Lawmakers want to make it much tougher for an initiative to be approved. Opponents of the effort, who are leading in the polls, say doing so would undermine democracy.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohioans over the last century have used the state’s ballot initiative process to pass constitutional amendments that raised the minimum wage, integrated the National Guard and removed the phrase “white male” from the constitution’s list of voter eligibility requirements.
States Newsroom partnered with News 5 Cleveland to meet the organizers and canvassers on the ground. The team spent one day with opponents of Issue 1 and the next with supporters. "Some people say this is all about abortion,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said in May, in a video obtained by News 5. “Well, you know what? It's 100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”
“Issue 1 would end majority rule as we know it,” Jen Miller, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, told a raucous crowd at a July 20 rally for the “No” campaign at a union hall in Boardman, just outside Youngstown. A quarter-century ago, conservatives started using the initiative process — which exists in about half of all states — to make gains they were unable to achieve through legislation, on issues from voter ID to criminal justice to same-sex marriage.
In some states where Republican legislators have little fear of losing their majorities, the ballot initiative process has become their opponents’ most significant check on lawmakers’ power. And in 2020, Florida imposed tougher signature-gathering requirements for the initiative process — a response in part to the passage in 2018 of a measure re-enfranchising people with past convictions, which the legislature had already weakened via legislation.
Nunez added: “We are seeing states where the legislature is not only not doing that — they are taking efforts to make sure that the people themselves can’t do it either.”When swing states started enshrining abortion access into their constitutions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down Roe v. Wade, Ohio reproductive-rights groups jumped on board. They organized a November ballot measure to do the same for their state.
But there was one problem with lawmakers' plan. Back in December, they had passed a bill to eliminate the vast majority of August special elections, which have an abysmal turnout rate and cost $20 million. A coalition of Issue 1 opponents filed a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court challenging the August special election date, citing the recent change in law. In 1897, they noted, the Ohio Supreme Court stated that the legislature couldn't amend statutes by passing joint resolutions.
One Person One Vote, the anti-Issue 1 PAC, has raised more than $14.8 million, according to the filings. The largest lump sum was $1.8 million from the Tides Foundation, a progressive social advocacy charity based in California. In total, 83% of the funds raised by the vote no campaign have also been from out-of-state interests. However, these include national organizations that have chapters in Ohio, like the National Education Association.
A Suffolk University/USA Today poll released July 20 found that 57% of registered Ohio voters oppose Issue 1, while 26% support it, with 17% undecided. “Overwhelmingly, folks who know about the issue are excited to vote no or they've already voted no,” said Tatiana Rodzos, an organizer for Ohio Citizen Action, a progressive group playing a leading role in the “No” effort.
At each door, Todd introduced himself and described the measure as a threat to majority rule that would take power away from regular Ohioans and give it to politicians. Most people promised to study the literature he left and consider the issue. Goldberg said the current rules make it challenging enough to gather the signatures needed to get an issue on the ballot through the initiative process. In the 44 counties required, organizers must get signatures from registered voters numbering at least 5% of the county’s total vote in the last gubernatorial election.“That would kill nearly every ballot initiative before it started,” Goldberg said.
In fact, the proposed abortion-rights ballot measure would allow for abortion to be banned “after fetal viability,” unless a pregnant patient’s life or health were at risk.“Minimum wage, recreational marijuana — there will be other things,” he said. “If organizations realize that they can easily get into the Ohio Constitution with a 50%-plus-one majority, they’re going to be flocking to the state of Ohio to get things done that way.
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