolies being granted by constitutional amendment (2015)
  • Fair redistricting (2015)

The first two I listed there personally left a bad taste in my mouth for the citizen initiated amendment process. The were obviously written by corporations looking to profit from their monopolies, and then astroturfed all to hell.

Oddly, the fair redistricting amendment, which ultimately passed by a huge margin, was introduced via the general assembly, in what I considered a remarkable case of Republicans acting against their own best interest. Sadly, the redistricting committee simply chose to ignore it, along with all of the orders from the Ohio supreme court attempting to force them to comply with it.

Nevertheless, if Issue 1 were solely about raising the bar for constitutional amendments, I might have a sympathetic ear. However, as explained in the other thread, this was a tainted proposal from the start. Activists in Ohio, like in Kansas and many other states following the overturning of Roe, started preparing a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights (they have, recently, successfully gotten enough signatures to get it on the November ballot). While Ohio is about 55% R voters, there’s a good chance that this will pass the 50% threshold.

State Republicans, unsure of how else to stop this, whipped together this proposal to increase the threshold to 60%, which is probably out of reach for this issue, as well as making it harder in the future for citizen-initiated amendments to make it on the ballot (general assembly initiated amendments will, of course, face no such hurdles). To make it worse, since this needs to pass prior to the general election in November, we’re having a single-issue special election in August just for this. These out-of-cycle elections have historically low turnout, and tend to favor Republicans accordingly.

While some Republican circles are trying to dance around the real reason for this issue, other Republicans find themselves in a real pickle. If they shy away from the abortion angle, they risk losing their die hard voters on Aug 8 who probably have no clue why they’re voting on this. They need to say the quiet part out loud, because that’s what’s going to get their voters to the polls. This led to well-covered statement at a GOP fundraiser from our Secretary of State Frank LaRose

“This is 100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution. The left wants to jam it in there this coming November”. He has sort of tried to walk this back, but again, not really, because he can’t appear soft on abortion.

Suffice it to say, this is an absolute mess and I can’t wait to see this nonsense shot down, followed by a resounding endorsement of abortion rights in November.

2

I know this is an aside from what you are on about in this thread but I am curious…did these groups just give the courts the finger and ignored the vote and rulings or are they doing some BS legal dance that are technically legal?

3

Finger.

In the first five months of 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled five times that proposals of the Ohio Redistricting Commission for the decennial redistricting of the Ohio General Assembly violated the Ohio Constitution. The commission, enabled by the remarkable intervention of a three-judge federal district court panel, ignored each of the court’s decisions. As a result, Ohio voters on Nov. 8 will elect state legislators from districts distorted by partisan gerrymandering.

4

There would be a certain irony if this measure passes, but with less than 60%. That is to say, its backers believe that a 60% threshold should be needed to amend the state constitution, but would accept this new rule being added to that constitution with 50% + one vote.

Also, did I read the text of the proposed issue correctly; future amendments will need not just a 60% majority of votes, but 60% of registered voters? In some future election, if 59% of registered voters turn out, and every last one of them votes in favor of an amendment, it still fails?

5

That’s the kind of thing that makes “but what if they did/didn’t” such an annoying but plausible strategy question for Republicans.

6

I am an Ohioan and voting yes on it. A constitution should be hard to amend.

7

I agree that constitutions should be hard to amend, and I look forward to Republicans putting that question to the voters during a normal election and without the onerous requirements for citizen initiated amendments.

Issue 1, however, is not a good faith attempt at governance.

8

It’s “eligible voters voting on the amended.” It’s oddly worded but I think it just means votes.

9

I’m voting against (today, according to Informed Delivery). I have perfectly valid results-oriented reasons to do so (and there’s no shame in that), but I’m not sure I even agree with the basic concept that a state constitution should be particularly hard to amend. If I was rewriting things unilaterally, I’m not sure I’d entrench the state constitution at all (or at least I’d cut its length by 95% or so).

10

If i’m reading this correctly, it would be next to impossible to ever put a refetendum to the voters except through the legislature. All it takes is one district with electors who dig their heels in and it can’t be put to the vote at all. Am i reading this wrong?

@crafterman if it just said amendments would require a 60% majority, i might agree with you. But be sure to read the whole thing.

11

I honestly not sure how big of a hurdle the 5% per county requirement is. It seems fairly doable but yes, a particularly ornery county could stop anything.

My issue with that provision is… What’s so special about a county? I get how States have some special standing, the US being an agreement between self-governing states. But counties aren’t political entities, they’re arbitrary divisions created for menial local governmental duties. Who cares if some rural county gets steamrolled by counties that actually have people in them.

12

You misspelled ambiguously. I can envision Pubbies interpreting this clause on a case-by-case basis, in order to achieve “heads I win, tails you lose” outcomes.

13

A) This is factually correct, and I think it’s the correct way to view things, but there’s a longstanding political tradition in the USA of applying federal logic (sometimes called “little federalism”) down to levels where it makes very little sense. This goes back centuries. Until the federal courts stepped in, many states used to have US Senate-style legislative houses, where the counties had equal (or at least skewed) representation, as if the state was a federation of counties. Stupid, but very common.

B) It’s just a way to make it more expensive to get something on the ballot. You can always get enough signatures with enough cash (lots of people will sign anything) so this is implicitly raising the floor of how much cash you need.

14

Interesting.

In any case, it clearly favors one political party over the other, which is just another indication that this is a bad faith proposal.

15

I believe currently that you need to get a certain threshold of signatures from half of the counties - 44 of 88. This keeps it parallel to needing 50%+1 to pass, which seems fair.
The new proposal now puts this threshold for all 88 counties - not half, not 60%, but every single one.
So yes, one county like Vinton County (with a population under 13,000) in SE Ohio could block the entire process simply because they 1. want to, or 2. it’s nearly impossible to round up that many voters in sparsely populated rural counties.

Just more bullying from the state GOP (who by the way just saw their former House Speaker sentenced to 20 years in prison for rampant corruption).

16

Though we’re still waiting for his corrupt deals to be canceled.

17

This is the crux of the matter for me. Like @BlueOhio said, one rural county could easily dash the whole thing. And right-wing voters forget that it could easily go the other way!

There’s also that third part, the curing period for signatures. Right now you get some time to grab more signatures if you don’t meet the threshold after your signatures have been validated. This measure proposes to get rid of that.

I can see the debate for 60% (I wouldn’t be for it, but I can see the argument). But the other two parts are absolute bullshit. And yes, the GOP is blatantly “saying the quiet part out loud” to make it about abortion. They are blatantly for throwing away everyone’s rights to even PROPOSE changes to our constitution in order to grab and keep more power.

I saw a comment somewhere where someone who is for Issue 1 was all “This is good! Now we can work directly with our lawmakers to make changes!” which is scary af considering how most of us have been swept aside by our “lawmakers” in favor of blatantly illegal gerrymandering.

From what I can tell, this issue has fervent opposition from the left and a fair bit of opposition from the right as well. I have high hopes that it will fail spectacularly.

18

I don’t necessarily agree, because state constitutions tend to function differently than the federal constitution. The U.S. Constitution is more a broad statement of principles and basic structure of the federal government, with the details being filled in by Congress, the Presidency and the Courts. State constitutions tend to be much more prescriptive and meander in policy areas that would normally be under the purview of standard legislation. Maybe these constitutions should have been more limited from the start but requiring supermajority approval to amend policies that were adopted by a simple majority doesn’t sit right.

19

Any amendment that changes how amendments are made should be subject to its own provisions. If you really think amendments should require 60%, then write an amendment that says it won’t go into effect unless it gets 60%.

20

That is the irony of it, Chronos.

I can tell you, living here in MAGAland, just west of Columbus, these knuckleheads will do whatever their red overlords tell them to do.

I would like to point out that the current ad here in Central Ohio uses the far-right favorite magic words “We the People,” complete in Patriot Sans, to dog-whistle said knuckleheads. The thing is, it is an ANTI Issue 1 ad.

The Dems are getting wiley here in the Buckeye State. You would, too, if you had to see that poster boy for Neanderthals Just Dumb Vance on TV every other night…