If GOP State legislators get their way the threshold for the Ohio Constitution would rise from over 50% of votes cast on ballot amendments to over 60%.
They propose to try this in a special August election — which is itself currently not allowed, by law, to even happen — a snap single-issue election likely too see anything but a slim minority of eligible voters head to the polls. Cherry on top? Because this August special election is itself a constitutional amendment, run under the old rules, they will only have to secure greater than half of those votes to hike the threshold.
So, a slim majority of election-day voters, likely pulled from an unrepresentative minority cohort — presumptively far more right leaning than the norm — gets to make it more difficult to course-correct how the entire State of Ohio is governed thereafter. They won’t even have to abide by the letter of their own amendment to require anyone thereafter to live by that 60% threshold. Not exactly an example of showing the courage of your own convictions.
What might be driving this thrust to place a stranglehold on the long-established practice in Ohio for amending the state’s constitution?
Abortion, plain and simple. (Along with the GOP’s fear that they do not have a simple majority of Ohio voters that agree with eliminating a woman’s right to have control over their own bodies). That amendment was submitted for qualification on for the November ballot at the end of last month — marking the first step to inclusion in the ballot amendment process. Signatures to formally be placed on the ballot are currently being collected before the July 5 deadline to qualify for the November 7 election.
Backers of a proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution can begin collecting the more than 413,000 voter signatures required to put the issue before voters this fall, after the petition cleared another hurdle Monday.
The constitutional amendment moves to the signature-gathering phase after the Ohio Ballot Board confirmed the petition language contains only one proposed amendment.
The timing of the proposed special election itself is telling. There is already a slot available for special elections later in the year, November. It is then that Ohioans would hope to get the opportunity to vote on the GOP-feared constitutional amendment securing the right to abortion in Ohio. So, why August? Senate President Matt Huffman (whose caucus are actively mulling this blatant chicanery) has something of a tell all response.
"We could do it in November if we wanted to," Huffman said. "But I think we have lots of special elections in different times other than May and November. Of course, we've eliminated the August election as a recurring election, but we're going to certainly look at that.”
That bit about the many other times in the year when Ohio has special elections? It is largely bullshit. Perhaps in the past true, but not now. It was a GOP-led effort that took many other special election slots off the electoral calendar. For those keeping score at home Ohio SOS Frank LaRose has an (R) in front of his name.
A new voting law passed last year eliminated most local August special elections after proponents − including LaRose − argued they're too costly. For voters to consider Stewart's resolution in August, lawmakers would have to pass it by May and call a statewide special election for that purpose.
Ah, yes, Stewart’s resolution. That would be the first attempt at legislatively beginning the process of changing ballot thresholds, it failed to pass in time, which was lucky considering another poison pill it contained.
Stewart reintroduced the resolution this year with some changes, including one that would require petitioners to get voter signatures from all 88 counties instead of 44. But the House failed to pass it in time for the May election, which allies of Rep. Derek Merrin, R-Monclova, argued was part of a deal between Speaker Jason Stephens, R-Kitts Hill, and Democrats to elect Stephens as speaker earlier this year.
Reminder that this particular exercise in strangling democracy is happening before the abortion rights amendment is finally on the ballot. We sometimes speak of democracy getting strangled in the crib. Here the effort is to try and strangle democratic expression in utero — because of abortion rights. Ironic, no?
All is not well in the Buckeye State where it seems the thresholds must be raised until the people’s voice is silenced!